Fall Series: My Top 5 Fall Nail Polish Colors

Black nail polish is very popular for the fall. I like to do a deep color but not black. This is my favorite. It's Wet n Wild "Nocturnal" and it's a deep purple color. 

I also like to wear a deep burgundy in the fall. These are two of my favorites and they look virtually the same. That's Sally Hansen "Flirt" and OPI "Plum Full of Cheer".

Purple is my favorite color and I love to wear it on my nails in the fall! The above is two of my favorites and they are pretty much dupes for each other. That's Sinful Colors "Let's Talk" and Wet n Wild "Buffy the Violet Slayer".

Sometimes you get tired of the dark colors in the fall and you want a bright color but nothing too summery. This is perfect for those days. "Tuscan Sun" by Revlon.

And then of course you need a great nude color. This is a gray nude, perfect for fall. It's called "Dove' by Zoya.

What's your favorite nail color for the fall? Leave it in the comments below. I would love to know!

Easy Way to Cut Strips of Tulle Using Only 1 Cut!

I have been using a lot of tulle lately between my fall wreaths and my daughters upcoming birthday. It can be a daunting task to sit down and cut strips of tulle in equal lengths. Luckily I have come up with a very fast way to do this with only 1 cut! Here's how I do it:

You will need:

• Tulle
• Sharp Scissors
• A piece of cardboard in half the size you want your strips. For example, if I wanted 20" strips I would cut my cardboard to be in a 10"x10" square.

First wrap your tulle around the piece of cardboard. Wrap as many times as you want depending on how many strips you want.

When you are finished wrapping your tulle around the cardboard, make one cut straight across the top of the board. 

Unwrap your tulle from the board, and Voila! you have your strips of tulle. Only one cut, and all equal in length.

Fall Wreath 2.0

Here is another version I made of a fall wreath using a wire hanger.

First you bend the hanger into a circle shape. It takes a lot of working with the hanger to get it into a circle. Don't worry if it's not perfect, the tulle will cover it up.

I started with green tulle. Cut it short, about 8" long and tied it in knots around the wreath. I spread the tails out on each side so the wreath would fill up on the outside and inside.

This also creates an almost braided look where the knots are. Continue until you have filled up the wreath with the green.

Then I added sheer orange ribbon. I love the contrast of ribbon and tulle.

I added a few pieces of black glitter tulle to give it some more dimension.

Then to finish it off I added a black metal "P" (our last name) that I picked up from Hobby Lobby on clearance. Here's the finished look:

Wordless Saturday: $1 Pool Noodle Wreath

Healthified Pimento Cheese!

Big thanks to my MIL for passing this along to me!

8 oz. fat free cream cheese

7 oz. fat free shredded cheddar cheese

2 oz. pimentos with juice

2 tbsp. reduced fat mayo

1 tsp. sugar

salt and pepper

Mix with a mixer. Serve with crackers and celery.

Birthday Series: Design Your Own Custom Cupcake Toppers

Instead of a cake at my daughters birthday party we decided to have cupcakes. I wanted to purchase some cupcake toppers to decorate her cupcakes but after seeing the price, I decided to make my own. It was very easy and I had everything I needed so I didn't even have to go out and buy anything. Here's how to do it.

You will need:

• Patterned paper. I used the scraps from my birthday banner!
• Circle stencil. Different size circle cutters or punches would work too.
• Tape
• Glue
• Scissors
• Toothpicks
• Access to a computer and printer

First you want to make your circles. I wanted three different sizes for a layered look. I used this circle stencil I got from a scrapbook store a long time ago.

First you want to trace your biggest circle and cut it out of your paper.

Then you want to attach your largest circle to the toothpick. This is the trickiest part. I tried a couple of different ways and found the way that worked best for me. I turned the paper over, placed the toothpick where I wanted it, and put a small piece of tape over it. You want to position your toothpick so that you give plenty of stability to your topper and have enough left to stick down in the cupcake. 

Then put a thin layer of glue on the paper and attach the 2nd circle to the backside. So both sides of your topper have the patterned paper facing out.

Then if you want, trace and cut a smaller circle out and glue it inside the larger circle on both sides.

Then you want to make your smallest circle which will be the focal point of the topper. I chose to put the saying "Oh What Fun Jada Is One" on one side and a picture of Jada's face on the other side. I did this using powerpoint. I inserted a small circle shape in a powerpoint slide and typed the saying in the circle in a cute font. Then I inserted a picture of Jada, cropped it very close to her face, and inserted it in the middle of a circle. Copy and paste the number of circles you will need and print it out.

After you cut your circles out glue them on either side of your topper and that's it! You're done. These turned out so cute and I can't wait to see all of them on Jada's cupcakes. I will insert a picture of them on her cupcakes after her party!

Birthday Series: Custom Birthday Banner Under $5

This post it the first in a birthday party planning series coming up. My daughter will be 1 in less then 2 weeks so I am knee deep in party planning mode. I've been planning for weeks now and I'm going to share how I get ready for a party in a series of posts on here.

This first one is a tutorial on how to make your own birthday banner. It is very easy and cheap. Let's get started!

You will need:

• Patterned paper: I purchased this pack of 12x12 paper at Wal-Mart for $5. There are 50 sheets in this pack with makes it $.10 a sheet which is great. Our party is a Luau theme so I went with this flower paper.
• String: I purchased a string called natural Jute at Hobby Lobby. For 225 feet it was regular price $2.99 but it was only sale for $1.79 (40% off).
• Basic Supplies: scissors, a pencil, tape, glue stick, and a long ruler or something long and straight. You will see I use a long piece of cardboard.

Ok for the first step you want to cut triangles out of the paper in as many as you need. I was making a banner that says "Happy Birthday" so I needed 13 triangles. I wanted to be able to use as much of the 12x12 paper as possible to make the triangles so they would be big and there would not be a lot of waste. The easiest way to cut out same size triangles without having to do a lot of measuring is to first make a small pencil mark in the middle of the paper. Since this is 12x12 paper I used a ruler to make a mark at the 6" mark like this:

Then you simply want to make a straight line connecting your dot to each opposite corner of the paper. You will want to use something long and straight for this. A ruler wasn't long enough for me so I just used a piece of cardboard I had on hand:

Once you've drawn a line from the middle of the paper to each opposite corner you will have a triangle drawn out that looks like this:

So now all you have to do is make two cuts along your lines to cut out your triangle

Continue this process until you have as many triangles cut out as you need.

Next you will want to make your letters. If you are good at free hand, you can draw your letters on paper and cut them out. I am not good at this so I used the computer. I typed "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" in Microsoft Word and made the font really big. 550pt. You will want to use a bubble font, where the inside is white, so you don't use so much ink and if you want your letters to be white. I chose white because my paper was very colorful. You could also make different color letters by using colored paper. I chose white card stock. 

After you print out your letters, cut them all out. Make sure to cut the insides too.

Once you have all your letters cut, attach them to your triangles. I used a glue stick to do this.

After you have all your letters attached you want to attach the triangles to string or ribbon. I just used tape to attach the string to the back of the letters. 

If you are using 12x12 paper, this banner turns out to be very big. I did Happy on one string and Birthday on the other string to hang below it.

Here's some pictures of the finished product! I can't wait to hang it at her party.