Newlyweds on a Budget: October 2011

Monday, October 31, 2011

Happy Halloween 2011

Happy Halloween to all my awesome readers! I hope that you have a great day full of lots of candy! In honor of Halloween and because I finally just downloaded the pictures from my sister's camera myself-I get to show off all the fun pictures from this years Murder Mystery dinner!

WARNING-Lots of pictures to follow.

Here is Part 1 of the night-the decoration. Tomorrow I'll show you all the awesome costumes everyone came up with!

First up, the decorations! We were planning on doing a sit-down dinner but realized half way through decorating that we had invited to many people for a sit down to work in my sister's house. So we decided to go with a buffet style dinner instead.

We turned off the lights and only had candlelight the whole night. It was a great way to set the mood of a creepy castle.

My sister did the mantle and it was one of my favorite places of the whole room-very spooky!

Of course we had to use my bats for this party as well. We also removed the picture that's generally in that frame and draped cheesecloth over it to give it that old look.

We found those coat of arms at the DI. We got 7 for $3.00. It was such a fantastic find-we spray painted them black and red and they went perfectly with the Castle decor.

And we found two awesome candelabras to hang right outside the door at the DI. Another great find-we spray painted them black and put taper candles also found at the DI in them.

Here's what they looked like after the night was over...

That's it for Part 1-come back tomorrow to see how everyone dressed up-they all looked fantastic!

I hope everyone has a fun, safe, and Happy Halloween!

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Friday, October 28, 2011

Feature You Friday

This week I decided to take my Feature You Friday blogger from one of my readers. I searched through some lovely faces in my GFC and found Ashley from From A to Being.

She's a newbie blogger and reminds me so much of myself starting out. Although, who am I kidding-I'm still a newbie blogger! She's starting out on her DIY journey and she's already made some great pieces.

She found a love for Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint when she re-did a dry erase board and I love the color she choose. I haven't been able to break open the wallet and try some yet-but she's doing a great job of convincing me

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She found a great piece at a local yard sale and did a total transformation on it for her little girl. I love the A in pink paint-so cute!

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Of course she's a girl after my own heart with this awesome Halloween Mantel-love the ghost in the mirror!

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Ashley has no idea she's being featured over here today and all bloggers remember their first days of starting out when one comment made their day-who am I kidding I'm still like that. So hop on over to From A to Being and leave Ashley an awesome comment-she'll think your fantastic and so will I!

P.S. If you'd like your own blog to be featured or if you know of a blog that deserves to be featured on Feature You Friday be sure to email me at kari {at} morganandkari {dot} com!

I've decided that since I love Tutorial Tuesdays so much because I get to feature such awesome bloggers that it was time to dedicate another day to fantastic people.

So I've come up with Feature You Friday-it's a day dedicated to bragging about you!

Thursday, October 27, 2011

HO HO HO

As I mentioned yesterday, now that the Murder Mystery Dinner is over it feels almost like Halloween is over as well and I'm starting to focus more on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

This Saturday Mojo and I are heading out to Tooele and my sweet sister is going to be snapping some informal family pictures for our Christmas cards. We're going to be shooting pictures at this awesome graffiti train car in front of the Great Salt Lake.

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You can get some really unique shots here and I'm so excited about it. But of course the main purpose of these pictures is for our Christmas cards so I had to bring a little Christmas cheer into the scene.

I was inspired by this photo I found on Pinterest

Couldn't find the source for this picture-any ideas?

My original thought was to make something pretty close to this banner-but then a few days ago I was sitting at my desk at work and inspiration hit!

I had an old frame I got from the DI that wasn't working out the way I had originally planned. The frame came with plastic inside of it instead of glass-super white trash but perfect for my needs.

I picked up some green paint from Michael's and then using my cricut-on loan to me from my sister until I can get my silhouette, because she loves me and because she has two-and some red vinyl I got off Pick Your Plum ages ago I came up with this prop for our family pictures.

Isn't it the cutest? I cut out 4 1/2" letters for the MERRY and 3 1/2" letters for the Christmas. Morgan and I are wearing black and grey sweaters and I think this sign will go well with them.

