The Last Halloween Costume

My baby boys were so adorable in their coordinating costumes, I decided I want to match with them for our church's Trunk or Treat.
I was Katerina Kitty Cat (that's Henrietta Pussycat's daughter).
Those ears were very difficult. I used felt, glue and my daughter's headband.
I went through all the effort of matching with my babies then took a low quality photo. :(

I originally had a bow on my ears but I felt silly. I also wore  jeans instead of a dress because I'm not a prissy as Katerina. I even had a tail which you can't see. I wanted to be as awesome as Turbo with my tail..

Cost: Free

In case you haven't made a running total of the price this year it was a good year.
$0 - J
$1 - N
$0 - A
$3 - I
$0 - me

$4 is a very good year

O the Owl

If my two year old was Daniel Tiger I wanted my baby to have a coordinating costume, so I picked O the Owl. For all you old school Mister Roger's Neighborhood fans, O is X the Owl's nephew. Daniel Tiger is the son of Daniel Stripe Tiger.

The Inspiration:

 Words can describe how much I love this O costume on my 8 month old! And to think I wasn't going to make him a costume! It was very hard to find a turquoise shirt for him, but I eventually found a short sleeve one at walmart with a large graphic on the front. So I sewed feathers all over the graphic. Still it was a short sleeve, I had some left over legs from my daughter's green turquoise leggings that I had made into cut off Bermuda shorts. I made the legs skinnier then sewed them on the arms.  Then lastly I added wings on top.

Cost: $4 for the onesies. The fleece was all leftover from who knows what.

Daniel Tiger Halloween Costume

This costume was very easy since we already had tiger pants. My 2 year old LOVES dressing in these pants. I added ears to his red sweater. I used felt and sharpie. I drew those tiger stripes myself! 

The inspiration:

I just want to remember him like this forever! He always checks to make sure his tail is still behind him. "Mom!"...."Oh, there it is"

Cost: Free

Pixie Dust

My daughter decided she wanted to be Izzy from Jake and the Neverland Pirates this year. Its a really difficult costume, I had to make pixie dust.

What a terrible mom I am that I don't have a single picture of her alone.
Here is the inspiration:

Cost: $1 for bandanna

$7 Headboard

I really wanted a headboard, but more than that, I really wanted to spend $0 on a headboard. There are some great ideas online on how to make headboards for cheap, but by the time you buy the supplies, its at least $50, if not $100.  Cheaper than buying in a store, but still not $0.  Sure there are garage sales, but you then have to refinish and such, and that is also more than $0.  So what I ended up doing was buying one yard of material for $7, using some left over batting, an old cardboard box, glue gun and a box of command strips for $5.  Sure its not the highest quality, but it was pretty close to $0, so I'm pretty happy.

I'm very satisfied with my results. I figured if a hotel could just have their headboard glued to the wall so could I.  Not only that, when I sit in bed at night and feed my baby, that cardboard and batting, do a pretty fair job of cushioning my head from the wall.

We just bought our down comforter earlier in the season, we love it. Our old comforter was a handme down my mother in law gave my husband before we got married! About four years ago, I put that normal comforter in a duvet cover, but it turns out after years of using a duvet cover, I hate them.  So I used my duvet cover as a dust ruffle to cover our box frame, which works well because I don't have a dust ruffle.  (Apparently spending money on my bedroom is not a priority in my life.  Our dressers are handme downs, of handme downs, four times removed, from my husband's great Aunt Anna.) One day before my children stain my comforter, I hope to remember to buy some spare white flat sheets to put on top of my down comforter, just like in hotels.  Yes, after staying in a hotel last spring, I thought this bedding is what better than mine, why not copy it.

P.S. don't mind the wrinkles.

Play kitchen-- what I'm not doing

I so wanted to make one of these nightstand play kitchens.

But then I saw the TV stand kitchens.

