A couple years ago, we went through a rough patch financially…..a really rough patch that lasted a couple of years.  (That’s such an easy thing to say.  It was not easy.)  During that time, Christmas was a challenge.  At first, I dreaded it….knowing we wouldn’t be able to buy gifts.  Then I started doing some research and found lovely (and inexpensive) homemade gifts.  We worked really hard both of those Christmases and I think that Christmas became even more lovely and we grew to love our family and friends even more because of all the time and thought we put into their gifts.  Here are some of the things I made that we gave to our families in those 2 years:

For my niece-to-be, I used this pattern to make a couple pairs of booties.  I think these are soooooo adorable.

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Heather Bailey Designs

For my 3-year-old niece, I made a homemade memory game.  I used funny pictures of members of our family to make her memory cards.

Here are a few different ways to make homemade memory:

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Martha Stewart.com

CLICK HERE for tutorial from My Everyday Chaos

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Muffin Tin Mom

 For my 4-year-old nephew, I made a superman cape out of flannel receiving blankets I had lying around.
I think this homemade superhero costume is darling….

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Chiot’s Run
(worth the click even if you just go there to see the adorable little guy who received this superhero get up)

For my 5 and 7-year-old nieces, I made little purses out of placemats…here are a couple of tutorials on those:

CLICK HERE for the tutorial from Kristikoo Handmade

I think these little bags are darling, too….

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Kleas

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Martha Stewart

This bag would be darling for a child OR an adult.
Plus, I don’t know about you, but we have LOTS of old jeans lying around that are just begging for a new life.

CLICK HERE For tutorial from Martha Stewart

For my son, my husband, Jeff, made blocks out of wood by cutting them into different shapes and sanding them.
I don’t have a tutorial for this, my only advice is don’t try to sand these by hand.  You’ll quit. : )

BLOCKS HERE

For my sister-in-law and her husband (who LOVE Thai food), we put a basket together of ingredients they would use in curry, which they make all the time.
You can put baskets together for lots of things…here’s a movie one:

CLICK HERE for a couple other ideas from For the Mommas 

For my mom, mother-in-law, sisters and sisters-in-law, I made bath soaps and sugar scrubs.
I was just at Michael’s this week and saw a bunch of pretty little jars you could put something like this in….they were each only $1!
Here are a couple of tutorials for homemade bath stuff:

Salt or Sugar Scrub

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Martha Stewart

And what about these bath fizzies?  Use an ice tray for the mold!

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Martha Stewart

Who wouldn’t love a pretty (and yummy smelling) bar of soap in one of these adorable little wraps?

CLICK HERE for tutorial from  live. laugh. rowe.

My brothers all got their favorite treats in ridiculous quantities.

Chocolate-Dipped Pretzels for Tucker:

These look WAY better than anything I’ve ever made. : )  CLICK HERE for the tutorial from Andicakes

 No-bake cookies for Jake:

CLICK HERE for this recipe from Brown Eyed Baker

And Brownies for Luke

These aren’t the brownies that I made for Luke, but don’t they look YUMMY?!
CLICK HERE for the recipe from Sweet Pea’s Kitchen 

Here are some other food gift ideas:

Who wouldn’t love a tin of this delicious caramel corn??

CLICK HERE for the recipe from Brave Girls Club (that’s us) : )

And these are adorable gifts that could be used right away or saved for a while…

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Sunset.com

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Bakerella

Thinking about making all those gifts and all the time I spent making them and thinking about my loved ones makes me want to put more effort (and less money) into my gifts again.  Christmas is absolutely delightful when you give gifts that mean something…something that takes thought and effort and time…..I just might do it again this year!

Here are some other ideas I found that I am in LOVE with:

FOR KIDS

Paper Dolls

CLICK HERE for the tutorial from Handmade Charlotte

Bubble Wand

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Kleas

 Baby Blocks

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Martha Stewart

Wash Cloth Puppets – if these aren’t the most adorable things on the planet, please tell me what is…

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Martha Stewart

Crochet Ball & Blanket – I think these are sooo sweet….

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Martha Stewart

SHIRT POCKET QUILT
I know 2 toddlers who would spend ALL DAY putting stuff in these pockets and taking it out again, then putting it in and taking it out, and over and over and over again.  It’s the little things. : )

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Martha Stewart

Roll-up Crayon Holder
Perfect for the car!  Well…in theory it’s perfect.

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Skip To My Lou

Bibs
I love the shape of these…..so cute!

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Martha Stewart

Bath Apron
And what about this for new parents…can’t tell you how many times I’ve ended up changing my clothes after giving my kids baths.  Plus this would be super fast and easy to make.  Ten minutes tops (and that includes a snack break). : )

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Martha Stewart

FOR WOMEN

Teatowels with Handwritten Recipes
How tender is this?  I love it.

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Spoonflower

Bookmarks
Don’t these bookmarks make you happy?

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Country Living 

A Handmade Apron
This first pattern is the only one in this entire blog post that isn’t free, but isn’t it lovely??  I’d pay for the pattern!

CLICK HERE for pattern from Sew Liberated

CLICK HERE for tutorial from You Can Make This

And if you have a little girl who needs an apron, this one is soooo cute!

CLICK HERE for tutorial from raechelmyers.com

Apple-Cinnamon Ornaments

We have made these ornaments several times – they smell soooo yummy!!

CLICK HERE for the tutorial from McCormick.com

Fabric Journal Cover

CLICK HERE for tutorial from OneSheTwoShe

Shrinky-Dink Jewelry

Who knew Shrinky Dinks could turn out so beautiful!?  I loooove these pieces!!

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Just Something I Made

Tiny Sewing Kit with Pincushion

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Momtastic

Embellished hotpads from the $1 Store!

I love these by themselves…..add a loaf of bread and you’ve got a new best friend!

CLICK HERE for tutorial from The 36th Avenue

Stamped Rocks

So beautiful and simple.  I think it would be lovely to be on the giving OR receiving end of these….I also think it would be amazing to stamp messages onto the rocks.

CLICK HERE for tutorial from craftandcreativity

Pretty Monogrammed Pincushion

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Lou Loves This

Knit Glasses Pouch – so cute!

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Martha Stewart 

Handpainted Tea Towels

If you’re like me, you always think that acrylic paint will wash right out of projects…..but you know it won’t come out of your clothes.  The truth is, you can paint something with acrylic paint, let it dry (you can put it in the dryer if you want to feel really good about setting the color), and wha-la!

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Martha Stewart

Etched Glass

One of my very favorite wedding gifts was a glass casserole dish with our new last name etched into the bottom….I love all of these personalized gifts that look so hard, but are really quite simple.

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Martha Stewart

Handpainted China

If it were me, I’d use a stencil, since I’m not really comfortable handpainting anything.  I love this.

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Martha Stewart

Handmade Coasters

We found several different tutorials we love!

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Martha Stewart

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Hostess with the Mostess

CLICK HERE for tutorial from The Purl Bee

Monogrammed Slippers

I love the ones at the bottom of the picture…looks like the letters are formed with a whole bunch of french knots.  Love it.

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Martha Stewart

Beautiful Wire Nest Necklaces

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Sarah Ortega

FOR MEN

Maybe I’m late to the game, but I didn’t know there were special pens for writing on/painting ceramic!  The possibilities are endless….but they obviously begin here with the mustache mug….

CLICK HERE for tutorial from geekxnerd

Here’s another spin on the mug…

CLICK HERE for tutorial from designmom

While we’re putting initials on things, how about a towel?  I think this would be especially awesome for a coach.  Only don’t make his towel say Greta.  Initials would be cool, as would a mustache.   And now we’ve gone full circle.

CLICK HERE for tutorial from What Rachel Made Today 

Remote Caddy

CLICK HERE for tutorial from sew4home

Knitted Golf Club Head Covers

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Jana Ford Knits

Golf Accessory Bag

CLICK HERE for tutorial from JoAnn Fabrics

BBQ Apron

CLICK HERE for tutorial from I {heart} naptime

BBQ Spice Rubs

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Kojo Designs

FOR PETS

Shrinky Dink Dog Tags

Do you ever see something and think, “why didn’t I think of that!?”  I love these cute little tags.

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Martha Stewart

Leather Kitty Toy

So cute!

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Martha Stewart

Homemade Dog Biscuits

CLICK HERE for tutorial from Martha Stewart

If you’re like us, then you love pretty jewelry…AND if you’re like us you struggle to know how to store it.  We want to show you how we store ours…some of us are more organized than others, some of us are more artsy than others, but we all get the job done.  Hope you enjoy it!

Malary keeps necklaces that she doesn’t wear very often on this pretty lamp….

Of all of us at Brave Girls Club, Malary is by FAR the most organized….as you can see from the way she keeps her earrings, rings and bracelets so nicely laid out….

I love this miniature dress form that Malary uses for her bracelets…

And this one is more of a decoration than a way to store jewelry, but I think it’s just LOVELY.

Kathy is next….she uses trouser hangers to keep her necklaces nice and organized….the awesome thing about these is that the rods are rubber coated, so everything stays nice and tidy in its place….

Kathy says she’s taken these entire things on road trips….she just throws the whole thing in the car on her clothes rod….how perfect!

Chelsea stores her earrings on this awesome frame….she bought the frame at Goodwill, painted it and stapled chicken wire to the back – perfect for earrings!

I’m not as neat as others….most of the time my jewelry is here and there…..I made this little stand out of 2 icecream cups and 3 plates that I found at a thrift store.  I just used e-6000 (which is glue) to glue them together.  It works well for my lazy self.

Here are my earrings which have been organized so that I could feel good about showing it to you.  I love storing my earrings like this….my only problem with it is that my kids can reach the bottom and think it’s fun to get my earrings…. : )

I LOOOOOOVE the way Melody stores her necklaces….she has 2 vintage headboards that she hangs them on…..I love the way it looks…..

And I literally gasped when I saw this picture that Malary took…..isn’t it pretty?  Just an old lamp with cool little hooks….just right for bracelets!

Hope you enjoyed our little tour…..here are some of the things we showed you (and some others)…these items are on Amazon.com, so you can check them out!!

*Brave Girls Club is an affiliate of Amazon.com

My sister, Chelsea, is awesome at celebrations.  She really knows how to make someone feel special by doing special things for them.

One of the things she does on her kids’ birthdays is takes pictures from throughout their lives and makes a simple little garland to hang in the dining room.  She leaves it there all week, along with their birthday chair cover.  Every kid gets remembered and feels super special for a whole week during their birthday time.

This month, we celebrated our little Lydia’s second birthday, and since I LOVE Chelsea’s traditions so much, I thought I’d give them a go…..on video even!  (Unless you’re not IN to video and you want to get the written tutorial….in which case it can be found below.)

I was surprised by this first project…..the photo garland.  At first I thought I would do it because it wouldn’t take long, but I wasn’t sure how much mileage it would get, or how interested Lydia would be in it.  What surprised me was how special it was to me and how tender it was to make.  I think we take more pictures these days than ever in history, but we (or at least I) hardly ever look at them.

I LOVED looking through all my pictures for photos of Lydia and remembering what she was like as a newborn, then first walking, and how she’s grown in the last 2 years.  I even got teary-eyed looking at all the photos…SOOO if you don’t do this for your kids, do it for you.  It was totally worth it.

Start by getting about 35 4×6 photos printed….the photos I got ranged all through her 2 years of life so far.

Then punch holes in the top 2 corners of each photo…

Next rip strips of fabric and cut them into 6 or 7 inch strips…

Use the strips to tie the photos together into a garland.  When you get to the ends, just tie an extra strip of fabric into each end hole, so you can hang it.

Then hang it up!

I was surprised by how into this project all the kids were.  They LOVED looking at it and finding each other and themselves….

Make one of these….it’s easy, it’s fast, and you will LOVE it!!!

The next project I worked on was a chair cover to make Lydia’s birthday chair…..

For this project you’ll need a couple different kinds of fabric, some trim, scissors a sewing machine, (and if you plan to make a flower like mine, you’ll need a small plate and a glass for tracing)…

Start by folding your chair cover fabric in half…right sides together….

Then lay your chair on the folded piece of fabric with the fold at the top and roughly trace around it.  And I do mean roughly…you’ll want to leave room for the thickness of the chair as well as the width of the chair AND some seam allowance.

As you can tell, I’m pretty particular and precise about this kind of thing.  (What I actually mean is the opposite of that.)  It will work out.  Trust me.

Cut your chair cover out…..ONLY cut on 3 sides….leaving the top folded will make things easier for you.

Set that piece of fabric aside.

Since I made this chair cover for my two-year-old daughter, I used a flower and the number 2…if it were a little boy, I would have done a spaceship or a star or something.

Here’s how I made that flower:

Turn the second kind of fabric over and trace a small plate…..

Then trace half a glass over and over around the edges of the plate outline to make flower petals.  As you can see, the first time I tried to make petals, I put them too close together, and they didn’t fit right, so I had to move the glass closer in toward the middle.

Then cut a 2 out of the third kind of fabric.  I sort of drew a 2 backwards and the wrong side of the fabric, then cut it out.  If you want something that looks REALLY good, you could print it out and then trace that.

When my sister saw my finished chair cover, she was surprised that I used Lydia’s age on it.  She just makes 1 Birthday Chair for each of their kids on their first birthdays and uses the same one every year.  I will be doing that.

Before I get to sewing I have to tell you…..my mother always tells me I should have paid attention when she tried to teach me to sew as a young adolescent.  Like most things, she’s right.  I wish I would have.  But I didn’t.  And even if I had, I might still have turned out to be a lazy sewer…..haha….sewer is obviously not the word for “one who sews”.  Steamstress seems WAY too advanced.

Whatever the word is, I am lazy at it.  I rarely pin, I sometimes iron.  If it really counts, I do.

What I’m saying is this is lazy sewing.  Just fair warning.  I hope it makes you feel good about yourself if you are also inexperienced and I hope it makes you feel REALLY good if you are better at sewing than I am.

Okay, so start by sewing the 2 to the middle of the flower.  I used a zig zag stitch that turned out so bad the first time that I went around it again…

Look, I used pins.  There’s hope for me yet.

Next sew the flower with the 2 to the RIGHT side of the chair cover.  Again I used a zig zag stitch.

This was tricky because it was nearly impossible to keep the flower in the same spot – even with pins.  It bunched up at the end and I had to remove some stitches to straighten it out.  Even then, there was a little bit of a crease when I got finished, but I was satisfied enough with it.

Next fold your chair cover in half…..right sides together….and sew down both sides.  One thing I do remember my mother teaching me is that when you are sewing something like this, don’t sew down one side and up the other….there’s a good chance it will end up crooked if you do.  Sew from the top down on both sides.

Then cut the edges with pinking shears.  It just seems like the right thing to do.

While your chair cover is still inside out, sew a hem.  What I always do on hems is fold, then iron, then sew the hem….keeps things nice and straight without pins…

I had this pretty eyelet trim for the bottom….I just pinned that and sewed it on right over the hem….

Wha-La……

Here’s what it looks like all done….not bad, even with my lazy sewing!  I actually REALLY like how it turned out….

Even better when the birthday girl sits on it to eat her birthday cupcake!

Here’s what happens every year on Halloween…we have a party to go to…it’s on the calendar and I feel prepared for it days in advance.  I have costumes for the kids, candy for the trick-or-treaters, and hot chocolate for when we get home freezing.  I feel ready until like 30 minutes before it’s time for us to run out the door…that’s when I panic because I haven’t given even one second of thought to a costume for myself…

Maybe if I’d given it 3 seconds of thought I’d of bought a costume….then again…maybe not.  It seems like the majority of costumes out there are on the revealing side.  Not really my thing.

