As I was shopping in Michaels one day I was just browsing around the unfinished wood section and found the wooden letters I used in this project and thought they would be perfect for a Halloween sign.  I didn’t want to do the typical “Happy Halloween” sign so I decided to go with “Spooky”.  The word has some mystery behind it don’t you think?  Well, maybe that’s just me or the fact that as I was walking through the store and they had just put out all of the things that go off and say things or play music and I was feeling spooky that day.  I pretty much went into this project blind though.  I knew I wanted it on a string but that was about it so I came up with this…

What you need:

1.  Lace burlap ribbon, or those pre made burlap banners or any wide band ribbon that you like.  I also used a smaller ribbon behind the wide just to add some color but it’s optional.  If you buy the burlap ribbon with a print that would add some color if you need it.  I just used what I already had at home.
2. Wooden letters
3. Clothes pins.  I used the really tiny ones.
4. String-strong enough to hold it all
5. Paint colors of your choice.  Purple and lime green are always a good combo.
6. Hot glue and hot glue gun

How to:

1.  Paint your wooden letters
2. Cut your ribbon (if you didn’t get the pre made banners).  I cut mine just a little bigger than my letters.
3. After your letters are done drying glue those babies onto your ribbon.
4. Clamp your clothes pins onto your ribbon and string.  I took an additional step which I will mention here.  I also glued the clothes pins to the string and the letter/ribbon piece.  This will keep it from sliding around or falling off.

I have no idea where I will be hanging this but I know I will find a place for it.  There are so many different options to this project too.  Get creative with patterns for ribbon.  Thanks for reading!

When it comes to the wreaths that I hang on our front door I am really picky.  Don’t ask why I just am.  I hate over paying for something I can make for half the price and I am more into the simple decor now.  I saw somewhere on Pinterest a spray painted wreath and thought, yep that’s easy.  I forget about spray paint.

This is really basic.  I bought a wispy, branchy wreath and spray painted it black and then added orange berries to it.  That’s it!  You can even spray paint it with the glitter spray paint which I thought of later but oh well.  So if you like simple and nothing too cutesy it’s perfect.

My inspiration for this years Halloween cards are from stickers that I saw in the store.  I knew it would be easy to make and it’s such a unique card to get in the mail.

What you need:

1.  Slime/lime green card stock
2. Gauze
3. Google eyes
4. Hot glue and hot glue gun

How to:

1.  Make your cards into whatever size you would like but keep in mind that you are going to have to wrap the gauze around the front of the card.  I had pre made cards and I glued the green card stock onto the front.   My cards are 3×4 1/2 when they are folded in half like the picture below.

2.  Cut your gauze into thin strips and let it fray.  The width of my gauze gave me 4 strips just to give you an idea of how thin mine were.

3.  Place a dab of glue to the inside (or backside to the front) of the card and put the start of the gauze there.  Be careful, don’t burn your fingers.

4.  Wrap your gauze around the front half.  Go diagonal, bottom to top, ect.  Don’t always go straight across.

5.  Glue the end of your gauze to the back side (where you started) so you don’t see where it ended.

6.  Glue your google eyes slightly in between the layers of gauze so it looks like they are peeking out.

There you have it!  Mummy Halloween cards.  Pretty easy.  I bought my gauze at the Dollar Store and it made 5 cards.  I haven’t come up with a clever saying yet, I’m sure I will though.

Keep a look out for more Halloween DIY posts.  I have several lined up.  I was so excited for Halloween this year because I started early making everything and I can finally share them all with you.  Thank you for reading and see you in the next post.

My phone is FULL of pictures that intend to share and forget to, so hopefully with these Random Wednesday’s it will get me sharing them more.

Autumn is my favorite time of year. The weather is perfect, the colors of everything changing and getting to wear my warm socks, sweaters and boots. Well it’s perfect for me. I thought I would share my photo of my mums that I was so excited to put out around our new home.

So Happy Autumn!

