Paper Plate Skeleton; Kids Craft!

Well, I am sorta  late with this post... I have been trying to carve out (notice the Halloween pun, huh?- Good one!) the time to make this for weeks, but it just hasn't happened until tonight.  I got the idea from my friend Michelle last year who has made these since she was a kid.  And she was nice enough to email me the instructions, thank you Michelle!

I thought it would be fun to make with Etta... She loved drawing around her feet and hands, but that is about as far as she went... and then she wanted to play outside.. Oh, well I tired!

But I did manage to finish one...

Beware scary pictures ahead 

(and I don't mean the skeleton, I mean the make-up-less grease ball... me!)

Here is my messy work surface.  We were having family night, and Etta got a Chocolate Carrot Cake Cupcake, once the frosting was gone she lost interest and decided to throw it up in the air a few times for good measure.  Just sorta makes me laugh!

Now you can tie the joints together with string or twine, but I decided to go the lazy way and just staple them together, where I wanted joints to work I just linked two staples together, and bent them back on themselves...

And here it is masking taped to the closet door... our lone Halloween decoration so far this year... Oh well at least it is something, I plan on getting te rest out soon.  (I guess I did buy some orange roses for cheap, and they are very festive!)

Here is the pattern:

Let me know if you make it!

Remodelaholic is written by Cassity and Justin. Cassity has a degree in interior design and Justin is a landscape architect, so we adore everything that makes up a HOME! We love to share home remodeling ideas and projects we’re working on. From huge kitchen renovation ideas to small bathroom remodels, there isn’t anything we won’t try to tackle (at least once!). We are in the midst of our third whole home renovation, (check out house 1 and house 2 as well, so there should be a lot more inspiration coming your way. We hope that you will stop by often for home design inspiration, tutorials, interior design tips, delicious recipes and what going on in our family life.

Other Great Halloween Posts:

Paper Mouse Cutouts - Halloween 2011

Star Trek Costume from 2010

Festive Halloween Dinner; Dinner in a Pumpkin

No Bake Halloween Skeleton Cookies

Spooky Candlestick DIY Project

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Vintage Inspired Book Page Bedroom Makeover

Vintage Inspired Book Page Bedroom Makeover

Design collaboration by

Jennifer of Momento Designs

 Emily of A Well Dressed Home

Submitted By LaurieAnna's Vintage Home

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Staging A Bookcase Beautifully

Staging A Bookcase Beautifully by Stacy

Howdy ya’ll! 

My name is Stacy and I blog over at The Precious Little Things in Life. I am giddy with excitement honored to have been asked by Cassity to guest post here on Remodelaholic. I’ve been an avid follower of this blog for over a year now and have gleaned so much knowledge and inspiration from it. Before we begin, here’s a little run down of who I am and what my blog is all about. I was born and raised in Texas and I lived there up until August of last year, at which time my husband left his secular job and accepted a church planting/pastoral position in North New Jersey. We packed up our belongings, said good-bye to loved ones, and drove cross-country with our three young children to begin a new and exciting chapter of our lives. I started my blog in order to stay in touch with family and friends in Texas, but it has since evolved into a wonderful creative outlet for me, a forum in which to share with others that which I am most passionate about: serving the Lord, loving my husband, homeschooling my children, and decorating my home. We are currently renting a Victorian Style house built in the 1920’s and have had to come up with many creative and ingenious ideas to spruce it up, while staying within our budget and respecting rental property restrictions.


My husband and I have been busy the last few months, working hard to give our master bedroom a much needed face lift. One wall of our bedroom is occupied by two Ikea Billy Bookcases (joined together by screws) that were handed down to me by my sister. They were taken apart and stored in my garage in Texas for a while before we moved, then transported 1,600 miles to New Jersey in a tightly packed Uhaul truck. They were in serious need of some TLC. Not only that, but we were not happy with overall appearance of the bookcase arrangement. It was far too busy and colorful. In our bedroom, we are going for what I call a cool and crisp look. Simple, clean, and bright. It was clear to us that the rainbow effect created by the colorful book bindings was making it impossible for us to achieve this overall look. Add to that the less than appealing appearance of some of the books and we had a real challenge on our hands. (we have many old well-loved books)


Here is a picture of the bedroom so you can get an idea of the color pallet we are working with and the overall feel of the room.

...and then the eyesore bookcases...

Here is a closeup of what the bookcases looked like before:

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Saturday Mornings Blog and her Decopage Dresser

Saturday Mornings is a freshly written blog about revamps, creations, and handmade gifts on a dime!  From holiday decor to furniture before and afters, this blog has something that everyone will want to try.  Each project shows the savings you get when you create instead of buy, and they are almost always astounding.  


Man Craft Mondays  is a feature posted weekly that spotlights something you can do that any man would be thankful for.  Join me as I spruce up my home, organize the garage, and turn old dusty furniture in something worth blogging about!  Often, the finished products can be purchased in the Saturday Mornings Etsy shop.  With the holidays around the corner, you will not want to miss these decorating ideas that will save you money.  

Decoupaged Dresser:

I once received an old press board chest of drawers that I have used to keep socks and other small items in.  I have always loathed the thing but I needed the space it provided me.  This morning, I vowed to have that piece of junk looking spectacular before nightfall.  Here is the piece, sans drawers, and a picture of the drawers.  At some point in your life, you have more than likely owned something similar.