What happens is I end up scrambling for something and feeling frustrated and frazzled that I’m so behind and going to be late because I hadn’t thought of a costume for myself.

I was thinking about how annoying it is to have to think about that at the last minute, so if you’re like me and if this same thing happens to you, I went through my closet and came up with some last-minute costume ideas.  Hope this helps you think of a costume BEFORE it’s time to run out the door.

SPA LADY
(when I told Kathy about this costume, she said, “I think I’m that every year….lady in a robe and slippers handing out candy”  haha)

I used acrylic paint on my face…I don’t think you’re supposed to do that…real face paint would be better and safer, but who has that?  The acrylic paint get stiff and crackly, but it does the job….

  TENNIS PLAYER or PREPPY GIRL
I felt like this costume would have been made complete with a tiny dog…didn’t have one of those.  OR I could have used tennis shoes and a racket….you can see that in the picture with just the clothes, I had tennis shoes, but between taking that picture and getting in the costume, I mowed the lawn in those shoes, and they got all green like shoes do when you mow the lawn in them.

Also that is just a shirt over my shoulders….a regular old white shirt with long sleeves.

PIONEER
Turns out all you need to dress up like a pioneer is a skirt, long sleeved shirt, a weird table cloth thing (that’s what I used for the apron….half of it is tucked into my skirt), and a few pieces of muslin….I used one around my waist and one around my shoulders.

WITCH
Obviously this costume would be better with a witch hat, but I didn’t have one on hand, and I think the point gets across with the black clothes and broom…this would also be a fun place to experiment with green paint….

HAWAIIAN
So my husband, Jeff, helped me take the pictures and video for this blog post….I told him I was sending a subliminal message with this costume…. : )

I don’t know why I have any of these things….I didn’t even remember that I had them until I found the skirt in the back of my closet.

LIFEGUARD
My husband’s swimming suit happens to be red….I was really mad that it fit me so well, but that’s beside the point.  ; )

COWGIRL
This is almost the same costume that I used for a pioneer…just added a belt and a hat.  And Jeff thought I needed a gun, so I went with that.  Probably won’t show up to any parties with a shotgun…that’s pushing it even for Idaho where everyone has guns.

ZOMBIE
I’m not into scary Halloween…at all.  I don’t like scary movies, I don’t like scary decorations, I don’t like scary costumes.  I don’t do scary.  BUT a few years ago one of my friends’ daughters wanted to be a zombie, and as they were trying to figure out how to put a zombie costume together they decided to use Mod Podge and tissue paper on her face.  They said it was awesome, and ever since I’ve been dying to try it.  Who knows why.

For you, I tried it…I mod podged tissue paper all over my face and neck, then used smears of yellow, red and black paint to finish it off.  For a girl who’s not into scary, I think I did a pretty good job.

MECHANIC
My sister got this jump suit years ago at Savers, and for some reason it was at my house.  If you have more than 30 seconds to create your costume, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to find some awesome dress up clothes at Savers or Goodwill.

SNOW BOARDER
In my pre-mother life I snowboarded for about 5 minutes.  I don’t have anything left from those days except the boots.  I don’t even have snow pants anymore…for this costume, I used exercise pants….I don’t even know what this kind of pants are called.  The only name that comes to mind is the one my little brother used when he was 5 and I was 11….he called them “slick slacks”.  I think the name fits….whatever they’re really called.

PIRATE
Once again the dangerous prop was added by my husband….won’t be taking that to any parties.  Around my waist I used a piece of muslin and on my head is a lacy scrap of fabric that I found and thought would fit.  I’ve been a pirate lots of times : ) …it’s easy to do.  I’ve also used black capris and black boots on the bottom.  Easy peasy.

So what I’d like to know is what are you going to be for Halloween??

At Brave Girl Camp, we do all we can to make things look and feel perfect.  We want every detail to be beautiful and when you walk in for the first time we want you to feel every ounce of love that there is in the universe for you.

