Category: Do it yourself

DIY Halloween props

With Halloween only days away, I thought I’d share with you some of the things I’ve made for this year’s Halloween party! Notice I didn’t say just say “Halloween” that’s because in my house, it’s become more about the party than it has the actual night! Sorry kids! 🤣

Anyway, this year is going to be a blast and I wanted to share with you some fun, cheap DIY projects that you too can do at home with some pretty basic supplies!

1. Dollar store hanging pen

This one was really cheap and really easy to make, you could honestly stick anything inside it too, I just wanted something fun and easy to hang near the street, so opted for what a I’ve got.

What you’ll need: 2 baskets from the dollar store (sorry Aussies, you’ll have to pick some up from one of the cheap shops, I know they’re not a dollar, but still pretty reasonable). I spray painted them black with spray paint I already had but you can pick up cheap spray paint from Walmart or even your local hardware store.

I bought 2 stake (as in you normally stake them in to the ground) glow-in-the-dark arms from Dollar Tree as well as one of their skulls. I bought a mop also from there. I had an empty lacquer thinner container that I used as my ‘body’ (after I had rinsed it, of course) and got one of my son’s old shirts.

Get your dollar store mop and remove some of the strands:

I got a glue gun and took the strands from the mop and glued them to my skull. Nothing fancy, just gluing wherever they looked good. Then it’s a matter of putting it all together, I’ve seen similar projects with skeletons inside the baskets or even homemade ‘monsters’, as I said I opted for something super simple. The process was very easy and maybe took all of 20 mins (excluding drying time).

I grabbed the lacquer thinner container and drilled a hole on each side for the arms to slit into and put a dab of hot glue to hold them in place. I also hot glued the skull on to where the lid formally lived. Then it was just a matter of putting the shirt on and placing him in the basket.

After the baskets were dry (having sprayed both inside and outside of each) I placed my ‘half-guy’ into the basket and put the other one on top. I placed the hands where a I wanted them to go and zip tied everything in place. Then it was a matter of putting a couple of Dollar Tree rats on the outside of the cage and a chain from there also and zip tying those into place too. It has been outside in all sorts of weather and still looks great!

2. Dollar store trophies

I wanted to give out trophies this year as well as the prizes we regularly give out, but didn’t want to spend a fortune on them so I grabbed these from Dollar Tree:

and made them into these:

Super easy too! All you do is give the skull a light sanding and using acrylic paint, darken the already darkened areas on the skull. Grab a light grey paint (or gold/brown or whatever colour you like) then go over everything else, leaving the darkened spots in place to contrast. The great thing is that if you make a mistake, you can easily go back over it with whatever paint you need to!

Then I got a candle (also from Dollar Tree) that fitted into the top of the trophy perfectly. I hot glued this in place (just the lids so that if someone wants to use the candle they still can). Some of the candles I painted in a metallic acrylic paint, others I left as is. I printed out trophy names on the printer, cut them out and modpodged them to the candle cases. I glued hair on some and not on others, there’s even one as a gag trophy to a friend of ours because he promised to finally wear a costume to this year’s party! 😆

Let me know what you think. And if you try this yourself, I’d love to see your photos!

If you enjoy reading my crazy, varied blogs, please subscribe here on WordPress. Sharing is caring, so feel free to share with your friends. I’m on Facebook: Aussie Mum’s Adventures. Come like my page and share it with your friends! You can find me on Twitter: @ozmumsadventures, on Instagram: Ozmumsadventures, and on Pinterest: Aussiemumsadventures

Dollar Store Spring Planter Boxes

My house needed some pizazz! It was just looking a little too bare and dull and I wasn’t prepared to do anything with the brick work. As with everything, there’s a budget too and my budget wasn’t very big. So, how to make an impact on a small budget and spruce up the front of my house? Planter boxes! But, it wasn’t going to be practical for me to water real plants on a daily basis and I certainly didn’t want to have to change out the plants because of the seasons. I wanted some colour and I wanted to be able to change the colours whenever I felt the need. The answer: artificial flowers. Not normally my number one choice, but perfect for what I needed to do and the fact that I can buy them at the dollar store, made them an even better option and I can easily add more colours for each season.