One problem I ran into is that I didn't want to put a backing on the clear plastic but when I folding down the prongs to hold the plastic in place you could see them when looking at it as a whole.

But never fear, I whipped out my trustee glue gun and just glued the plastic to the frame-no prongs needed. The best part is that after our pictures I've got the perfect place to hang this up as a Christmas decoration-I love things that have multiple uses.

I'm really excited to see how they turn out. We can't afford to hire a professional but my sister and I are pretty creative so I think we'll come up with some great shots!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Tutorial Tuesday #28

I can't believe I've been doing Tutorial Tuesday for 28 weeks! And is anyone else amazed that it's already the 25th of October? That means Christmas is only 8 weeks away-aghhh!!

Can you tell I'm not ready for it?

Alright, enough about me-here's the awesome tutorials you linked up last week-

Sew Fantastic showed off this adorable Cinderella costume and the cute little girl that gets to wear it

Aqua Seventy 6 shows off this adorable clutch. I would love to have these guys as my personal stylists!

As usual Erin from How to Nest for Less always does the cutest crafts! I love her Fabric Covered Bulletin Board

And adorable Michelle from Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust (whom I've met in person!) shares some really amazing blogging tips with those of us who still don't know what their doing!

Thanks again to everyone who linked up-be sure to grab your featured button!

I can't wait to see what you've been up to so be sure to link up, and grab my button so that others can join in on the party too!

Monday, October 24, 2011

Hakuna Matata

The title has absolutely nothing to do with this post but that's just how I roll.

The party was fantastic on Saturday! My sister and our husbands all slaved away most of the day getting everything ready. We did the entire night by candlelight and it really helped set the mood of a creepy castle. This year was a lot more laid back then last year but it was still a lot of fun.

I'm waiting for my sister to email me the pictures from the night-my camera finally gave up the ghost as I was trying to take pictures of us setting up. I may be asking for one of my Christmas presents early because two months is a long time to go without a camera when you have a craft blog.

I did get a fun present I bought for myself this weekend. Although fun may not be the right word to describe it.

That's right, I'm starting the Jillian Michael's 30 day shred today. I've heard amazing reviews from friends and girls in the village (another name for my apartment complex) and I hope to have the same results. I'm not expecting to lose 5 pounds a week like it claims you can do-I'd be happy with 1-2 pounds a week.

I've finally gotten to the point where I'm not disappointed if I don't drop 10 pounds in two or three weeks. Even if it takes the whole seven months till my anniversary for me to get to a point where I'm happy, I'm willing to do it. Mojo and I are both committed to losing the weight and getting healthy again.

Who knows, maybe I'll even convince Mojo to start the 30 day shred with me.

Sorry for not having pictures from the party today-I was really hoping to get them but I promise as soon as I've received them I'll share all the fun stuff we did with you!

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Avoidance is the next best thing

Here's the thing, as usual when it come to throwing a party I realize a day or two before the big event that I may have bitten off more than I can chew. I'm drowning in my party to do list and it's only two days away!

My sister has been a huge help but she had to have surgery recently and with our Lake Powell trip she's been busy-not to mention her three boys always keeping her on her toes.

It's two days away and I still have candlesticks to bloody, frames to spray paint, mirrors to get ready, cakes to bake, cupcakes to bake, decorations to set up, costumes to get ready, and on and on and on. One day I feel like I'm on top of everything and I'm super organized and the next day all my organization crashes down around me.

I'm not going to even start on how bad my craft room/office looks. It's something along the lines of this post. Ya, it's bad. I have yet to start the laundry from our trip which we got home from 4 days ago....

So with this HUGE to-do list hanging over me what do I do? Avoid it and instead find things I love on Pinterest. Here's one of my favorites from this week....

Mojo and I are working to be more healthy and this yummy vegetarian soup sounds great on a chilly day like today

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Of course I can only put of the inevitable for so long before guilt starts kicking in. So it's back to work for me slowly trying to cross off my endless to do list.

