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DIY Valentine’s Day Dishtowel

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Valentine's Day Dishtowel

I like to add a little bit of Valentine’s Day to our home and this DIY Valentine’s Day Dishtowel is the perfect thing to add some love to the kitchen.  It would also make a great early Valentine’s Day gift for someone special tucked in a basket with some scented soaps and candy.

DIY Valentine’s Day Dishtowel

Supplies:

  • plain white dish towel
  • red and pink t-shirts (scraps or shirts that are no longer wearable)
  • scissors
  • needle and thread

DIY Valentine's Day Dishtowel

Instructions:

Begin by cutting several small hearts from the t-shirts.  I alternated the pink and red across the bottom of my dishtowel.  The hearts I cut are approximately 1″.  You can make them any size you wish.  Simply fold the t-shirt piece in half and cut the hearts as you would from paper.

Do not worry about the t-shirt fabric fraying or coming apart.  The little bit the hearts do fray will add character but they will not fall apart.

Lay the hearts out across the bottom of the dishtowel the way you plan for them to be attached.

Use a simple “X” stitch in the middle of each heart to attach it to the dishtowel.  Knot on the backside and trim access thread.  I love how the hearts almost flutter with the stitch only in the middle.

Valentine's Day Dishtowel

Continue attaching the hearts until all are in place.

Use your finished dishtowel in the kitchen through Valentine’s Day or make one for the bathroom using a hand towel.

If you’re putting this together in a gift basket, pick up some pretty bottles of scented soap for the kitchen.  Add a bottle of olive oil, some herbs, and a loaf of French bread for a fun kitchen themed Valentine gift.   Toss in a bag of special blend coffe,some candy kisses, or special treats too.  It’s an nontraditional Valentine gift basket anyone would love to receive!

More Valentine’s Ideas:

XOXO Valentine’s Day Bottle Vase

Valentine’s Printables

Pom Pom Flowers

XOXO Valentine’s Day Bottle Vase

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XOXO Valentine's Day Bottle Vase

Valentine’s Day is not far off and honestly it’s never too early to start making something fun for that special someone. This DIY XOXO Valentine’s Day Bottle Vase is really a lot of fun to make and turned out so pretty! You can also check out this Valentine’s Day Dishtowel if you are looking for another great Valentine’s gift.

XOXO Valentine’s Day Bottle Vase

Supplies:

  • empty bottle
  • white or ivory yarn
  • red yarn
  • twine
  • twigs
  • hot glue and glue gun

If you have any empty sparkling juice bottles left from New Year’s Eve, this is a perfect craft for one!

XOXO Valentine's Day Bottle Vase

Instructions:

Use a small amount of hot glue to secure the end of the ivory yarn at the top of the bottle.  Carefully wrap the yarn around the bottle, keeping the rows tight together.

You may need to use a little bit of hot glue as you go to keep the yarn from slipping.  As the bottle tapers, the yarn is more likely to slip.

Continue wrapping and gluing the yarn until you’ve covered about 1/3 of the bottle.  Cut the ivory yarn and secure it with glue on what will be the back side of the vase.

Use the hot glue to secure the end of the red yarn and repeat the same process as above to cover the next 1/3 of the bottle with the red yarn.  Cut the yarn and secure on the back side of the vase.

Repeat the above steps to cover the rest of the bottle with ivory yarn.  This time, do not cut and glue the yarn at the bottom of the vase.  Instead, wrap the ivory yarn back up the bottle, adding more thickness to the ivory and a crisscross pattern over the red yarn.  Continue wrapping over the top 1/3 of the bottle.  Cut the yarn and secure it on the back, top of the bottle.

xoxo Valentine's Day Bottle Vase how to

Next cut 6 strands of twine.  Divide into 3 sets of 2 and braid together.  Cut into two lengths.  Use hot glue to shape and secure them into an “O”.

Cut twigs into small pieces.  Bundle the twigs in sets of three and glue them together to form an “X”.  You’ll need to make two of them.  Wrap a short piece of twine around the cross point of the twigs.

To finish your vase, glue the “X’s” and “O’s” to the yarn as shown.

xoxo Valentine's Day Bottle Vase how to

Fill your vase with real flowers, artificial flowers, or like I did with yarn pom pom flowers which are easy to make!

xoxo Valentine's Day Bottle Vase

More Valentine’s Ideas:

DIY Valentine’s Day Dishtowel

Valentine’s Printables

Pom Pom Flowers (as seen in the vase above)

How to make a DIY American Girl Doll Bed from an old End Table!