Another favorites post is here!  I had way more than what’s in this post however, I know that we all have lives to get to.  I am sharing the things that just blew my mind for the last couple of months.  So here we go…

1. Mane ‘n Tail Shampoo-  NOT USED ON ME!  We have an Australian Shepherd mix and his fur is between a Chow and a Husky.  We can brush him, bathe him and then brush him again and by the end of the day he looks like he was never groomed.  This shampoo is the only one that has actually cleaned his fur and helped keep it from matting up.  His coat stays fluffy longer and shines him up.

2.  Pro-Sense Glucosamine tablets-  Our oldest dog is having joint/hip problems just with old age and these have helped.  No they are not a cure all but it has vitamins and other good nutrients.  They smell horrible but they think they are a treat so fine by me.  Obviously check with your vet before you give them to your animal.

3.  Anxiety TFLN- (tiny bottle in front of the shampoo and pills) Our one dog is absolutely terrified of thunder storms and fire works.  We went to D&B this year and tried this stuff and it was AMAZING!  Last year we had actual tranquilizers but we couldn’t get to the vet’s in time to get more so we tried this and WOW.  Seriously awesome.  It is all natural and really does work.  Please check with your vet on this as well.

4.  Redken Frizz Dismiss-  This line (I think is new) is just amazing.  Fair warn though if you have oily hair already you may not want to use everything all at once in this line.  I bought the sample sizes of things so I could try it and not invest $50 plus in something that is going to potentially suck.  Very impressed.  It does what it says even with just using one product at a time.

5.  Behr Marquee-  This is what we painted our house with and it was great.  The coverage was incredible and it dried so fast.  You can also get this in interior as well.  Expensive?  Yes, but well worth it.

  A handful of things but really stand out products.  I hope you liked this and thanks for reading!

Anyone who knows us by now knows that we don’t stay still with home improvement projects.  When we moved into our new home we already had a list of things that we were going to do.  Although home improvement projects are a sure fire way to find out how quick you can lose your mind we find them…addicting.  I have always said that it’s a true test of marriage if you can survive a major home improvement together.  Seriously.

Obviously, one of our major projects that we wanted to get done before Fall was painting the house.  Some of you may think, “painting, really it’s not that big of a project.”  Let me share of couple tidbits with you.  First, we have metal siding.  Second, we did not spray our house, we did this all by hand, brush and roller.  Yes, after as many years as we have done these things we have completely lost our minds.  However, we wouldn’t have changed a thing about it.  It took three times longer than we expected but it came out fantastic!

I thought I would share a few things that were extremely helpful and some tricks we learned along the way.

1.  Decide on what you want your house to look like.  What do I mean?  Do you want it to look rich and inviting?  Cottage, Classic American?  Do you want light easy colors?  It is a lot to think about but if you are painting your house it’s not cheap to cover with another color.  Take your time with deciding.  Sorry, patience is key.  It blows but it’s true.

2.   Try out colors before you commit and buy gallons and gallons of paint.  Buy the samples and paint in multiple areas around your house.  Our first choice of color was awesome in the shade/darker areas but the way it looked in the sunny areas we were not happy with so it was a huge deciding factor.  We didn’t go with it and went for a darker color.

3. Walk around your house and really look at it.  Consider your job ahead.  Do you have areas you are going to have a difficult time reaching?  Does your trim have multiple layers.  We had a lot of trim work.  Don’t forget about the eaves.  They need to be painting too!  This will help with your list of things you need, like an extension rod.

4. Good brushes and good rollers matter.  You know by now I am one to tell you to get the cheaper version of something if you don’t need to spend the money.  This type of project is not something to be cheap on.  We have a basement that you can see the concrete as well as stucco on the back of our house and I would say when we went back through and touched up we used a cheaper brush then so we could be rough with it if we had to.

5. READ THE PACKAGING ON THE TOOLS for nap.  What kind of surface do you have?  Ours was semi-smooth to semi-rough for most all of the body except for the stucco and concrete which was rough.  Yes, this will make a difference.

6. We had to buy individual gallons with the type of paint we bought.  We used the Behr Marque.  If you have to do this buy a five gallon bucket to mix all the paint in.  When your paint is mixed at the store it doesn’t all come out the exact same.  WHAT!?  You are having added color to a can and yes, it can be off from gallon to gallon so if you were to finish a gallon and start a whole new one you may find a slight difference in the color.  This is why you want to mix them in one bucket.  If you have more than five gallons (we had 9)  add as you get low, don’t wait until you have reached the bottom.

