Fall all around

Well I've left you for a couple months now and I guess I owe you an explanation.  You see, the mister and I have bought a house!  We couldn't be more excited about it.  But the whole process kept me pretty busy.  

The funny thing is we had really only started to look.  I mean, two weeks tops. This house just fell in our laps.  It was perfect.  We walked through the front door and we just knew.  

So that's what I'll leave you with tonight.  Listen to your gut, because when you know, you know.  And when it's right, it's really right.

It's All About the Red, White and Blue!

Let's face it, the fourth of July is one of those holidays that doesn't exactly get as much decor prep-time as oh, say, Christmas.  In fact, other than the obligatory family barbecue, maybe a baseball game, making sure to wear some red, white, and blue, and the fireworks at the end of the night, what other planning do people even do for this patriotic day?

Never fear, I am here with a super fast, super easy DIY fourth of July craft to save the day!  The project takes about two minutes to put together and is a great project to get the kids involved!

Who out there knows about colored rice?  This amazing little life-saver is so easy to make, and super cute to decorate with!

First, I found a container to put the rice in.  I went with this amazing hurricane container the Mister and I got as a wedding present x many years ago.  But you can use whatever you'd like, really.  I think it would look JUST as cute in a mason jar!  Because really, what can't a mason jar do??  You could make a few of them and put one tea light in each jar, or maybe fill one with just red rice, one with white, and one with blue!  

Anyway, I poured in some rice, just to see how much I would want for each color.  

Then it was time to pour the rice into a large ziploc baggie, add some vinegar and food coloring, and get shaking!  The original instructions I read for coloring rice actually said to use rubbing alcohol, but I found vinegar to be a good substitute, and safer for those of you out there with small children (or fur babies) who may try to eat the project!  For the amount of rice I used, I put in two caps of vinegar, and 10 drops of food coloring, but you can play around with it and find what works best for you, more food coloring = deeper colors!!

After a good shaking (super fun for the kiddos and adults alike!), I poured the rice onto a paper plate and let it dry.  I left the rice for an hour just to be sure (I didn't want food coloring all over my fingers!) but if you're using less rice it won't take as long.

Looks good enough to eat, doesn't it!  

When I came back to the rice, I found it had kind-of all dried together.  Just carefully run your fingers through the rice to break it all up (keep it on the plate though!) and it should be fine.  All you do after that is pour the rice into the container and you're set!  

Happy Fourth of July!!

Let's Do the Polka!

I love getting a manicure.  I love looking down at my nails and seeing how pretty they look! And the colors!  With so many choices a girl could go broke at the nail salon!

So last night I decided to try a new DIY idea for my weekly manicure, at least, new for me.  Trust, me I did my share of perusing Pinterest first!  I thought to myself, Why am I only sticking with one color?  Why not try for two??  And so here it is world, polka dot nails!  

But how did I manage to get these amazing little dots all over my nails?  Pinterest suggested a number of interesting ways.  Let's go through them now.

(1) A toothpick.  This one really involved no effort, so I thought what the hey, I'll try this one first.  It didn't work.  I would show you a photo but really, the amount of polish it placed on my nail was so minimal it didn't even show in a photo.  The toothpick was a no-go.

(2). A pencil.  Same thing as the toothpick, plus you ruin your pencil with all that nail polish. Now I don't know about you, but in this digital age we're in, I don't have an endless of supply of pencils to waste.  So the pencil idea fell to the wayside as well.

(3) Bobby Pin.  This is a fairly effective option, but you see the dots on my nails?  Bobby pins make even larger dots than those!  So use caution with those bobby pins ladies!

This brings us to...

(4) A straight pin and an eraser.  This method involves sticking a straight pin into an eraser, and simply dipping the rounded end of the pin into some nail polish.  Once you have nail polish on the end (you can kind of see the white polish on the end of my pin in the photo below), just press down on your nail wherever you want a polka dot and presto!  Polka dot nails!

You really don't need the eraser/pencil, it's simply for ease of use.  You can of course just use the straight pin if you have very smooth hand movements.  

And the best part?  The color combinations are endless!  I saw an adorable combo of mint and white that would be super-adorable for the summer.  I'm thinking of using white nails with red and blue polka dots for the fourth of July.  But more on that later this week!

What color combos do you like?

Welcome

Welcome. I wanted to take a moment and introduce myself before I dive into the wonderful world of DIY crafting. My name is Kristin, and I am a 32-year-old work-from-home wife, and mother to two adorable fur babies, as well as two baby boys in heaven. In my spare time I enjoy perusing Pinterest for great DIY ideas, that I then enjoy trying out for myself. Because sometimes, those ideas that look so simple are not quite so simple. Sometimes you end up with an epic Pinterest FAIL. But then there are the times that you, the average crafter, can put together something amazing. I'm here to show you how.