Because of that we’ve done a lot of decorating….which is SUPER fun to do for a group of women.  I mean, we adore our husbands…and our kids, but they just aren’t impressed by things like fabric napkins, and giant umbrella flowers and scalloped garlands.  You know what I mean.

One of the things we made that is one of our very favorite decorations is this scalloped garland.  At Brave River Ranch, it hangs all along the porch….and of course we put twinkle lights with it.  It’s just lovely, and we want to show you how to make it.

In this video Kathy will teach you how…there are also instructions and pictures below the video in case you prefer it that way.

First, gather your supplies.  You’ll need:

A sewing machine
Several scraps of fabric (sizes are not exact here, but we started with pieces that were all about 6″ x 15″ …very ishy here)
Scissors
Pins
Twine, Yarn or some kind of string like you see in the picture

First, fold all of your pieces of fabric in half and press the fold.

Next, cut scallop shapes out of each folded piece of fabric.  Start and end at the fold.  You want each scallop to be able to hang on the fold and be double-sided.  Size doesn’t matter here – our scallops are all different widths, lengths, etc.  Just adds to the charm.

See….perfectly imperfect…

Here’s what they look like when they’re cut out…or here’s what they look like when you’re trying to show someone that they’re folded.

Then take your chosen twine (or yarn) and tie a knot in one end.  Here’s how we did it…there’s a close up of this in the video if that’s easier for you…

Line your scallops up and place the twine along the folds.

Then close your little scallop sandwiches and pin them.

Next sew with a half-inch allowance along the folded side of each scallop.  You will not be sewing the scallops to the twine, only to themselves so they hang on the twine.  You want to do this so your garland hangs straight.  Don’t forget to back stitch at the beginning and end of each scallop, since you will cut the little threads between them when you’re done and you don’t want them to unravel!

All done!  Quick, simple and beautiful!!!

We hung this one up on our dry sink right outside the Art Barn…so pretty…

If you’ve been to Brave Girl Camp, then you’ve met Hilarie.  If you haven’t…then you’re in for a treat when you do.  She is sparkly and fun and awesome.  She and her husband Carl LOVE Halloween.  Every year, they throw a big party that everyone really looks forward to.  They love to have a good time, and for their family, Halloween is bigger than Christmas.

So last year, Carl and Hilarie found out that none of us at Brave Girls Club is really THAT into Halloween…I think Carl took it personally and made it his mission to make Halloween likeable for artsy girls who like pretty things.  This is what he came up with…..

Isn’t it awesome?!  I love it, and I was so excited when Carl said he’d come to the Brave Girl Clubhouse and let me film him making one so we would all know his technique!  He has really thought this out and come up with a method that works well!  Hope you enjoy it!

To make an awesome skull like the one above, you’ll need the following supplies:

1 foam skull (Carl bought his at good ol Walmart)
1 ‘fat quarter’ of fabric (1/4 yard)
Mod Podge (and the supplies that go along with it…brush, cup of water, plate, etc)
This pattern (printed, obviously)
Scissors
Small pocket knife
Beads or other accessory for teeth

First, separate the skull’s jaw from the skull…it will make things easier and more realistic…

Next shape the skull….you’ll just want to round off the back of it a little….

And cut off the parts that look weird on the detached jaw…

Cut out your pattern…Carl does this by tracing the pattern IN PENCIL on the back side of the fabric, then cutting them out.  He has made it really easy by providing all these patterns…..here is his method (in case you don’t get around to the video:

Keep all your fabric scraps, you’ll need them later.


Let the skull dry completely while you work on the jaw….

See how there are little areas without fabric in them?  Don’t worry – he thought about that…there is a solution.

When putting the fabric on the jaw, you’ll want to first cut out an additional strip of fabric, and mod podge it to the top of the jaw, then use the big jaw piece on the outside of the jaw, and the little one on the inside.  When you’re finished with that, you’ll notice you have a little half-circle without fabric on it yet (where the tongue would be).  Cut a piece that fits there from your scraps and mod podge it on.

