Gone already! This will only last a few hours at most but this is a great opportunity to get this great book.  I got one last time and they are full of great ideas and pictures to use in decorating even if you don’t have remodeling plans.  Just click on request literature to get yours!

Easy Christmas Decorations and Ideas

I love candles, if you couldn’t tell from my last Walgreens trip:)  I am always looking for ways to display them and at Christmas time I think they look especially pretty.

For this display, I just took any clear glass vases, bowls, candle holders and glasses that I had and gathered candles that match my Christmas decorations.  I tied bows on a few to spice them up and then bent some greenery around the whole thing.  The two bowls are filled with these sparkly brown beads that I got at Hallmark for FREE with my $5.00 off coupons.  I had some champagne flutes in there as well but I couldn’t find the right candles to put in them so I took them out. 

This is another little display I put together.  I just tied some ribbon on some candle sticks I already had and put some smaller pillar candles on them.  In the middle, I just put some extra ball ornaments that I had in a large glass cylinder and tied some glittery wire ribbon around it.

These I made years ago and love how they cast such pretty shadows on the wall around them!  I took one strand of lights and carefully pushed them into one smaller wicker ball, then the larger and finally the smaller so they are all connected and use one strand of lights for the whole thing.  I can then just plug them in wherever I want to use them. 

A quick, easy and frugal way to scent your home with holiday fragrances?  I cut up an apple that my daughter had only eaten part of and put it in a little pot on my stove.  I added apple juice, a few cinnamon sticks, cloves and nutmeg then put some orange peel in there as well.  I keep it on my stove at low and add water when it evaporates down.  I love the smell it spreads through the house.

Do you have any quick and easy Christmas ideas?  Post them in the comments or email me with pictures and I will add it to this post!

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Halloween Savings Tips

Halloween Savings Tips from Lisa Reynolds, RedPlum’s Mom Saver-in-Chief

Costumes: Here are some do-it-yourself costumes that can be created in 30 minutes or less and they’re almost free to make.

~ A Bunch of Grapes: With just a bag of purple balloons, a bunch of safety pins and a purple sweatshirt your kid is on their way to grape greatness.

~ The time consuming part of this costume will be blowing up all the balloons you will need to cover the front and back of your little guy’s shirt.

~ Carefully pin the tied-off portion of each balloon to the sweatshirt. To take it a few steps further, hunt for purple pants or leggings in your kid’s closet and think about dabbing on a little purple face paint.

~ Bubblegum on a Shoe in 15 Minutes: This is able to be accomplished in 15 minutes with $0-$20.

~ The project starts with finding a headband and a flip-flop you don’t mind sacrificing.

~ The shoe gets glued sole-side-down on the headband, which gets painted pink.

~ Add an all-pink outfit and an optional store-bought pink wig or a can of temporary pink hair spray and you’re through—one gigantic piece of pink gum stuck to a shoe.

~ Dora the Explorer in 5 Minutes: Dora’s one omnipresent explorer, who even kids without regular TV access seem to somehow know and love. And she’s perhaps TV’s easiest star to imitate. This costume will require the purchase of a black wig, but any one will do. When you get it home you’ll quickly cut blunt bangs at the front of the wig and trim the rest into a bob. The rest of the costume consists of red shorts, green socks a pink shirt and a purple backpack. A toy monkey sidekick is optional!

Candy: Make sure to check out your favorite online coupon sites, like redplum.com, to find coupons for your Halloween candy.

Invitations: Put some thought and creativity in your invitation to spark your guests’ creative side and build anticipation about your party. Make costumes a must, and promise prizes for the best ones. Take a trip to the local dollar store (a great source of Halloween decorations) and buy some witches’ fingers or severed hands. Print up your invitation in a spooky font, punch a hole in the paper and use string to tie it onto the finger, or a finger on the hand.

Lighting: Replace many of your regular bulbs with black ones and line your walkway with miniature jack-o-lanterns.

Decorations:

~ Cover helium filled balloons with pieces of white cloth for the illusion of floating ghosts Draw eyes with black marker.

~ Create the look and feel of an abandoned old house. Cover the sofas, chairs, dining room table and all other large furniture items with old white sheets. This will give your party space an abandoned look.

