Cheap Halloween Decor

Y'all.  

#1. I usually don't take on a crafty project if it takes more than 10 minutes. That's why for months now, I have only one curtain panel made for my bedroom. If you get a tour of that room, you may never see both windows at once, since I may have to take that one panel from window to window for the pictures, lol.

Okaaay, just kidding...I'll finish those curtains somehow...

#2. A 'cheap' project usually ends up costing me $50 because somehow I can't find what I need and it all goes to pot. I get frustrated and just go out and somehow end up buying all the wrong things. Over and over. Good times.

So no one was more shocked than me when I put together this Halloween ghost and bats for my mantel and porch for FREE! To make both it took less than 10 minutes! And they didn't fall apart!

I know! I can't believe it either!

A 'cool' ghost for the porch. We do just a little creepy decor here and there, but prefer to keep it light. Ellie gets scared easily. 

The ghost ends up close to five feet tall and consists of four things: A tomato cage turned upside down (see pic below if you are garden-challenged like me, and don't know what a tomato cage is. I haven't known long), a dirty soccer ball from the yard placed on the top of the upside down cage, a sheet or tablecloth thrown over said cage and dirty soccer ball and the eyes were cut from black construction paper and taped onto the sheet.  Or, if your children have not put the tape back where it belongs and you can't find it like me, throw some sunglasses on him.

Here is my tomato cage who promises that next year he will help me grow a ton of tomatoes. He let me down big time this year, but has agreed to become a ghost for Halloween to make up for it.

Place the soccer ball on top. 

The paper bats taped onto the wall beside the ghost in the first picture were made using a template from Martha Stewart. I'd like to say that Martha and I are buds and we created that together, but I must give her full credit. Find the instructions and free template here. All you need is some black paper and you have bats!

Ok, so I do realize if you don't happen to have this stuff at your house, it's not going to be free. Ugh. BUT I'm hoping if you don't have a tomato cage and ball,  you can borrow them from someone who does. If you really want to make this project but have no way of getting a free tomato cage and you want to buy one, I saw some online from $3.99 - $7.99, so it could still be a cheap project even if you don't already have the cage. And that cage can also be wrapped in greenery and used on the porch at Christmas, so if you're like me, I tell Hubby that the cost is automatically cut in half because I'm using it twice. Right?

If I use it over three times, I think it's practically free! 

Hubby doesn't always agree with my logic. Sigh. He really didn't have a clue what he was getting himself into when we married, but I gave him ample time to escape...(8 YEARS! If you missed it, read about it here!). I love that guy.

Throw the sheet or tablecloth over the soccer ball and add glasses or eyes.

Hope you have fun with some Halloween decorations this year! Tell me some of your free/cheap Halloween ideas in the comments!

Love,

Elizabeth

I'm not afraid of ghosts. Or bats. Unless I'm alone. At night. Or really close to them. 

Ok, I'm afraid. Of everything. Where did Elizabeth go??

PIN IT FOR LATER!

Come and Dine

There once was a ten year old boy who was being raised, along with his brothers, by his grandmother. She tried her best, but she was disabled and times were hard.

Their tiny rented house was literally falling down around them and he would never invite friends over to play, because he was too embarrassed for them to see where he lived. 

The boy's clothes were too small and too few. There were no toys in sight, as these were only luxuries that his friends had, but never him.  

Until one day, a beautiful lady entered the house. Like a fairy godmother, she helped the family find a more suitable home. She cleaned it, mowed the grass, and filled the home with special touches.

The house was almost ready for the family to move in. When the lady asked the boy what he would want most in the house, assuming he would ask for toys and such, she was stunned by his answer.

His one wish - a dining table. 

His family had never had a table to eat on. He wanted to gather his family and sit around a table to have their meals, to laugh, and to share about their day. Mostly, to have a time of coming together.

That wonderful lady fulfilled his wish of a table, and in addition, a complete house of furniture and all bedding needed for the house. Some she bought herself, and for the rest, she worked and worked until she had enough donated for the cause. She even brought toys and clothes for the family. When the family moved in, they were incredibly thankful.

The little boy spoke few words, but you could see he held his head a little higher after that day.  And he gathered his family around that wooden table.