7. Now to touch on the “emotional” side of painting.  It rocks at first, especially when you are rolling and making huge stride but then you get to the touch up and little areas of frustration.  Stay calm and well…. paint on.  Remember the outcome is totally worth it in the end and yes, it will finally end. If you need to take a day off.

   Above is just a little snap shot of before and after.  We love the dark blue and white.

Glad to be back to more blogging and sharing so much with you guys.  Thanks so much for reading and hope you enjoyed this post.

This final post is really just for fun.  I wanted to share it with you because it was such a huge change in our lives.  We always wanted an older home and found a great one.  Zach (our agent) did an amazing job getting us through some challenges we faced on closing on the house.  Not to get into too much detail but to kind of help you understand we bought a property that was being split at the time.  The back half of the land was already in contract to be bought as a separate property and we had to wait for everything to go through before we could finalize on ours.  We knew all of this when we went into our contract so this wasn’t a surprise.  The type of loan we got was also a deciding factor on a lot of things as well.  Advise: Make sure your lending officer explains what’s going on and what the type of loan requires with the property you are getting.

Moving day finally came and it was nuts!  Luckily I had boxes organized and labeled really well so it was pretty easy to unpack.  We also donated a lot of things before we packed so we weren’t packing up unnecessary items.

We were so excited to move into our new home!  We got our final load of stuff in to the van and loaded up both of our cars and said goodbye to our first home.  The home that we started our lives together in, the home that we realized we were two crazy DIY, take on any home improvement project home owners.  We knew that our new home needed some work and some things that we were going to change but nothing that we couldn’t handle.  Surprisingly I didn’t cry.  The cat did but I didn’t.  Every once in awhile I think of the familiarity of our old home.  Like when you think about elementary school, new pencils, crayons and backpacks.  Almost missing it just because it was simple.

After getting through the hurdles and having our day to shine we signed on our new home making it official.

Any time you make a huge decision like this you learn something about yourself.  I learned that I am able to take on change and face the unknown.  Fear is something that I think is all within our control.  You just have to face it and believe that you will have a great outcome.  My husband was and always is my biggest supporter.

Now onto our next adventures this new home will bring.  Don’t worry I will take you along with us as we start to make changes.

Once again being completely honest, when we actually listed our house I was really scared.  There are so many different things that could happen.  Listing your home is pretty simple though.  Since you have done all the prep work, spruced up what needed to be and fixed anything that needed to be fixed it’s go time!  The feeling is actually more of a relief when it’s on the market.

A good ol’ bucket of soapy water and a rag to wipe down everything

One thing we did was take out the carpet that was in the small living room closet and put in some faux tile.  Much more appealing for potential buyers.

In our situation we looked for houses the same weekend ours went up on the market.  So, in some ways I think that helped distract us from how many people were looking at it and everything.  Your agent will help keep you in check and realistic about prospects and what will happen.

Two things that you could expect to happen when you except an offer:

1.  Be prepared for an inspector.  One thing I can tell you to make sure you do is to put in a fresh furnace filter.  Sounds weird but just do it.  There may be some things that you will have to do after the report comes back.  This part I can’t really go into much detail because it all depends on what happens and what type of loan the buyers have.  Ours was pretty simple.  We had to change our hinges on the door going into the garage from the house to spring loaded hinges.
2. Expect an appraiser.  No matter what kind of loan you will have an appraiser show up.  It’s no big deal and this is pretty much out of your hands as far as the outcome.  Just smile and hope for the best.

When everything comes back and you are all good, start packing.  If you took my advise from the prior post some of your things should be packed up.  As OCD as I am, I color coordinated  our rooms and boxes so it was much easier when we moved into our new house.  Pretty soon one of these will pop up in your yard….

Once again thank you to Zach Chittenden with Keller Williams and Sidney Vogt at U.S. Bank for all their hard work.  Two people we will always recommend hands down.

