How I Decorated for Christmas with $30 [Part Two - Mini Christmas Trees]

Welcome back!  I hope you had a good weekend.  Mine was filled with rain, rain, lovely winter rain :)  Seriously, I really enjoyed the colder weather and the clouds.  It finally feels kind of Christmas-y down here in Phoenix.

Okay, part two! I have run across about a bazillion mini christmas tree diy projects on pinterest over the last month [as I am sure you have as well, if you're a pinterest lover like me].  The one that particular caught my eye was from this website.  The blogger had made her trees using cereal boxes instead of styrofoam - being that those styrofoam cones run you about $5 a pop, I was intruiged.

total cost: $17 [but you can sooo do it for less]

Supplies:

• green button tree: buttons, hot glue gun, gree glitter, mod podge, and a styrofoam cone
• boa tree: mini boa, cereal box, hot glue gun
• "twine" tree: macrame [left over from junior high!], mod podge, cereal box, hot glue gun
• felt tree: white felt, fabric pins, styrofoam cone.

Inspiration: All these lovely blogs :) Click on the links below the pictures to head over to their blogs and the original tutorials.

scissor variations

beautiful matters

a-muse studios

You'll notice that I caved in and bought a couple styrofoam cones.  I really wish I hadn't.  I had bought two because I wanted to make a couple of trees that involved using fabric and pins.  But by the time I was done, I realized that I would have been better off to have glued my fabric instead of pinning.  This makes the styrofoam cones more or less obsolete.

In case you totally just skipped over that last paragraph, here's my summary on styrofoam cones: you don't need them.  Just use cereal boxes.

Here's a better way to do the felt and fabric pin trees - glue the felt circles with a hot glue gun, then, if you really want the pin-in-the-center look, pin them through.  From there you can either leave them as is [and have a ready-made torture machine on the inside of your cone] or else cut them short or even just bend them to the side.  Regardless, your tree will cost you more like $1.30 than $6. Score.

Same thing goes with the gree button tree.  My original inspiration was this tree.  I really liked the pearl pins in the buttons, but again, the styrofoam was completely unnecessary by the end because I wound up just gluing the buttons anyway.

I don't have any pictures of the process of making these trees because I want to make sure that the original creators get their dues for their hard work.  Please head over to their blogs to get the details and step by step processes if you want to make some for yourself.

So here's the grand total!  I did end up spending $30 at the craft store when I bought these supplies, but I did buy more supplies than I actually needed, plus I bought a couple things [styrofoam cones!] that I found out I really didn't need.  If I re-did this project, accounting for these changes, the total cost would be this:

garlands x2: $6
tissue paper: $2
bag of pom poms: $2
green glitter: $2
1 sheet of white felt: $0.30
fabric pins: $2
hot glue gun: $5
mini boa: $2

Total: $21.30. Eh, not bad :)

To end, here are a few more links of cheap Christmas decorating projects that I was really hoping to do this year.  Sigh, maybe next Christmas :)

pom pom garland@ noodlehead

hot glue gun snowflake ornament @ pitter and glink

snowflake curtain @ bugs and fishes

Looking for even more inspiration?  Check out my Pinterest holiday board for more!

How I Decorated for Christmas with $30 [Part One - The Tree]

Actually, $30 was way over what I was planning to spend.  I thought I had the math figured out while I waited in the check out line, but the cash register said otherwise.  And the cash register always wins.

Honestly, you could do all this decorating for less.  For one, because you might actually have a lot of the supplies on hand that I had to buy.  And for two, because I will let you in on a couple of secrets so that you won't waste money [like I did] on supplies that were kind of pointless.

The whole decorating for Christmas thing actually started in March. Husband and I were working through our stuff, deciding what to keep and what to get rid of [that whole moving thing, you know], when we came across our awesome, giant, artifical Christmas tree.

"We aren't going to have space for that when we move, are we?"

"I don't think so."

So we gave the Christmas tree back to my parents.

Around September, I started talking about decorating for Christmas.

"Honey, its September. Its too early for Christmas talk."

"I know, but we don't have a tree anymore.  What are we going to do?"

"I don't know.  Let's just not have one."

That was not going to fly with me.  It was going to be our child's first Christmas; our first Christmas with our child; never mind that she wouldn't remember a single thing about it! We needed some kind of tree.

I ran across an idea a couple days later [thank you Pinterest!] where someone had made their Christmas tree out of books.  I told Josh about it. From there, the idea spiraled out of control into our very first holiday tradition.

We are going to make our Christmas tree out of something different each year.