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First step, buy some planter boxes. I happened to get mine from Lowes, they were about $7 a piece but they are good quality planter boxes and will last (a year later and they are still in great condition). Make sure you drill some drainage holes into your planter before you do anything else. Even though you are using artficial flowers, your planter is outside and needs to be able to get rid of water should you get rain. Also work out how you are going to attach the boxes to your window sills. I measured where I wanted my planter boxes to go then drilled holes in each of my planter boxes where the screws would go. I then used 3/4 inch long masonry screws and got my husband (I could have easily done it myself 😜) to drill holes in the brickwork (you will also need a masonry drill bit the same size as your screws). I know there are other options if you cannot drill into your house or if you don’t want to permanently attach the boxes, just ask someone at your local hardware store to show you alternative ways to showcase planter boxes.

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Masonry screw

Obviously, you are going to need several bunches of artificial flowers and something to put them into inside your planter box. I bought the floral foam also from the dollar store and used this as my base. Try to separate your flowers and your greenery (at the original time of purchase, I bought this greemnery but it hasn’t held up well over the year, so I actually interchanged for a different kind when I added some new flowers for Spring). Cut your stems as long as you possibly can using some wire cutters, then insert into the foam pieces, ensuring you try to keep the same number of flowers in each planter and spread them out evenly. You may even want to raise the foam up a little bit if the stems aren’t long enough to show above your planter box, you can either add a second foam piece on top or just put a layer of moss or even dirt under the foam (the only thing you do need to think about is that you don’t want your planters to be too heavy if you are attaching them using the masonry screws so the dirt may not work).

After you have arranged your flowers, you want to make sure they stay in place, so this is when you will need another layer to hold them down, I used moss that I raked up from my yard so it still had some dirt attached to it and was heavier than moss that you would buy from a store along with a few small rocks.

Then it’s time to attach your planter boxes and voila! A gorgeous spruce up to some boring areas that doesn’t require very much maintenance!

Our dog loves to photobomb 🙂

*Note: Every season, I have added to my flowers with some different colours. It’s probably time to throw some of the original roses out as they have really faded (Our house faces East so gets the rising sun) but I haven’t worried about that just yet because the addition of the yellow, white and orange flowers and the other greenery, has spruced it up when you are looking at it from afar.

If you enjoy reading my crazy, varied blogs, please subscribe here on WordPress. Sharing is caring, so feel free to share with your friends. I’m on Facebook: Aussie Mum’s Adventures. Come like my page and share it with your friends! You can find me on Twitter: @ozmumsadventures, on Instagram: Ozmumsadventures, and on Pinterest: Aussiemumsadventures

Dr. Seuss Themed, Book Week, Door Decorating

I volunteer in my 6 year old’s class once a week to help with extra reading and his teacher asked if I could help with a book week door design – oh yes I can! Lol. I went on Pinterest and looked for ideas as to how to encourage young readers to get excited about reading and found some awesome ideas, including varied options for the “I will read” saying, inside of an extended version of Cat’s Hat.

Credit from Pinterest (I can’t find the site again to give proper credit)
The beginning drawing
A close up of Cat’s face – though I did edit him a tad during the painting phase

Everywhere I looked there was the Cat’s hat, but what about Cat himself? I grabbed one of my son’s books and freehand drew the cat. He turned out pretty great! Lol. I honestly don’t know how to help you draw him other than to say it might help to look at the picture in grids and draw each grid independently, sometimes baby steps are the best, rather than looking at the bigger picture.

The drawing was the easy part though, trying to copy the font for the passage on the right had to be the most time-consuming! Painting was certainly no easy task either, but the rewards are immediate! I did however make a mistake and tried to erase my pencil marks too quickly (see photo). But all in all, I was very happy with the results!

I did everything at home other than the handprints of course! This afternoon I had the lovely pleasure of assisting each first grader in dipping their hand in paint thereby adding their personal touch to this door cover. It was so much fun! The teacher had photos of each and every child that we stuck in the middle of their handprint. It worked out really well and I love it! I’ll never have another first grader, but I’ll always have this amazing memory! Even the teacher put her handprint on there!

If you enjoy reading my crazy, varied blogs, please subscribe here on WordPress. Sharing is caring, so feel free to share with your friends. I’m on Facebook: Aussie Mum’s Adventures. You can find me on Twitter: @ozmumsadventures, on Instagram: Ozmumsadventures, on Pinterest: Aussiemumsadventures And please subscribe to my YouTube channel: Aussie Mum’s Adventures (I’m still working on it, so please have patience with me!).

