Free Halloween challenge

I recently went to my local craft stores and was upset at the cost of all the cute Halloween crafts there. I love Free things, as many of you do I'm sure, so I have decided to Free Halloween! By that I mean I intend to give free downloads and tutorials to you!
I want to challenge other bloggers to do the same and together we can FREE Halloween from its expensive and overpriced existence and give it new life, a free life here on our blogs! :)

Throughout the first week of October I will be posting different free downloads and tutorials. If you are interested in participating please let me know. Also, if you would put one of these buttons on your blog linking back to me that would be great. :)

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Your mothers dress

{ just not the way she'd wear it }

I just got back from another awesome trip to visit family in Colorado. While I was there I was in awe every time my little sister dressed for school. One day she even wore a retro prom dress with a cute floral cardigan on top. I keep telling her to start a blog with photos of all the clothes she wears. But my little sis lives her life "unplugged". As opposed to your everyday modern 15 year old, my sister has no cell phone and almost never checks her email or Facebook. I admire this about her. I took photos of a few of her outfits to post here on my blog. Maybe I'll make a kind of mini series. We thought the title was appropriate since the dress actually is our moms.
Here is what it looked like "in the raw".

& here is what it looked like after she styled it.

NOTE: no sewing was involved!
Here are the 2 EASY steps to get this look

1. cinch the sleeves up with safety pins
2. belt it

Seriously that's all! :) Because the dress was so big it looked so pretty and gathered when she belted it. Cinched sleeves are so in right now too. It is weird seeing calico dresses come back. I love them though!

Peek over here to see what i really want to win!

Origami box tutorial

Lately I have have had people ask me to post a tutorial on my wallpaper origami boxes so here it is. My 5 year old daughter taped it for me so excuse the shaky, and sometimes off to one side filming.
I have another tutorial on how to make a pretty window in your origami box lid, go here to see it.



You know how when you hear your own voice on video you sound so weird? Well I've noticed how low my voice sounds, and also how much I sound like my sisters and mom. Sounding like my family isn't bad at all, in fact it makes me happy. (Hi mom, hi 4 sisters, love & miss you guys!XoxOXOXOOooxoxo.)

So let me know what you think! Do you have any questions? Did it make sense?

Also, I thought it would be fun to have you all share the pretty origami boxes you make! Just email me an image and I might feature your pretty package in a blog post sometime! :)

I link up to these parties

My Alice in Wonderland tea party

Ever since Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland came out this spring I have been so inspired by all things Alice. At first I thought I would throw my daughter an Alice party but she was set on having a Harry Potter birthday (I'll blog about that soon, it turned out great!) So, I decided to give myself a party. My birthday was about a week ago & I am now 28.

I made the doily garland by simply folding oval doilies in half and hanging them on crochet thread I had strung up. The doilies are from the dollar store.

I went to many thrift stores and antique stores searching for the right "Drink Me" bottle and I finally found the perfect one at an antique store while on vacation in Loveland, Colorado. I bought tags on Etsy from Caramelos artful supplies and hand wrote "drink me" and "eat me" on them with a brown colored pencil.

Check out this amazing glass box that I found at the same antique store in CO. Inside is a fake chocolate petite fours(Is that how you spell it?) made from salt dough. Later my girlfriend made me a super yummy Chocolate cake with Oreos crumbled all over it! Thanks Emily!

The place settings are super simple but they turned out looking so cute. The plates are pink paper plates by Martha Stewart. I found them in packs of 8 at the dollar store a year and a half ago so I stocked up. Then I put tea cups on each plate with tags that said "eat me".

In the middle of the table are book pages, old door hardware with key holes, an old tea set, and antique keys to keep the Alice in Wonderland theme going.

Hope you enjoyed my little tea party and I wish you a very merry un-birthday! :)

Alice on Etsy {party inspiration collage}

1 peach pom pom here, 2 glass bottle here, 3 lace fingerless gloves here,
4 hair bow here, 5 bunnies print here, 6 pocket watch here,
7 tea cup here, 8 antique key here, 9 eat me tags here,

Independence Day Luau

Every year my family gets together for the 4th of July. Our mother chooses a theme and creates a party to remember! Last year we had a tea party theme and the year before that was a cowboy theme, and the list goes on. The photo above shows a plate full of what we call Hawaiian Haystacks. It is made by topping pineapple, green onions, tomatoes, coconut, chow mien noodles, cheese, chicken, and creme of chicken gravy on white rice. YUM! We are always impressed at how well our mother can throw a good party. There are always fun activity's and great food. Now you know where my sisters and I get our passion for party planing! Here, here, here, here, and here are just a few party's my sisters have planed.

My mother handmade the surf boards and attached grass skirts onto handmade tables to create this beautiful scene. We took photos in front of the surf boards and when we were done she put them on top of straw bales for extra seating. Genius!

Another fun thing my mom did was make solar ovens to cook s'mores! The tinfoil reflects the suns heat into the box lined with black paper. Apparently she has cooked cookies this way as well! Below is a tutorial for how to make a solar oven from a pizza box. I found it on Youtube for you.:)

What a fun party! Can't wait till next year! (I hear it is a pirate theme! ARR!)

felt flower brooch

I just made this felt flower brooch and I'm in love.

I am already planning on making a yellow one. I'll be sure and take step by step pictures so I can post a tutorial for you. :)