DIY Halloween Costumes

I know it's not even close to Halloween, but I've wanted to create this post for awhile and missed my opportunity last October (whoops). I LOVE Halloween because dressing up is a lot of fun and I always make my own costumes - not only because they're unnecessarily expensive, but because how much fun is it to make a whole outfit based on your favorite character?! Here are some of my costumes from my last few years in college:

Pikachu

This costume was surprisingly simple!
Dress: I found a yellow beach coverup on eBay and attached brown felt to the sides like Pikachu's stripes. I used sticker felt which is such a simple marriage of tape and felt, but also such a genius stroke of crafting ingenuity.
Tail: I cut out two lightning bolts out of foam paper to make the tail. I stuck two chopsticks between the two pieces to keep it stiff. I stapled the two pieces of foam together and surprisingly it didn't look bad! I kept it on my body with safety pins!
Ears: The ears were the most intimidating part, but then I saw someone else's post on just using bunny ears and re-creating Pikachu ears! I found a super cheap one at Five Below and just wrapped yellow felt around the ears and headband to get a satisfying Pikachu topper. I also stapled everything together. I got questions about where I had gotten the costume! Imagine they're reaction when I told them I made it myself.

And of course, don't forget the rosy cheeks!

Cookie Monster

An easy costume! Only materials really needed are blue feathers, duct tape, and ping pong balls.

Headband: The cookie monster face is just a bunch of blue feathers taped to a normal headband. The eyes are ping pong balls with little circles of felt taped on as the pupils. Remember to make them crazyyyy looking.
Bracelet and Anklet: I had a lot of leftover feathers so I made bracelets and anklets out of blue feathers stuck to duct tape to add extra fuzzy blue to my body.

Crayons

What a great group costume! We took a different approach to kind of a generic costume. All this costume takes is a roll of duct tape, a heavy duty sharpie, saran wrap and party hats.
We had a Crayola factory working hard to produce these costumes in under an hour. It's very important that you saran wrap your body first! And then duct tape over the saran wrap. This way, you can also cut yourself out (preferably just a straight line up the back) in order to decorate it. Once you're ready to go out in your new costume, just tape yourself back up with the same color duct tape!

Olive Penderghast from Easy A 

Who doesn't love this movie??? All you need is a black corset (or corset like top), red cloth, pearls and sunglasses.

Halloween is fun! Add your own personal touches to your favorite costumes and you'll be the talk of the party :)
 

the Corkiest of Boards DIY

This has been a long-running craft because I've been collecting wine corks for almost 2 years. This summer I finally had enough to make my cork board, just in time for the new apartment!

I patiently waited 2 years to collect all these corks instead of buying a big bag on Amazon because I thought it would be more fun to have a board of drunken memories repurposed to something so useful and aesthetically pleasing.

And this is how it happened:
Corks! collected from friends and family
Frame from Michael's ($7)
Hot Glue
Some kind of straight-edge knife 
...rounding up a $7 craft

1) I took out the plastic covering of the frame (along with the adorable puppy preset photo) and put it aside (I have plans to make it a whiteboard type canvas). I was left with the cardboard backing and the frame.

2) I laid out the corks in a chevron pattern, but you can do it in straight horizontal or vertical patterns so that you don't have to cut up corks to fit in the empty spaces.

I had to chop off the edges of the corks running along the far left side. Once all the full-sized corks were securely hot-glued in their position. I took to the cutting board and saw-ed the corks into smaller pieces to fit in the empty sockets here and there.

I can't wait to put it up and pin things. Make your own board of wine memories!

Dip-Dye Watermelon Shorts

I saw watermelon shorts online and knew that I had to make my own. The epitome of summer in a pair of high-waisted shorts. And thus my crafting journey began...

It took about a month to get discounted high-waisted white shorts, but i finally found them at Marshalls!

So I rounded up the materials:

High-waisted white shorts from Marshalls ($15)
Rit Kelly Green Dye and
Rit Fuchsia Dye from Michael's ($2.30 each)
Puffy Paint
Bucket to fill with hot colorful water

1) I taped the shorts so I knew when to stop submerging them

 

 

 2) Follow the dye instructions on the box (hot water, mix, blahblah). I submerged the shorts but my bucket was a bit too small, so make sure you get a bucket big enough! I kept it under for about 10 minutes in the Fuchsia bath, and cleaned it up according to the box.

Then it moved to the Kelly Green bath and stayed there for 10 minutes.

3) I threw it into the washing machine and awaited my masterpiece.

...but wait! It's not done yet.

Although no one likes eating watermelon with seeds, watermelon shorts would be incomplete without those pesky black seeds.

