We've been Booed!

It has been far too long since I've done something crafty! My craft room has been in shambles as it's been slowly but surely turning into a storage room for all of my extra odds and ends that I seem to accumulate. I needed a boost, no, I needed to basically be forced to get in there and start something and I had the perfect thing happen just the other day.

The other night when I came home from Ashley's birthday/Halloween party I let Bear out and I found something on my door. It was a Halloween bag!

Inside the bag I found a some fun Halloween window clings, two treat bags full of cookies and two notes. One was a note that explained what being "booed" means. Basically a kind neighbor (investigation still pending on who it was!) gave us this fun little surprise. Once you've been booed you have to make 2 bags with Halloween treats inside, two copies of the instructions and two notes. There is a note that goes on your door that tells others that you have been booed so you don't get double booed!

So I decided if I was going to boo my neighbors I was going to be as crafty as possible! Of course my motivation was instantly snuffed out by the onset of the flu 2 days later when I planned on crafting my boo bag. So instead of the "2 day" time frame it ended up being a week later and probably not as crafty as I initially intended.

Anyways, I started with a couple old birch boxes. I had been saving these because they were such a perfect size for saving things, and would be simple enough to craft into something else.

I didn't have any official halloween paper (wrapping paper was my first choice) so I decided to use some cute scrapbook paper with orange hearts on it. I mod podged the paper to the box lids and then added some alphabet stickers and spelled out "Boo" on each one.

Next up was deciding what to put inside the little boo boxes. I knew I wanted to put something other than just candy inside but being at home on a chilly Saturday, recovering from the flu and having now lost my voice was enough to make me stay home. I couldn't imagine the looks on peoples faces when I was checking out and the voice of the exorcist girl came out of me. No thanks.

So instead I decided I would craft something small and cute that people who may or may not celebrate Halloween would appreciate. Of course, my go to is always garland! I ended up making some pom pom garlands out of felt leaves and orange and yellow yarn. Bear even wanted to help with this part!

Yep. That's my pajamas and foot in the corner there. I could've totally cropped that out, but I wanted you to feel the creative process that I was in. That included sitting there in my pajamas and washing my hands of mod podge every 5 minutes.

So I decided to not do anything too crazy long or too flamboyant, just in case someone would want to string it across a door or window. This is what I ended up with:

The cute little felt leaves were something I picked up from the Dollar Tree a while back and planned on doing something creative with but of course never got around to. I'm glad I could finally put them to good use!

I initially wanted to put little pumpkins inside the boxes but they wouldn't fit. My flu crazed brain decided it was better to just leave them out because of this even though I totally could've just put them in the bag. duh.

Instead I chose the next best thing. Little pumpkin tea lights! I only had 2 left of these so I decided to put one in each box as well as a few pieces of Halloween candy for good measure.

My real "treat" in the bag would come in the form of my Strawberry Cream Cheese cupcakes! I had brought them to a work party yesterday and I decided to save some for just this purpose. I initially wanted to add two to each bag but then realized I only had 2 boxes left. No need to worry of course, I ordered more baking boxes and they should be on the way soon!

So here's the layout for my Boo bags. I apologize for the crappy picture quality. I finished these up towards the end of the day and had to use the dining room lights to ensure everything was visible!

For the bags I just hot glued a few more felt leaves on the front, nothing too fancy, but again this was not planned ahead very well by me!

So there you have it! My official first boo bags!

 Bear and I decided to take a little walk through the neighborhood and drop these off to our favorite neighbors. As it turns out, every person I know in the neighborhood has already been booed! We even walked all the way down to our dog walkers house only to find that she was also already booed! Instead we booed her neighbor and then on the way back booed our neighbor across the street, Dottie. I had heard so much about Dottie and her beautiful home and awesome repurposing of antiques from our neighbors and the wonderful Nicole but had never met her. Upon arriving at her house she opened the door just as we got there and invited us in! Much to my horror I should add as I was still un-showered, no makeup, and dressed like a bum for the day. She must have thought I was on drugs as I certainly looked it! Although as frightening as my appearance was she was still as sweet as can be and introduced us to her kiddos and her Chesapeake Bay Retriever. Even the quick glance at her home that I got standing in the foyer was stunning so everyone was right!

Even though the booing didn't go as planned, I am pretty happy with the results. Although slightly embarrassed that my seemingly half-hearted crafty attempt is now linked to me! I'll have to do something for Christmas and bring it over to Dottie after being showered, getting my voice back and dressed like an actual presentable adult.  I guess scaring people is what Halloween is all about after all, huh?

Inexpensive Baby Shower Gift

So if you've read any of my previous blog entries, you'll know we recently moved into our first home. Our neighbors are all young couples like us and absolutely wonderful! Our neighbors next door are having a baby which is great because I've been lacking little adorable ones to snuggle and talk baby talk to!

So yesterday, sweet Allison stopped by to invite me to her baby shower and let met tell you something, this girl is a pro. She is due April 1st and she came over looking fabulous, wearing heels, carrying a dog. If I were pregnant I'd be lucky to even get out of bed, let alone be functional and look good doing it.

So she dropped off a cute little invite for the baby shower which is tomorrow. Yikes! It almost seemed like my goal of giving handmade/personal gifts was being tested!

The other problem was that I don't know Allison very well, aside from meeting her on a snowy night on my front porch for  less than 2 minutes I haven't really even seen her at all. So I am short on time, not too familiar with her and also short on funds. I tend to go crazy when it comes to baby gifts. Regular gifts for friends I think I sometimes go overboard with but babies? Let's just say if any more of my friends get pregnant I'll be filing for bankruptcy by the end of the year!

So I found a solution that can actually be done for much less cheaper than I did, but I tend to go a little bit overboard whenever I'm in Target. I mean I almost had to stage a self intervention when I got into the shoe section, so many cute flats for spring! argh!

Since I'm new to the area, I decided to use what I had on hand and could finish off with a quick trip to Target. I think this is the first time I've ever been in Target and spent less than $200. I wish I was exaggerating but sadly, I'm not. I wanted this gift to be for mom and baby because lets face it, as adorable as babies are, they could care less about the stuff you give them until they're at least a few months old!

So here is what I started with:

1. a light blue tote caddy from the Dollar Tree
2. a sheet of scrapbook paper
3. letter stickers

The first step was to measure how big I wanted the paper on both sides. I wanted it to cover each side but not reach all the way to the bottom where the paper would drag and get ripped up. 

Next, I used 2 different types of alphabet stickers. On one, I spelled out "for Mom" and the other "for Baby". You could, of course, do any cute variation of this that you like!

After my letters were adhered, I got out my trusty old hot glue gun and glued one sheet on either side. Make sure you put the glue on the tote caddy and trace the pattern around the holes. If you have a tote without holes then don't worry about this. I then line up each piece of scrapbook paper, making sure they are even and place them on each side, being sure to gently rub both so the glue attaches.

After that is cooled I decided to add yarn to the handle, it's really not necessary as the handle looks fine on it's own, but I wanted to make it pop against the case and the items once they were inside.

All I did was wrap 2 different colored yarns, one white and one light blue, around the handle until it was covered. If you wrap them tightly enough they should stay in place but you can dab some hot glue on either end and cut the remaining off if you're worried.

However, when I get involved with yarn, it's almost inevitable that I'll be creating pom poms. 

So I did.

I attached one to either end of the handle by adding one more layer of a thicker, darker yarn in a spiral pattern and tying the pom pom strings to the end of each side.

At this point, my caddy was decorated. Not too shabby for items I already had on hand! There are so many variations of this that you could do! For larger presents, you could even do this with a laundry basket, or for smaller things you could take a cutlery tray. I am all about upcycling!


So now it was time to fill her up! This is what I got from Target:

Now the total for all of these items came to $32, but I am positive you can do this for under $20!

The items I purchased, clockwise from the top are as follows:

hand sanitizer-$.97
Godiva bar-$1.99
Ferrero Rocher-$.99
Burts Bees richly replenishing body lotion-$7.99
Martha Stewart Living-$4.99
teal tisshue paper-on sale for $.68
My first Easter bib-$3.99
Johnson and Johnson baby lotion and bath-$3.09 combo
2 colorful baby onesies-on sale for $3.50 each

There you have it. For $31.69 I have an entire gift basket, for technically two people! You can see that the 2 things I spent the most on were the body lotion and the Martha Stewart mag. I wanted to do a luxurious type of lotion for mom since she won't get too many opportunities for luxuries once baby is here! I actually have a subscription to Martha but I thought it would be tacky to give her one of my own so I just got another copy.  You could also snag a parenting magazine or something else related to the person you know, but since I don't know Allison very well but I clearly love Martha I got her that. Plus I think, since we aren't too familiar, getting her a parenting magazine might seem a bit rude, so I 86ed that idea!

You could most certainly do this for under $20 by changing out the type of lotion, the magazine and the Easter bib. If you can sew (I can't) then you could sew up a really adorable onesie or t-shirt and make this under $10! It can be done, I promise!



The 2 vintage children's books I already had on hand so they cost me nothing. I went with a slight bunny theme because, well I am known for my love of bunnies and my association with this weirdo:

and also Easter is coming up! What better way to share my slight bunny obsession with the world?

Oh I also added this mini bottle of wine that I had in my pantry. They are so cute and they come in packs of four, what you do with the other 3 is entirely up to you, I'm not here to judge!

 So packing everything together was pretty simple, the only things I really did anything to were these two onesies. I rolled them up and tied them with pastel colored pipe cleaners and 2 glittery leaves that I had left over from Christmas wrapping. I cut the ends off of the leaves with wire cutters since they were long and sharp and even though baby probably won't be opening them himself, "long and sharp" are 2 adjectives you don't want to put together for a baby related gift!

So there it is, other than wrapping the same thick yarn around the magazine a couple times to hold it in a cylindrical form and tying a little ribbon around the wine bottle I was done wrapping my gifts! Here is what the gift basket looked like with everything inside:

mom side

baby side

Now I think it looks pretty snazzy, but since I couldn't stick it in a bag and I didn't want to do the traditional cellophane wrapping since it's so obnoxiously crinkly and sometimes hard to open, I took my tissue paper and cut it in half, like so:

and just jammed it in all the little crevices that looked a bit lonely. I stuck one in the Martha magazine, behind the books and all the other items, similar to how you would do a gift basket, without covering up any of the goodies.

I also made a little card from card-stock scrapbook paper and some stickers I had on hand, but I already sealed it in the envelope and stuck it in the basket.

Here are the finished results!

 So there it is! A cute baby shower gift that mom can enjoy as well. Of course you could tailor this a bit more to moms personality if she's a close friend or family member and I'm telling you that you can do this for under $20 or even $10! 

In fact, I have a destination wedding coming up for Shauns sister and I might just try doing a little $20 traveling bride emergency kit that I'm sure she will love!

Stay tuned!