Again using your scraps, cut out individual flowers….

You’ll use these to mod podge right on top of the seams so your project looks finished.

H ere you can also see that Carl used matching flowers in the eye sockets, so they look like eyes.  Awesome.

Finish your project by gluing beads on in two rows where the teeth should be.

We call him “Art”.

Here’s another photo of Melody’s.  I LOVE the teeth.

Creepy and pretty.  I could get into this.  Notice how the one closest to us has circles right in the eyes, too and the swirl of the fabric for the teeth.

We had another spectacularly perfect Brave Girl Camp last week.  Ahh….it was so great.  So so soooo great.  But we’ll tell you about that later.  What I want to tell you about now is about setting up.  We all showed up (the staff, that is) on Tuesday morning at 8:30….all ready to start the day and make yummy & pretty things for the Brave Girls who would be arriving later that afternoon.  So Kathy shows up with 2 of the most beautiful pumpkins I have ever seen.  They’re TURQUOISE!

And they have layers and layers and pretty colors.  They’re sooo perfect.  We’d seen her late the night before and those pumpkins were orange.  In her cool, collected, graceful way, she said she’d painted them early that morning.  I don’t think she painted them while she was blow drying her hair, but we sometimes let jokes go too far and that’s what the joke became.

Anyway, I love these.  I can’t wait to make some for my porch for Halloween & Thanksgiving.  Won’t they be sooo much prettier than carved pumpkins?!  I love them!!

Lucky for me (and for you if you’re as in-love with these as I am), Kathy & Terry took some time out at Brave Girl Camp to show us exactly how to do them….here’s the video! (There’s also a written/photographed tutorial below)….

If you’re like me, you want exact instructions….I don’t feel confident enough to pick my own colors even, so we’ve included links to items on Amazon.com in this tutorial, so you can see exactly what Kathy and Terry are using.

*Brave Girls Club is an affiliate of Amazon.com

First, you’ll have to choose your pumpkin.  The pumpkins that Kathy painted while she was blow-drying her hair (hehe) are fake.  They’re hollow, and they’ll last much much MUCH longer.  But she got them all the way in the big city (Boise), and I wanted her to show you how she did it, but I didn’t want to go to Boise to get her another pumpkin to paint.  So I got a real one from the grocery store.  And it was $20 cheaper than the fake one.  So that’s a bonus.  We just won’t enjoy the real one as long.

The point is this will work on a real pumpkin OR a fake one.  If you choose a real one, be sure to wash and dry it first.

Then paint the entire pumpkin turquoise….straight out of the tube.  Nothing mixed in.  For this, Kathy used heavy body acrylic paint, and said it worked really well and seemed to stay on the pumpkin better than regular acrylic paint would.  BUT you could definitely use plain ol’ acrylic.

Also you’ll want to set your pumpkin up on something so you can paint all the way down the sides.  We got fancy and set ours on a 6-pack of Dial soap.

Be sure to let it DRY before moving on.  I know…it’s the hardest part of painting, but it won’t turn out right if you don’t wait.

Next dump a bunch of Mod Podge onto your palette (or paper plate in this instance), then choose some highlight and lowlight colors.  Kathy used the same heavy body paint in aqua for the highlight color and bronze for the lowlight color.  She also added a touch of yellow and a teeny tiny bit of deep magenta.

Put little blobs of paint around the edges of your Mod Podge, so you can mix it in as you go.  You’ll want to use a little bit of paint mixed with a LOT of Mod Podge.  This way the accent colors you add will end up being mostly translucent, and when it’s all done you’ll be able to see all the layers of color.

Following the lines on your pumpkin, use the lowlight color in the grooves and the highlight color in the high spots…wipe it using a wet paper towel or baby wipes, so the colors blend together.  Add the other accent colors sparingly.  Don’t worry about whether you’re doing it right or wrong.  Just go for it and put colors on where they look good to you!

When you finish putting all your colors on, you’ll want to let it dry, then coat the entire thing with a layer of Mod Podge.  (We used glossy….it made it all shiny and boootiful.)

