Red Riding Hood Halloween Costume with Real Wolf

Thought I'd share photos of our Halloween costumes from a party we went to on Saturday.

We were Red Riding Hood, the Wood Cutter and the Big Bad Wolf, dressed as Grandma.

Molly's costume was made from a thrift store pillow case and elastic. I eye-balled the entire thing, but am quite pleased with how it turned out. Tried to get a good photo of it, but she was camera shy. There were also holes in the bonnet to pull her ears through, but it didn't stay like that for long. It somehow ended up around her neck like a second collar, but she did stay in costume the entire night.

And I made my dress using a guide I found on Pinterest and some cheap fabric I had lying around. It was a rush job (decided to make the dress at 4pm - the party was at 8pm) but also turned out okay. I think I might go back and make the seams neat and fix the hack job at the front, but it was decent enough for a Halloween party. The cape was an old table cloth, pulled from a scrap bin at the thrift store.

Molly's costume cost $1.50 all up, mine was $3 and Hubby's costume was free. A family dressed in theme, including props for under $5. I think that's a success.

Any ideas for pet-friendly family themes for next year?

Happy Trick-or-treating!!!

DIY Tiled Table Top Tutorial

This is a project we completed a few months ago and I thought I'd show it off.
This used to be the night stand that goes with our bed set. Seeing as our bedroom is tiny and it doesn't fit in there, it now serves as a hallway stand and is the main dumping ground for EVERYTHING as we walk in the door. We originally just painted it white, but with such high traffic, the top was getting very scratched.

At Home Depot, we grabbed two 'square foot' sheets of glass tiles for about $15 each. We figured out the layout, cut to size and then transferred our "design" to the floor.

We also bought pre mixed Adhesive & Grout (about $9) and a notched trowel (about $4). We have lots of grout left over which we'll be using when we tile our kitchen back splash.
We also bought a log plastic rail/ edge that is meant to give the whole project a clean edge, but we ditched it because we thought it looked funny.

First, we slapped on the grout, then spread it out evenly.

Then we placed the tiles on top. We had already cut, measured and figured out the placement of the tiles, so we just transferred our design from the floor to the table top.

More grout, more tiles...

Then we pressed down on the tiles firmly so they would take hold on the grout.

We then let it sit for a week because we were busy working. We only needed to let it sit for 24 hours though...

The following weekend, hubby went back and covered all the tiles in grout, making sure to fill in the gaps between each tile.

We then let it sit for a few hours then grabbed a wet sponge and rubbed the grout off the top of the tiles.

The tiles then appeared through, nice and shiny.

And here is our (almost) finished masterpiece (we went back and fixed up a few of the imperfections you can see here - gaps in the edges etc.). I am no longer afraid that I am going to scratch the top of the furniture; these tiles are taking a beating and they are holding up very well. I think it also adds a bit of pizazz to the front entrance and makes the piece look a little bit less like a nightstand.

For a first attempt at tiling, I am pretty proud of our efforts and *think* we might be able to tackle the back splash ourselves when we renovate our kitchen.

Decorating Cans with Scrapbooking Embellishments

I recently made a few updates to my craft supply containers and thought I'd share, as a follow up to my Decorating Mason Jars post.

I had saved some leftover cans with pull-top lids from the recycling. I love these types of cans because I don't have to use a can opener and (best of all) it means I can REUSE them and not worry about jagged edges around the top lip. I

We also finished a tin of cocoa and although the "tins" are cardboard, they also have clean edges and they wash out well enough to be reused for craft storage purposes.

Now, I am not into scrap booking - I don't have the money, space or patience for that kind of hobby. But I do love paper crafts and some of the cute things made for scrap booking... such as this adhesive turquoise scrap booking edging found on a trip to the dollar store.

I spray painted the cans white and used some leftover wall paint for the cocoa tin (Benjamin Moore's Waterfall).
The scrap booking edging was very easy to apply to the two small cans. Then I used the white non-stick backing from it to decorate the cocoa tin, which was a tad trickier; I stuck it down with Mod Podge.

While I had the paintbrush out to paint the cocoa tin, I also grabbed a few glass items I had lying around. I did a coat on the inside, then a coat of Mod Podge to seal it.

I also recently bought a big paper cutter which I used to make some craft supply labels. Note particularly fancy, but I love it.

So those are my recent, though meager, craft attempts. Lately we have been spending a LOT of time planning our kitchen renovations, which hasn't left much time for anything else!

Happy crafting!

Cheap Dog Toy

Here's something I whipped up for Molly last week when she was driving me nuts (I was super busy and she was clearly bored). She loves new toys but, unfortunately, dog toys are so EXPENSIVE which I think is ridiculous, because she rips them to shreds and then tires of them a few days later. What a waste!
 

This is my upcycled version, using one of her favourite tennis balls and an old sock that lost its elasticity during the winter. I slipped the ball into the sock and nestled it into the hell of the sock. Then I tied two knots either side to keep the ball in place. It bounces when we throw it, it's a great tug-o-war toy and I have the other sock to slip the tennis ball into when she finally rips this one apart.

It's similar to the sweater sleeve + soda bottle toy I made a while ago (which she still adores). Any old clothing that the thrift store refuses or throws into land fill could be reused this way.

Basically, she loves old clothing tied around something hard. I could just shove any of her preexisting hard chew toys into a sock and wait a few days for her to fish it out.

What else could I shove into a sock/ sweater sleeve? I'd love your opinions/ feedback!!!

Bunting Wrapping Idea

My MIL is coming to visit next weekend and to save on postage in May for Mother's Day, I have her pressie all ready to give her.

I am a big fan of bunting at the moment and this was the best I could come up with in 5 minutes :)

Happy crafting!

Pillow Case Box

I ditched school work today in favour of some crafting :)

Here is my creation; A fabric box made using an old pillow case and some cardboard!

I started with a plain white pillow case from the thrift store. We live in a tourist town, so lots of plain white hotel linens end up at the thrift store. Woo-hoo!

I trimmed off the band at the open end of the pillow case and later used it as a handle on the box.

I then sat the pillow case on the counter to create a flat base. I rolled down the top part so that I could see the corners. It's exactly how I made the tiny fabric box in this post.

I then marked straight lines across the corners...

Difficult to see the pencil marks, but they're there!

Then I sewed along the pencil lines.

The triangular flaps were long enough to sew together, so I did :)

Here you can see the box standing up, but it has no support.

Inside of the box...

(note: this is a great time to attach a handle to the box. The band I cut off at the beginning worked well - but I forgot to take photos of this step! I also should have ironed it, but didn't realize how crinkled the finished box would look.)

To give it some support, I used some cardboard I had lying around.

I made a box shape using the cardboard...

 

... Then stretched the pillow case around it...

... Then shoved the base to the bottom and hid all the rough edges.

I glued the excess pillow case (the raw edge from taking off the band) back up inside the box. I then glued the base of the box around the bottom edge to keep everything in place.

Here it is looking tidy-ish:

Ta-da!

The bottom of the box:

Inside the box:

I saw some similar boxes at Home Hardware for $7 each, but this one took me 25 minutes to make and cost me $1.50.

And because it is plain white, it's a blank canvas to decorate. Flowers, accent fabrics, labels... the possibilities are endless. How would you decorate it?

Happy crafting!