Placemat Wall Decor!

This past summer a Garden Ridge opened up near my house.  I was super excited! I thought they would have such amazing deals!

Turns out... it IS a good store, but not great.  They have good deals on some things, but others, not so much.  It's worth a look if you need new lamps or things to adorn the walls of your home.  I needed both, so we found a few good deals.

The best find was something that I had no intention of buying when I walked in the store...

Placemats!

But I didn't use them for placemats.  I put them on my bedroom WALL!

I was looking at some of the metal, iron, aluminum art to use in our master bedroom, but everything was at least $10 - $50 for a small 12" x 12" piece.  With that size I'd need at least 3 of them, so that just was too much. (Since I had already bought lamps!)

My wonderful mother was looking with me and saw the placemats.  She picked up this cute round placemat made of felt with ornate cut-out designs and said, "You could use this on your wall."

I thought, "Genius!"  I love it! It's exactly the style I wanted, and best of all...

It's only $2.00!!!!! PERFECT!!!

I bought 3 of them. 

They are the perfect accent to the small wall, beside the window, above the comfiest rocking chair ever! 

And the rest is History.....

Have you ever used something for an unintended purpose, but it was the perfect thing for you!?  Post it below in the comments! I'd love to know!

Moose Mobile Tutorial

My sister, Kristen, is having her first baby in April, Baby Gunner.  We are so excited for her and Scott and can't wait for that little baby boy to be here!  

My sister is crafty, artsy, creative, etc... All the things she got from my mom and I never knew I had. - (until recently!  Being a mom sparked my creative side!)

She is also super thrifty! (Now I know I have that! And Yes, we also got this from my mother.)

Gunner is going to have the cutest Moose and Hunting themed room! And it is going to be done on a very friendly budget! (Once his room is complete, I'll post a blog about his adorable room, and the adorable budget! So check back! Tons of pictures included!)

My sister decided to make Gunner's mobile, instead of buying one.  It is so cute and so easy to make! You could make this with any "theme" (her's is Moose).  Here is the tutorial in case you want to make one for your little bundle of joy!

MATERIALS: (cost: $12 - Wow! That's Cheap!)

Remember to use your Coupons for these items to make them even cheaper!

Pack of 4 wooden dowel rods

Different colors of felt - 8 pieces

Thread

Stuffing

Plastic multi eyeballs

Wooden beads

Hemp rope

1.  Make a template out of cardstock of the moose face, snout, and antlers.

2. Trace and cut out each piece with your choice of felt color.

3. Then hand sew all of the pieces together, and stuff each moose with some pillow stuffing.

4. Once the moose face and snout are together, add the antlers. After adding antlers, add small pieces of felt for the ears and nostrils, along with googly eyes. (all using fabric glue)

5.  For the actual mobile, take 3, 12" wooden dowel rods, drill small holes on each end and secure them all together with one simple screw in the center.

6. Take hemp string and various wooden beads and string the beads along the hemp, securing one to the end of the dowel rod with a knot.

7. Hang each moose from one side of each dowel rod by sewing the hemp to the moose with a simple series of stitches.

8. Hang the entire mobile from the ceiling with an "s" hook and again, more hemp.

9. My sister is thinking about adding a small box that will allow the mobile to spin on its own, or a small device that will play music. (We will let you know what she finds! Or please, any suggestions would be great!)

There you go!  Now you have yourself an amazing mobile, made with love, for your precious baby!

Updated Coupons!!!

Updated!

Here are some very important coupons that you will want to have if you need to pick up a few crafting items for all of your DIY projects!

I'll continually add new ones to the blog, since eventually these expire. Just print them out and enjoy the savings!

Check back often and look under the coupons section of the page to find great coupons that you might need for all your crafting, designing and decorating desires!

Ruffles & Roses CAKE

I stumbled across this great blog the other day, I am Baker.  She posts great ideas and How To's for cakes and other desserts.  And I thought... 

"I should try to make one of these cakes! Then, I can just make the cake for Kristen's Baby Shower myself!" 

Perfect! (Well, almost... since I've never made a "fancy" cake like this ever in my life. But how hard could it be???)

It really wasn't that hard, but I like to say that it is a "Rustic" Ruffles & Roses Cake.  This lets all the imperfections be on purpose. Plus, Rustic is "In" right now!