How long has it been since we've gathered our families? Held hands and said grace? Laughed and cried together?

Never underestimate the power of the gathering of a family around a dinner table, big or small, fancy or plain, especially in the eyes of a child. 

Or the magic of stopping our busy lives to notice someone else.

Love, 

Elizabeth

This is a true story that happened several weeks ago and Elizabeth has the honor of knowing the beautiful lady and the boy..  The pics are not the boy's dining room, (it's Elizabeth's), but can't you picture him gathering his family at his table? Go gather your people.  

THE PORCH AND A TOTALLY TUBULAR LOVE STORY

I know a few people that don't like their husbands. (I mean, I am a divorce mediator...). I don't know why this is or what to do about it, but I get a little teasing because not only do I love my husband, I really like that guy. I gush about him even. When I tell you our story, if you're rooting for me, you'll be a little on the fence about him but hold on until the end, it gets better. 

And by the way, the pics in the story are of my back porch, where Hubby strung lights as a surprise for me a couple of weeks ago, after we saw them at a resort and I casually mentioned that would look pretty on our porch.

Who does that? Isn't he dreamy? I'm still waiting on his permission to post his picture. He's cute stuff.

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN...

There he was, in his green and yellow tank top, white Puma tennis shoes and his brown, curly hair cut as close to a mullet as curly hair could get. I saw him across the crowded pizza place/arcade. It was the 80s and hair was a BIG thing. I'm not sure how he missed me with my huge Aquanet helmet of hair, I could've knocked someone out with my 'wings'  but he didn't notice me at first.  Oh yeah, it could have been because he was on a date with someone else.

Not cool. 

We had mutual friends and did finally get introduced. I was a little taken with him at the ripe old age of 14 and have never forgotten the day we met 31 years ago. He doesn't remember the day we met at Pepperoni's Playhouse. Not even a little bit.

Totally not cool, Mr. Right.

Apparently, my braces and huge bangs did not get his attention later either. I threw a going away party for my friend who was moving and invited him. Turns out my friend's older sister, ahem, age 17, also liked him, was it the curly mullet??, so we decided to let him pick whomever he liked better, if either of us, and we'd be fine with whatever happened. At the party, we sat on either side of him, and I'm sure he felt like man of the hour. In reality, he was a quiet, humble guy who probably felt a little uncomfortable with all this attention. But then...

That dude picked her. Even kissed her on my front porch!!

I know!!!

How was I going to eventually marry this guy if he keeps forgetting me and kissing other people on my porch??

So I admitted defeat and a few months went by. We became good friends and he'd tell me his girlfriend woes over school lunch. I didn't have any dating troubles at fourteen, so I was pretty interested in hearing about his. 

Finally, the day came when he realized the girl of his dreams was sitting right in front of him, in some cute, black stirrup pants. We'd laughed and shared enough lunches to become the best of friends. He needed a date to a Halloween party, and finally, it was me.  On our first date, he picked me up in a ratty gray Blazer, so rusty that you could see straight through to the ground in some spots of the floorboard. He drove a few minutes, then promptly ran out of gas, LOL., thankfully beside a gas station. On our next date, again a Halloween theme, we went to a haunted house where his little brother got hit in the eye with a rubber snake, so the date ended abruptly to take his brother to the hospital.

 It was a date with his little brother?? Yes, yes, it was, I took what I could get. 

Thankfully, he didn't view me as a curse, because really, we were pretty nervous about what could happen on date #3, but eventually, we made it to our third, uneventful, romantic date.

The back porch, the night of the surprise...before the fall flowers were added. Bear popped in the pic, reminding me that he also helped with the secret light surprise. He still reminds me every other day.

Eight years later (come on, folks, I was only 14 when this story started)...I walked down the aisle to the man who would become my husband, the father of my children and my everything. I knew many years before what it took him eight years to realize. I should've put on those stirrup pants a long time ago.

Very cool. 

Don't give up on your dreams, sometimes they are right in front of you.

And always wear cute pants.

