Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Money Saving


Over the past year I have become almost obsessed with saving money by any means necessary (excluding fornication or murder). I literally get giddy when I find coupons or great finds at the dollar or thrift stores.

I have a friend who introduced me to the whole world of frugality (Don't know if you read this- BUT YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!!! =)) and I really appreciate all her texts and emails telling me when there are going to be great deals, or where I can find a coupon for something I am likely to buy. 

Since I am slowly, sloooowwly getting better at this whole world of couponing I thought I would share some really easy ways to get started. 

One thing that I just discovered was a way to get a fatty coupon book from Proctor and Gamble. I buy so much stuff made by Proctor and Gamble so I get pretty excited for a WHOLE BOOK filled with their coupons. Here are a few brands Proctor and Gamble makes:


Bounce
Bounty
Braun
Cascade
Charmin
Cheer
CoverGirl 
Crest
Downy
Duracell
Febreze
Herbal Essences
Iams
Mr. Clean
Olay
Old Spice
Oral-B
Pampers
Pantene
Pepto-Bismol
Puffs
Secret
Swiffer
Tide
Vicks

To get the book you just have to collect reciepts from P&G brands from September-December showing that you have purchased $50 worth of P&G products. Then you mail them in to them and they mail you back a book filled with sexy, sexy coupons. 

I thought I would be going through receipts all day. But I found 3 right away that totaled up to $50. It was really easy! 

Here is the link to the page where you can find the form and all the info to get the coupon book. 

The only thing is that the receipts have to be dated between September(ish) and December, and the receipts + form need to be postmarked by January 14th. So if this interests you--get on it!!!

Hope this helps someone out! 
 



Thursday, December 16, 2010

Christmas and stuff...

Ahhh, I'm so glad blogging is not my job, because I would SO be fired by now! Life is too fun to keep up on blogging! We have been up to a lot lately; Christmas shopping, decorating and baking, getting sick, seeing Santa:
Luke has been really getting into the 'magic' of the whole Santa thing, so I thought for sure he would be excited to see Santa, unlike last year. But we got there and he threw himself on the floor in protest. So it's a family picture with Santa this year! I wish I would have foreseen this and put on some makeup that morning!

In other news, I stumbled upon this awesome site that I have been wasting lots of time on lately. It's called dearblankpleaseblank.com

Here are a few of my favorites:


Dear Yahoo,
I've never heard anyone say, "I don't know, let's Yahoo! it..." just saying...

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Seasonal Blocks-Day 7

Before I introduce the idea for our seventh handmade Christmas project, let me preface it by ranting about the amazingness of using hardware store lumber in crafting. It is a little bit of extra work, but it is so cheap! A 4x4 runs about $6-$8 and makes 20 blocks. That is about .40 cents a block. You can not find that kind of a deal on blocks at a craft store. They are upwards of 2 bucks each meaning to make the craft pictured below you would spend at least 14 dollars just on the wood. As opposed to $3. 

I'll admit I was a little embarrassed to set foot inside a hardware store among scores of burly men to buy supplies for...(ahem)...crafts. But the more I shop there the more I realize that they probably have a lot of customers who are buying stuff for smaller projects rather than building a house with their bare hands. So there is no need to be ashamed. Many of the hardware stores will even cut the wood into blocks for you. 

So before you go to a pricey craft store ask yourself if it is a cut of wood or any other material that you could get elsewhere. If the answer is 'yes' give the home improvement stores a try. 

Photo Courtesy of brownpaper--packages.blogspot.com
 I thought these mantle blocks would be a great idea for handmade christmas presents. I know that I always love getting home decor stuff because it is so hard to accumulate enough stuff to make our house feel really decorated. I'd say our house is about 1/3 of the way decorated and ALL of that stuff was given to us by other people, not purchased.

Anyway, the great thing about these blocks is that they have letters on 4 sides so they can be switched up to spell lots of different things enveloping many different seasons and holidays.
The words include:

Harvest
Welcome
Friends
Faith
Family
Spooky
Winter
Freedom
Blessed
Snow
Home
Hope
Monster
Mother
Dream
Easter

Please go here for the full tutorial. She gives you the info on which letters go on which blocks. Such an awesome idea!

