Category: crafts

Cute & Simple DIY Halloween Costumes for moms

Post author By Shannon
Post date October 10, 2018

Can you believe it is almost Halloween? I always love dressing up for Halloween with my daughter and with the baby also coming so soon I am trying to plan ahead this year. We love to get creative and make our own costumes, so I wanted to share a couple of cute DIY options.

My best tips for DIY Costumes

My two biggest tips when it comes to DIY costumes is first to check what you have already, as often times you may have some items that will work already in your closet and in your craft supplies. And the second tip is that if you make the main part of costume fairly simple and really focus on fun accessories, it cuts the time and cost down a ton!

Check out 7 cute and simple DIY halloween costumes below.

DIY Mommy & Me Unicorn Costume

My daughter is obsessed with unicorns so I knew I had to make our own unicorn costumes. Making the tutu myself took the longest out of the entire process and even that was very simple to do. The main requirement was lots of glitter and we found cute horn headbands to match which brought it all together. My daughter LOVED wearing this and I thought both looks turned out so pretty! Find the step by step directions to make them here.

DIY Snow White Costume

I am obsessed with Disney princesses and when I was looking through my closet this yellow midi skirt jumped out at me and I knew it’d be perfect for a Snow White costume. Since I already had the skirt, I went to the thrift store to find the rest of the items I needed and was able to create this costume for under $20! Thrift stores are a secret weapon for DIY halloween costumes and really make it easy to create something cute AND affordable. Head here to find directions to make this costume yourself!

DIY Mommy & Me Strawberry and Banana Costume

Another cute mommy and me idea! These strawberry and banana costumes were so easy to make (took under 30 minutes) and were so comfortable, which was a win win for us. These are a great option if you need something last minute and you can get creative and do any kind of fruit! Find the step by step directions to make them here.

DIY Minnie Mouse Costume

My daughter loves Minnie Mouse so this costume was a no brainer for me. This is by far the easiest DIY costume I’ve done as I only needed to get the tutu, ears and some felt to complete it. This took me less than 10 minutes to put together and really is the perfect option for a last minute costume if you’re in a rush. Find the step by step directions to make this costume here.

Easy DIY Costume Inspirations

I am always looking for inspiration so here are a few more ideas I’ve seen that are on my list to try!

DIY Bubblegum Costume

If you don’t know about Studio DIY you need to go check it out ASAP. The site has so many DIY ideas and tutorials and everything is SO CUTE. I saw this DIY Bubblegum Costume and thought it was amazing so I had to share. Check out all of the details and a full tutorial here.

DIY Tinkerbell Costume

I love following along with Courtney from Color Me Courtney and her DIY Tinkerbell Costume turned out amazing! I adore how she added the pom poms to her heels – it’s such an easy detail that really adds so much to the look. Head here to see directions to make this yourself.

DIY Ice Cream Cone Costume

I saw this DIY Ice Cream Cone Costume on Treasures and Travels and thought it was just adorable. I love the sprinkles and this would be so fun to make in a mini version if you have a daughter too! Find the step by step directions to make it here.

Let me know if you make any of these costumes as I would love to see! Hope you have a fun Halloween!

crafts crafty-ish Uncategorized

two easy DIY’s!

I’ve taken a bit of an unexpected blogging break… It’s been hectic here with running my business and taking care of my daughter and all the times I’ve tried to sit down and blog, I just get pulled into something else as my husband and I are still working on getting our home decorated as well. And to be honest, if I’m not working, I want to spend every moment with Layla. She is at such a fun age where she is doing new things every day and I just love being with her. But I am going to come back eventually, I have no idea when but hopefully sooner rather than later and I want to thank those of you who have stuck around and are still reading! You guys are the best!

Instagram is the easiest way for me to do any kind of social media these days so would love to have you guys follow me over there (and please do let me know your username as well! I would like to follow my readers/followers back but a lot of your accounts are private so don’t want to intrude.)

I put together two fairly easy DIY’s that I wanted to share. Even a busy mom like myself has time for these! The first is a mongram tray. I’ve been wanting one for awhile but I haven’t been able to find any that are reasonably priced and the ones that I did find were not quite my taste. I was shopping at Target and (of course as you do at Target, you see random things and think “I need that!) which is how I came across these stickers. I knew I had to do something with them so I brought them home and thought about what I could use them for and voila! A monogram tray popped in my head.

