DIY Carnival

I, along with helpers, decided to throw an activity at church that was family friendly and more geared toward your inner kid. We decided to do an indoor carnival. So, I'm including some tips of making your own carnival too! This could be indoor or outdoor. This was a while ago and the weather still wasn't as reliable as we wanted for something outdoor. Anyways, here we go!

These were our booths:

• Duck Pond -pick up a duck, if it has an "X" on the bottom you win a prize!

• Cupcake Walk-Number spaces 1-8. The contestants walk around the spaces while music plays. When the music stops hope your number is called from the mystery hat

 

• Can Toss-We used tennis balls against 6 stacked cans. Get them all down for a prize.

 

• Target Practice-Get a set amount of points in 3 throws for a prize.

• Kissing Booth-guess how many Hershey's Kisses are in the jar (we had 3 jars and differing amounts. Each jar had it's own separate guesses)
• Face Painting-we bought a simple pack at Wal-Mart. It didn't dry very quickly so I would do better research on that!

Here's some additional ideas for booths:

• Fortune Teller-fortune cookies or someone dressed up and has a fun imagination
• Go Fish-attach a string with a magnet at the end to a stick. "Go fishing" behind a curtain or in a baby pool with cut out fish with a paper clip attached so the magnet will stick. 3 tries for a fish!
• Ring Toss-rings and glass soda bottles or pegs, get the ring on the bottle and win
• Balloon Dartboard-Tap small balloons onto a board in a grid and pop with darts. Careful of pointy darts!
• Spin Wheel with a bunch of different prizes 

Food:

Now as for food. Since this was an indoor carnival, popcorn would be a bit too messy. We opted for other carnival food. In a crockpot we stacked hot dogs standing up and cooked them on HIGH for 1.5 hours and they were ready to serve! That's all it took. We fit 75 into a medium sized crockpot. We served with chips and had a potluck for desserts. So yummy and VERY successful way to do a lot of food at once. Although we opted to save money and not to this, certain companies rent out cotton candy machines for as low as $25 a day! I know some Uhauls offer rentals, just go see if your local one does!

Prizes:

• Our prizes were just candy but if you wanted to go all out here are some other ideas
• Restaurant Gift Cards
• Stuffed Animals
• Blow-up Toys (like guitars or saxophones)
• Bouncy Balls
• Temporary Tattoos
• Bubbles
• Nail Polish
• So much more! Just go to your Dollar Store, I'm sure they have tons of "prize" worthy stuff

All in all, we budgeted for about $150 and we got right around there. In addition to the supplies for each booth (rubber ducks, face paint, tarp, etc) and prizes we also bought table cloths, balloons, printed signs, and the food. We did this in our church's gym which supplied tables and chairs for free.

Oh yeah! I made a cool invitation too:

Download the font here! I promise it's safe and didn't give my computer some weird virus. This is for the carnival like font. And I found the picture of the tents online just looking up clip art.

Logo Bleach T-Shirt

For the 3 Christmases my husband and I have celebrated together I tried to include at least one homemade present. This past Christmas I wanted to get him something with one of his favorite band's logos on it but the t-shirts I found online were too dang expensive for our budget. So there was my handmade present idea! The whole thing cost about $8 to make. If you want to do the inverse of the logo check out Jaime's Bleach T-Shirt tutorial.

What you'll need:
Colored T-Shirt
Bleach pen
Pins
Chalk or chalk pencil
Traceable pattern (I did mine on computer paper)

First, I cut out the lettering of my pattern. I then pinned the pattern onto the shirt. I put a piece of cardboard in the shirt so the bleach wouldn't go through. This also made pinning the pattern onto the shirt easier since the pins could go straight into the cardboard to really hold everything in place.

Next, trace the pattern onto the fabric with chalk.

Now you're ready for the bleach pen! I just used a basic Clorox bleach pen that had 2 sized tips. I used the narrower tip so the outline wouldn't be too thick. I found this at Wal-Mart for a couple of dollars in the bleach aisle. Something I wish I would've known was to watch out for sputters and bubbles when the bleach came out. Don't squeeze it out too hard either. Oh well, makes it look more rustic, right?

This only needs to set for a short time. I let the bleach sit on the shirt for maybe 3 minutes then quickly threw it in the wash. As the washer filled up with water, I ran the bleached part under the water to wash off the excess bleach and to ensure no bleach would get anywhere else (which it did because I wasn't as careful as I should've been. You can see this on the right side of the shirt.) Dry the shirt and now it's ready to go!

Pair with a cute baby onesie with a matching logo (it was an iron on patch!) and you'll have the coolest dad and baby outfits!