4) I used puffy paint to draw in the seeds because I thought it would give the seeds that shine and 3D feel that they give off in real life.

I plan on wearing it to the beach, summertime adventures, and the Made in America Music Festival. Can't wait to show these babies off!

 

LETTUCE TURNIP THE BEET Canvas

Like I said, it's birthday season for me, so I picked up extra canvases knowing they would come in handy. This gift's for my roomie who's a vegetarian & a dubstep lover. In other words, it's perfect.

(My favorite part is how LETTUCE kinda looks like, well, lettuce)

 

I originally saw the saying on Etsy - I didn't come up with it. They were on shirts, but I wanted to make something myself out of such a clever phrase.

Materials:
Magazines, mainly Cosmo for me, but any colorful one will do
Canvas from the one and only Michael's
Glue stick
Scissors
...for only $3 (canvas) and a few magazines stripped of their greens, purples and reds

It's pretty self explanatory, so add your own touch to it!

Winnie the Pooh Canvas Craft

For some reason, spring is birthday season with my friends and it's everyone's 21st - so it's a big one. One of my best friends loves Winnie the Pooh, so instead of getting her the usual shot glass and handle of liquor, I decided to do the exact opposite. I wanted to focus on the child that's in the both of us so I made her this:

(and got her cake pop maker too)

Materials:
Canvas from Michael's, of course... bought on super sale, of course
Laptop decal of Pooh and Piglet from Amazon
Sharpie
Blue Paper
...for only $6 (decal) + $3 (canvas) = holla at your $9

Painting on canvas is a lot easier, but I didn't have paint, brushes or a steady hand, really (that's my sister's forte). Sharpie is hard because of the rough surface, but I made it work.

NOTE: Don't use pencil on canvas, I'm not an artist and only use canvas for crafts, but I felt like a real dummy when the pencil wouldn't come off...whoops

1) I wrote the quotation on Word and played around with it until I chose a font I liked. I printed it out and used it as a reference to where there's a tail on the y or how the a curls
2)  Write it out, color in the lines, paste Pooh and Piglet chilling in a corner, cut a blue circle and voile! This adorable canvas is done <3
3) For a personal touch, I put a picture of us on the backside of the canvas behind where Pooh and Piglet are

I also wrote her favorite quote about growing up around the edge of the canvas because I wanted to incorporate it somehow.

I hope this inspires you to make your next gift!

Wanderlust; World Cork Board Craft

Wanderlust (n): A very strong or irresistible impulse to travel

 I saw a world cork board selling online and immediately knew I had to have one...better yet, I could totally make one! The actual crafting of the project took only about 1 hour all together, but getting creative with the gridded matting and finding the right type of corkboard took much longer.

Materials:

1/4" cork board from Marshall's - got it on clearance because there was a hole in it, didn't matter to me! I saved a bunch of money just to cut it up anyways
Gridded Matting that I spray painted gold
Cut-outs of continents
Box Cutter
Hot Glue
...for only $12 (for the corkboard)! I had all the other materials already at home and now I have an extra frame ;)

I didn't want just separate pieces of cork continents randomly placed on my wall and I remembered I had gridded matting just lying around from another DIY and it reminded me of the longitude and latitude of a map, so I now had something I could glue my continents onto that pulled the whole project together - win win!

How it was done: 
1) I spray painted the gridded matting turning it from old lady tan to shiny gold
2) I punched out the corkboard from the frame, which was surprisingly easy with pliers to yank out the staples

3) I didn't want marker showing the outline of the shape so I just lightly taped the cut-out onto the board and used a box cutter. (Here's Africa!)

It's important to get thin cork board because you don't want to make it impossible to cut - especially because there are no straight lines when it comes to the world map. You also have to watch out for cork board that's too thin though because it'll break too easily. My board was actually only a few mm of cork with a foam backing which works perfectly for this craft.

4) I hot glued the pieces onto the matting trying my best to get the distances right...I tried! After marveling at how amazing hot glue is, my craft was done!

After adding a heart to my hometown, I plan on pinning places I want to go I want with colored tacks and pinning places I've been with small pieces I've brought back with me.

Keep Calm and Relax

Day 11 Photo Challenge: Relaxation

This is a picture of us digging our feet into a pool of hot, red clay balls at a Korean spa. The whole point of this spa trip was to detox and just relax. It's hard to stress out when you're completely relaxed and peaceful.

Part of  the Korean spa experience is that you get completely naked for the unique whirlpool area. It's definitely an interesting experience and I highly encourage letting go of all your inhibitions about being completely nude and embrace your body - it's for the whole relaxing experience.

Try something new and don't let your inhibitions stop you.