The cool thing is, we are starting our tradition our child's first year of Christmas.  The goal is, once she [along with any future siblings] is old enough, she will get to decide how to make the Christmas tree some years.

This year marks year one of our family's Christmas tree tradition.

total cost: $2.00

supplies: cardboard, tissue paper

inspiration: Curbly.com

Cute, no?  I really like this tree for three reasons. One: it cost me next to nothing.  Two: it takes up no space.  Just nail it into the wall and you're good to go. Three: you can make it as big [or small] as you can manage.

I added a garland made of pom poms and yarn [$2] and a paper star I had found on the internet and cut out last year [$0].

[So I'm totally only halfway through this post and realizing that I have way too much to write about for just one post.  So here's a quick finish of the tree and garlands, and then I will finish up this post with a part two about the smaller decorations I made.]

The garlands were a self-inspiration born of a conundrum our cardboard tree presented - there was no where to hang ornaments anymore. And we have a decent number of ornaments that I personally am pretty fond of.  We live in a pretty old house, and with that comes some pretty old fixtures.  Most of our ceiling lights and fans have really long chains attached to them, which then hang down the ceilings and walls to the outlets.  Not too pretty.  But they are perfect for hanging things off of.  Like ornaments.

cost: $6

supplies: garlands, ornaments, and ribbon

inspiration: the ugly chains on the wall!

I like garlands more than I like christmas trees, in all actuality [I know, weird]. The garlands I found were on sale for $3 a piece, and one for each chain in the two living rooms were plenty.

[sorry about the terrible picture] I felt like our light fixture over the dining table was a little lacking next to the garland, so I strung up some leftover ornaments with ribbon. [Both I had on hand, so it cost me nothing].

Well, that's all I have to share for tonight!  Stay tuned for part two of my decorating extravaganza!

Cloth Diapers at 10 Months

I've been trying to figure out lately what to write about for cloth diapering.  This may have been obvious by my lack of anything cloth diaper related over the last month :) One thing that I thought might have some real value to write about is my experience month-to-month using cloth diapers. I have come up with a series of questions that I plan to answer each month about how things are going.

This monthly update is intended to be my personal example of what cloth diapering looks like on a month to month basis.  I'm really curious to see how things trend month-to-month for us - now I will actually have a record instead of trying to rely on my poor memory.  I will share any issues that come up and how we are dealing with them, along with some numbers and brands that are working particularly well at this age. Keep in mind that babies and experiences vary - these posts are simply to share with you how things are going with us.

Adelle turns 11 months tomorrow.  Last month of infancy! Here's a quick snapshot of the last month of our cloth diaper world.

Adelle - 10 Months 

# of Children: 1

Gender: female

Size: 16 lbs, 26 in

Average # of Diapers a day: 9

Laundry Schedule: Just about every 3 days, on the dot.

Routine: 2 pre-folds used during awake times, all-in-ones during naps/bed

Diaper Size: One size diapers - middle settings, Thirsties covers - size 2, smallest settings, Disposables - size  3

Leaking?: Yes! This child has definitely started peeing more, both while she is awake and over night.  I have found that if I don't change her within 1 1/2 hours while she's awake, she will soak through onto her clothes.

How's the Poo?: Still in the semi-solid state.  Honestly, I prefer this stage right now.  her "leftovers" are solid enough they usually just roll into the toilet [so no need to really spray], but they haven't started to get the Toddler stink to them yet. Unfortunately, they are leaving more permanent stains on the diapers that I am having trouble getting out.

Night Time: We are still using cloth diapers overnight, and started putting 2 inserts inside this month. She went through a week where she soaked through by morning, which prompted some troubleshooting.  After making sure we didn't have a repelling issue, we started stuffing an extra insert at night. Since then, we have had no issues.

Did you Use Disposables?: Yes.  We had a church retreat over the weekend and a couple date nights where using disposables just made more sense. There was one afternoon I used disposables to combat an on-coming rash with butt paste.

Any Changes: Now using extra inserts at night.

Any Issues: We thought we had a repelling issue when she started soaking through diapers regularly.  My first reaction was to stop using our cloth wipes solution.  Reason was that I had read that our particular concoction can sometimes leave residue on diapers, which may in turn cause them to repel instead of soak.  I'm pretty sure our issue was actually a bigger bladder, but I haven't gotten around to using cloth wipes yet.  I am planning this next month to get back to using them.

Favorite Brand: I'm really loving our Bummi's TotBots this month.  They are fitting really well on her, and do a good job of soaking up overnight.