DIY Maternity Maxi Dress

Sorry for my long absence! But I have a good excuse. Well, I think it's good. So back in August, I was  asked to be one of my college roommate's bridesmaids. Well well well, what a predicament. The other 7 or so bridesmaids and I did not have something in common that would make dress buying much, much more difficult because I would be 21 weeks pregnant at her wedding! Luckily, the bridesmaids got to choose their own dresses which meant I would make my own dress. I decided to go with a maxi dress thinking it would be both easy to make and accommodating to my growing baby belly. This was far more wayward than I thought but I learned from my mistakes!

What you'll need:
2-2 1/2 yds jersey knit (depending on your height)
Thin elastic
Matching thread

Instructions:
1. Measure from under your bust, over your shoulder to mid back (equal to where your under the bust measurement is on your back). Measure down lengthwise on the fabric. This is the length of A and B. Mine was 30 inches.

2. Hem one side of each A and B pieces. This will be the neckline. Overlap A and B 4 inches right side on top of right side. Pin and sew.

3. Next, sew C to A and B, D to the opposite side, wrong sides together.
4. Fold along mid line of A and B top panel. You may need to trim both sides depending on how loose and flowy you want it. Sew sides of dress (wrong sides together) from bottom to a couple inches above where C and D meet A and B.
5. Measure where you would like to put on the elastic. I measured under the bust to accommodate baby. Cut the elastic 2 inches less than your measurement. Overlap the ends of the elastic about 3/4". Sew forward and back a couple of times. You'll need to put 4 pins in your elastic 4 equally apart: one in the middle front, middle back, and sides. This is markers to match while sewing.

6. Pin your middle front marker of the elastic to the middle front (middle of where A and B overlap), the back marker to the middle back, and sides to where C and D meet on the sides. Your elastic should be smaller than the fabric, this is on purpose! (I added a few extra pins due to how wayward everything was turning out for me. But I pinned in the middle of where the fabric was between pins to the middle between markers and match to fabric. You must be very careful if you are adding extra pins!)

7. Now sew with a zig zag stitch on the elastic to the wrong side of the dress, stretching it to meet the length of the fabric between pins. This will create gathering in the dress.

8. Cut and hem skirt to desired length, hem sleeves at length you want.
9. Optional: I sewed a small piece of where A and B overlap (6 inches from edge of waistline) for added modesty.

And here's my wayward adventure:

I measured wrong both the fabric and elastic, twisted the elastic while sewing, had to unpick thread so many times, etc, etc, etc! .

And here's the finished look!

Note: these were taken at 29 weeks not 21!! Hello belly button!

Easy Decorative Accent Pillows

We got a new couch when we moved last fall. This meant I could also get new pillows (in my mind, no one actually gave me permission.) I had made an embroidered pillow with our last name on it a few months before and had plenty of fabric left over. I also made a table cloth (I took a home linens sewing class my last year in school!) and used left over fabric from that, too. I cut out 16" x 16" squares. Then I cut them along both diagonals to get 4 triangles. Since I was only making 2 pillows I only cut out 2 squares of both colors which resulted in 16 triangles. Next I laid out the triangles in the desired pattern.

Then I sewed 2 triangles in alternating colors together along the short side. Make sure you are sewing on the right sides of the fabric! The tan fabric is a jacquard fabric and definitely has a right and a wrong side.

 I had to check and recheck that I was sewing the right short edges together to get the right matching pattern for one side of the pillow.

Then it was time to sew the two larger triangles together. This was tricky so I started a the middle in order to get crisp lines. I pinned the seams down and sewed from the middle out. Then repeated in the opposite direction.

Then I sewed both sides together, matching where the red triangles were in the front and back to have a symmetrical pillow (forgot a picture of this step, sorry!) And then came the stuffing part. I left half of the bottom section un-sewn when I was sewing the two sides together. I stuffed to my hearts content. In order to get good corners I stuffed stuffing down there with scissors and made sure it went into the point of the corner. After stuffing, I sewed up the hole by hand. This could've been done by machine as well which would've been much faster but oh well!

Cleaning a Top-Loader Washer

As we were washing clothes the other day, we noticed a rather nasty odor coming from the washer. Yuck-o, right? So I looked up some ways to clean our top-loader washing machine. Most recipes called for bleach and vinegar. Well, I only had vinegar on hand and beside, bleach is stinky! After trying out what I found I think next time I would tweak it a bit.

Supplies:
2-4 cups White Vinegar
1/2-1 cup Baking Soda
Toothbrush that no one's using or will use ever again

That's it!