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DIY American Girl Doll Bed

I posted last month about a little project I had going… How to make a DIY American Girl Doll Bed from an old End Table! Most of you guessed what I was up to and I wanted to show you the finished product!

First you will need an old end table. The fancier and more gaudy the better! You want some FLAIR! I looked on Craigslist mostly and even drove to a few used furniture stores, but I ended up getting mine from a reader!

Second, sand it up a bit lightly with fine sandpaper. Wipe it down really good when you are done. Make sure to have the kids help!

Next I went to my Home Depot and looked to see what they had as far as discounted paint that was returned or messed up. I found some cream for only $4.

I gave my table a few coats over the next few nights.

Taking some brown acrylic paint that I watered down, I filled in the creases of the bed and wiped them off. Giving it an antique look.

Using some thin plywood board we had, I cut out a “headboard” and added some decorative trim to the top. I painted this and antiqued it, and nailed it to the back.

I added ball feet to the top of the table, this will now be the bottom of the bed. I had a lot of choices with the ball feet at my home improvement store. There were some very expensive and inexpensive ball feet to pick from, and I went with about $4 each, this was my biggest expense at $16.

I added “slats” which were the big paint stirs (free) from my Lowe’s over the open space, so that the little mattress I made would not fall in. The nails went through to the other side and would have prevented the drawer from going and to I had to hammer the ends over.

The ends of the legs were bare and I wanted them fancier, so I found some finials in the same section as the ball feet, and spent about $2 each on them. I think this made a fancier touch!

I changed out the knob handle to something a little fancier and prettier, there are so many choices! This drawer, put in upside down from the way it was as an end table works perfectly as a storage drawer for the doll’s clothing!

Total cost of this project, about $40!

DIY american girl doll bed 2 end table

Super Bowl Party – Table Ideas!

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Follow Me on Pinterest We are having friends over for the Super Bowl. I like to cook and talk, so the fact that there is a game to watch is just a side note for me 🙂 But as I was cleaning the kitchen and getting the table ready, I realized a few things…

First, I am a total nerd and love to make tables pretty for parties no matter how many people are there. I do it on Sunday for dinner just because.

Second, it DOES NOT have to cost you anything!

I store all my nice plates and dishes on top of the cupboards, and even on my fireplace mantle. I grabbed greenery from the TV stand for the table and a magazine basket for chips. Plus, most of everything that I have was from Walmart anyway. In fact, the entire table at one point or another came from Walmart each piece under $10 or way less. I think that the PRESENTATION makes the mood and even can make it TASTE better! Not that my food isn’t good 🙂

This is what we are having:

Bloomin Bread

Cream Cheese w/ Jalapeno Jelly and Crackers

BBQ ( brisket, sausage and pulled pork, form my VERY favorite BBQ place, go HERE to visit!)

Pop Chips 

Homemade Pretzels 

Layered Salad 

Dessert/Better than sex cake and cupcakes

A few suggestions would be that I always put the drinks in the back, we also have a fridge on the deck with soda but the juice and other stuff I don’t want the little kids helping themselves and making a mess. I purposely make it where they have to ask for help.

Also, I love crock pots, heating plates and my chaffing dishes. This makes it so that I don’t have to be in the kitchen all day and can make everything ahead of time and leave it out so everyone can come and go as they please.

This is a VERY small get together, if it was a normal Davis or Ivanovsky party I would have the island, 2 tables and more set up. But I still like to make things special even if it is just my family!

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Homemade Animal Cookies or Crackers – Taste more like cookies to me!

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Every now and then, I make the kids Homemade Animal Cookies. They are supposed to be crackers, but I use sugar cookie dough and so they are REALLY INSANELY GOOD!

You can get crazy and ice them, then they look like these bad boys. But then you are  adding more calories and since I plan on eating at least 100 of these, I am going to skip the frosting.

Now, the cost about evens out if you are buying or making your own. The problem is the time factor. I double the recipe and get about 200 of them out of it depending on how much dough we eat making them. 🙂 But have to be in the kitchen for a while. The bonus is that they are soooo much better and I get to spend time with the kids. This is a worth while project for me.

I use the Wilton Mini Noahs Ark cookie cutters they are the perfect size. Plus, you can get about 30 on a cookie sheet. After they are done baking and cooled. I store them in a Lock & Lock container with a piece of bread, that will keep them soft. I give them a few every for lunch every day and they eat them after school for snack.