Still Like Cloth?: I know, silly question :) But who knows?  Maybe I'm going to suddenly hate it some day.  I still really like it.  I have moments [usually when she's had a particularly messy poo] where disposables sound more appealing.

These questions were based on my experiences over the last month.  The questionnaire set will probably vary somewhat each month, but I hope to get a set group of them that I consistently answer each time.

Do you have any particular questions you'd like to see answered each month? Let me know in the comments sections below!

Hope you had a good weekend!  We finally got Christmas decorations up - I'll be putting pictures up later this week of my $1.99 Christmas Tree :)

The Day I Locked Myself Out Of The House

I don't remember anything particularly unusual that started off the incident. I was  cleaning the kitchen when kiddo started crying in her crib. 3:30. Nap time was officially over. I figured I still had enough time to run trash out to the alleyway. So just like every time I've even taken out the trash, I grabbed the trash out of the bin, tied it up, and walked out the back door. The dogs wanted to come out too, so I let them come with me, and then shut the door.

It was only once I came back that I realized just what had happened.

The lock on our back door is old and wonky.  If the latch is already half-locked [which it usually is, being that its old and wonky], oftentimes it will finish locking itself when you shut the door. Usually this would happen and I would lock myself inside the house. This was the first time I had actually locked myself out. With no keys and no phone. With the dogs out in the back with me, and my baby inside, in her crib. At least I was wearing shoes.

old and wonky and half-locked

I think I tried to open every window at least three times. Good news was, they're hard to break into when they're shut and locked [burglars, take note!]. Bad news was, I couldn't get back in. I ended up having to meet my neighbor [finally!] so I could borrow her phone to call Josh.

He, of course, had class for another 30 minutes so he wouldn't be answering his phone anyway. All I could do was leave about 50 messages explaining to him to get home as soon as he could because I was an idiot and locked myself out of our house. In every sense of the word.  There was literally no way to get back in without either a key or a locksmith.

So I spent the next hour and a half talking to my neighbor for the first time since we had moved here three months ago. I learned a lot about the neighborhood. Apparently we aren't the only ones with a scorpion problem. The entire neighborhood has a scorpion problem.  Explanation: Our neighborhood sits right off one of the 5 plus highways that go in and around Phoenix metro.  When the city built said highway however many years ago, all the scorpions had to move somewhere.

Consequently, they decided to move into our walls.

Good news is, however, scorpions do hibernate during the winter.  Super creepy news: they're asleep in my walls.

Just typing that sends shivers down my spine.

Anyway, as you have probably guessed, Josh did finally come home.  Husband neighbor was kind enough to drive up to ASU and pick up Josh and bicycle and get him back home a little before 5:00. All was well and we ate chicken with roasted sweet potatoes for dinner [I do love roasted sweet potatoes].

I'm pretty sure this whole incident is God's fault [don't freak out yet, just keep reading].  Why? Because this: I have not wanted to meet our neighbors since moving here, despite this spiritual tug [if you will] that kept nagging me to just do it.

Why else am I convinced it's God's fault? Because my child  fell back asleep.  This kid never, ever falls back asleep once she wakes up in the afternoons.  But that day, she did.  And even crazier, she stayed asleep until 5:00.  Never has happened before, nor since. Because of that small grace, I could focus on talking to my neighbor without stressing out about a crying baby inside.

Lastly, if I had taken the trash out five minutes earlier, the oven would have been on, and there would have been food cooking on the stove.  And I've walked out of our house many times before to change over laundry or throw out trash while food was cooking. The timing could not have been any better.

God wanted me to meet my neighbors; it's as simple as that. And because I was being a complete knucklehead, he decided to orchestrate my house to lock me out and force me to talk to my hippie mama neighbor for an hour on my front porch.

So why on earth am I telling you this?  Well, because I said I would in my Thankful post. And to let other moms know that I, too, have locked myself out of the house with my kid inside.

And because I feel like there's a personal side of me that doesn't really come out in this blog.

I am a Christian, and I believe that God and I have a personal relationship.  Oftentimes, our relationship is one where I don't believe I see him work in my life.  That afternoon, God decided to show up in my world in a very deliberate way.  This story is a sweet story for me personally.  I saw God act as my dad kicking me out of my house and making me grow up a little.  I saw him also make sure that nothing seriously wrong would happen with my child or my house.  He took care of all the details, and he took care of me, too. While I totally get that this story may not really be all that interesting to you, I am realizing now just how much this day has mattered to me.  And that's why I am sharing it.