DIY Colored Vase

A couple weeks ago I hosted a Fiesta Wedding Shower for my cousin. You can read all about it here. One of the small projects I did to save money was paint vases. It was such a small thing that added big impact. Here's how I did it.

I found the vases at The Dollar Tree. I loved that they were plastic instead of glass since I have a toddler. I then chose the colors red and yellow. I figured I could use yellow again in spring and red for Valentines day and Christmas as well.

I took them out in the garage and they got a spray down. They needed two quick coats on the outside only.

And there you have it. A colored vase that would cost way more than $1 at the store. I just love the way the flowers pop in them!

Simple and easy DIY Colored Vases!

Small Changes

We live in a rental on post. We'll only be living here  for approximately six months. Two and a half of those months are already over. Therefore, we haven't done much around here besides set up our furniture and hang a few pictures. In fact, we have a storage closet outback stacked floor to ceiling of things we didn't even unpack.

So in order for this place to feel like home, I have to make small and inexpensive changes.

One of the things that bothered me the most was the spices. We have no good cabinet space for them and after a few weeks, I kind of liked having the ones we used on the counter. We cook a lot and I definitely use spices more when they are within my view. Therefore, we've had them sitting on this turn table for a couple months now. Talk about an eye-sore.

I didn't want to buy anything new for the time being and the turn table worked pretty well, it just wasn't pretty. So what did I do? I made it pretty!

I took the pieces a part. Out in the garage in went and my husband used gold spray paint to cover it.

I just love how it turned out. It's a small change, but the turn table looks so much better with a fresh coat of gold spray. What do you think?

I plan on moving all our spices into matching containers at some point, but I'm waiting until we sit still in our house for a while. Too bad I didn't save all those baby food jars! 

Easy Bunny Craft

Today is the last day of March! I can't believe how fast it flew by! Easter is only a few short weeks away!

I saw an adorable Bunny craft on Pinterest by The Cards We Drew (it was actually a guest post by Emily at 52 Mantles.. check them both out!) Anyway, I had to give it a try. It came out adorable and it only cost me $2! Try it out!

Supplies:

$1 Bunny Silhouette from The Dollar Tree
Any type of wrapping paper
Any type of ribbon (I paid $1 for mine at Walmart, you might have some on hand)
Rubber Cement (You could probably even use stick glue)

Directions:

Start out with your cardboard bunny. This is what mine looks like from The Dollar Store:

Flip it over and you have this:

Cut out wrapping paper big enough to fit the bunny. 

Put rubber cement over the entire back of the bunny. Careful not to put it too thick. Then place the rubber cement side down onto the wrapping paper. Leave it for a few moments to dry. 

Cut out the wrapping paper around the outline of the bunny. This would probably work best with an X-acto knife; however, I only had scissors on hand and they did fine.

Tie a ribbon around the Bunny's neck. 

Place in a wreath. I used my burlap wreath which I switch out decor for each season. I also tied an Easter Egg bow onto the wreath with a blue ribbon wrapping around. 

Any other fun Easter projects you would recommend?

(Check out Abbey's page for her tutorial on how Emily did the project with vinyl!)

Special Ornaments

We have a few special ornaments from each year since we began our life together. Here are some of our favorites.

This is Sadie's ornament from her very first Christmas. 

These little shoes were on top of the cake the Hospital brought to us at Sadie's Birth. 

We got this ornament the first year we had Tank. 

This is our Ornament from our first Christmas in our First home together. 

This was give not us by my grandparents after our wedding. 

I bought this ornament after Steve's first deployment. 

Steve brought this ornament back from his second deployment last year. 

This is Sadie's footprint from last Christmas. 

This is Sadie's handprint ornament from this Christmas. Read hear about how to create it. And a few others she painted below.  

And this year's new ornament to remind us that it was the Three of us celebrating in Savannah.

Salt Dough Ornaments

When I saw these adorable Salt Dough Ornaments over at Simple Suburbia, I knew I had to do them with Sadie! Check out her blog for the directions.  I thought Sadie would not want anything to do with them, but she actually loved imprinting her hand. We also made a fun candy cane and star.

After they baked for 3 hours, I let them cool overnight. The next day, I painted the Santa face and Sadie got to use a sponge brush to paint the star and candy cane. I got out yellow for the star and red for the candy not even thinking what they would look like when she mixed the two. But I love them and Sadie had such fun painting, she was actually upset when it was over!

Next I picked up some red ribbon at the store, strung them up, and we have our first homemade ornaments!