DIY Sunburst Mirror

Sunburst  mirrors are becoming so popular right now. They are in almost every huge catalog out there and you see them in designer magazines. I love the look but not the price tag. So what does a girl do but figure out how to create it on a dime.

I took this sunburst mirror from Ballard Designs for inspiration

 and then googled some amazing sunburst mirrors but fell in love with addicted to decorating tutorial-- I love following her blog and all the amazing projects she creates. I didn't take pictures thru my process and I didn't do exactly how she did it but a break down went sort of like this.

I took an old mirror that had an ugly blue ring around it that I found at goodwill for 2.50 and took the backing off. Then I took the old blue part that I took off and traced onto an old box. This was my frame that I had to work with. I then took my wood shims ( I used two packages $5x2=$10.00) and started hot gluing them all around. The first round you could see some major gaps. So went around and filled in the gaps with row two. I liked the look of all my wood pieces being even and I also liked how it wasn't so pushed together so I stopped at two rows. I then glued my mirror on to the wood with hot glue. My mirror was not that heavy just HUGE. So I also hot glued a pop can top to the back for my hanger.

When my husband comes home normally his reaction to the messy floor and crazy craft table is what did you start today? and how much money have you spent? However, when he came home and seen a giant mirror with wood everywhere covering our whole floor he said, "wow honey that looks super cool" I couldn't believe he actually liked it and commented on it before I had to ask what he thought. I love it in our room and think its perfect. So instead of paying the $350.00 from Ballard Designs I paid 12.50 and I think my mirror looks way better anyway. :-)

Missing in action

Wow how I have missed being able to write about all the things I have been doing! Lots of things have been going on and honestly blogging was not high on the priority list. BUT that does not mean that I have not been hard at work with my creative juices. We moved into a new place a few months back and I love it. The house is an older house with some character that's for sure. I have been having fun trying to make it our own with some cute projects. One of my motto's is to always make sure I am being frugal. With being a stay at home mom to two wonderful kids its a little hard to make sense on spending $100 of dollars on decor. So what I do is look thru all those catalogs for inspiration and then think to myself how can I recreate that using less money? On top of that google is a wonderful place to get so many great ideas. I love reading so many blogs and really do get so many ideas from other wonderful people out there that share their ideas. I will always try and give credit to those who inspire me as well.  I have been working on several new projects so will try to update my blog with as many of them thru out the next few weeks.

Castle Princess Pinata-DIY

Another post about the princess party I have been working on. It has finally come down to the night before the big show! I am the lucky one who has just been able to help with a few little projects and not the momma who is probably baking/cleaning and stressing about how everything will go. So I was able to finish up last minute details to the Pinata I have been working on. You can go to any store really and buy a pinata and princess ones are not hard to find. However, they range from $20.00-$40.00 depending on what you get. Now doing a princess party on a budget that didn't really fit. So whats the next best thing? Home made, well yes! Free, well yes! being green and recycling, well yes! I was able to gather a few boxes and go to town with creating this magical castle for a cute little princess.

I used two juice/milk cartons along with two cereal boxes. Or you could have just used one big cereal box the best thing about this is use what you have. I also used a tea box for the opening/draw bridge as well. Plus glue stick, ribbon and crepe paper all that I had on hand.

(sorry for the blurry photo-didn't realize until after the pinata was completed but wanted to post what I really did use for this.

Now did you really think that old boxes could be turned into something so cute??

Just a few notes on how I did this- after I took the boxes and arranged them on the floor of how I was going to make it look like a castle I then started doing crepe paper around the boxes. There are a few ways you can go about this. At first I took a glue stick and ran it all around the box. then wrapped the paper around the box. After you get the full box covered I then went back and cut little strips so it looked more like a pinata feel. You can just leave it as well both looked super cute. Or another option is before you start to put the glue on the box take the paper and fold it several times and then do your cuts. After you get all of the cuts then glue and stick to box. I then just cut out little rectangles out of the tops of all the boxes to make it look more like a castle. Made windows out of crepe paper and glued everything together! Put a slit in the bottom and attached some ribbon. This will be a pull the string pinata but you can also open it by hitting your choice. I will add a few little princess things on the top tomorrow for the party but have to adventure to the dollar store before I can do that. Of course I will add more photos of the party and how it all goes! I sure hope this little princess likes all these little creations!

Home made play dough

We love playing with play dough, but as much as I love my little Kbug she doesnt do very well with always putting the lid on it after she is done playing. So it can get pretty expensive to always buy new stuff. I thought why not just make our own. It cant be hard, and I am sure it has to be cheaper then what the stores would do. Plus not all the harsh chemicals added as well. So here is our attempt to make play dough.. Super easy you should try it.. Its all over the internet so I am sure you can pull many different types of recipes from google this is just one way of doing it.