I thought if I'm going to make a kitchen I should make a kitchen.
But lets get real.  I'm I crafter, but not a diy-er.  I am probably physically incapable of making a kitchen from a TV stand, and would probably never finish my nightstand kitchen. I just learned how to put an anchor in the wall.  Do you think someone who barely found out how to put in anchor knows how to use a saw?
Let me tell you the correct answer, no!
But we do need a new kitchen.  Check out ours. That blue thing sticking out of the oven is the facet.  Pretty good that its actually with the kitchen, unlike the facuet nobs or the sink, or the oven door. Not to mention it is pretty small, about a foot, by a foot, by a foot and half.  But it work well in our tiny previous apartment.

Pretty
Then I found this ikea hacks,
I'm so excite about these:
stool to kitchen

This is just a chair! 

I could actually make one of these.  There is no sawing involved, just painting, and maybe some screws.  But I just learned how to do that, so I can make these!  Not only can I put in anchors, I can hang a curtain rod.  Oh the dreams I am getting from these bad boys.  This is not a christmas present, I wouldn't have time, these would take me probably a good two months.  Not to mention our house believes in Santa Claus, so Santa, the Easter Bunny, etc do not bring homemade toys. Mommy is too needy for that, she needs the praise of eveyone knowing SHE made it.
Personally I'm thinking two chairs bolted together, one stove one sink.  Plus I want to use bolts or screws or something, so our stove knobs turn.
Two Ivar chairs, and I guess this Ivar shelf to go on the bottom of the chair legs, and two more of these Bekcam spice racks, some blecka hooks, a bowl with a flat bottom that I would glue on the top for the sink (hey it works in my parents bathroom) (no one in my house can cut a circle with a saw), paint, glue, screws and lots of time, because I'm dense. Then I'm done!
But then of course we need, Dunktig toy sets, the baking, utensils, pots and pans.
Wow, this is getting expensive!

PS Ikea Hacks, tell me how to make a fridge easily. With no sawing, or anything.
There is this, made with this. But come on, $80 for a play fridge? I don't think so.

Oh I found this hack. I could buy Fullen Sink Cabinet, get a top for it, put different handles on and make a fridge with that.

I'm going there someday...

If you remember how in April of this year during General Conference, President Monson said,

To you parents of young children, may I share with you some sage advice from President Spencer W. Kimball. Said he: “It would be a fine thing if … parents would have in every bedroom in their house a picture of the temple so [their children] from the time [they are] infant[s] could look at the picture every day [until] it becomes a part of [their lives]. When [they reach] the age that [they need] to make [the] very important decision [concerning going to the temple], it will have already been made.” 

Well needless to say I've felt like a sinner since we moved in, because my daughter didn't have a picture of the temple in her room. My son has a picture of the Logan Temple, so I wanted my daughter to have the Salt Lake Temple.

  Lil' Luna has a great tutorial of cute temple art. I've been waiting to try it for probably a year.  I mixed it up a bit, you know I can't follow directions!  Anyway, I "save as"-ed the picture from Lil' Luna, then turned it a pink/purple-ish hue, printed for 10 cents on Winkflash, to a 5x7.  Then bought a frame at Hobby Lobby, painted it green and purple, with purple/pinkish sparkles.  I love variegated paint jobs. Then I found some ribbon in my closet that was first used on the vases from by brother's wedding lunch, right after his marriage in the Salt Lake Temple.  But the green was too green with variegated paint, so I streaked purple paint on the ribbon to match the frame.  

 I added the ribbon because I thought oh, it needs to hang on the wall, then it looked so perfect on her dresser, so thank goodness the ribbon is wired, because I love the bow.

I love it!
Lil' Luna's tutorial is so great, its everything that is wonderful about the internet.  Great free pictures of the temple. I wanted a picture of the Denver Temple so I used the antique non- word for my living room.

Spray Painting Lights

I hate the light fixtures in my bathrooms.  First off, I figure I'm not trying to be a movie starlet from the 20s so why I have those mirror lights.  Second off, two tone gold and silver is not my favorite.  Easy enough to change right?  No soup for me, when you take off the fixture the builders put in a left mount, instead of centering it over the sink. 

