do it yourself divas: October 2012

DIY: Thankful Turkey

3:04 PM

I know, I know, it is Halloween eve... I figure why not get a jump on the most wonderful holiday of the year, Thanksgiving. My dad has always said that Thanksgiving is his favorite holiday. When I was young I thought that it was because he enjoyed the food. Now that I am older, I realize that he is a man full of gratitude, and is thankful for the opportunity to recognized what he has. He is such a great example to me.

I want my children to realize all that they have been given. I want them to be full of gratitude and have thankful hearts. This year I am going to strive to make it a point for my three year old, and myself to think of something we are grateful each day in November.

Let me introduce Thankful Tom the Turkey. His feathers are full of things that we are grateful for here at this Diva house. I tried to think of things my little boy would be thankful for: legos, his sister, books, the sun etc.

This is only an example.

When we actually start this little thankful turkey on Thursday, I will have him decide what pictures to put up. I want him to be in charge and have ownership over this little Thankful turkey. By the end of the month I hope that our turkey will have a full set of feathers full of bright and wonderful things that he is thankful for. I can't wait to see what he comes up with.

Here is how I made him.

Cut out a turkey. I used felt. I just eyeballed it.

Hot glue the pieces together.

Hot glue magnets on the back of your turkey.

Such a cute little face...

Cut out card stock "feathers". There should be enough for each day of the month.

Hot glue a little magnet on the back of each feather.

Each day add a feather with something your child is grateful for.

I will be hanging our Turkey on our garage door in the kitchen (in the inside). This way whenever we leave the home, or are in the kitchen we will see our Thankful turkey and remember all the things we have been blessed with.

I seriously can't wait to start adding feathers!

We are thankful, truly thankful for all that we have.

Happy Holidays!

-Megan

Recipes

Witch's Boot

3:19 PM

My sister-in-law came into town and brought with her this adorable Halloween Oreo stuffed Witch Boot! Isn't it just perfect for a Halloween treat for friend and family?! Some people are just so crafty, I had to share.

Just cut out a witch's boot from a sheet of black card stock, (sorry I don't have the pattern, but maybe you all are crafty enough to just whip it up) hole punch four holes for the purple ribbon shoe lace, and stuff it with a bag of Halloween Oreos. We fit 8 Oreo's in each boot.

Here is a picture of the back. The boot is made from just one piece of paper wrapped around the Oreos.

Happy Halloween!!

-Stephanie

Recipes

Halloween Sugar Cookies with Almond Vanilla Frosting

4:00 PM

Oh how I love the fact that I married into this recipe :) I look forward to any holiday because of these AMAZING sugar cookies along with the even more AMAZING almond and vanilla frosting. It just doesn't get much better when it come to sugar cookies.

Sugar Cookies

Dry Ingredients:

6 cups of Flour

2 teaspoons of Baking Soda

1 teaspoon of Salt

(mix together is small bowl)

Wet Ingredients:

1 cup Shortening

2 cups Sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup Sour Cream

(Blend wet ingredients until smooth in large bowl)

Stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients.

Roll out amazing cookie dough. Use your favorite/festive cookie cutters.

Bake @ 400 degrees for 7-8 min.

Let cool.

In the mean-time make the frosting.

Almond and Vanilla Frosting

Blend together the following:

1/2 cup Shortening

1/2 cup Butter

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

4 cups powder sugar

2 Tablespoons milk

Dye the frosting whatever color your heart desires.. and taste the beaters if you like :)

Once the cookies are cooled... frost away!

Enjoy!

-Stephanie

Recipes

Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

9:41 AM

Mmmmm. Hubby and I like to pretend these cookies are sorta healthy because of the bananas. It makes eating them even better!

Yields 3 Dozen - I freeze some for later :)

1 C sugar
1/2 C milk
1 C margarine
2 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
1 C mashed bananas
3 1/2 C flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 C chocolate Chips

Cream together sugar and margarine. Add bananas, milk, eggs, and vanilla. Sift together dry ingredients. Mix wet and dry ingredients. Stir in chocolate chips. This is how the dough should look.

Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes. These cookies aren’t exactly meant to be golden brown, but rather a yellow color. However, golden brown was the way Grandpa Garner used to like them so you can always leave them in the oven a little longer to get those golden brown edges. In the pictures below, you can see that I baked one batch more yellow and another batch with golden brown edges. Both taste divine to me!

-Stephanie

DIY

Meg & Steph Share Their Halloween Home Decor

12:14 PM

Happy Halloween!

Here is a look at Stephanie's DIY front porch.

And here is a peek at Meg's porch...

See anything similar? We did our front porches totally separate without even talking about what we were going to do. Great minds think alike I guess. We had to laugh when we discovered that we both made witches brooms and used black spray paint to transform sticks.

You can see how Steph made this Adorable Halloween Sign here

You can find Meg's tutorial for the cute little Cheesecloth Ghosties HERE.

Steph cut out the bats from Martha Stewart's website, found here

She printed them on white card stock, cut them out and spray painted them black. Then she just punched a tiny hole in them with a pin and hung them with black thread.

Meg's bat templates were found HERE. She used black felt to create them.

Meg's "pretty" black Halloween Wreath tutorial can be found HERE.

For the owls, Steph used Martha Stewart's Owl Template. She printed them on white card stock and spray painted them black.

She made her owls a nest from sticks she found in her backyard. She hot glued them in a pleasing arrangement and then lightly spray painted them black.

Meg made her husband save large tree branches from this past summer just for the Halloween occasion. She spray painted the heck out of them black to create a haunted tree effect.

(Spray paint this bad boy. She had two large branches that she painted, leaves and all.)

Meg threw in a fancy Halloween sign that she bought at Ross Dress for Less last year, and dressed the blackened branches in fake spider webs that she bought at her local Walmart.

We found the idea for the Witches Brooms from Pinterest, here.

Ours our a little different and this is how...

We gathered sticks and branches from the backyard...

then we arranged them nicely at the base of a large branch and tied it all together with black tulle.

Then we hot glued some twine around the tulle...

And topped it off with a cute black bow. Steph had the brilliant idea of adding a bow to the broom. What witch wouldn't want this added bit of fancy attached to her broom?