Step 1: Fill up your washer with the hottest setting temperature on the largest load. (My washer says HOT COLD on EX SUPER. I don't know why it says hot and cold but it was indeed super hot while filling it up.) After it fills and before it agitates stop the cycle.

Step 2: Now pour in the vinegar and the baking soda. Turn back on the cycle for about 3 minutes and let it agitate. Turn off the cycle again. Now we're going to let it soak for 1 hour with the lid open.

While this soaks, pop off the liquid bleach spout thingy and clean that out. WARNING: this may be really dirty and disgusting. I also cleaned the lid, the hinge behind the lid, and the softener component. Fun fact: liquid softner is bad for you clothes and machine. It can create build up on both. I pulled off the softener dispenser and got to work. There was so much grime on it I still couldn't get it all the way clean after scrubbing and scrubbing. I popped it back on and poured some vinegar down there and let it all soak. I also scrubbed the agitator a little bit which helped since I don't think our machine had ever been washed and probably needed more care than usual.

Step 3:  After the 1 hour of soaking turn back on the cycle and let the machine do the work. An extra rinse may be a good idea. I just wiped everything down after the cycle was over. Keep the lid open.

So pretty! I didn't even know the letters on the bleach and fabric softener dispensers weren't black...Gross huh?

A handy trick in making sure you don't have a stinky washing machine as quickly is to leave the lid open after you are done washing clothes. This allows the machine to dry out before mildew can start to grow. Also, clean your machine regularly. A cleaning trick is to use vinegar as a fabric softener instead of actual fabric softener.

Help! I Have an Ugly Couch

I have an ugly couch. We got it from the thrift store so it has to be ugly apparently. Why don't you cover it you ask? Well it's a recliner sofa and they just don't make slipcovers for those. So I would have to completely recover it. My schedule clears up quite a bit in August (I'm graduating in July!!) so I will have time then to do some recovering. But I want to get it ready now. So what are your thoughts? We're newly weds so spending a bunch of money on fabric isn't really an option. I was thinking maybe buy painter's canvas since it comes in huge sheets and dye it? I don't know...HELP!!

Bridesmaid Dresses

I'm sure many of you on Pinterest have seen this pin:



(Source)
Well, meet my bridesmaid dresses.

I found some heavier jersey knit fabric at JoAnn and bought tons of it. I asked each of my bridesmaids for some measurements. Remember when I asked them to be my bridesmaid? Well yes, after that they sent me their measurements. After that it was quite simple. However, making the dresses more fitted than in the tutorial from Sweet Verbena wasn't as simple. First we cut out the front and back of the dress with the shoulder-to-floor measurement.

Then, at their bust (or under the bust, this may also be your bra size measurement) we cut it in a little bit. We sewed a curve into the pattern to make it more fitted and less bulky around the bust since we were using heavier fabric than the tutorial. This we did by starting near the sleeve opening (a 10 in cut made from the top seam down) and worked our way in.

We made sure each dress had the right curve sewn in. This happened through a lot of trying on and adjusting! After that, the neck opening was cut in the middle of the dress with the back and the front lined up cutting down 8-10 inches. This opening was angled a little bit just for preference meaning it was cut in more of a triangle than just a slit. Each opening was hemmed and the dress was done! Now as for the sashes...we'll let my mom blog about those since she did most of the work on those!

**To adjust for a pregnant bridesmaid (cough, cough Jordan) trying on right before the wedding was key. We left extra room in the front half of the dress's length and adjusted after a final fitting.

Simple Tags Made In Word

I've made some tags lately and they were super cute and super simple. I made them in Microsoft Word and printed them on some heavy card stock. I made ones to go on the caramel I made my neighbors and the fort kits I made my nieces and nephews. I also made labels for my craft organizers.

Step 1: Go to the insert menu and insert shapes. I usually use the rectangle with rounded corners on the first line.

Step 2: Draw the shape

 Step 3: Decide what background you want.

 Step 4: Add text by hitting the "add text" button. You then can add clip art. You may need to change the text wrapping on this. (Found on the right side of the screen).

 Step 5: Print on card stock and cut out. I usually use my corner rounder to get uniform corners and a hole punch of its tied onto something. These are three examples of the recent ones I did.

These could be great for Valentines!!

DIY Wallpaper Removal

When we did my bedroom redo we bought a wallpaper remover. It was pretty quick and easy. I just had a border around the top of my walls. We decided to redo our dining room at home. While my mom was at work and I was at home bored I decided to start tackling the wallpaper in there. We had covered half the wall many, many years ago in wallpaper. It was a pretty simple task but after spraying the bottom half of 4 walls my hand was very tired! While peeling off wallpaper, I found it best to start at the corner of the wallpaper or a seam. Sometimes a little scraping was needed to get under the slicked down edges but the wallpaper came off easily and in under 2 hours we were done. After, we washed the walls of any excess remover.

