Fall decorating

I love fall and decorating for fall!

We made these spiders and the spider web a couple years ago,

and since the kids love them so much,

we have used them every year since!

Some outside decorating, too.

Simple Skirt

Just made this little skirt.

As simple as it can be.

But cute, because the fabric is cute.

Perfect for fall.

(If you would want to make one like this,

just follow the directions in this tutorial,

without the extra layer on top.)

I linked up to:

Bead Cup Tutorial

I was washing some clear plastic cups to put in our recycling bin, but then it occurred to me that I could use them for a cute little craft. So instead of throwing them away, I kept them.

Today I made them a lid and filled them up with beads. These make cute party favors, or work nice as little gifts on a trip, or when your little girl is sick.

I have a shoebox around that I fill with little gifts and fun things like this, and things I find at the dollar store. When the kids are sick, or when we go somewhere where they need to be entertained, all I need to do is get something out of that box. It works great!

Anyway, back to the bead cups! I made these bead cups and took some pictures during the process. Have fun!

The containers I used were empty containers from Crystal Light and yogurt.
Basically any small clear container with a flat edge on top works.

Wash and dry the containers thoroughly.
Some of them may have an expiration date printed on them, make sure you remove that too.

Trace the top of the container onto cardstock.

Fill the container with beads. I put bigger beads (for smaller hands) in the big cup, and small beads in the small Crystal Light cup.

Then, I added some pipe cleaners to the big cup, and different lengths of wire to the small cup. I found that pipe cleaners work GREAT for little kids. Once the bead is on there, it doesn't tend to slide off so easily.

Next, I decorated the cardstock circles I cut.
(Wait to put on the rhinestones, or other bulky embellishments, you'll see why.)

I used Elmer's white school glue to attach the lids to the cups.
I found that it helped to put the cups upside down while drying, to make it stay in place.
In order to do that, I had to peel off the rhinestones I already attached in the picture above.
So that's why you had to wait on those!

And there is your adorable little gift!

I linked up to:

Pocket Calendar Transformation Tutorial

I like to have one of these little pocket calendars in my purse, so that I can keep track of appointments and stuff when I am on the go. This one was pretty plain, so I thought I'd give it a make-over. It's fast, fun and easy, and this is what I came up with:

Supplies needed:

• Pocket Calendar (duh)
• Patterned scrapbook paper (one large enough to cover the whole outside, plus a little extra so that it can be folded around the edges)
• Paper trimmer
• Glue
• Ribbon
• Clear nail polish to finish ribbon
• Optional: other materials, like flowers and rhinestones to embellish

First, remove the plastic cover of the planner. If you plan on decorating with several layers of paper, trim the outside edges of the original planner cover a tiny little bit. This will give you more room to work with, and makes it easier to slip the cover back on.

Then, cut a piece of paper the same height as your planner. Lay the planner open as pictured, and make sure you cut the width a little larger than the planner, so that you can fold the edges around the original cover.

After that, take a piece of ribbon, about 1.5 times the height of the planner. Glue it to the paper you will use as the cover as shown in the picture.

Then, glue the paper around the cover.















Finish the end of the ribbon with some clear nail polish to keep it from fraying.

Use other papers and embellishments to decorate your planner.

Then you can slip the cover back on, and you're done.

I linked up to:

Emery Board Holder

I used this tutorial at Sherry's Simple Blog to make this cute emery board holder. This would make a nice little gift. They are easy to make.

I made a couple small adjustments. I used velcro as a fastener instead of buttons. Also, I decided to decorate it with flowers. Love this quick, cute craft!

Flower Cupcakes

It's so easy to make these white chocolate flowers.
I just melted vanilla chips in the microwave, stirred it, put the melted chips (careful, that is HOT!!!) in a Ziploc baggie, cut off a small corner, and created flower shapes on wax paper. Then, before it got hard, I put some sprinkles on the flowers.

Once they are hard (that goes pretty fast) you can use them to decorate the cupcakes. You could also make them ahead of time.
A very easy way to make simple cupcakes look really cute!

Kids room toy organization solution: Picture Tags

Sometimes the mess in our playroom drives me up the wall.
Often, everything that is in the boxes pictured above is laying on the floor.

I have learned that kids like to dump boxes of toys on the floor.

I used to have a "theme" for things that belonged in every box,
but most of the time we end up just stuffing toys in the boxes,
just making sure they are not on the floor.

But that doesn't really help much, because next time when they are looking for something,
they end up dumping everything on the floor again.

So I got this idea, nothing genius, but hope it will work:
I labeled the boxes, so that they can see what belongs in there.
Not just that: we organized the boxes,
then I took a picture of the contents of the box.

I made tags using these pictures, so that my kids (who can't read yet)
can see what belongs in which box.

I uploaded the pictures to my computer,
and used Photoshop to add a nice background and titles.

I printed and cut the tags.
Then, I used clear packing tape to laminate the tags.
With a hole punch I made holes in the tags.

Then, I had my girls match the labels with the right box,
so that they would get the idea.

They did great!

We tied the tags to the boxes with ribbon.

And, now I hope I won't find all these toys on the floor anymore :)
So far, so good...

I linked up to: