Cheap Halloween Decorations

Halloween decorations (or any decorations for that matter) are a want and not a need around our house. I have a few decorations I have picked up at the dollar store or thrift stores, but not much. I have always wanted to go all out and decorate for a holiday, but have never had the money. Well with a few dollars and a little creativity I was able to decorate my house for Halloween.

I made these pumpkins using this tutorial with a few changes. I used card stock instead of construction paper, because I didn't have construction paper and two because I think it looks nicer. I also liked that I could use different patterned paper instead of just plain colors. The other change I made is that I didn't glue the strips to the toilet paper roll I just glued the ends of the strips to each other (my strips were 1 in by 8 1/2 ins). The card stock wouldn't stick to the toilet paper roll very well but it glues to itself pretty good and then it made a nice little place to stick the stem in and the strips just held it there with no glue.
I think they are pretty cute and your kids can help you although my 18 month old lost interest after putting glue on 2 strips and she just wanted to put glue all over everything.
I am also in the process of making one of these ghosts and some of these bats.
Anther great and cheap thing to use for Halloween decoration is spider webs I bought a bag of spider web for a dollar and just hung them everywhere.
They go a long way I didn't even use half the bag. So with a little bit of spider web and using bits of fabric and paper I had on hand I was able to decorate for Halloween for only a few bucks. What are some of your strategys for easy cheap holiday decorating?

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Of course I had to dress my baby up to celebrate. I made the tutu and the baby leg warmers. The Tutu was so easy and I will post a tutorial soon, but if you can't wait I am sure there are others out there.

Happy Halloween and what I have been up to this week.

I made this fun little Halloween dress for my daughter. I got this material for $1 and I thought I would use it to test my dress making skills. It is a really simple dress. I didn't have a pattern I just made it up as I went. I drew a pattern for the top part and then just cut a big rectangular for the skirt. I lined the the top part and gathered the skirt before I sewed it on. I made button holes on the top front, but then I never went and got buttons for the dress so I just put the straps through holes and tied a knot. It worked great and added a little cuteness to the dress.
Also this week I had to make some scrapbook pages for my husband's grandma's 80th birthday (they are making her a book). These are the pages I did of our family. I think they turned out cute and I almost didn't want to send them off. Hope you enjoy grandma and happy 80th birthday wish we were there.

On a none crafty note someone ran into our car going 50 mph while my husband was stopped at a stop light. No one was really hurt but our car was totalled. We were planning on having that car for a long time. So intead of buying another small car we took the plunge and got a mini van. So I have been car shopping all we and when the insurance check gets here I get to go pick up our new (to us) mini van. Yeah!