The sticker brand is called “Thickers” and they are a nice quality sticker that sticks up a little bit but not too bad that you can’t put stuff on top of it. There are a ton of fonts and colors but I’ve been on a gold kick lately so of course had to get the gold ones. The tray I got off Amazon, it is this exact tray

and it also comes in a variety of sizes and colors so you could really customize your tray to exactly how you like it! It looks great on our table and so easy to add a few items to decorate with. I don’t use it to carry food so not sure how it will hold up if you put a cup on it and water gets on the stickers but for decor, it is perfect and for being about $25 total to make the project, it’s well worth it!

Sorry for the grainy photo here, I literally took this photo at 2am. I had bought these polka dot vinyl decals about a month ago (mine are the 4″ ones) and knew it was going to take some time to put them up so I kept on putting them off until one night after I put Layla to bed, I was determined to just tackle it all in one night! The decals themselves are very easy to put on. It’s the measuring of the wall, the distance between your dots and trying to get them spaced just right is the hard part. I absolutely love how it turned out though and my office is that much more fun with this wall!

My biggest tip is to cut all the circles individually (it comes in a whole tube like wrapping paper, just cut squares so you can see the circles on the backing). It’s a pain in the ass but you will thank me later when your line of dots are not on all crooked.

My steps:
1. Measure your wall and determine how many circles you can fit on the width (the entire width so like you’d be laying circle next to circle) split that in half so you now know how many circles you will be using and how many spaces in between. From there it is much easier to determine spacing between the circles. (You will have to adjust numbers depending if you want smaller spacing but this worked out for my larger spacing)
2. Once you have the approximate measurements, use painters tape to tape up your circles (you still have not removed it from the backing yet) and mark where you want all your circles. Stand back and make sure the lines are not crooked or spacing is off. After you are happy with that, now you know where exactly to put the circles. Start peeling off the backing and go for it!

I will say that I did have a few mistakes but the circles were very easy to peel off and put back on. They are not reusable but they are removable. So if you make a mistake it will be easy to peel off and put back on right away but if you leave it for a few days, you probably won’t be able to reuse it after that.

beauty crafts crafty-ish DIY Uncategorized

DIY Magnetic Makeup Palette

Post author By tiffany
Post date July 13, 2012
18 Comments on DIY Magnetic Makeup Palette

I have to tell you how excited I am about this DIY Magnetic Makeup Palette only because it is something that I desperately needed. I’m so happy that I can make an endless supply of them! I buy a lot of palettes but it always ends up that I like some colors better than others which is fine, except when I travel, I have to take the entire palette with me just so I can use those 2-3 colors. My makeup bag ends up bulging with 3-4 different palettes and I know that I don’t need to bring all of them but I really like those specific colors. I did end up buying this large magnetic palette and depotted quite a few of my shadows but at $25 for each palette, they certainly aren’t cheap and I’d almost like to spend that money on more make up, know what I mean?

You can find inexpensive palettes easily by shopping at stores that sell makeup geared towards tweens and teenagers. Forever 21 has this palette for under $9 that would work great. I got mine in store at Forever 21 for around $5 and got lucky since these have a mirror built into them.

Here’s my finished product! And of course I glittered it too. 🙂

You want to know what my secret ingredient is? Magnetic Paint! I didn’t even know they made such a thing I just googled it, hoping something like that existed and indeed there was! Just a tip, if your local craft store is small it’s going to be impossible to find it as I found most places here didn’t carry it (even my local Jo-Ann’s). I just ended up ordering it on Amazon.

Even though I wasn’t sure it was going to work, I documented the process. So thank goodness it did work!

First your tools:

Makeup Palette to use as the holder
Your depotted eyeshadows, blush, etc…
magnet sheet with adhesive backing
Magnetic Paint
Foam Brush
Mod Podge/Glitter mixture (optional) – see my Glitter Everything Tutorial for instructions on how to glitter anything without getting glitter everywhere!