I removed the handles and spray painted them in the front yard, along with the dresser.  The drawers were not a victim of the aerosol can. 

I covered the fronts of the drawers with fabric, waited on everything to dry, and I had a brand new look for an old eyesore!

I was thrilled with the results, and it took far less time than my Rocker Revamp did.  Let me know what you think of it!

Dresser:  FREE!

Paint:  $8.00

Fabric:  $8.00

Total Cost:  $16.00

Similar Style Dresser at Local Furniture Store:  $249.00

Make sure you go and check out her blog, Saturday Mornings!  

(and isn't it just the perfect morning to do that?!!)

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Pretty Dry Erase Board: Guest

Amanda @ The Hand Me Down House found a nice attractive way to leave notes, but not on a white board.

If I could paint a picture for you -- you'll be able to see why this next project was so important to do -- well, sort of:  I grab my purse and head out the door to run some errands.  I turn right back around and get my reusable grocery shopping bags.  I get out the door again, and get in the car.  Then back in the house I go because I forgot my shopping list and coupons.  One more time....I leave.  Do you know what I forgot this time?  I needed some water in the car.  Seriously -- it is not that rare for me to go in and out of the house two to three times.  It's just plain sad.

So I saw these really cute whiteboards over at Keeping it Simple (BTW - she has a SUPER fun link party every week too).  Well how perfect would these be??  I could hang it right on the door going to the garage and have a checklist of what I need to bring with me to the store, errands, wherever I'm going!

So last week while I was out thrifting with my Bestie, Becca at One Girl, One Beautiful World I was keeping my eyes peeled for the PERFECT frame that I could makeover.  Well of course I found it -- otherwise you probably wouldn't be reading this post. :)

First step was to disassemble the frame and take out the glass, matting and beautiful flower picture (yikes!!).  I spray-painted the frame black.  Then I covered the back and matting with some fabric I had picked up at Joanne's.  My fabric was a little on the thin side, so I doubled the fabric when I placed it.

I took my all-powerful hot glue gun and glued my fabric down (I'm sure you could staple it if you wanted to, too).

The only other thing that I did before I put the frame back together was I put two little swirls of store-bought adhesive vinyl on the fabric (that way it's not going to get in the way of writing on the whiteboard and you can't accidentally erase them).  See?

I reassembled the frame and glued a ribbon to the back so I could hang it.  

 So since my board is on a door I wanted to really secure it, otherwise it could go flying all over the place when people go in and out of the garage.  I used the 3M Command Hooks to secure the bottom and sides to the door and I also used a Fancy Command Hook I had to hang my ribbon from.  And check out this coupon if you want to get any for yourself!  I think it works pretty well- it hasn't gone flying off the door....yet.

And that's it!  Not hard -- and I'm really excited to use it (although so far it's just been used for people to leave me strange messages).   

This is a pretty way to make reminder notes.  

What do you think?

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Paper Blossoms:Guest

Here is another book page creation, that I thought was cool by Erin at Lemon Tree Creations.

I made these little paper blossoms a few months ago and have been toying around with them ever since, trying to decide which wreath, box or other item to attach them to.  I finally decided that they were cute enough to make a simple little display of their own.  What do you think?

I started off by taking one of the books that I use for all of my book page crafts and cutting out a bunch of circles in various sizes.  I made sure that the circles were very rough so that piling them on top of one another would be more interesting-looking, meaning that some that were more oval than circular, and several had straight edges or points.  Once I had a good stack of circles, I grabbed my brown stamp pad and inked the edges.

I then stacked a pile from largest to smallest, trimming up a few circles and sliding some of the “petals" out of the center a bit to make them stand out more.  I poked a hole through the center of the flower and twisted the different circles around until I liked the arrangement.

I then removed the push pin and replaced it with a brad to secure the blossom.  I also added a little pearl embellishment to the brad to dress it up a bit.

 

I wanted to blossom to have a little bit of a 3-dimensional aspect to it, so I took a few of the blossoms, cut a tiny slit from the edge to the center, pulled the two pieces together until they overlapped slightly, and glued them together with a glue stick.  This gave that layer of the flower the slightest “cone” look and made the whole blossom pop.

 

I used the same technique with the blue blossom, I just cut out circles of a scrapbook paper that I love in addition to the book pages.  Since the scrapbook paper was sturdier than the book pages, I crinkled the edges of the biggest blossom between my fingers just to give it a little bit more of a ruffled look.

I then pulled out an old round frame that I had picked up at a yard sale, covered some cardboard in linen and popped it into the frame.  I hot glued the blossoms and little pearl embellishments on for stems. 

Ta da!  Very easy and very cute, I wish I had thought of this earlier, these have been sitting unused in my craft room forever!!

  

I am linking this project to these fantastic blogs.  Please take a moment to scroll around and see all of the talent and great ideas that are willingly shared by these ladies!

Also, be sure to stop back by next week as we’ll each be revealing some of our best home solutions.

Have a great week!

Don't the book pages create a 

beautiful piece of art?  

I love the interest the text gives to the petals.

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