First time feature!

Yesterday, my cousin Natalie asked if I wanted to guest post on her FABTABULOUS blog where her and her sister-in-laws share their life's secrets to being, well, AWESOME! 

She asked if she could feature my post from the other day

  Tips to Frugal Halloween Costumes. 

I am beyond excited and flattered for you to read! 

And I would love to hear your comments, good and bad! :)

So don't forget to check out their blog "Bits of Everything" and My feature by clicking on the icon below! And don't forget to subscribe to follow them! You won't regret it!

Tips for Frugal Halloween Costumes

Since the beginning of time....


Or ever since I can remember, I have been smitten by Hallow's Eve! It has always been my favorite holiday (except Christmas, but I mean is that even a debate?!).

Growing up in a large family, being a daughter of a farmer and a homemaker, we had to get creative when it came to Halloween. Credit given to my mom and her frugal-ness and sewing capabilities we had a plethora of fun costumes to choose from. It was like its own little holiday, getting to retrieve the garbage sacks full of Halloween stuff from the attic every year! But when I got to Jr. High I decided to take it into my own hands! And that, ladies and gents is when it all started!

So if you're like me and hate buying the prepackaged costumes (because of the price, not because I don't think they are cute, cause I do...well, most of them) read my tips that have worked for me over the years. Because I have found great joy and thrill in making and "throwing together" homemade costumes every year.

Here are some from the past, wish I had ALL of them to show you, but that would just take SOOOO long!

Queen of Hearts and Ace of Hearts
- 2007 Brett and I were engaged

Disco Dancer and the Disco Ball (Preggo belly)
- 2010 Pregnant with Azure

Chef, Waitress and Crab in a Pot
- 2011 Azure 8 mo old

Cutest crab you will ever see!

Here is a break down of what I spent each year:

Queen of hearts:  

Tutu: Dollar store with a deck of mini cards hot glued on. $1 (already had the mini deck)

Large Card: Dollar store, Pinned to shirt

Tiara and Heart Wand:  a princess set from the Dollar Store, can't go wrong with a Tiara wearing a tiara!

Heart Necklace: Was given to me as a Bday gift from my bff. FREE!

Brett's Joker Hat: FREE! My mom always made us skiing hats back in the day and this was one of them that we borrowed.

Large Ace Card: 2 poster boards from the Dollar Store

Grand Total: $5!

Disco Ball and Dancer:

ME: 

Boots: $4 from the DI, spray painted silver (already had the paint)

Sequin Skirt and Top: Both from the DI, think I paid $2 for each

Disco Ball earrings and Necklace: Borrowed from a Friend... FREE!!

Brett:

Bell Bottoms: Borrowed

Shirt: His white dress up

Vest: From his hot wife's closet!

Necklace: Also stolen from his wife!

Grand TOTAL: $8!

Chef, Waitress and Crab in a Pot:

Me:

Everything I had in my closet except the apron, $0.97 @ Walmart!

Brett: Apron and Hat both $0.97 @ Walmart!

Azure:

My sister found a hat at KID2KID that was from some restaurant for $2. It had the eyes and tentacles on it. So I took them off and hot glued them to a sweater Azure already had. Glued the eyes to a CARS winter hat I found at Walmart which also came with red mittens for $5. She had red pants; and the red socks were $1 @ TARGET. Kitchen Cart: Borrowed from Brett's mom. And the pot... From my kitchen cupboard!

Grand TOTAL: $10.91!

Tips for Frugal Halloween Costumes

• Think ahead. Try and come up with what everyone will be dressing up as early on in the month (or year, that's how much I love it!). That will make it so that when you are at the store and you see a random item that would go perfect with a costume you can get it; and save the headache of trying to make 1 trip, last minute to Walmart and be stuck wearing an XXXL banana costume cause it was the only thing left. Or my least favorite, wearing NO COSTUME AT ALL?!!! gasp!

• Hit up the 2nd hand/ thrift and dollar stores! You can never go wrong there, as you can see with my costumes from the past.

• Make a list of what everyone's going to be and what their costume needs, and keep it in your purse at all times. When you are out shopping you can refer to the list. I have to do this with everything in life or I can't remember a thing. If I didn't do this Azure would be wearing an orange wig, hot pink coat, 1 rain boot 1 flip flop and a church dress! No Joke!

• Remember, you don't have to be "crafty" to do a homemade costume. It really is EASY! It just takes a little imagination and a little trust in yourself.

• Make a budget, it helps with getting creative! My budget this year was $20. This is the most I've ever spent on costumes but I think I still rocked it.

• Check your own closet, I guarantee you will find at least 2 things you can use!

• Once everyone chooses what they want to be (or if you still have the luxury of choosing for your kids) find a pic on the internet so you can envision the goal. 

Now for this years inspiration....Are you ready?!...........

Azure

Brett

Me

Hahaha... don't you just love the dancing oompa-loompa?! 

I'm going to let you in on a little confession of mine. When I was pregnant with Azure, Brett and I were looking for ideas of what to be for Halloween that year. I saw a picture of a toddler as an oompa-loompa and I told Brett that when our (unborn) child was that age they were going to be an oomp-loompa! That was 2 years of waiting for this moment! Wow! It feels good to get that off my chest! Though I'm a little embarrassed that you all know now how weird I am!

Anyways...
To achieve this years fun I hit up my local Goodwill while out one day and with my "list" I was able to find EVERYTHING I needed. I did a happy dance of course! And even better, it was all in my budget of $20!

