{easy 4 dollar valentines gift for the pancake lover}

is your valentine a breakfast lover?

{of course they are. everyone is. right?}

here's the perfect gift!

and you don't even have to tell them that it cost under $5!

i got this idea from the wonderful blog "how does she?" *best blog everrr for diy gifts!*

 i made it for my neighbor as a christmas gift. 

but i totally forgot to post it prior to christmas. fail. 

but then i got to thinking... this would be the perfect valentines day gift.

all you need is:

mixing bowl: $1 {the dollar tree} 

*they have pink/red ones right now that'd be super cute!*

pancake mix: $1 {any grocery store}

wooden spoon: $1 for 3 {walmart}

syrup: $1+ depending on the kind. {mine was from gordmans}

scrap ribbon for embellishment

cutting machine & vinyl {i used my silhouette. but you could use anything or even cut it out if you have stencils}

it's pretty self explanatory. and you're smart. so i didn't make a full on tutorial.

but you could definitely be creative with this one and add lots of fun little extras!

maybe a heart cookie cutter?

maybe cookie mix?

a cute card?

a bag of chocolate chips?

the possibilities are endless... just don't forget the details.

{you know. i'm all about the details.}

any other cute and cheap valentines day gift ideas? i need your help!

mr. ji@h and i have declared frugality on valentines day.

i have $15 to come up with the funnest, most creatively exciting gifts for him.

game on.

{i'm totally winning this one}

enjoy!

check out these awesome parties that i'm linking to:
The Girl Creative, Keeping It Simple: Motivate Me Monday, Mad In Crafts: Mad Skills Party, CraftOManiac, Being Frugal & Making It Work, Making Monday Marvelous at C.R.A.F.T., Sundae Scoop at I Heart Naptime. {as usual, click on the "linky parties" tab for all of these fab buttons.. and then some!}

tutorial page up & running

just a quick little note to let you know that the tutorial page is finally up and running!to be honest, I forgot I had a tutorial page... but last night I decided to take a look at my blog "stats".

did you know that the most viewed page on my blog is the tutorials page?!
what?!!!!

that means that the most viewed thing that people see on my blog is:
"coming soon".

fail. on my part... super fail.

so please, don't lose hope in me.

hop on over to the tutorials page and see a little more of this:

DIY save the dates

I finally got one more thing checked off the wedding to do list! I'm really late in posting this, because I sent these out a while ago.. but I still wanted to show you!

Better late than never, right?!

These are totally, 100% DIY. However, since I'm computer challenged, I didn't do the actual design. My cousin put this together in photoshop. I got them printed at Office Depot's printing center.

I printed them on a white shimmer paper that is a medium thickness cardstock. They printed 4 to a page, so the total was about $13.00 for 100. I originally had them cut at the print shop, but they were really off centered.

{It probably wasn't that bad, but being that I used to work for a wedding invitation printing company, I just couldn't send out off centered save the dates!}

 So I had them reprinted and cut them myself, which still didn't take that long!

 

 Then, I bought 12x12 black shimmer paper from Michaels and cut and attached that for the backing. I can't remember exactly, but I think for all of the paper it was about $10.00.

{I got 6 out of each page}

 I also bought magnets from Michaels. It was 3.99 for a pack of 50.. totally worth it!

Originally, I wasn't going to add the magnets because I thought it looked kind of cheap. But I changed my mind because I realized that without it, they'll all go straight into the garbage! :-)

 I got envelopes printed to match from Carlson Craft. That was probably the most expensive part. It cost $20.00 but that's only because I didn't have a finished guest list when I ordered them, so I bought way too many {urghhhh}.

{do you like my bride & groom I added in picnik? i couldn't for the life of me figure out how to erase things... remember? computer challenged.}



I'll be back soon with lots more wedding projects. I'm down to 4 1/2 months!! ahhh :)

sunday afternoon nap?

Hope you're enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon!
You know we are :)

Jewelry Holder Made From Scraps

I bet you can't guess what I made this jewelry holder out of!

Remember last week when I redid my disaster closet? I posted this lovely picture of my cheap-o Target drawers that were totally broken.

{i know, the drawer hanging off to the side is super classy, right?}

I bet you thought I threw away that broken, unfixable shelf, didn't you? Well, I must have watched too much Hoarders because I just had to keep it! I knew I could use it somehow!

I've been wanting to make my own jewelry holder for inside of my closet, but I've been waiting to find a large enough frame. So I decided to dig up the rest of the broken drawer pieces and see what I could make out of it! This is piece that was the bottom of the drawer.

First, I covered it with batting leftover from a chair that I redid. I normally would have stapled it, but I was being lazy and the wood was really thin so I just hot glued it all the way around.

 Next, I did the same thing with some leftover fabric I had {I recovered a lamp with this fabric.. that post coming soon!}. The fabric was super cheap because our local Joann is moving to a new building and all of their fabric is like 70% off the sale price.

 Here is the top side.

 This is the only item in this project that wasn't leftover scraps. They were from Ikea for $2.99.

I screwed them into the top of the board.

**sidenote: If you do this project, I'd highly recommend you screw your holes in before covering it with fabric. It will make it much easier when you go to screw the knobs in.**

 For the earrings, I took lace trim and ripped off the top trim part {the part that makes it wavy} and flattened it out.

 I glued down the lace trim by gluing the top strip all the way across the board. I also added a few dots of glue throughout, just to reinforce it when there are things hanging from it.

 I added another piece of trim over the top. It is a stretchy kind so I just glued it on the back side of the board. Then I added a few drops of glue about every 4 inches for reinforcement.

Here is the final product before I hung it on the wall.

 

I had some ribbon that I was going to attach to hang it.. but I realized the browns were a little off. So I dug through my laundry baskets of clothes that are to be sent to the Thrift Store and found a sweater that matched perfectly.

 I cut off the bottom of it and hot glued it like a rope.

 I hot glued it to the back of the board and hung it up just like I would have hung my ribbon.

 Here it is with my necklaces! It holds a lot more than I thought it would, so I definitely have room to buy more :-)

 

 The stretchy part worked perfectly to clip my hair clips onto {like this red flower}

 And here it is hanging in my closet!

 My dangly earrings are hanging from the lace and my straight earrings with backs are clipped to the stretchy trim.

See my grey necklace? It is a direct copy-cat from this tutorial at Little Miss Momma.  

So, one more organizational project down and about a million more to go!
Thanks for stopping by!

As usual, I'll be linking to these awesome parties: