Valentine's Day DIY

I had been thinking about how I'd love to throw up some decorations for Valentine's Day...especially after seeing this lovely lady's instagram about the cute stuff she picked up at the Target dollar bins! Since we really don't have any spare cash these days, I decided I would make some stuff on my own.

I already had some subway art to change out in the frame. (I printed some eons ago and swap them out every holiday.)

I wanted to bring a little more pink and red to our world...so enter some NO COST decorations!

I had pink and red cardstock, twine, scissors and a printer. Yay for easy crafts! I went online and found the perfect heart graphic, printed all the hearts I needed on the cardstock, cut them out with scissors, cut slits in the hearts with a knife and threaded the hearts onto a piece of twine.

It's not much, but it looks cute!

Reindeer Games

Strolling through Pinterest the other day, I noticed a cute homemade ornament project. The current weather pattern yesterday (freezing rain, snow, more rain) caused us to not be able to go outside and play in the snow (the 6+" of snow to turn into slush) with the girls. Instead their dad got them to clean their room and go through lots of clothes and toys...joy for a child, huh? ha I thought they could probably use something "fun" to do after cleaning and managed to be able to pull together the items needed for this project here at home. Yay for cheap projects!

I found the original idea here.

And here are ours...

So now the girls have some special ornaments to put on the tree! :) Hopefully we can continue this tradition every year.

Decorating for Christmas & DIY Stockings

I love love love Christmas lights! My favorite thing to do is sit in the dark with only the Christmas tree lighting the room. :)

We decorated a little early this year because we wanted to take a family picture on Thanksgiving by the tree. Looking back on this past week's events (a post for another day this week...I hope), I am glad I had the decorating done early because there wasn't time to do it as we normally do on Black Friday.

Enjoy looking at some of our pretties :)

mom's tree (aka the living room)

the "s&m" deer as we have affectionately laughed about these for a few years (my mom has had them since I was little)

our stockings and fake mantel! ha (Thanks to Missy!)

our tree (and the girls being silly)

our fake mantel complete with puppy dog stockings

And a little DIY project for the crafty types! ;) We needed a stocking for our new baby, Sadie, and Lucky just had a hand-me-down last year...so I was on a mission to create cheap stockings for the both of them. I bought the stockings at Dollar General for $1 each. We already had a set of stencils at home, as well as a brush and the black paint.

And now all the dogs have stockings...and yes, they already have goodies in them! Hmmm...wonder if they've been good enough!?! Emma doesn't think so. haha

Pinterest: Christmas Decor

I pinned this project LAST year and even had the bottles (Starbucks bottles) to do it, but as always, never got around to it! We had white spray paint left over from painting pumpkins and had bought some red paint that we never used, so I found a use for both. Yay for finished projects!

Now I can't wait until after Thanksgiving to put these out! All I need to finish it is some glittery branches to put in the bottles for display.

Pinterest: Halloween Decor

Most of us love to "pin" all these things we'd enjoy having in our home for holiday decorations, etc. I want to do them ALL, but without a job and full-time income, my resources are pretty severely limited right now. I have been using some of my boring days at home to contemplate how I can create these pretty things without too much money involved! ha

The girls love to be crafty, so I thought this year we would do a few new things for Halloween. Last year, we did the pumpkin milk jugs for the front porch. Not thinking clearly, we threw them away at the end of the season (because we have NO place for storage for "extra" things).

The first thing we did was paint our pumpkins. Eric decided he liked his pumpkin better as it was (I just don't think he felt like painting...ha), but the girls and I got into the festive Halloween mood!

Jordan was kinda disappointed about not carving her pumpkin, so as a trade off for painting, we let her carve a watermelon. I know, I know. Bizarre! However, we have a huge pile of watermelons sitting back by the garden and we're all kinda burnt out on watermelons. :p With the upcoming frosty days, I doubt her watermelon jack o' lantern will last long, but at least she had fun doing it!

And to finish it off, we used black contractor trash bags to create spider webs for the doors. The girls loved it, but didn't really have a good concept of how to cut the bags properly despite lots of coaching from me (can you believe they've never made snowflakes from paper?!? I thought all elementary schools did that!). We put them up regardless of their success and the girls liked how they turned out. I did one to show them and hung it on the mirror.

Here are my pins that we got the inspiration/directions from if you choose to do it in your home! You can follow me at emenchho1.

Spiderweb: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/115686284151494928/
Initial Pumpkin: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/115686284149217738/

Crafts: Wreath

I have pinned soooooo many DIY projects on Pinterest that it really should be a crime...especially considering that I've accomplished so few.

The other day I was in Hobby Lobby territory (closest one is 45 minutes away from me) and had to make a pit stop. Supplies were purchased to complete a few craft projects, one which is a gift and cannot be revealed until a later date (in case she happens upon my blog!).

First item up to bat was a wreath for the fall season. It could really be used year round as I tried to pick colors that go with lots of our stuff. The main colors are green and gold which I thought looked like fall and winter time!

ribbon & foam wreath

glue gun heating up

mid-way through the project (note: it is harder to wrap the ribbon than expected & keep it from bunching on the backside)

how it looked as soon as I finished tying the bow

it's final place (for now) hanging on the wall behind the couch