Falling Up The House

Our house is finally complete with its fall decorations. I had most of it up, but yesterday I completed the last two fall crafts. Being on a budget has forced me to be very creative with how I decorated. I only had ONE decoration from last year (a scare crow from the 99Cent store). This year my mom bought me a fabric pumpkin from Target dollar section. Other than that I spent a total of 2.50. I got a sign from the 99cent store that I made over and I got a leaf garland and a wreath from a garage sale, which I used as supplies for my crafting.

Overall, I am happy. Who knew you could do so much with what is just lying around your house? =)

felt fall wreath 

scrap material runner 

scrap material pumpkins 

modge podged cardboard

scare crow and material pumpkin with some leaves

part of the leaf garland

leaves dispursed on our batroom shelf

redone 99cent store sign and skull given to us

remade scrappy wreath

Happy Fall from our front door to yours! (that's the hubby in there)

Bubble skirt and some leggings to match

I've been looking at Target, and seeing all these super cute baby clothes. But I have this problem--- whenever I see something I like, I think "I can do that". Now, sometimes it is true, sometimes it is not. But, luckily this time, it is true! I've been seeing all these super cute bubble skirts for little girls, and I really wanted Jewel to have one.

I used some fun thin cord material from Joann's and repurposed an old green knit shirt of mine for the inner layer and the waist band. This is how it turned out. It took about a half hour? And I think its super cute.

I actually made it to match the leggings that I made her last night.

The hubby thinks they look bow-legged, but they look perfectly normal on, I promise!

And here are the two together:

You can't really tell this far away, but there is bright pink in  the fabric.

And here is my model, wearing her new outfit:

sorry its her backside, its the best picture I got of the outfit. haha.

Reusable Lunch Sack

When we went to go visit Robert's family a few weeks ago, one of the fun things I got to do was go hang out with a most beloved and craft-hearted cousin. We met up at one of our favorite stores- JOANN'S- and shopped around for a bit. Then we headed to her house for a quick hello to the kiddo and for her to give me some no longer desired (on her part) material. I LOVE getting hand-me-downs. Whether for Jewel, myself, my house or my crafting supply. So I took what she was going to give to goodwill, and started brainstorming of what to make with it. I have some great ideas for some of it, but others of it- I didn't even need ideas! I just needed to sew!

This was one such thing. She had already cut out the material to a reusable lunch sack and sandwhich wrapper! How nice of her to give me her "extra's". I'm sure that she would have actually made this, in no short time, but she thought that I would enjoy it. (HOW SWEET!) So the other night I was blog surfing, and I kept on seeing these bags. I suddenly had a VERY strong urge to just sew the bag together. And thus, I did. In all of like 5 minutes I had an awesome new reusable lunch sack!!!! Now, tell me, who doesn't want one of those? You do, I know you do... but I'm sorry this one is mine, you will have to get/make your own! =)

Here is my beautiful lunch sack:

Thank you dear cousin for the materials!

Repurposed jeans into (not so baby anymore) skirt

Recently I saw on someones blog (I forget where, otherwise I would give credit) how they repurposed some old jeans into a baby skirt. I thought it was such a good idea, I decided to try it as well! They had a great tutorial, so I thought- easy peasy!!!!

But since I actually couldn't find where I had seen it, I kind of had to go by the seat of my pants.....

And this is what I got:

Sorry it's so wrinkled

It was a bit different as the one that i saw, cuz i used the actual hem of the pant and sewed two legs together. But it turned out alright. 

And Jewel OF COURSE needed a top to go with. So  I took an old collared t-shirt we got for free at a garage sale and spruced it up a bit. 

This is what we got out of that:

And here is the outfit together:

Looks good to me! And comfy too! 

Pistachios: Part 1

Recently we went to go visit some of the hubby's family. His grandmother has a huuuuuuge garden. Last time we left with a HUGE box of garden fresh tomatoes to make homemade sauce. Other times we have left with boxes full of squash and peppers, grapes, and my favorite- Pluots. This time we left with a BOX of pistachios. Yes, grammy and I went out a couple hours before our departure and "whacked" (yes, its a technical term which describes the action of putting down tarps under the tree and taking either an old broom stick or pipe and hitting the pistachio branches to make the nuts fall) one of the many trees. The goal? To hull, dry,  and season my own batch(es) of nuts.

Here is the box:

What did I do to accomplish this goal? Well, first I set out to find a dehydrator..... which I did NOT find. So, I looked up how to dry them in an oven and set to work. 

Before anything, I got out my handy-dandy hulling contraption sent home with us by grammy.  Its a wire screen and a wood block. I put a handful (or 3) of pistachios at a time on the screen and rub them around the screen with the block. 

This ideally gets the skins off the pistactios so you can separate the good from the bad, ie- the ones with cracks VS the ones without cracks.

After hulling all the pistachios, I ended up with two big bowls of  good pistachios.

I then, put them in a thin layer on a baking sheet, and stuck them in the oven for 10-12 hrs at 140 degrees, stiring  once every hours (or so). 

And WHA-LA!!! Pistachios hulled, dried, and  ready to eat!!!! 

THIS is what my hands looked like halfway through the second day of hulling ......

.... just imagine what they looked like after! 

The only thing left to do? Salt them and make them taste REAL good!!!! 

Thanks, Grammy, for the nuts!

Lemon Revisited

Here are some pics of just the top and leggings, that I didn't have yesterday. Enjoy!

front of top

back of top

  

leggings

They Call Me Mellow Yellow....

... 

Today was the day. The day that I decided to try making Jewel some leggings. I used some yellow stretchy material that I actually didn't have enough of, in case the leggings didn't fit or didn't turn out. BUT- alas! They turned out!!!!! They turned out SO CUTE!!!!! I had to change the "pattern"  (pattern= tracing of her other leggings that we got at Target), but it worked. Jewel's leggings have a cuff on the bottom and a grey band at the waist (I told you I didn't have enough). But the next pair will just be normal with all the same color. Can't wait til tomorrows nap time.

Oh and did I mention that I made her a shirt to match? Yes... it didn't turn out exactly as I planned. It was going to be a tank top dress, but I made the top WAY too small. Like, small enough that it wouldn't fit over her head!!!! So, I had to figure out a way to fix it and make it fit. Luckily for me, it turned out even cuter than I had intended! Not quite fall-ish... but I LOVE IT!!!!

Please excuse the pictures, which were taken by my phone, and  the mess of our house. Its kinda hard to get my little model to sit still.... maybe I should take some pics JUST of the clothes.