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Button Bracelet-handmade day 6

I'm not a big fan of 'real' jewelry. I feel so weird in precious metals! So I really like this button bracelet. It looks from the tutorial like it is really easy to make. And super cheap! I love the rough chunkiness of this! 

Photo courtesy of: lillyella.blogspot.com














In other news, I am having way too much fun lately. In the past week we have had visits from family in Seattle and Utah. And we have gone to Disneyland, Universal Studios, and Medieval Times! I thought I would have time before the holiday fun got too busy to post ideas for 25 crafts. But alas, the fun has snuck up on us early this year! Thus, 25 days of handmade Christmas has become 12 days. Ha ha! I am such a slacker! Stay tuned for a whopping 6 more hand-made Christmas ideas.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Little Boy Lumber Jack Hats-Day 5

I bought Luke one of these hats before I found this tutorial. I LOVE it! I make him wear it whenever I can. Little boys look so cute in hats and I have to say the Lumber Jack hat is my favorite by far! SO cute!



















You can find the full tutorial on how to make the hat here


Saturday, November 13, 2010

Gathered Clutch-Day 4

I found a tutorial for this adorable clutch! I want to make a million of them! Which is why I haven't made one yet. Over-ambition kinda kills a lot of my projects! But who would not love getting one of these for Christmas? (hint hint to my family that reads my blog...just kiddding =))

Photo Courtesy Of: Noodleheads.blogspot.com
The tutorial is really detailed so if you have never made a zippered bag before you should be able to follow along really well! Go here to see the full tutorial!


Friday, November 12, 2010

Homemade Play dough (Day 3)

Making homemade play dough is one of my fondest and most vivid memories growing up. I thought it was funnest thing ever! The other day I made some with Luke. I have tried a couple different recipes and this one is by far the best!

Ingredients:
1 cup flour 
1/4 cup of salt 
2 tablespoons cream of tartar 
1 cup water 
1 smidge of gel food coloring  
1 tablespoon vegetable oil  
*One recipe will make about 3 different colors. 

Step 1: Put the dry ingredients in a pan and whisk them together until well mixed. 
Step 2: Add the wet ingredients and mix (with a mixing spoon, not a mixer)
Step 3: Put the pan on the stove over medium heat and keep mixing. It will start to get lumpy, that's good keep mixing until it starts to really come together, stick to itself and form a rough ball. Take it off the heat when this happens, if you cook it for to long it will get too dry. 
Step 4: Knead in food coloring. I used the Wilton Gel food coloring, because it makes more vibrant colors. When I was young we always used regular food coloring and our play dough was always pastel. 

Making homemade play dough is really easy and so cheap! I am always making stuff; crafts and treats, but making this is almost relaxing compared to even the easiest of projects I have done. I was really surprised how fast and effortlessly this came together. 
 With a couple of dollar store tuperware containers, the play dough can be cutely packaged up and stuffed into a stocking!

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Lego Table- Handmade Idea 2

Photo Courtesy of Shabby2Sweet.Blogspot.com














I found the tutorial for this table a while back and thought it was such a good idea! I have stored it in the back of my mind until we have more kids who would play with it. But in the meantime I wanted to share it!

This is an old side table that wasn't needed anymore, so it got a coat of paint, some dollar store baskets affixed onto the sides and a foundation of legos super-glued onto the top. Now it is a perfect station for storing and playing with Legos!

The thing that blows me away about this project is how cheap it is. I mean, you can find little side tables at yard sales for a few bucks! And the baskets on the side are from the dollar store. The result is something that I think any kid would be so excited about on Christmas morning!

Also if your kids are too small to play with Legos or you just don't want them laying around the house for younger kids to stuff in their mouths you could make the same thing with Duplos or Mega Bloks!

If you want to see the full details of how the table was made please visit the Shabby2Sweet blog.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

25 Days of Handmade Christmas- Day 1

As I already blabbed about earlier this year, I am a big fan of homemade Christmas presents. I also have a passion for seeking out good ideas. Like I have said before I am not creative, so I love scouring the blog world for cute ideas for handmade stuff.