Get your supplies- Pot to place ingredients in, 2 cups flour, 2 cups water, 1 cup salt, 2tbs oil-- depending on how you want to color the play dough you can use several items.. Food coloring, kool aid, even fruit/veggie juice for a more Eco friendly dough. We used food coloring because that is what we had at the house. 1. Measure out your ingredients and place in pot. This is a great step for your little helpers. 2. Stir everything in pan before placing on low heat. 3. Parents only-- Place pan over the stove over low heat and continue to stir. This process takes a few minutes but its important that you don't put the heat to high and or that you stop stirring or your mixture will burn. The mixture will form into a mush and make it where you can hardly stir it. Sometimes it will form into a ball, others will look more like mash potatoes but harder. 4. Take off heat and scrap out dough onto wax paper. 5 roll into balls- This part you can separate into as many balls as you wish. We did 4 medium size balls. 6 place balls on paper and allow big helper to place thumb in middle of dough. 7. Drop food coloring into the thumb print. For a darker color you will need to add more coloring. 8. work in the food coloring just like you were mixing bread dough. this part takes a few minutes as well and my little helper was tired of doing it after a few mixes. Your dough is now ready for play!! The best part about this is it was super cheap, easy, and a fun project that the whole family is able to enjoy.

Great deal- Clothing

What can I say I am a woman who loves to shop and even better score great deals. I am still struggling to get motivated to loss my baby weight so none of my clothes fit right now. You would think that would be motivation within itself but its not. So I went out and about wasting time really until Kbug got out of school last week. Well one store I love to shop in is Ross. I hate the crowds that it brings and the messy aisle of the clothing and toys and shoes and pillows, okay so really I dislike a lot of things about Ross other then the fact that they have cute things and good deals. So if you can get past the entrance way and have a little time to waste its good. I was shopping for some new shirts and came across this one--

I thought it was super cute and figured hey why not try it on. After I tried it on and it was a little tight I thought I don't need another tight shirt so I was going to put it back. Then I happened to look at the price and it said this-

Okay for .99 cents I think I might just have to bring it home. I hope that my work out motivation comes back soon because I would love to sport my cheap but cute shirt around soon!

Love finding those great deals

Birthday on a Budget

One of my favorite things to do is to plan parties. Any kind of party is fun but especially when its for kids. I have always been one to go way over board on things for my little girls birthday parties. Well the older she got the more I was spending on just putting her shin gig on. Not including any of her gifts. I realized fast that I wasn't going to be able to go all out every year. That is when I started researching more and more online. I have really become addicted to reading blogs. With reading so many creative and fun ways to save money, I have gotten so much more frugal about parties. My plan is always to do a party under $100.00. This is including food and everything. Recently I volunteered to help a friend out with her little girls birthday party. She is turning four and wants a princess theme party. I am a big fan of themed birthdays but when it comes to a character party I learned that you don't have to go and spend hundreds on everything with that character on it. I am going to post several little posts on all the things that I will be doing for her birthday party for the next few weeks.

A big tip I have for planning parties is to always start way in advance! I love being able to shop a few months in advance for anything at the goodwill, dollar store, walmart, ross or just in general sale items. If you plan with enough time you can normally score some great items and or have enough time to create your own! I love DIY stuff, and on my blog I hope to post many DIY projects.

So the first thing that I did was of course go to the local Dollar Store. I love this store and have become a frequent shopper. I needed a few things and knew that I could save a ton of money on them here. What I wanted to share was how easy it is to take something from the dollar store and turn it into something super cute! 

 I took a simple basket, silverware, and napkins from the DS and ribbon I already had and made this cute little holder.

 A simple plastic wine glass from the DS with a touch of ribbon as a bow and look how cute it looks? I think any princess would want to drink out of it, what do you think?

Come back again to see more of my cute little decorations for a princess party on a budget!

DS-Shower Curtain-Map

What do you do on a rainy day? Well here in Bellingham we have many of them. So I have had to get really creative and do a lot of research in blog land lately. Winters are especially hard because it seems like it rains every day and the skies are grey. So while searching thru blog land I landed on a great site at filthwizardry.com and came across how to make a map out of a dollar store shower curtain. I thought this was a great idea and super cheap. You cant beat when all you have to spend is a dollar and gets you hours of fun. Kbug and I sat one afternoon while it was down pour raining and created our own little town. She wanted to draw her school, a barn, our house, chuck e cheese, and target. Girl has to learn, play and shop :-) She has so much fun putting all the little details on our map. The park had the most detail with monkey bars and a twisty slide. As well as chuck e cheese with an air hockey, ski ball, fish game and basketball hoop. We spent about an hour creating our map. She was pretty much over it by that time so we folded it up and put it away for another rainy day. Needless to say the next day, was a rainy day. We pulled it out and actually played on it. We had so much fun taking the animals to the barn, then to chuck e cheese for some fun and pizza.  It was a great project and super cheap!

What are your creative ways to use something found at the dollar store??