Purple Women's Blazer
$5.29

Blue Medical Scrubs
$3.99 each

White pants and Brown Long Sleeve Shirt
$2.29 and $1.79

Women's Long Sleeve Striped Shirt
$3.79

 

 I was happier than a nerd at comic-con when I got home that day! Laying out all my treasures (after washing them first of course) and beaming in my success of the day. I then got out my sewing machine and went to work.

I cut off the legs on the pants and gave them a new hem
I took the women's striped shirt and cut it up, making leggings wrist cuffs and a collar for my little oompa-loompa. 
Made suspenders from white elastic from my sewing junk, hot glued clamps on, and cut brown felt circles.

Grand Total: $7.87!

For Violet Beauregard all I had to do was add a red belt from my closet, and come Halloween I shall stuff myself with a pillow, and color my hair blue!

Grand Total: $7.98!

For Willy Wonka I dug through my scarves and found one for the bow-tie and one to add some frill! I just need to find a top hat and make a cane!

Grand Total: $5.29!

Making this years GRAND TOTAL: $21.14!

I went over budget a little but I'm still proud of it all and can't wait to dress up!


*Come back and visit  next week for pictures of us all dressed up!

And an extra bonus, I found this cute Elephant costume size 2-4 for $7 which retails at $27.00 in stores! I already know what I want to do to make this costume even more Azurific!

I have next year planned already :)

                                

                                      I'm thinking Zoo Animals and
                                          a Zoo Keeper!

               

                  Good thing we have a whole year
                    to get her used to wearing it ;)

HAPPY HAUNTING EVERYONE!

*Update: Here is how it all turned out....

Computers, Internet, Technology...OH MY!

So I know I made a vow to everyone that I would be a devoted blogger. Well I am sorry that I have left you all feeling lost and abandoned. You know it's true.

Well I'm BACK!

We have been experiencing technical difficulties in the Reeder household. So as you all know, when we moved we lost the beloved breathe of some of our most important members of the family; aka: computer #1, external hard drive, and screen function of computer #2. So we took our babies in for surgery to a friend down the road and he was able to work his magic. However, we lost all our programs and data from both computers. But the saddest of all...our hard drive did not make it. We were told that it needed further help to recover our lost data. I'm going to stop there before the tears start to flow POUR!

Anyways, after all that was said and done; we lost our internet connection for good. So we had to get that fixed and heaven knows that is not a speedy process. So we had to do everything off of our phones. BAH!

I apologize for my ranting and whining but I am excited to be in blog land once again. And I am even more excited about some upcoming events I want to share with you i.e. family pictures this coming Saturday and HALLOWEEN!!!! 

The most wonderfully, spooktacular, fabtabulous holiday ever!!!!!

See you soon....




P.S. if anyone knows of good ways to force feed a feisty toddler, let me know. Not sure if she is coming down with something or if she is just not interested lately. But she WON'T eat a thing, and it's been about 4 or 5 days of this! All of her teeth have already cut through so I'm pretty sure it can't be from that, but I am at a dead end here. So any helpful advice is always great! Thanks!

DIY Menu Stand

 

So a few months ago when I was trying to give my bland boring apartment kitchen/dining room some oomph, I really wanted to makeover my MENU board. 

As you can see in this BEFORE photo I was in dire need! 

I made this one about 3 years ago; and I'm sure everyone can attest to how fast things go in and out of style these days. Another reason for the overhaul was that in my home before I had it hung on the wall, but now I have a tall bar that I wanted to display it on. 

There's always something that can be improved or glamorized, right?!

 So I hunted for something that would be a great pedestal. I was an original Goldilocks for weeks. Not too tall, Not too short, Not too fat, Not too skinny.... But juuusssttt right!

I originally wanted one made of wood, because I imagined I was going to need to cut at some point to make it the way I imagined.

It took me a few weeks until I found the perfect one! Can't beat a $2.99 candlestick @ ROSS!  

However this one made me settle for metal it was my only choice and I was getting impatient! Luckily I have a hubbers who will lovingly spend an hour or two.... or three sawing metal in an awkward fashion for me in the middle of the night. (J/K it didn't take him all that long.)

Unfortunately I deleted the only photo of the candlestick, in original form, I had. So you will just have to imagine with me.

First I disassembled the candlestick as to make workflow go smoother.

I wanted my frame to sit snugly inside the top of the candlestick so that it looked like it was all one piece. This is where the metal cutting hand-saw came in handy (see I told you I would be needing to cut something)

So I measured and used a sharpie to mark my lines. I wanted a good solid line that I could see well while cutting, and I was just going to paint over the pink anyways. I know, I know, who doesn't want pink in their kitchen?! Minus my cute grandma who had a pink strawberry kitchen back in the day :)

 Then my manly Brett took over the cutting because I wasn't strong enough (due to a recently broken hand at the time) to grip the metal piece and the saw to use enough force to cut.

After he cut to the end of my marks I folded in the tabs to create a support for underneath my frame.

This is what it looked like after reassembling the candlestick.

        

The top of the candlestick was like a bowl, so to make it flush I stuck some foam that I got at the dollar store into the hole on both sides. I then epoxied around the edges to fuse the candlestick and frame together to create a solid piece.

I then had the dilemma of choosing which color of blue I wanted, 

BLUE OCEAN BREEZE or TRUE BLUE.

 I had recently painted some picture frames to go in the dinning room with these colors, so I didn't have to spend any more money! YAY!

I then hot glued a matching piece of felt over the foam, and it made for a nice little shelf to hold my dry erase marker........ 

AND HERE IT IS!!

I love both colors so much that I made a mason jar candy dish to go next to my menu stand. I couldn't give up one blue. I LOVE BLUE!!

Oh and FYI; yes I update the menu every week! It helps me have motivation to cook and plan ahead :)