And if you’re going to the trouble of painting an entire pumpkin, don’t forget about the little ol’ stem….Kathy used something called Rub and Buff in Antique Gold.
You could just as easily use brown or gold (or both) paint.

Whah-La!!  Now set them out for the world to see your beautiful work!

Try other colors, too!  Just pick a base color, then choose lowlight and highlight colors that relate….for red we used brown for the lowlight and orange for the highlight….

Hi, braves! Melody and I have been neck deep in finishing up our upcoming incredibly beautiful book of Daily Truths (it’s all done and in production! more about that later-you won’t believe how beautiful it is!) and we have been neglecting this blog for a bit. We have tons of awesome things in the works for you, but we admittedly have a little gap this week. SOOOOOOOOOOO, know how loving and wonderful you all are, and how we are SURE that you understand that sometimes there are just weeks like this, I feel confident that you will forgive me for re-running a blog post from a year ago, one that I had tons of fun making!

READ THE POST BELOW, ANSWER THIS QUESTION, and we’ll do a drawing from the answers for a copy of the book! Here’s the question to answer in the Comments below:

What little trick have you learned in your marriage or relationships that helps to keep the peace?? (It can be super simple — like hanging the toilet paper right – whichever way that is for your someone special….or it can be something big and serious…your choice!). We’ll do the drawing by midnight on Wednesday (9-12-12 – MDT). 

Just know how much we love you and think about you and talk about you every day. We wish there were many  more hours in the day…we are learning, just as you are, how to do better every day. So please accept our apologies for this dry spell, and join in on this fun challenge if you like!

love,

kathy

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Four little words that will change your life…

I’m. Not. Kidding.

I’m going to share with you a secret phrase that will change your life, your marriage, your relationship with your kids, maybe even your relationship with your boss or co-workers!

You will be so thankful to know this secret that you might come to my house and shower me with home-made cookies and flowers…(actually, I REALLY love chocolate cake…so if you’re going to bring something, bring that.)

Here’s the deal, my brave friends…we women have an uncanny talent for keeping an internal catalog of all things… At any given time I’ll bet you could give me a good idea of where your daughter’s library book is, or where your hunky husband’s favorite baseball cap is, or where your teenager’s ipod is, or where your boss’s oh-so-important spreadsheet is…

Admit it.

And if you’re like me, it makes you NUTS because everyone KNOWS that you have this uncanny talent, and so you are like the family ‘Google’…everyone comes to you FIRST to find whatever it is they’re missing. Am I right??!

Knowing that we love our hunky husbands and our children and so on, we WANT to be helpful, but let’s admit that it can be slightly irritating to be asked countless times a day where this is, or where that is, and have you seen my?….

Here comes the secret….when said sweetly and with a nice smile, these four words will change your life…

This sounds NOTHING like ‘find it yourself’ or ‘do I look like I have time to find your stuff?’ or ‘if you would just keep your room clean you wouldn’t lose things!’. Instead, it sounds to their ears like, ‘I am oh-so-happy to help you find your lost whatever…just tell me where you’ve looked and I’ll put my day on hold while I find it for you.’

When I started answering my hunky husband with these simple little words, magic happened. He would immediately turn around with a puzzled look on his face as if he were thinking…”Hmmmmmm…where HAVE I looked? Where did I put that?….) and I would never hear about it again. Somehow, magically, mysteriously, he was able to find whatever little lost thing he was looking for WITHOUT MY HELP.

AND because I said it sweetly and lovingly and with a smile, he had no idea what I was really up to.

I’ve been using these magnificent little words for years now, and I’ve found that they work equal magic on all ages of people. As time goes on, they even start to look for things BEFORE they ask me! (Can you imagine?)

And guess what?

If they really have given it a diligent try and looked everywhere they possibly can, I am more than happy to help out. After all, I am a woman with that incredible feminine talent…

Chances are, I’ll know right where it is.

Change your life….try it.

Love  you sooooooo much,
Kathy