Love,

Elizabeth 

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: If you see Elizabeth out in public wearing stirrup pants, or any type of stretchy material of any sort, kindly return her to her home unharmed. She doesn't mean to hurt you in anyway, she just doesn't always understand that the 1980s are over and so is her ability to wear said items. Thank you. Love to all.

The Fall Mantel - Don't Give A Hooey

Seasonal decor. I love you. But you come to other people's houses and are awesome, you show up at my house and ....meh, sometimes you're rockin' and rolling, and sometimes you are a single pumpkin on the porch, with some dead flowers left over from the summer...

AND I REALLY DON'T GIVE A HOOEY.

Fabric pumpkins from Burke's Outlet. 

Since I started the blog, I thought it would be best to try to have a rockin' year, but understand, this is not always the case. I used to read blogs and get really inspired and motivated, but occasionally I would also get down on myself because I wasn't that wife and mother with the perfectly decorated porch and welcome signs. Sometimes there were dishes to do and meals to cook and children to raise and work and on and on and on until forget the pumpkins, all I wanted was a hot shower.. 

All there would be on the porch would be those dead flowers. 

Foyer, see full post about it here.

Dead flowers sometimes means that you're busy with your children. They are well fed, bathed and hugged. That your husband or your friend got your attention that day. That you are hard at work so you or your family have a roof over their head or clean clothes to wear. That soup is on the stove. Even that ironing pile got a little smaller. Confession: Okay, I'm kidding on that one. I only iron once a year, then give up and take the pile to the dry cleaners.

'Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come'. Proverbs 31:25

Life will not always be so hectic, young mother, caretaker, wife. It will get easier.

Yes, I know my wreath is a little off. I don't give a hooey.

When my oldest was a baby, I didn't have the time or the money to decorate. Besides the demands of a normal toddler, he was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes (Read about it here). Definitely not my season for decorating. Later, when I was taking care of my sick daddy and two boys, I would probably have thrown a pumpkin at you if you criticized my dead flowers on the porch. Ok, only in my mind would I have thrown the pumpkin, I'm big talk on the computer. 

I was needed elsewhere.

If it's your year to decorate, or tackle whatever else you feel led to do, I hope you find some inspiration here (or at least have a good laugh at my attempts to do so). If it's your season for dead flowers, display them with honor. You've earned it. You're needed elsewhere.

Your season will come, so right now, don't give a hooey.

Hugs,

Elizabeth

Elizabeth is not using 'hooey' properly in a sentence. She knows this bothers me. When I told her, she said, 'I don't give a hooey.'  

Love her heart.

Ways to turn your house into a vintage home Part 3

This is the last of the three part series. Here are Part One and Part Two, if you missed them.

DOORS

MY FAVORITE THING! I had no idea I loved doors so much until we built the house.

I admit it is a weird obsession but it started when I discovered arched doors. Houzz.com is the best and worst website when you are working on your house. Great for ideas but there are so many possibilities, it makes you a little crazy. And the budget says 'No, we do not need to import carved, arched wooden doors from another country' (Or was is Hubby that said that?). Doesn't anyone understand the need for antique arched doors with beautiful hand-carvings from India?? 

So I put the doors from India aside since no one wanted to sell them to me for pennies. Later at an antique store, we found some neat 120 year old doors that used to be the front doors of someone's house, and made them into our pantry doors by putting them on sliders:

These doors may be too shabby for some people, but I really like them. Some of my relatives are mystified why I would want grubby, ancient doors in my house. As you can see, they are really beat up. I'm going to do a post soon on how my hubby got these ready to hang. These doors cost no more than it would have to get plain doors, so I think it's a neat way to add character without adding cost on to what I would've spent anyway. The sliders do add to the cost, but I wanted to do sliders regardless if we used antique doors or not.

I found another antique door online, this one a little bit of a splurge but we decided to go for it and use it for the basement door. By the time our builder stripped off some chipping veneer and worked on it's quirks, he said he could've just built us a door just like it for the same or less money.

Oopsie.

Um, yeah, but it's vintage and besides, it came with an old door handle...so it makes it totally worth it. Hubby really loves me, or he's secretly planning my demise, because he never said a word. I really love that guy, so I'm going with he loves me too.