Sour Cream Sugar Cookies for Animal Cookies!

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups white sugar
  • 1 cup butter
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 5 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
  • 2 tablespoons evaporated milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 4 cups confectioners’ sugar

 Directions

  1. Cream together 1 1/2 cups white sugar, butter or margarine, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and eggs. Add sour cream.
  2. Mix together 5 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, baking powder and baking soda. Gradually add to the egg-sugar mixture.
  3. Cover and chill dough for 1 hour.
  4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F
  5. Roll out on lightly floured surface to 1/4 inch thick. Cut out cookies. Bake on lightly greased cookie sheet for 10 – 12 minutes.
  6. To Make Frosting: In small bowl, with mixer at medium speed, beat together the softened cream cheese and evaporated milk until smooth. Add 1 teaspoon vanilla, 1/8 teaspoon salt and confectioners’ sugar. Beat until well blended. Color as desired and frost cooled cookies.

More Cookie Recipes:

Ultimate Sugar Cookie Recipe

Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Simple Meltaway Cookie Recipe for Kids  

$6 Frugal DIY Valentines Day Centerpiece from Dollar Tree

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valentines centerpiece Dollar store

Every year on Valentines Day my husband makes a BIG dinner for the family and plans the entire night of fun things to do.

This tradition stated for us about 5 years ago when I had a new infant and in the midst of a postpartum cry fest, declared that I wasn’t going out to eat with him for Valentines Day. I didn’t want to wait in line, I didn’t want to get dressed up and I didn’t want to leave the baby and wasn’t going to nurse a newborn in the restaurant.

My husband being the experienced father of many children and having been there a few times when I  have had a melt down, declared Valentines Day his day to plan the dinner at home. Fine. By. Me. It has been that way since and is a family affair!

Paul always decorated the kitchen and table. It is really a lot of fun and I think my kids favorite holiday ( aside from Christmas! ).

My daughter and I were playing around with some things from Dollar Tree last night and were making him some centerpieces and one for her to take to her teacher for Valentines Day. For $6 this is what we came up with.

At Dollar Tree Buy:

Pour all the candy conversation hearts into the goblet. Take the chain off the ball, and hot glue the foil candy to the ball. Leave a space open on the bottom to set on top of the goblet. Then tie the ribbon around the glass!

Christmas Front Door – $23 at Dollar Tree

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 – Pin me!

You might remember my Halloween Front Door that I did for $18. It was a lot of fun and really cheap. After Halloween I took the decorations down and left the green mesh for November, I could have taken it down but I got too busy! This past weekend I ran into Dollar Tree to see what I could find to decorate the door again for Christmas.

The door above cost $23 to decorate for Christmas from Dollar tree, minus the green mesh which I have had.

This is what my door looked like most of November. I am sure my neighbors love me!

Then I added 1 large bow to the middle top ($1) with 4 pics around it ($4), total for the top $5. I added 8 smaller bows ($1 each) to each of the “poofs” on the side. I could have left it like this, but I thought it was a little plain. Plus the kids were freaking out about the decapitated Santa’s so that sealed the deal. I added 8 Santa ornaments ($1 each) for a total of $16 for the sides of the door.

I have 4 posts in front of the house and wanted to do something to them. I bought a roll of mesh from Hobby Lobby for $10 and it did all 4 posts. I used one for the big rolls of ribbon they sell for $5 ($9.99 – 50% off) and was able to get 8 bows out of it for the top and middle of the pole. I used 2 gold bells from Dollar Tree on each post, $8 total.

To do the 4 posts in the front cost $23. Plus the door was $23, total spent was $46 on the front porch.

Don’t forget to check your Dollar stores before you go to Hobby Lobby and other craft stores like Michaels. You should be able to save quite a bit of money that way!Follow Me on Pinterest

How to make your own shampoo!

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My Mom has got beautiful long hair. Last fall she started using homemade shampoo. I was skeptical at first, but watching her for 7 months, her hair never looks greasy, it is always really shiny and healthy looking. I wanted to let her explain the method that she uses.

* She does live in China, so they pay quite a bit more than we do for shampoo. But when she is in the states she still washes her hair this way!