Shut the French Door!

When it comes to French doors and privacy, there are only so many options. I started researching some of them when we installed our French doors on our house here in Virginia. We have a larger lot (over 2 acres) and are surrounded by woods, but in the winter, the trees take their deciduous steps and distant neighbours have now got much better views into your domain. This bothers me, particularly at night when it is so dark outside and the house is lit up like a small supernova. I definitely like my privacy. What to do on a budget? Well, given I had no clue how to make French Door curtains, I purchased some and they’re fabulous and cost about $30.

We have another set of French doors in our basement and it has always bothered me that my kids could be down there playing (the video gaming is set up down there) and anyone can see into those doors too. I had originally planned to buy another set of the same style of curtains for down there, but then I remembered I actually have a ton of curtains from our various moves – yes, when you move like we do, you acquire so many things – some of which are a metallic Grey and would match the decor down there absolutely perfectly! The curtains I had purchased (pictured) looked very easy to copy the style of, so with a few modifications, I set out to repurpose my existing curtains into practical ones for the French door.

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The first thing I did was measure the window opening in the door to ensure the curtains I had were long enough, they were. Then it was a matter of taking approximate measurements of the existing French door curtains to match up my gray ones. I measured the width of the curtain and realized I had to cut quite a lot off it. This is a little scary mind you as you are ruining, I mean restyling, something perfectly good. I found the best thing to do was to measure all the way down putting a small sharpie mark along the length then getting a ruler and joining these marks together, then it was just a matter of biting the bullet and cutting (if I ruined them, well I did have another back up pair that weren’t so perfect but would do). I made my curtains 26″ (66cm) wide with a half inch hem on the side that needed a new hem. Therefore, my marks were made at 26 1/2 inches (67.3 cm) across ensuring the 4 circles (normally what would go on a rod) became the feature top of my French door curtains and were evenly spaced on both sides.

With the length I cut off, I measured the amount I would need to make the two pieces that velcroed together, holding the entire curtain up when you wanted to allow daylight in. I did screw up a little bit here as I didn’t take into account the fact that the second piece wouldn’t have any hem on either end, don’t do what I did, make that second piece a fraction longer, it will make life easier and save a burnt finger when it comes to ironing that hem on. I made each of these pieces 19 1/4 ” (49cm) by 2 1/2 ” (6.35cm) PLUS hem – important you don’t forget to factor this in.

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I didn’t even tell you that I wanted to do this entire project without sewing! I had lots of iron-on hemming tape and thought it would be perfect for this job.

If you have never used hemming/bonding tape, basically you use an iron to melt it together, ergo bond the fabric together at your given hemline. The iron has to be hot (so the fabric you use has to be capable of withstanding a reasonably hot iron, and you must turn the steam function off. Be careful not to touch the hemming tape with the hot iron, it will melt immediately and leave a sticky residue on your iron – if this happens, turn iron off and wait to get cold before wiping with a clean cloth that has some rubbing alcohol on it (I do not know this from experience ;)). I decided to double hem my edges because I wanted a clean ‘finished’ look, it did mean a lot more work but it looks better in my opinion. One other thing I did was to cut the hemming tape in half lengthwise as it fitted each of my little, narrow hems much better like that.


Once everything was hemmed and ironed, I folded the front of the curtain over so it gave my front a more professional finish, I used more hemming tape at the top to secure these two folds together.

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I then joined the two pieces on to the back of the French door curtain like so (I pinned everything in place after I had measured it and before I permanently attached it so I could be sure it was all going to work and look nice and neat). My strips were attached 6″ in from the edges on each side.
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Then it was a matter of attaching the Velcro. Again, I didn’t particularly want to sew, not that I can’t, I’m just not very good at it and don’t particularly enjoy it, so I had some sticky back Velcro from another project and just used it. This really is a matter of eyeballing and making sure they will align when joined together. Pinning helps with this too.
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Finally, it was time to attach a curtain to the French door:


I love how these turned out. They match the decor down here perfectly, I had everything on hand so didn’t actually have to purchase anything and now I know we will have privacy downstairs too!


