DIY Ugly Christmas Dress

I will be attending an ugly Christmas sweater party in a few weeks and I decided that I was going to take it to a whole. 'nutha. level. So, I decided to make an ugly Christmas dress. It only took about an hour and I think it is definitely fun. 

I found the dress at Savers for $10. I was specifically looking for a green or red dress. This one is green which allowed me to leave parts of it exposed and cut down on the amount of ugly stuff I had to buy and apply. I bought the green and red ribbon tinsel at the dollar store as well as the silver tinsel and I bought the bows for %50 off at Hobby Lobby. It took almost two bags of bows and two things of the red and green ribbon. 

To apply them I used hot glue on the tinsel and ribbon and hot glue combined with staples for the bows. I left the ribbon in one long piece and just wound it down the bodice. Hot glueing as I went. I did the same for the silver tinsel. For the bows I first hot-glued them one row at a time. Then I went back over each bow with a few staples just to make sure that they were extra secure. I don't want to be shedding ribbon at the party. I continued this until I reached the bottom. I can't wait to wear it to the party. My husband and I will really class up that party. He will be sporting some extra hideous garb in the form of Christmas plaid suit jacket, outrageously ugly sweater vest, snowman turtleneck and Christmas bow-tie. We're going to be extra, super, awesomely ugly and I am so excited!

For an update to see how I modified my look for the party and to see the awesome outfit I put together for my husband you can check out my post about the party.

If you want to see more cool stuff that I've done you should go to my new site at paintcoveredkids.weebly.com! It's way nicer and you'll find many more great projects and ideas!

DIY Infused Alcohol for Christmas Gifts

I decided to try my hand at making infused alcohol for several of my friends and family this Christmas. I did a little research and came up with the flavors I wanted to create. Then I went to get my ingredients. Infused alcohol is really easy to make. You simply take your choice of alcohol, something in the middle price range, and the fresh fruit, herbs and vegetables you want to infuse into your liquor. I decided to use vodka with the flavor combos of thai chile and apricot, pear and mint and apple cinnamon. I also made a lime jalapeño tequila.
























All you have to do once you buy your ingredients is to cut them up, wash them off and place them in your alcohol. However, there are a few rules that you should be aware of before you throw everything into your jar.

1. Only leave citrus fruit peels in for a max of 5 days otherwise they start to get bitter.
2. Some things take longer to infuse their flavor than others.
    For example: citrus only needs a few days as does any other fresh fruit but stronger flavors like peppers         and chiles only need up to 24 hours.
3. You can always remove the stuff you place in the jar and refresh it with new ingredients if you want to         make the flavor stronger but, you can't take away!

I haven't finished my infusions yet but so far the pear+mint is the best combination which makes me pretty happy because it was completely my idea and not inspired by someone else's combinations. The dried apricot is going to take a few weeks before it tastes like anything other than vodka because I'm not adding those chiles until the last minute. The apple cinnamon is also pretty good and the tequila just tastes like lime right now but will be really fun once I add the jalapeño.

I also made labels for my bottles that I plan on applying after pouring the different liquors into my clear bottles from Hobby Lobby. You can download the pdf of my labels here.

If you like this idea then you should check out the even easier gift of Rosemary Infused Olive Oil which also includes a how to and printable labels!

Breaking in New Shoes

I tried a trick I saw on Pinterest last night. I bought a super cute pair of Gianni Binni ballet flats bit after wearing them for only a few hours I new they weren't going to be shoes I could wear very often until I broke them in. So I did it the quick way with a hair dryer and extra thick socks.

All you do is put on the socks and then the shoes. Then you blow the hair dryer at your feet. While you warm up the shoes and socks you should flex your feet. Focus on areas that rub. When your done with the hair dryer, leave the shoes and socks on until they cool. Then take them off and try your shoes on without the socks. I think you'll find that they are much more comfy.

Orange and Clove Pomanders

I love the smell of oranges and cloves so when I came across the idea of making pomanders with them I jumped at the chance. This is a very easy but somewhat time consuming project but the result is fantastic. All you need are oranges, cloves and a toothpick.

Once you have your materials you simply poke holes with your toothpick and push the cloves into the holes. You can actually do this without the toothpick but I found it much faster and easier to poke a preliminary hole first.