I decided to share some of those ideas I have found with those of you who read my blog. It's also a way for me to document those things so I can find them easily when I want to use them. Some of them will be things that I am making for Christmas this year, and some of them will be links to a tutorial on another blog. I will probably lean toward presents for kids, since that is what is on my mind a lot. =) But I will definitely have some good grown-up ones too!


Whenever my husband Santa asks me what I want in my stocking I always tell him 'accessories'! I can never have enough hair thingies and beauty supplies. They make me giddy. I thought that would be a super easy super cheap idea for a handmade Christmas present.

I got a pack of 4 headbands for $1. I covered this one in blue fabric and made petals following this tutorial. I glued some turquoise sequins to the middle aaaaaand...done. Easy.

For this one I pleated some purple ribbon, ironed it, and sewed it down the middle to hold the pleats. Then glued it onto the headband and glued the polka dot ribbon on top to cover the stitching. 
I followed this tutorial to make some rolled fabric flowers with some old denim jeans I had. I also wrapped the headband in a strip of denim. Easy (but painful, burnt my finger on the hot glue. I can't believe with all the technology we have at our fingertips we can't invent something better than the hot glue gun!).
This one is my favorite, because it's for ME! I can't wear normal headbands because they always give me a headache, so I bought some black elastic by-the-yard at the fabric store. I think it was a dollar something a yard. A yard will make at least 3 headbands. I measured how much elastic I needed for one headband, then sewed the elastic together and glued a super simple bow on the top. ANY of these headbands can also be made with elastic. Make the flowers/pleats according to the tutorial and sew or glue them on the elastic. 


You can also make bows or flowers and glue them on clippies if you (or your recipient) aren't a headband person. I got this box of 100 clips from a beauty supply store for 5 bucks.

For this flower I just bought a bunch of dollar store fake daisies. I pulled one off the stem, took the front piece and back piece off, and glued a clip to the back and a button to the middle. 


For this last one I followed this tutorial and glued it onto a clip. Sooooo easy, soooooo cheap!


Monday, November 8, 2010

Asymmetrical, Pleated Shirt Refashion

I love fall/winter weather! My favorite thing ever is layering. I think t-shirts, tank tops, and such become so much cuter with a contrasting long sleeved shirt underneath. That's why I was thrilled when I found this tutorial for a one-sleeved, pleated tank top.



















It was relatively easy, and I love the result! I didn't have a long sleeve crew neck shirt like the one in the tutorial above, mine was scoop neck so it turned out a little different. If you see the shirt and think, "That would be much cuter if it was a little less cave woman" then check out the tutorial, because if you do it the right way, it's much less extreme (meaning if you wore this shirt without an undershirt you wouldn't get charged with indecent exposure)! I want to try it with a crewneck soon because I seriously love this look, but the only thing that bothers me is the angle of the neckline.  

But for now, I am excited for this cute shirt that I could never pull off wearing if it weren't for layering! Woo hoo!

***Please do yourself a favor and follow the link above the pictures to the original tutorial. It is a much cuter shirt when: a)made correctly, b) not wrinkled, and c) on someone with any kind of a shape!!!

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Pumpkin Carving FAIL = Delicious (triple) WIN

Todd and I like to make unnecessary things into a competition. We place bets on everyday things like how many times Luke will wake up in the middle of the night. We have a tradition of making graham cracker haunted houses and having our friends on facebook judge whose is better. Last year was a total fail on my part.


This was Todd's house:

And this was mine:

Some of our friends actually thought that Luke made it because it was so bad! Really? REALLY? Luke was not even a year old at this point!

This year we wanted to turn our pumpkin carving into a facebook competition too. We have both been reading the Scott Pilgrim books and we actually both had the idea to make Scott Pilgrim pumpkins, but one of us had to give up the dream, and so I went to my second option. A LOLCats pumpkin. I wanted to do that fancy carving thing where you don't cut all the flesh out, but just make it thin enough that light shines through. Long story short-it was a fail.
 













After so many halloween competition related failures I was determined to salvage what I could of this project. Pumpkin puree to the rescue!

A couple of years ago we found instructions on how to make pumpkin puree, along with a recipe for pumpkin pie from scratch. This is what saved me from another Halloween of humiliation.