Here is my HOW TO, if you want to try to make this yourself! Oh, and by the way, the inside of the cake has vertical stripes! 

I used 2 Boxed Cakes - Red Velvet and Yellow Cake, (to make the cakes more dense, I added an extra egg, 1/2 cup oil, and pudding powder(only to red velvet, the yellow cake already had pudding in the mix.)

The boxes each make 2 - 8 inch cakes, so you will end up with four cakes.  Once the cakes are finished, pop them out of the pans immediately and stack the like cakes on top of each other. Then put the cakes in the freezer for at least 5 hours.  

I baked mine the night before and put them in the freezer overnight.  This makes them so much easier to cut later on.

To make the vertical stripes, I used a cake round and drew circles on it about an inch apart.

Then cut out each circle and use a sharp knife to cut the cake into rings using the circle pieces as a guide.

Next, cut through the outer three circles from the middle to the outer edge and separate the pieces. Then you will alternate wrapping the different cake circles around each other.

Wrap cake in wax paper, and tie closed (I used an old towel).  Pour a few spoonfuls of simple syrup over the cake to keep it moist and bind the cakes together. Freeze the cake again for an hour or so, or just while you make the frosting.

Now you get to make the frosting! Yummy! I am not a frosting kind of person, but I kept eating this frosting the entire decorating process. (Oopsie!)

Frosting Recipe:

1/2 cup of butter flavored shortening (or regular, but I think the butter flavor tastes better!)

1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla (Mexican vanilla is what I use. It's my Mother In Laws secret to amazing frosting!)

4 cups of powdered sugar

5 or 6 tablespoons of milk

Cream Shortening and vanilla, slowly add powdered sugar a cup at a time with a tablespoon of milk at a time until it is the right consistency for you. (Not too runny and not too stiff.)

The next step is to crumb coat your cake.  It's ok if this isn't perfect because you are covering it with ruffles and roses! I then put it back in the freezer for just a bit while I made some more frosting for the outer decorations!

 

To make the ruffles you use a #104 tip on your icing bag, make sure the larger end of the tip is towards the cake and the smaller end is out to you and move back and forth up the cake making ruffles.

(I practiced on wax paper before, but I was impatient and just went to the cake. That's why some of my ruffles are crooked! Oh well, it's "Rustic" remember!)

I decided at the last minute to put the roses on the top instead of more ruffles, and I love it!

For the Roses, you use a large 1M tip, and starting in the center, swirl around and around until you get your desired rose size. This is SUPER easy!

Now your cake is complete! Ready to be devoured! Here are some pretty pictures of the cake! ENJOY!!!

And so it begins...

Prim (prim)

  -adj. primmer, primmest

synonyms: chic, classy, elegant, formal, nice, proper, stylish...

Practical (prak-ti-kuhl)
-adj.
synonyms: cost-effective, doable, efficient, handy, sensible, useful...

I knew that I wanted to start a blog a few months ago, but I had no idea what it would be about.  I wanted to wait and come up with the right genre before I started.

Then one day as I was browsing the internet, a.k.a. Pinterest and Etsy, looking for ideas for my sister's baby shower, and I came across two things that surprised me.

1. I found these amazing striped paper straws that I knew I had to get for the shower.  I saw where someone on another blog said that she got them for "really cheap" - $6.00 for 25 straws.  I thought to myself, "Is that really cheap??"  And true to my nature, I searched around and ended up finding these same straws for a MUCH better deal! - $7.92 for 144 straws! (Amazon.com)

 


2. Next, the above mentioned straws were being used in mason jars, so I began my search for mason jars.  The website I was looking at again said what a great deal they were on Etsy! She got 6 blue-tinted mason jars for $40.00. What!? No way this is a great deal! I need at least 48 of these things!  I went off on another search and found them! - $36.00 for 48 mason jars! Boo-ya! (K-mart! Who would have thought??)

*Also, FYI - the blue-tinted jars do not justify that much of a price increase either. Check Pinterest and you can find a tutorial for DIY tinted mason jars in any color you like!

And then it hit me! YES!!!  THIS is what my blog is going to be about!  I'm going to post about the great deals I find on super cute items and DIY projects and decorating ideas, and hopefully help my readers save a little money while creating amazing things!

There it was! The content of my blog was alive.  And I am sooooo excited and happy to begin sharing with you!