1ST STEP: REMOVING THE CURRENT MAKEUP PANS

With your palettes, take out the entire part that is holding the current pans. In most of the palettes, you can usually find where it’s glued together and with a little strength, it’s easy to pull off or use a tool to get it underneath and pop it off.
Clean the glue residue off the inside of the bottom of the palette.

2ND STEP: PAINTING AND ADDING MAGNETS

Paint the inside with the magnetic paint (it took me about 4-5 coats before I was happy with the magnetic-ness. I tested my magnets to make sure it stuck. You can paint coats every 2-3 hours but once it’s done, let the paint dry overnight.
Take your palette and depot the pans. This palette was easy as it popped right off. It was just a bit of glue on cardboard but some are harder to depot. (I’m not going to get into depotting as that it’s own animal but google “depot eyeshadow” and you’ll find tons of tutorials)
Cut the magnet sheet to the size as needed. Stick the adhesive side to the bottom of the pans.

3RD STEP: ADD YOUR CUSTOM COLORS AND GLITTER!

Fill your pans to see how it looks/fits and if the magnets are sticking well.
You could stop here if you didn’t care what the outside of your palette looks like.
I have so much glitter left over from my previous glitter projects (here and here) so I wanted to use it and make my palettes even prettier. (ha! I just love any excuse to glitter!)
I’ve gotten a lot of questions about the mix of glitter to mod podge. You want to make sure that all your specks of glitter are covered in mod podge. This is how you ensure the minimal fall out. 1 parts glue to 2 parts glitter is what I aim for.
If you have your pans still in the palette, take them out before doing any painting.
Coat in glitter and let dry between coats. Paint until every single area is covered in glitter!
Instead of glittering it, you could also just paint the case and it would look just as cute.

And there you go! A glittery, magnetic case that you can change out the pans to suit your different looks!

Here it is with a few other items that I keep in my hangbag so you can see the size. It fits in perfectly don’t you think? 🙂

*If you are wondering about my makeup palette that I depotted, it is this Hello Kitty for Sephora palette. I loved the colors but hated how big and clunky the case was so I rarely took it out to use it. Now that I’ve depotted all the makeup, I’ve got a fun case to hold other stuff and am actually using the palette now.

If you liked this post, check out my other glitter DIY posts!

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Glitter… Everything!

Ever since I made my glitter clutch, I’ve been looking around at everything that we have around the house that I can glitter. I told you I had a lot of glitter projects to share, I finally gathered them together to photograph!

First up are these little tea light holders that were totally boring on their own…

I put together a mixture of Mod Podge and glitter (same as the glitter clutch) but this time I dumped the mixture in the candleholder, swirled it around until it covered every area and then let it dry upside down for a day. Now, they are adorable and I keep one in the bathroom to hold my bobby pins which has made my life so much easier when doing my hair! Obviously the other thing I glittered was my iPhone case. I had a freebie case that I wasn’t using from when Apple was giving out free cases (because of the antenna issue). A plain black case instantly turned into something very girly and glam that I use all the time now! (I just used the mixture and dipped a foam brush into it and painted the mixture right onto the case. It needed about 3 coats.) (get the set of Mod Podge and brushes here)

*A note on the tea light holders, you can still use tea lights in them even with the glitter, just get the battery operated ones. They look just as cute and they even flicker a little! I have ones that I always keep in my candle holders.

I buy a ton of candles and always try to keep the jars once they are done being candles because they are great storage holders (I use a few to hold my makeup brushes). So instead of just cleaning it out and leaving it as is, I glittered it! I used a different glitter than the Martha Stewart for this one and it was a very fine, almost powdery glitter which I didn’t like as much. It took many more coats to get it to be that glittery. The Martha Stewart glitter is the perfect consistency and opaque which I think looks better. To clean out almost empty candle jars, boil a pot of water with about an inch or two of water (depending on how big your candle jar is and how much wax is left) and put the candle in the pot. It will melt the remaining wax in the jar and then you can dump the wax straight into the garbage and then wash the container out. Use a fork to scoop out the wick holders.

I filled it with my lipglosses and lip liners. Now my bathroom has a lot more glittery additions! And lastly, a jam jar converted into a gold pencil holder that makes my desk much more fun!

There are so many things you can do with Mod Podge and glitter. Just look around your house, I’m sure you’ll find as much stuff as I did!