You can create patterns with your cloves or you can cover the whole thing. I chose to cover the whole orange because I read somewhere that by doing that your oranges would be more likely to dry out instead of spoiling with the goal being that I don't have to make them again and can reuse them every year. However, if they don't make it more than a few weeks I will be happy. They smell so amazing! My husband actually asked if he could take some to work and put them on his desk because they smelled so nice.

Super Easy Hand Scrub

I was super productive this weekend and got a head start on my Christmas presents. I've decided that I'm going to demonstrate my craftiness this year and am opting to make as many gifts as I can. I made it to Hobby Lobby with my 2 year old Friday after work and managed to walk out with everything on my list! I didn't forget anything and glass ware, the main reason I was there, was fifty percent off!

I worked on several gifts this weekend. The first was a hand scrub. I found some adorable glass jars with wooden spoons in them at Hobby Lobby and at fifty percent off of 2.38 I got a great deal on them. This hand scrub is seriously easy and it actually took me longer to fill the jars than it did to create the scrub. I got my inspiration from this blog. I figured it would be so cheap to make that it was worth a try. I did make a few alterations. First of all, I mixed the ingredients in a large bowl and not in the jar. This made it much faster and I could make one big batch of uniform scrub. I also decided to use the tropical shea butter scented soap. I liked it's smell for this time of year a little better. Finally, I added about 6 drops of peppermint oil to the mix. This gave it a slightly different smell and made it a little more refreshing.

When I began making it I decided that I would just "eyeball" it and didn't actually measure anything. I dumped a bunch of white sugar into the bowl and then squirted in some soap. I erred on the side of caution because I didn't want it to be runny. Then I added a few drops of essential oil. I just kept adding elements until I felt like the mix was the right consistency. It actually began to get a little fluffy and look like snow when I decided I liked the texture. I also made custom labels for the scrubs. You can see a sample below and can download them here.

Pinterest Adventures - The Peacock Costume: The Final Product

   

Today is Halloween and I have perfected the costumes! I made some adjustments to my eye-makeup. I searched the web for pictures of other people's peacock makeup but when I looked at a real peacock I realized that although pretty, they weren't very accurate. So I did my own take on peacock eyes. I colored in my eyebrows with purple eyeliner and extended the line down my nose and around my bottom eyelid. Then I filled it in with a mix of purple, teal and dark blue eyeshadow. I concentrated the dark blue at the corner and crease of my eyes. I also put black and purple eyeliner on my lash lines and added a few "feather" like lines under my bottom lid. Then I slapped on some mascara and some fake eyelashes that have feathers and I was done! I've already gotten many compliments from my co-workers and students so I guess I did a good job.

 

Last night I decided to paint my nails to match my outfit. So I painted them with a purple metallic color and then did the tips with a sparkly blue. I can't remember the names but I'll add them later.

So, here are our costumes! If you would like to see how I did them you can check out my previous posts: Costume Update and Peacock Costume.

An Impromtu Halloween Party

I decided at the last minute to throw a Halloween party. It wasn't anything fancy. I just threw together a few fun things and we had a good time. I made guacamole and my artist brother helped out by carving a "puking" pumpkin to go with it.

 

We also had a panna cotta brain with cranberry sauce as well as mozzarella, tomato and olive eyeballs.

 

The best thing that we made was caramel apple jell-o shots. They weren't too much work and were the best jell-o shots I have ever had. Normally, they are either horrible tasting or not strong enough to be worth eating but these were neither. The apple made them taste really fantastic and made them super easy to eat.  I got the recipe here. However, we did add more vodka and we made a double batch. As a note, I bought a melon-baller in order to make these and I don't know why I have never owned one before! It is an amazing little tool!



 

I also got to give my costume a test run but, I plan on doing a few things differently for the actual day of Halloween.

Bats!

I have shingles. So, yesterday I was in bed all day. I didn't really do much other than sleep but I did manage to cut out some bats and put them up. I know this idea is all over and is not original but I though I would share.




This was a super easy project that probably only took me about 15 minutes. First I scrounged around for some black card stock. Then I googled "bat template". I found this great folded paper template and was so lazy I didn't even print it out. I just free-handed it. I decided I wanted several sizes so I drew 3 different sizes based on the same original image. Then, after cutting the first three out I used them as my template for the rest. After cutting them out I stuck them on the wall with sticky-tac. I was a little worried that they would fall down overnight but, when I woke up this morning they were still there. I am also working on a spooky window silhouette project and I'll share those pictures as soon as I am finished.