ANTIQUE RUGS

A few pieces of antique furniture mixed with new pieces helps gives a house a vintage character, but my favorite, along with the doors, is an antique rug. I have a thing for turkish rugs right now and Etsy has some cute ones. The larger ones are pretty expensive but you can get a 2x3 fairly inexpensively for a bath or kitchen and really add some character to your home because they are so unique. 

My grandmother gave me a few of her oriental rugs. They are red, which wouldn't normally be my first choice for color scheme, but I love that they are worn and frayed around the edges. There's something about having something passed down with a family story that makes them special.

That's the last of the vintage home series. I'm moving on to some fall decor soon. Bring on the pumpkins! Thanks for reading!

Love, 

Elizabeth

Sometimes I think Elizabeth's Hubby could use a nice vacation. At a contemporary resort. With no vintage doors.

Ways to turn your house into a vintage home Part Two

Hey guys, here is Part Two of the three part series, 'Ways to turn your house into a Vintage Home'. If you missed Part One, find it here.

WINDOWS AND MOLDINGS

Love deep window sills! They are a great option if you are building a home and you want to add a vintage feel. Hubby and I didn't even think of this until the last minute and didn't make ours extremely deep, but they are deeper than what we had before and I'm really happy with them.

Nothing says I'm over the hill like 'I'm excited about window sills.'

I love to see windows that have a sill over a foot or more deep. It's so cozy looking, I can just imagine throwing a cushion in there and making it a window seat. Here's one I found online that is a great depth and they actually added a hidden drawer in it! Ingenious! How much stuff could I hide from the Bear in there?? Every time he's grounded from his iPod, (every week) bam!, instant hiding place. 

Picture courtesy of GL Callow Building and Remodeling (www.glcallow.com)

Something else I've seen done in houses to add vintage character after they are already built is making the molding above the window substantial. Nowadays the trend is to hang curtains as close to the ceiling as possible. It gives the illusion of a taller ceiling and I love the look, but it does sometimes leave an awkward space between the window molding and the ceiling. KariAnne at www.thistlewoodfarms.com (another Kentucky girl and one of my favorite bloggers!) added pieces of wood and trim at the top of her farmhouse windows and it really changed the whole look. It was only in the $22 range per window and it solved that awkward blank space! See below the after picture and those smocked curtains, LOVE! Click either picture to see a full tutorial on how she applied the trim and wood pieces.

Picture courtesy of www.thistlewoodfarms.com

Picture courtesy of www.thistlewoodfarms.com. 

The same goes for baseboards. That was another thing we didn't think about until last minute, but I'm so glad that we put tall baseboards in this house, They are about 10". I read there are no true 'rules' but a guide I found suggested that you base the height of your baseboards on the height of your ceiling: 

8 foot tall ceilings: no larger than 5-6" baseboards

8.5 to 9 foot ceilings: 7" baseboards

10- 12 foot ceilings:  8 – 12″ baseboards

Our ceiling here in the master bedroom is ten feet, so the 10" baseboard works well here and in the other parts of the house that have 12 feet ceilings. If I hadn't built and wanted to inexpensively beef up my baseboards in my previous house, I would have left the original baseboard there (it was maybe 4 inches tall), put a thin piece of molding at the height I wanted the new baseboard to be. Then paint the new trim piece, the wall in between the trim and the original baseboard all the same color, so it looks like one big piece of molding. I've seen it done with crown molding too. The eye is really fooled into thinking the painted wall in between is part of the molding. I hope this makes sense. Here is an example I found at www.thehouseofsmiths.com. They used a board to guide where they put the top piece of molding...

Picture courtesy of www.houseofsmiths.com

Pic courtesy of www.houseofsmiths.com. Click photo and scroll down to mid-post for full tutorial.

and then painted the new molding and wall in between.  Such a neat trick to creating a chunky baseboard!

Hope you've found some ideas to play around with...the last of the series is coming up and it's my favorite! See you Sunday!

Hugs,

Elizabeth

We all know if we had a hidden secret drawer, Bear would not only know about it, he'd be the one who designed and installed it. There are no secrets from the Bear. He probably already has these in his room, we just don't know about it.