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DIY Glitter Clutch

Do you remember this clutch from this lookbook?

Well, now it looks like this!

I made it gold and glittery! I LOVE it!!

Zara Sequin Wallet

Kate Spade Sparkler Missy Clutch

BCBGeneration – Devan Clutch

Anya Hindmarch Valorie Glitter Clutch

You see I’ve been in love with the gold sequin Zara clutch that I’ve seen on a ton of bloggers (seen here on my sister) and all over Pinterest. But I missed out on getting it online and don’t have a Zara nearby so I was searching for other cute sparkly clutches when I thought, “why don’t I just make one?” I wasn’t super attached to the yellow clutch so thought it would be the perfect canvas to make it glittery. Obviously the Zara one is covered in sequins but I did glitter because it was easier but just as pretty. Pictures don’t do this baby justice, it looks amazing in person!

What you need:

Clutch
Mod Podge
Very Fine Glitter – I used Martha Stewart Glitter (and after this project, I’m seriously considering buying this set of all of the colors! I want to glitter everything now!)
*You could try chunky glitter if you want the look of the clutches above. I’m not sure how it will turn out but I do like the smoothness of mine.
Foam Brush
Bowl
Patience 🙂

I don’t have step by step pictures because I did this over two days and it was kind of a trial run for me anyway, but you don’t need the pictures because it’s super easy.

Mix the glitter and Mod Podge into a bowl (I lined my bowl with foil so that it wasn’t a sticky mess and clean up was easy.) I’d say 1 parts glue to two parts glitter is good. I just eyeballed it though until I thought you could see enough glitter through the glue mixture. You want more glitter because when it dries you want as much glitter stuck on as possible, otherwise you’ll have to do way more coats.
Start painting the clutch with the foam brush. Do only one side! When you paint it on, it will be all white and goopy, don’t worry, it dries clear and all you see is glitter.
Wait 20 minutes or longer until it’s dried and you see the glitter.
Wash your brush thoroughly between layers of painting because you don’t want your brush to get hardened and not be able to paint anymore.
Paint the next layer with the same mixture.
Repeat steps 3 – 5 until the entire surface is covered in glitter or until you are happy with how it looks!

(I wasn’t sure how much Mod Podge and glitter I needed so I just bought the big sizes of both, but ended up using about only 1/3 of both of them.)

Tada! That’s it. Mine took about 4 coats on each side. My clutch has a zipper on the back and I just painted over the entire thing so you can’t open the zipper anymore but it didn’t matter that much to me. I never used that back pocket anyway.

The best part about doing it this way is that there is no glitter fall out! I have been leaving this clutch all over the place, on our dining room table, on the couch, on my bed and no glitter has fallen off. Hubs loves it because usually when I do glitter projects, we find glitter EVERYWHERE. haha! And it’s great because it doesn’t come off on your hands. Now I have the perfect glitter clutch for the holidays!

Have fun and let me know if you try it too! I’d love to see how yours turn out 🙂 I actually ended up glittering a few other things so will share them soon!

crafts crafty-ish jewelry Uncategorized

Friendship Bracelets Tutorial

Post author By tiffany
Post date October 10, 2011
23 Comments on Friendship Bracelets Tutorial

The friendship bracelets trend is back in full force and I jumped on the bandwagon this summer, making quite a few. I noticed quite a few other bloggers making them too and it’s fun just to see how everyone makes them just a little bit differently and the color combinations you put together. I love the look of the friendship bracelets but one thing that I didn’t like was that I felt like after I tied it on, I was kind of committed to wearing them for at least a week before I got sick of it and tried to un-knot it or cut it off. I came up with a super easy way to making them kind of like bangles so that you can actually slip them on and off. I also came up with a really easy way to use your embroidery floss to spruce up old bangles which you’ll find the tutorial at the bottom of this post.

Pretty self explanatory but a few of the essentials to make this project.

Scissors
Glue (to be used as the very last step)
Thin chain – which I used on my middle bracelet above
Bangles (I used ones I already had or get this stack of 20 bangles for $5) – for the last tutorial
Embroidery Floss
Thicker chain to attach to the bracelets

Tutorial 1:
Basically once you are done making your bracelet, take your ends and
knot them through your chain. I try to leave my ends very long so it’s
easy to slip through the chains. Double knot it to make sure it’s
secure. Cut the ends to a shorter length and with a craft glue, dab a
small amount onto the ends and just squish the threads together so that
the frayed ends are glued together.