Would you try this at your house? What do you think of this project? Please come on over to Aussie Mum’s Adventures on FB and like my page: Aussiemumsadventures. You can find me on Twitter: @ozmumsadventures, on Instagram: Ozmumsadventures, on Pinterest: Aussiemumsadventures And please subscribe to my YouTube channel: Aussie Mum’s Adventures (I’m still working on it, so please have patience with me!).

Chalk Paint Table Makeover

I love to DIY and I normally have numerous projects going on at once, which my husband absolutely hates because he is a ‘one tasker’ – you know the type, you could well be one too, complete one project before moving on to the next. Not me. I’m not sure why it is but I’ve always been like that. I get bored doing one thing or waiting for it to finish or have to stop because of budgetary constraints, so I move on to the next thing whilst biding my time.

Currently on my project lists I have the master bathroom project (which has come to a grinding halt until hubby takes some time off later in the month and we replace the counter top and sinks etc). I have also begun with our main floor stair makeover (you can see pics of that in a later blog), I have one painting I’m in the midst of (yes, I’m trying to establish myself as an artist as well, with a store on Etsy, though that now needs to be updated as my paintings have all expired, so I’ll add that to my current projects (here’s the link to it: Le Shez Boutique). Back to the painting; it has me a little vexed as to where to go with it to improve it, so it’s been benched at this point in time. Finally, I have the project that this blog is about: my side table makeover.

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We’ve had this table since we lived in Italy, it wasn’t a cheap purchase but it certainly isn’t of the quality that furniture used to be made of either. It has a veneer coating and has certainly travelled well, having moved with us into nine different houses, including two overseas moves! I’ve always liked the design but the large chips in it and the differing tastes in both houses and changes in tastes in myself, mean I also now find it outdated and ugly with potential.

One other thing I always do is keep an eye out for bargains that may come in handy at some point in time for some particular project I know I will do in the future, or for a project I didn’t even know I wanted to do just yet, and that’s exactly how I came across this chalk paint. LIDL (a German store that rivals ALDI) has so many of these bargain things that sometimes I have to say no to shopping there! But when I saw the below pictured chalk paint for about $5, I knew exactly where I could use it! So onto table restoration I went (in between waiting for coats to dry on said staircase).

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The first thing I had to do was obviously dust it off and remove the handles. If you want to paint them (the handles), spray paint is probably your best option, but I chose not to in this case thinking they were in great condition as is. I then gave the table a very light sanding. I used 220 grit sandpaper. You have to be very careful when sanding veneer that you do not go too deep with your sanding. After I had lightly sanded everywhere, it was on to filling in the accidental scratches and divets that were not helping this table age gracefully! I used MINWAX Stainable Wood Filler, for no other reason than that it was the one that looked easiest to use and was a good price in the store. I needed something that I could paint and stain (for my piano project that will happen one day) and something that could be sanded – this was perfect. I filled the scratches, waited for the filler to dry then sanded it down once more. I also grabbed something I could get all the grime out of the cracks with, the fact that it happened to be a stem from an edible fruit arrangement received sometime over the past 10 years did not go unnoticed by me, but you know that’s why I keep this crap around! You never know when something like that will come in handy!

I cleaned the table once more with damp paper towel then began the process of painting it. I wasn’t too fussed about it looking perfect after the first coat, given I knew it would require at least two coats of my base color.

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Second Coat (the paint is still drying in this photo):

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Now it was a matter of what to do next. I wasn’t actually using chalk paint for the next part, I had leftover ceiling paint (flat white) and thought it would be perfect for the effect I wanted. I grabbed both a thin brush as well as a foam brush and dipped into the ceiling paint and tried to focus on the detailed areas that I wanted highlighted in the white paint – the grooves etc. I had a wet paper towel on hand to get rid of/blend anything I wasn’t totally happy with, chalk paint is quite forgiving as long as you don’t press too hard. It was really a matter of going until I was happy with the results. If I wasn’t happy, I’d grab the brush for the chalk paint and paint over whatever it was I wasn’t happy with.

I had some Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations Protective Top Coat leftover from our kitchen renovation in Colorado, so I used this to seal the chalk pain in, The whole process literally took less than 7 hours. I’m happy with the results. Hubby and eldest daughter absolutely love it (and were completely surprised because they had no idea this project was on the agenda). Middle daughter isn’t a huge fan, youngest (son) loves it! So I guess a 4/5 isn’t bad right! I hope you’ve enjoyed it too!

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