 

 

$2 Ribbon Christmas Card Holder

I was inspired by Pinterest, yet again. I found this pin and knew what I wanted to make this week.

Materials:
Ribbon (From Dollar Tree)
Clothes pins (Mine are from Dollar Tree)
Paint

Tools:
Glue gun
Paint brush

First, paint your clothes pins. I used regular sized ones, but mini would be cute too.

Don’t forget to get all the crevices, you don’t want to see any wood tone.

Measure whereabouts you want each pin and then hot glue them in place. I used a card as a guide.

The finished product hangs over a door nicely.. This was my third attempt at taking a picture of it. It’s in my front entry way and there isn’t a lot of space, so I opened the door to take a picture. It was freezing and 10pm, so I’m happy I got a good one. Thanks Light Scoop. (I did not get paid to say that, my husband got me one for my birthday and I like it)

How do you display your Christmas cards?

Back to School: DIY Command Center (for under $50!) & Organization

A couple Saturdays ago, I came across an awesome DIY command center on the wall beside a refrigerator on Landee See, Landee Do (pinned here). That wall was just dead space in my house--but by the next Wednesday I'd converted it into an awesome command center!

Following Landee's advice, I contacted local heating & A/C companies for estimates. I went with the company that quoted me $20 for a 2'x8' sheet of steel.

I asked the Original Wayward (aka DAD) for some tips on how to drill holes in the sheet metal. He said:

• You can use a regular drill bit as long as the hole is fairly small (I did 1/4") and the metal is not too heavyweight
• Make sure the metal is secure!
• Lubricate with some light oil 
• Back up the metal with a piece of scrap wood backstop
• Use a punch before drilling to keep the bit from wandering
• Wear eye and ear protection
• Remember the bit and the metal will be hot
• The burr (edge of the metal) will be sharp. You may want to deburr (file the edge with a metal file).

Drilling holes with a scrap wood backstop

The only problem I came across was when the drill bit sometimes got stuck on a lip of metal. I used my punch (which happened to be a circular nail punch) and poked it through the whole, bending down the lip. Then I moved the center of the drill bit over a little to finish the hole.

I brought the metal inside and held it against the wall to mark where the holes would be. I might recommend doing the top holes first and hanging the metal before doing the other holes--the bottom holes ended up not lining up at all (no big deal; I just didn't screw them in).

I'd also recommend using more than four holes in each side--that only left two screws in the middle to secure it, and the sheet metal has sagged in a few places. (Double sided foam tape is a big help though!)

I used regular 1/4" screws, washers and nuts.

The magnetic organization is probably my favorite part:

At the top, I have magnetic clips for the kids' artwork from school and church (and a family photo). Below that is a couple inches for me to write out the menu plans for the week--never again does my husband have to ask "What's for dinner?"

I have a magnetic, dry erase metal wall file (held up by 8 neodymium magnets) for incoming mail. On the front I've listed important phone numbers. Some locker organizers hold pens and dry erase markers, as well as Post-it notes, Sharpies, and stamps. I already had a magnetic note holder (gift) and magnetic calendar (free in the mail).

The rest of the area is for school papers/to dos/action items, held by photo clips of each of us, and the kids' chore charts. If I can find somewhere else to put my garbage, I'll leave the bottom few feet for the kids to play with magnets (they love it!).

Costs:

• sheet metal (from local heating & A/C company): $20
• magnetic & dry erase mail holder (Target, clearance): $6.38
• magnets (Walmart): $6
• hardware (Walmart): $2
• dry erase markers & magnetic eraser (Target): $7.50
• pencil cup/organizer (Target): $2
• basket for markers (Target): $2
• magnetic clips (Dollar Tree): $1
• magnetic photo holder clips (Dollar Tree; two sets of two): $2
• magnetic picture frame (Dollar Tree): $1

Total cost: $49.88

I also organized a few other areas for back to school. Tired of searching for shoes all the time (and not being able to find a single pair of Rebecca's shoes for over a month), I instituted something my mom has used forever: a shoe shelf.

I got a $14 stackable shoe shelf at Target and decorated it with a silver Sharpie. The kids love it! And more importantly--they use it!

I also typed up before and after school routines, chore lists, and before bed/in the morning routines. I illustrated them and laminated them, then hung them up. The chore lists are on the command center (awaiting only some smiley face magnets to check off the completed chores) and the routines hang on Command hooks in the kids' room and in the front closet (along with hooks for backpacks).

What do you think? How did you organize for back to school this year?