This is the cost:
Vinegar 64 oz $1.82
Baking Soda 2 lbs $1.24
Gallon Water $.88

Cost per shampoo: $.15 a shampoo!

how to make your own shampoo

Homemade Shampoo:

Shampoo:
1/4 cup baking soda
1 quart water

Rinse: 
2 T vinegar
1 cup water

Directions:
Dissolve baking soda into water, you can double or triple batch. Terry makes hers in a large jug to keep in the shower. She uses a smaller bottle to keep just enough in for a few washings so she doesn’t have to pick up the big container. Run the mix over your hair and work into the scalp. It will NOT suds up, you are just cleaning the scalp. When you are done you can let it sit in your hair as you finish showering. Rinse.

The vinegar solution is a rinse to soften your hair and add shine. As your hair dries the vinegar smell will go away, you can add scents to this if you want. Just before you get out of the shower, rinse your hair with about a cup of the vinegar solution.

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A Batman Birthday Party for kids and my Batman Party Favors!

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batman party favors kids party

In the past we’ve had a Batman themed birthday party for my 5 year old, complete with Batman party favors and Batman flashlights! I will admit it was almost 3 months PAST his actual birthday… We just never had a weekend that would work. Funny thing is he is off from school on Monday’s and so are all his buddy’s. It just took me 3 months to realize Monday morning was the PERFECT time for a party!

kids party favor snack ideas

Since we were having the party close to lunch, but not serving lunch, I wanted to give the kids a bigger snack, and not too much sugar. Well, that was the plan anyway!

I found these really cute little baskets 2/$1 at Dollar tree and thought they would be a great take home gift and also hold the snacks for the kids. I filled each basket with a drink box, snack bag of Oreos, Cheetos, ring pop, Cutie, and my son’s favorite little beef jerky stick! 🙂

kids batman party favors, batman flashlight

My son is obsessed with Batman. We tell Batman stories in the dark at night and my sister suggested having the kids make Batman flashlight that sent out the Bat signal… sounded like an awesome idea, but I could not figure out a way to pull it off in the time I had.

Instead at the $.99 Cent Store, I found black and yellow flashlights that would perfectly for me to make them ahead of time. I looked and looked for the Batman logo in stickers EVERYWHERE and could not find any. The night before I was freaking out a little and decided to just print off the logo from the computer onto sticky back name tags that I had already in my office.

Then, yes, I cut each one of them out and stuck them on the face of the flashlight. I did have to fill in a few spots with a sharpie marker.

kids batman party favors and treats

Attached to the flashlights I made a thank you note just in a word program on the computer and printed them off. I found Batman pop rocks at Dollar Tree 3 for $1, punched holes in the top and tied the thank you note, the pop rocks and a yellow glow stick to the neck of the flashlight with ribbon. Surprisingly good deals for the holidays from the latest big ad.

I think they turned out cute! More importantly, my son was BEYOND thrilled!

The party was awesome, his friends LOVED their Batman party favors and I loved how easy, and cheap it all was!

Mini Diaper Cakes (Baby Shower Gift)

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Mini Diaper Cake Main

Looking for a creative, fun, and inexpensive Baby Shower Gift? Diaper Cakes are super easy and quick to make and it’s something new that the mom-to-be will think is great! The way we put these together ALL of the items are still usable as opposed to different adhesives that would render items unusable.

Mini Diaper Cakes

You can find all the supplies you need at your local big box store like Walmart:

  • Luvs Diapers (or other brand)
  • Parent’s Choice Bottles
  • Rubberbands
  • 5/8 or 7/8 Wide Solid/Print Ribbon
  • Johnson & Johnson Baby Sampler Kit
  • Double-sided Tape or Glue Dots
  • Toddler Spoons/Forks *Optional
  • Baby Washcloths *Optional

Mini Diaper Cakes1For your Mini Diaper Cake (for just one layer) you only need six Size 5 Diapers, seven rubberbands, and one bottle.

Mini Diaper Cakes2

To roll the diapers (for any layer/level) you will start from the open ending and roll towards the bottom of the diaper. Then wrap a rubberband around the middle (wrapping once will make it more puffy).

Mini Diaper Cakes3

Above you can see the supplies and how you will assemble the diapers around the bottle. Take the last rubberband and slip the wrapped diapers next to the bottle.

Mini Diaper Cake

If you want a two layer Mini Diaper Cake, you will take the bottle out of the middle and just fill in with diapers. As you see above it took 14 diapers to fill in. So with two layers you’ll need just 20 size 5 diapers.

After you stack your layers or leave it at just one layer you can then add your extras. Measure your 5/8-7/8 Ribbon before attaching it, then use the double-sided tape to firmly place the ribbon around your layers. I added buttons to go with a “Cute As A Button” type gift but you can add all kinds of bling.

Mini Diaper Cakes5

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