We had much more puree than was needed for the pie, so we also made a pumpkin cheesecake and pumpkin bread. We topped all 3 pumpkin creations off with an amazing recipe for homemade whipped cream using almond extract. ~heavenly~ (If you follow the links to one of the recipes, make it the whipped cream, this stuff makes ANYTHING taste amazing)

Monday, November 1, 2010

Caramel Apples

Caramel apples are my favorite fall treat! Oh my goodness! They are so good! I didn't like them for a long time, because I always tried to eat them off the stick and it is impossible. But when I learned to just cut it up and eat it like a regular apple, I fell in love! 

These are super easy to make. I love when desserts are easy and turn out pro looking. Unlike this fail of a cake that was super labor intensive and turned out so, so sad!

After I dipped the apples following the directions on the caramel package I melted chocolate and dipped them in that, and sprinkled them with various toppings. The toppings are the fun part! It's so fun to think of all the different things you can do. I did sprinkles, butterscotch drizzle, Reeses pieces, crunched up Snickers, Butterfinger, and Kit Kats.

A couple toppings that I wanted to try but didn't were sea salt sprinkled, apple pie (dipped in white chocolate instead of milk chocolate and sprinkled with a mixture of brown sugar, cinnamon, and graham cracker crumbles), and mini M&M's.

I like that these can be easily packaged up and shared with friends. Mmmmmmm...

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Homemade Halloween Costumes

          Growing up, my mom always made our halloween costumes. I remember going to the store around Halloween and seeing a sweet costume. I would beg my mom to buy it, but she would always say, "I can make that, that's easy." I always wished that we had just bought the costume in case for some reason it wasn't as easy to make as she thought it would be. But my mom was always amazing, she would spend half the money and instead of painted-on details the details were always real. I remember one year I wanted to be Pocahontas. My mom bought some suede and some beads and instead of having a one piece nylon costume with a turquoise necklace painted on it, I wore a thick suede dress with a hand beaded turquoise necklace.

I was always nervous about going to school in my home made costumes. It's not that I didn't like them, but I was going to stand out so much against the store bought costumes and I didn't know how I felt about that. But when I showed up to school every Halloween my friends would drool over my costume and say that they wished their moms knew how to sew. I was always so proud of my mom!

It made me feel so loved to know that my mom put so much time into something to make me happy. I think her amazing craftiness and creativity is what inspires me to want to do these things too. I want my kids to have that special home-made aspects to their lives that I had growing up.

That being said, this was my first attempt at a home-made halloween costume for Luke. I have no idea how to make a cowboy hat from scratch, so- sorry, that was store bought. But altogether this costume cost about $15 to make as opposed to the 30+ dollars it costs to buy one.

I made the vest and the shirt, and added the Woody details to the hat. Of course his cuteness is what makes the costume, but I'm happy with how it turned out. I think it's pretty close...

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

The life of Luke

           I realized that I haven't updated about Luke in a long, long time. When babies are so little we keep track of every single bit of progress. Then when they start to grow up we get lazy! That's why everybody's baby books are so packed in the first couple pages and then totally blank for the rest. 
          But in all honesty, Luke amazes me every single day when I see all that he is learning and the person he is becoming!
Here are a few tidbits about Luke:
Favorite Things:
-Luke LOVES cars, trains, big trucks, busses, and anything else with big wheels and a loud motor. When he lays down in his bed to go to sleep I can hear him over the baby monitor saying things like, "trains going through the tunnels, chooo choooooo!"

-He also loves his family. He has a little toy cell phone that he is always 'calling' someone on. I hear him having conversations with Uncle Chad, Uncle Mac, Auntie Laurel, and always his cousins. I love that he is to the age where he pretends to do things, it makes life so much more interesting. 

-He loves to sleep. He takes 3 hour naps in the middle of the day, and sleeps for 11 hours every night. I am a lucky mommy! 