 So with the help of my mom we spray painted it a brush nickle and I bought smaller light bulbs.  I'm amazed how most of my lighting problems in this house are fixed once, I get new light bulbs, usually smaller wattage.  The previous owners had three 100 watts in most of the rooms.

Now I got to get cracking on painting the rest of my bathroom vanity light fixtures. One down two to go.

Couch Pillows

Right before we moved, we bought used couches from a friend for $20.  I know most people would not be so ghetto and not pay to move low priced used furniture.  But it seemed like a good idea for us, we already had a big truck, and we didn't have to waste time during the two precious weeks my husband had here before he went back to Utah for 5 weeks looking for couches. Not to mention they came with brown microfiber covers, which are priced well over $20.  They are also actually surprisingly comfy for old couches, but there was just three problems.  Three rough scratchy upholstery pillows that didn't fit under the slipcovers.

I cut the three pillows open and put their guts instead of this darkish material. I wanted to finish during the 2 year old's nap so I machine sewed the bottom up.  If I would have known what I was doing I would have double layered my pillows.  I didn't because I didn't have enough dark material, and didn't have any plain material, then when I finished I realized I could have used the multiple yards stripe flannel just sitting around, the material is dark enough no one would know what was in the inside.  Life has lately taught me when you double up your material over stuffing, everything is much softer! 

Tah dah!

The full view of the other couch. Yes, the point of the dark pillows was almost to blend it, but not actually.  I didn't want a whole couch full of brightly colored pillows.

Mantle

Eventually we do plan to hang that picture.

Pink?!

We decided we wanted to paint our living room, since we painted our dining room, since they share an open wall. The dining room needed to be painted, and the living room looked fine, but once the dining room was painted, the living room looked bad. Which is why I refuse to paint anymore in this house, unless the owner decides to sell the house to me. Which he should do, because I think it would be lovely not to have to move for another 6 years or so. Since the dining room is blue, and the kitchen is green, I figured the only color left, is yellow. I was thinking a nice Tuscan sunrise, (which really means mustard yellow, its very big this fall.)
Turns out, I hated every single paint chip I got at 5 different stores. I kept thinking I just didn't find the right shade, after like 30 paint chips. Until my husband said I hate the mustard colors, and I said yeah me too, but I don't want our living room to look like a baby nursery, which is what would happen if it was light yellow. We decided yellow was out, so we did pink!

And grey for the other two and an eighth of the wall. I was thinking a nice pewter. We called my mom to ask about color combination, because she is good about picking colors for houses to be painted. She told us, be careful about grey because it makes the room feel depressed. My husband didn't want after that, because he doesn't like me depressed. But it was either, gray or pale lemon yellow and plum (over the fireplace). We decided grey would be better for the retail rent value and we like to be good renters. But we did make sure to pick a really light grey to cancel the depression. We absolutely love the grey. Although sometimes I feel like we have two different colors of light blue in our front rooms, but it makes me like the dining room blue way better. See in the picture.
Actually we would have never painted painted our living room pink. That was the primer. At first we really hated the red, but once it dried, it wasn't red orange. It makes me not hate our ugly fireplace, so now I don't have to cover it up. We are going to put a picture in the middle, we just need a frame.
Here is the third wall. I need to hand quilt my first quilted quilt, that is a wall quilt. So I have something on this wall. I'm planning to relearn by the end of the month.

Labor Day

How did you labor on Monday? We painted.
We weren't planning to paint yet we just went to look at some more colors, because we didn't like we paint chips we had gotten earlier. But we decided to buy the paint and do it, because of the sale ending that day. We did most of the painting while our kid was sleeping during his nap.The finished product.
This is the dining room where we eat because the kitchen is not equipped for a table.The homeowner told us we could paint. The dining room looked awful, so I figured why not paint. But now we have to paint the living room that is attached, the rooms only have 3 walls each. After that I'm done painting, the whole downstairs is in desperate need of paint, but I'm not painting any of it, because once one room gets painted the rest do, and I don't to paint the whole house if I don't own it.
View from our kitchen. The kitchen is green was painted before we arrived.