A Month in Photos by Rebecca Cooper

I love this idea from Rebecca Cooper. She is so talented! I think I might have to try to do this.

The Canvas Solution

My living room is in need of a springtime facelift. I have a few ideas, but have not quite decided what the change(s) are going to be. Here are a few ideas from HGTV Bargain Saturday.

I picked up some large canvases from Walmart that were on clearance. I have a few ideas for them.
1) I really like the idea of framed fabric. This would be an easy, effective and cheap solution. They show using a frame, but I could wrap a canvas with fabric easily.




2) Here the canvases are painted. I might just have to try my hand at painting something....I could always cover it with fabric if my artistic skills are lacking a bit :)

Boy Shower

We had a small baby shower for Jenna and her new baby boy Preston so I figured I would post some pictures of the shower decorations I brought as she insisted! It was so fun to help with! This shower was held at Lauren Hardings cute house and she supplied the food and games while I brought the decorations. It was so fun!

Food Table

Name banner made from scrapbook paper

Blue tissue pom pom balls (jenna actually made these for another shower before)

Scrapbook paper and modge podge 8" X 8" square blocks

Preston's cute little onsies he has already outgrown on a line

An Easy Christmas Gift Idea

For Christmas this year this is what we gave out to some friends and neighbours........

In the bags are bottles of Martinelli's (sparkling apple juice). I just measured out a bottle and made some little bags for the bottles, added a painted word (Dollorama) or a cookie cutter (Ikea)and a ribbon. I made some little cards using paper I bought a long time ago from Scrapbook Steals.com . The mix in the little cello bags is a family favourite....it's called "Sweet & Salty".
Here's the recipe! You won't be able to put it down....it's good!

Sweet & Salty
3 cups Crispex
3 cups Corn Pops
3 cups Cheerios (I used multigrain)
2 cups broken pretzels
2 cups salted peanuts (I omitted the peanuts and added more Crispex....just preference)
1 1/3 cups sugar (I use 1/3 cup of brown and the rest white sugar to make it more of a caramel)
1/2 cup white corn syrup
1 cup margarine
1 tsp vanilla

Mix first 5 ingredients in a bowl. Place sugar, margarine and vanilla in sauce pan. Mix together and cook to softball stage (approx. 2 minutes at a boil)
Pour over cereal mixture and toss together. Spread out on large cookie sheet with wax paper to cool (only takes a few minutes). Break apart and it's ready!

Enjoy!

Homemade Christmas---Meal Planning Calendar by Tess

Here is a great gift for anyone this Christmas! It's a meal planning calendar!
I received mine early, and am so excited about it. Thanks, Tess!
Just click on the title of this post and it will take you to Tess's blog.

Miscellaneous Christmas Decor

It has been a lot of fun getting ready for Christmas.
I love decorating for Christmas, and living on a student budget I have had to become extra creative to try to make it festive and fun.
Here are a few ways that you can decorate for Christmas on a tight budget:

The Tree:
We bought our tree off of Kijiji last year. It was only a few years old and from Costco. We paid a quarter of the price of a "new" tree.

The Ornaments:
I found these wooden words at Dollorama last Christmas and stocked up. My daughter (2 years old) helped me paint them red. The other ornaments are homemade as well, or I found in the clearance section at Michaels at the end of the season in a previous year.

The Porch Tree:

I had really wanted a tree for our porch, but just couldn't swallow paying $80 plus that a lot of places are asking. I had an idea and it worked out pretty well......I just bought the cheapest tree I could find (it's a 3.5 ft Walmart tree--$15), a strand of outdoor lights from Walmart ($8), a square pot ($10) to place it in and then just used decorations and ribbon that I had from previous years. It ended up being under $40 for the tree! I am wanting to add another one next year, but thought one this year was a good start!

The forest shutters and garland: I found these shutters at Homesense last January. The markdown stickers were about 2 inches thick on the back as they had been marked down so many times! They were originally $30 each, and I got them for $0.70 each! I saved them all year and was excited to use them!

The garland is just Walmart garland that I also bought in January at the end of the season when it was dirt cheap. I just doubled it up to add fullness and then added some berries that I already had and some of the dollar store wooden words. Total cost.....about $5.

I think that's really the secret.......buy things in January or at the end of the season, then just hold on to them for the year (that is the hard part, though). You will find some great deals this way!

Stockings

I have been working away trying to get our stockings ready, and am glad to say they are done and hanging!
I wanted something quite countryish and had a hard time finding anything like that. My mother-in-law gave a pattern from Under the Garden Moon to my sister-in-law, and it looked just like what I was thinkning, so I used that as a basic guide, added some of my own ideas, and with the help of Tess and Trina came up with these:

I think they turned out pretty cute, and because of the country look they complemented my imperfect sewing and embroidering skills! I wanted to have our names on them somewhere, and I think it turned out well to just embroider them at the bottom of the sock.

I made a matching tree skirt out of the same background fabric as the stockings and just added some roping I found in the clearance section at Wal-Mart. It's simple, with just the roping and some pleats, but looks much better than the fabric I had pooled around as a makeshift skirt for the past couple of years.

It has been really fun to get ready for Christmas this year and to try to make some things for our little family.