As some of you may know by now we sold our home and moved into a new home.  I thought I would share our journey and give you some pointers or things that we found helpful.  Making a huge move like this isn’t easy and is very stressful whether you want to do it or not.  Like always I am going to be very honest in what I felt about it all.  No sugar coating.  What got us into this whole crazy thing?  Vacation…that’s what.  We were on vacation and we decided that we were tired of holding off on pursuing what we have talked about for so long.  We have always wanted an older home, in a different area and we thought it’s time, so the hell with it.  Our realtor Zach Chittenden with Keller Williams is amazing; you can visit him at www.kw.com.

I will be breaking this down into three parts.  Part 1: Finding a Realtor, Part 2: Listing Your Home and Part 3: Sold!  Moving into our new home.  I will try to keep them short but informative.

Finding a Realtor

We were lucky enough to have known our realtor before we hired him.  Many of us probably know someone or are related to someone who is a realtor.  There are a few things you should know about your realtor to help you make the best decision of who to choose to represent you.  Even though Zach was a friend of ours he kept it professional.  He represented us just like any other client and was honest with us.  You shouldn’t expect anything less than that.  Selling and buying a home is serious business.  Here are a few questions and things to consider when interviewing or selecting an agent.

1.  Are they a realtor full time or part time?  Not stating that either one carries more weight than the others, however, consider what your and their needs are.  This process is very demanding and you want someone who can be there to answer your questions, show you houses, be knowledgeable in current real-estate.  I know some great part time realtors.  We chose to have a full time realtor because of our situation and what our goals were.

2.  What are their specialties?  Meaning what kind of real-estate do they specialize in?  Residential, commercial, new construction…ect.  With the way the market is you never know what you are going to find or what may arise during your process.  There are so many different rules to each one that correspond with types of loans that can really make things complicated.  You want to make sure that your realtor is able to explain those things to you or that they have resources available to get you the answers.

3.  Can you trust this person/realtor?  Now, this is more of a question for yourself rather than the realtor.  With what you are about to embark on you need to have someone that you can be able to feel comfortable telling them what your financial situation is.  What you can and can’t afford.  This raises a HUGE issue, but, you need to be fully honest with your realtor and your lender.  The realtor isn’t going to be able to serve you well if they don’t know what your financial capabilities are.  You have to consider a few things like closing costs, realtor fees, down payment, cost for minor repairs, appraisal and home inspection fees.  If your realtor knows what you are dealing with financially they will be able to better assist you in your contract with a potential buyer/seller.  Let your lender and agent do the dirty work.  This is what they do for a living.  Believe me, it is hard to let someone else take control however, I let them deal with the hard stuff.  It made it less stressful.

4.  What is the agents contract between you and them?  Do they have fees or upfront costs?  What if you decide to back out?  How long is it for?  Ask all your questions and don’t be shy.  If your agent (or going to be) is really considering your well being they want you to fully understand the contract.  No miscommunications, no worrying about what something means or where you stand with them.  It’s nice to sleep at night.  Trust me, you need as much of it as you can get.

Some of the best things I could advise you of:

*Be open to what your agent has to say.

*Be transparent with your agent and loan officer

*Understand your goals and where you want to be.  Don’t get hung up on the small things.

*Be realistic with what’s going on.  Take a deep breath and trust in the people you have selected to work with.

Some of the greatest words of wisdom came from my husband and is what got this entire change to happen. “You are not the most successful when you are comfortable.”  This rang true for me.  He was right, we weren’t being successful in where we wanted to be and what we wanted to do without making a change.  Change isn’t something that comes easy to me, but I was tired of the same thing.  My husband was right.

As you know by now I tend to make my own things. With a last minute get together for the 4th of July coming up I thought I would share what I am making through out the week.  I have hardly spent any money.

Cupcakes are always a good safe bet for a sweet treat and cheap enough to whip up. The “accessories” for them can be a little spendy so I decided to make them.  This is how I did it.

What you need:

1. Toothpicks

2. All purpose labels

3. Markers,pens, stickers

How to:

1.  Take a label and fold it in half leaving a loop at the one end.  See the first picture below.

2.  Slip a toothpick in the loop and then press down making a flag.  See the second picture below.

3.  Draw whatever or put stickers on the flag and there you have your own cupcake decor

Quick and easy cupcake decor with supplies you can find around your house. You can really get creative.