-He loves chocolate! He prefers it over absolutely any other treat. Just a chunk of chocolate. A few weeks ago Todd made hamburgers for dinner and he thought it was chocolate (because of the color). He was very surprised when he took that first bite! 
Hates:
-Luke hates sitting in a highchair in restaurants.
-He hates being interrupted when he is playing
-He hates when mommy brushes his teeth!
-He doesn't like to give hugs or snuggle. I try to force him and it makes him so mad! =)
Fun facts, quirks, and cute things about Luke:
- Luke will repeat EVERYTHING we say. If he is in the room while Todd is gaming, this is not a good thing! He picked up a habit of saying 'Oh Crap!' for a while, but I think he's over it. Todd also taught him to say, "fight the demons!"
- Luke has already visited his first foreign country! He went to Canada in August! He adds that to his long list of exotic destinations visited in his first 2 years, Chicago, Hawaii, Alaska, etc. 
-Unlike most 2 year olds he says "yes" to everything instead of no. He actually says YEAH! He also always answers a question with the last thing you say. "Who do you love more, Mommy or Daddy?" Daddy! "Who do you love more, Daddy or Mommy?" Mommy! Also, yeah, we play the who do you love more game! PARENTING FAIL!!!

I love this kid so much!!!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Faux Gumball Machine


I love when I find a really simple project that yields awesome results. This was so easy, and I think it turned out really cute.

Supply List:
photo courtesy of  A Pumpkin and a Princess


I think the supplies cost me about 2 bucks total! I didn't use spraypaint, just a cheapo bottle of black paint like this:
The cool thing is that this is a really kid friendly craft. You could just sit the pot, paint, and a paintbrush in front of your kid and let him paint away until it's all covered up with black. Then all you do is glue the vase to the upside down pot, glue the wooden ball onto the saucer, and the rest works itself out!

I got the idea from the project here at a pumpkin and a princess.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Spooky words decor

Isn't being sick the worst!?! I hate it! The worst part is that when you are healthy you don't pay any attention to how great you feel. Then you get sick and you want to be healthy so bad, you imagine all the things you could accomplish in a day if you felt better, and you tell yourself you could be doing so much more with your time. Then you feel better and you forget all that you have learned and go back to being lazy! =)

Anyway, I was sick last week, so the Perkins's haven't had many adventures lately.

But here's a project that I did a couple weeks ago:

In case you haven't noticed, I don't have a creative bone in my body! I don't come up with good ideas, but I loooove to steal other peoples! I found the cutest craft over on this site, and made one of my own!


I love it! Every time I look at it I get reminded of all the reasons why I LOVE fall! It was really cheap, that piece of wood was .50 cents! Crazy! The lady who came up with the project sells the vinyl stickers pre cut on her blog if you want to make one for yourself!

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Cute Halloween Cookies

I found these cute mummy cookies on this site, and I had to make them (even though I think it is totally blasphemous to cover something so delicious as an Oreo cookie with (*cringe*) white chocolate). You need to see the ones she made though, they are much, much cuter!


The other cookies are just 2 Ritz crackers with peanut butter in the middle, then dipped in chocolate and drizzled with melted butterscotch chips. There is nothing really Halloweeny about these ones except that I thought that the chocolate and butterscotch looked like orange and black.


In all honesty, I couldn't even eat the mummy ones, I pawned them off on Luke. They are cute, but I just can't eat that white chocolate. But the other ones are pretty tasty, and they look cute together! =)

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Halloween Countdown

Now that we have a little one running around it's time to start hyping up the holidays! I thought this countdown was the perfect way to get Luke excited for Halloween.

I found my inspiration for this from a couple different blog posts. Here and here.

This was an exciting project because it was soooo cheap! The blocks are made from a 4x4 that I had cut into about 20 pieces. And the base is a 2x4. I think the 4x4 was $7 and the 2x4 was $3. But that makes enough pieces for 10 of these. So the total cost of the wood is $1 per countdown. Not bad!
I had my brother's wife over and we each made 3. One for us and a couple for the girls we visit teach. The only thing I would recommend is doing it in stages. Cut and sand the blocks one day, cut the sqares of scrapbook paper another day, etc. We did it all in one day, and it got a little exhausting.


39 days to CANDY!!! Happy counting!

Monday, September 13, 2010

Snapshots of Alaska




I have traveled to so many different places in my life and for some reason, out of everywhere I have been, I really feel a connection to Alaska. I don't know how to describe why this particular place sticks out to me more than others I have been to. So I'll just trust in the old saying "a picture is worth a thousand words."