Wish me luck.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Tutorial Tuesday #28

Happy Tuesday everyone! Morgan and I made it home late Sunday evening and headed straight over to his parents house to spend some time with his brother who was visiting. He lives internationally and we haven't been able to see him since the wedding, so it was fun to be to spend a few hours with him before he left yesterday.

Mojo and I are trying to get back into normal life again after being on vacation for a week. It was especially hard getting out of bed yesterday morning to go to work-next time I think it'll take an extra day off just to have one more day before jumping right back into every day life.

I just want to thank all the awesome guest bloggers we had last week. Each one was fantastic and I'm so grateful they were willing to help me out while I was gone. If you didn't get a chance to guest blog and would like to please email me at kari {at} morganandkari {dot} com. I would love to have you!

Now let's get on to the good stuff-features! As usual all of the projects linked up were fantastic-because I didn't do any features last week I'm doing double this week, here are my favorites-

I love Aqua Seventy 6's fall fashion budget friendly recreations. They took inspiration from their Pinterest board and came up with a budget friendly way to wear similar outfits. I love it!

I love love love this fireplace redo done by Amelia over at Amelia Bedelia. The before and after of the space is fantastic and I love the color of her walls-it makes the white fireplace really pop.

Anna from Directions Not Included , one of last week's guest bloggers (your can read her post here) linked up this fantastic Halloween wreath. I love the yarn and the bats-adorable.

Cute Erin over at How to Nest for Less showed us how she made a cute bow holder for her little girl.

For Mama's by a Mama has a great tutorial on a super cute super easy BOO sign.

And Lindsey over at Artsy Fartsy Mama has got a fun free Halloween Bingo printable for everyone-wasn't that nice of her?

As always BIG thanks to everyone who linked up-be sure to grab your featured button {here}. As usual there aren't any rules but I would love it if you could spread the word so more people can join in on the fun!

Can't wait to see what you've been up to!

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Bloody Candlesticks-Guest Post from Natalie at Doodle Craft

Good Morning Folks-I'm enjoying my last few days here in Lake Powell soaking up as much warmth from the rays as I can. We've had a week chuck full of fantastic guest bloggers and I'm just as excited to introduce you to our last guest post for the week.

Nat and I had the chance to meet in real life a few months ago at a blog meet up here in Salt Lake City. She is such a doll and has such a fun personality. I was pretty nervous at first but she was great and by the end of the night we were all friends.

I'm so excited for Nat's post today because I finished up my own version of these before I headed for Lake Powell. My sister and I have been planning on using our candles for our Vampire Party for a while now so I was so excited when Nat submitted this post. I hope you get some fun ideas and hop on over to Doodle Craft to say hello!

Hi! I’m Natalie from Doodlecraft!
I am thrilled to be guest posting over at Newlyweds on a Budget!
I met Kari recently at a GNO and she is a complete doll!
Thanks for having me!

Today I am featuring an awesome Halloween decoration
that keeps you on a ‘cheapskate budget’!
(And your kids will be thrilled too!)

Bloody Candlesticks!

Perfect for a Halloween Murder mystery dinner...

Red bloody drips all over black candles.

Start with RED taper candles...
make sure that the red color goes all the way through,
not just dipped over the last couple of layers.
(mine were given to us by an old lady...
and so I just scratched them with my fingernail.)

Spray paint or paint them black!
I sprayed them and it stayed sticky for a while...
they had to dry for a day and a half...probably
because I couldn't set them in the sun to dry!

I did one candle at a time.
Put it in a candle holder that you don't mind splattering with wax.

I started out using a long grill lighter to get the drips going, but the lighter ran out.
So I got a chopstick...the disposable kind from restaurants...
and burned it. It held a flame really well and made it easy to work the drips!

I wasn't going for subtle on these!

The kids all joined in the fun too!
We did 5 candles total.

A little charcoal drawing never hurt!

Love how the wick curled like that!

So fun! Perfect for Halloween!
The candelabra adds the crowning finish!

Thanks again Nat for the awesome Halloween Craft-here are some of my favorite crafts Nat has done recently-

These Mad-Hatter lamps are so cute! I've been meaning to make some of my own for a while now, I love how her's turned out.