You’ll notice for the middle one with the chain, I attached a clasp to it because I wanted to be able to open it and wrap it on my arm rather than slipping it on like you have to do with the chain. What I love about this is that the chain or clasp is always going to be heavier than your bracelet so the chain always stays on the bottom and the bracelet doesn’t flip.

Tutorial 2:

This one is super easy and fast! Just take a bangle and start wrapping the embroidery floss around. For the plain
one, I just wrapped it twice in one area and kept the spacing even
between the wraps. If you do it nice and tight, the thread doesn’t
move. You don’t even need glue for this one because when you start it,
keep the beginning trail of thread on the underside of the bangle and just wrap
around it which keeps everything in place. When you are done, just tuck the
end into the already wrapped sections (also on the underside). For the rhinestone bangle I
wrapped in between each of the rhinestones but I didn’t like it with just one time around so I wrapped the entire thing twice.

Almost all of the materials that I used in both bracelets were found at a craft store for pretty inexpensive. The only thing that I bought separately at a jewelry supply store was the toggle clasp for the pink/chain bracelet above. (And of course the bangles but they were just sitting in my jewelry box.) Overall though I think each bracelet probably cost less than a dollar to make!

Have fun and let me know if you make one! 🙂

Like this post? Also check out my “Make your own cocktail rings” post for an easy way to turn old earrings into rings!

crafts crafty-ish House my babies Uncategorized

Crafty-ish: The Modern Dog Bed

Post author By tiffany
Post date October 2, 2008
30 Comments on Crafty-ish: The Modern Dog Bed

I think that J and I are fortunate that we have the same taste in home decor. There is never any fighting over what kind of lamps or couch or wall decor. We pretty much agree on everything. We have pretty simple modern decor at our place but the one eyesore of the whole place was the dang dog bed. It is, of course a necessity, but no matter what kind of dog bed we bought, it just turned into a messy looking dog area. It bugged us. A lot. So we did something about it.

I’ve seen “modern” dog furniture online but everything was over $1000. I mean seriously? I love my dogs and everything but there is no way I would buy something that pricey for my dog who would probably chew the corners. J, being the genius designer he is, drafted up a brilliant plan for a dog bed using tables. When we were at Ikea picking out the tables, I noticed that they have really great looking fabric and so we ended up buying some and then we were in the dog section and found a dog bed that would fit perfectly within the space.

I’m always a bit wary of DIY projects because you know how sometimes you can have this fabulous idea in your head but when it comes out it is nowhere near as fabulous? Well, this project actually turned out just as fabulous. Maybe even better.

I present to you, our DIY modern dog bed…

It is basically two tables stuck together. Do not ask me about how it was assembled as I don’t go anywhere near power tools, actually any kind of tools. J handled that part. I however, took the ugly dog bed (which was covered in black and white spots) and covered it with the fabric. I then took one of their favorite blankets and sewed the fabric on top so that underneath is their favorite plushy furry fabric that they can snuggle under. I found a little pillow in our closet and sewed up a pillow case just for a laugh. I like that it makes it look like a human bed.

And here are our babies enjoying their new bed!

An added bonus of this is that we now have an extra table to put things on! Most of our furniture is that dark wood so it blends in well with everything.

So there you go! Who knew Ikea sold modern dog furniture right? 😉 All it took was some creativity and now the dog area actually matches the rest of our place.

I have to mention that painting on the table. We were in the Fremont neighborhood and stopped in the Orange Splot art gallery. We ended up loving these paintings by Ryan Henry Ward and J bought one for us. Later on we found out that he’s doing murals all over Seattle (for free) and we have been going around the city hunting for them. They are incredible pieces of art and it is so cool that he is brightening up the city with his artwork. Click here to read more.

p.s. I know it looks weird that there’s just that one picture of J above the dog bed, but the rest of the pictures on that wall are individual pictures as well so it looks good when you see the entire thing. J is not THAT vain that he would have a picture of just him hanging up. haha!