~ Fog: Place dry ice in a container of warm water. Simply set on floor next to the wall and be sure to keep small children away from ice.

~ Ask each of your Halloween party guests to bring a carved pumpkin to the party. Set up a special table with a Halloween tablecloth to display all of the Jack O’ Lanterns for all to see. This will also enhance your party décor. Give a prize for the best one.

~ Use clear plastic food handlers gloves to make "ice hands." Adding these to your punch bowl will keep it chilled for a long time and look creepy. Use punch instead of water and as the ice melts, it won’t water down the punch bowl.

All of these items can be packed away and re-used for next year, or given to a friend for their Halloween party.

Thanks RedPlum!

Guest Post- Make Your Own Custom Picture Frames!

I love Manuela’s blog The Pleasures of Homemaking so I asked her to share a guest post with us all sometime.  She sent over an amazing post detailing how to make some gorgeous custom picture frames.  Thank you so much Manuela!

Thank you , Kerri, for letting me guest post today! I thought I’d share a few ideas for making your own inexpensive art. Which is something I do all the time! One of my favorite ways is to combine scrapbook paper, wallpaper, gift wrap or even napkins with inexpensive frames from the Dollar Store or thrift store.

I needed to find something to put in the narrow space above my daughters closet. So I found some frames at the thrift store that were similar in shape and style and spray painted the frames Pistachio by Valspar. Painting the frames the same color unifies them and distracts from the fact that they aren’t all alike. I found three pieces of scrapbook paper that I thought would be fun in a kids room and cut them to fit.

Scrapbook paper is always on sale somewhere and it comes in everything from formal damask to these pop arty prints.

     You can even go further and add other embellishments to them!

  This is checkered scrapbook paper and I found a fleur de lis on line that I printed, cut out and glued on top of the paper.

These pretty toile pictures used to be this…!

I painted the frames white and used some toile wallpaper. They almost look like etchings! Toile is great because it’s made up of little scenes which are really easy to frame. You can purchase toile wallpaper and giftwrap on ebay if you can’t find it in a local store.

There are so many pretty papers out there that I hope you give this a try!

Decorating on a Budget-My Very Thrifty Curtains!

I love to decorate my house, but I have so little time to do it these days!  My oldest daughter is getting ready to start Kindergarten and her room was a little bare.  We had gotten her a new comforter set a while back but she still had some toddler toys she never really used and very few colorful decorations.  I decided to move the toy kitchen to our youngest’s closet, where it fits perfectly, and cleaned out a few other things.  I have never put curtains on her windows though because, as you can see, they are a weird shape and location and I could never figure out what to do.  Finally, I had an idea!  I would just put the curtains on the outside.  They can be tied back or let out to make it a special little place for her to curl up and read books or color or just be away from her little sister.  Someplace that was just hers! 

When I started looking around at fabric, premade curtains, rods and tie backs, I realized this could be expensive!  To have nice lined curtains that are wide enough and long enough and a rod that was long enough was going to cost me at least $100!  I just knew I could come up with a better solution and I did!

Here is what I did!  Instead of one long rod, I bought 2 shorter rods that only cost $3.00 a piece!  Why pay so much for something you can’t even see?  Then I went on a hunt for fabric and found a great solution, twin flat bed sheets!  I bought 2 brown ones at WalMart for $3.00 a piece and ending up buying 2 twin sheet sets at Kohls for $8.99 each because the pink was so hard to find.  We mounted the rods so they butt up against each other in the middle.  I prewashed and ironed the sheets and then sewed the two flat sheets together with the right sides out and the brown one a little higher to make a little ribbon of brown at the top.  I made a little rod pocket where the top border of the brown sheet ended and the top border of the pink sheet ended since the brown one was up higher.  The pink sheet even had a cute little white ribbon on it at the bottom of the top border.  Just a quick run around the edges with the sewing machine and I was done!   I mounted them on the rods and then cut strips from an old pillowcase that had matching colors to make the tie backs.  I just cut matching strips, folded them in half inside out and sewed around the edges, turned them right side out and ironed them flat!

I even have the 2 fitted sheets and pillowcases from the pink sheet sets to use for her bed and the trundle underneath it!

I ended up spending only $30 to do it all myself and it took very little time!