Instead of heading to the toy store and picking up a mass-produced hunk of plastic that anyone with a TV could have thought of, why not step outside the box a little bit and get something unique and handmade? Aside from potentially becoming the cool relative who buys the awesome toys, you can also help small businesses make a little extra cash money money this holiday season.

Take a peek at some of the cool kids pieces I found on Etsy:

Armadillo Dreams toolbox set / Girlie Q’s pot holders and dish towel / Kat and Company jar of bugs sorting and counting set / Apple n Amos natural wood milk and cookies set / Rustic Patriot Girl slippers / Kitty Baby Love natural crayons / Keepsake Toys eco-friendly wooden balancing toy / A Shiny Beetle sushi felt food set / Bannor Toys cars / The Joyful Rabbit stuffed babushka

Now, don’t get me wrong. My girl has some things on her list that require a trip to the mall (or in my case, a Google shopping search) and I’m not about to disappoint her. All I’m doing is suggesting that you give some of these (incredibly awesome) options a little bit of thought.

I have a sneaking suspicion that they might just last longer than some of the cheap chunks of plastic you might otherwise throw under the tree–and most of them are friendlier to the environment too.

Note: This is an UPDATED tutorial for my DIY no-sew tutu ghost costume with better photos and a slightly different tutu technique that makes it fuller and faster to put together.

My friend Janine sent me a link to this little ghost costume on Pinterest a couple of months ago and I knew I had to do something similar for Ellie (unless, of course, my boss Samantha came up with an idea for a themed costume that didn’t involve Ellie being an afterthought to her sister’s starring role). When Sam became vampire obsessed, I knew my little bean would be the perfect ghost.

Enter a no-sew tutu and warm, super easy top and you have the happiest crafting momma on the planet. I challenge you to try for a DIY fail on this one. It’s just not possible!

One of my favorite parts about this project is how incredibly versatile it is. It’s not just a Halloween costume DIY. You can use these steps to make a colorful little tutu and shirt with your lady’s age on it for a birthday party. Or you could make a couple of tutus for dress up. Hell, you could make one for yourself!

DIY Ghost Costume with a No-Sew Tutu

First up are the supplies. You need:

• At least 25 yards of tulle. The dollar store even sells tulle (check the wedding section), so this won’t be expensive.
• Scissors
• Wide satin ribbon
• Peel and stick felt
• A white shirt
• A lighter

Before you start, put the ribbon around your little lady’s waist to get an accurate measurement. Be sure to leave a few extra inches so that you can tie a bow to close it. You can always cut extra ribbon but not having enough will be a major pain in the butt. Also, burn the edges of the ribbon slightly to help prevent fraying.

Next, hold the tulle up to her to figure out what length you want the skirt to be. Double that length before cutting it (you’ll see why in a minute). Again, leave extra room because, as you can see below, you’re going to knot the tulle to your ribbon.

I like to cut all of my tulle at once so that I can get into a rhythm when I’m knotting it onto the ribbon. In my imagination it totally goes faster that way.

To knot your tulle on, fold it in half and lay it under the ribbon. Next, take the ends of your tulle and pull it through the loop, making sure to keep the ribbon in the middle (see photo below).

Keep tying! There will definitely come a point where you’re looking at what you have so far and are like “There is no way I could be doing this right.” But you are. Don’t worry. Like my crepe paper curtain DIY (which involves a similar technique), you need to have a lot on there before the vision in your head starts to come to life.

Once all the tulle was tied, my tutu looked like this. Kind of amazing how easy that was, right? It’s a little messy, but all you have to do is trim a few of the longer pieces.

Now for the top.

DIY Ghost Costume Top

For this, I turned to my sweatshirt, sticky felt and scissors. I traced the cylinder my tulle came on to make the eyes, adding in some girly eyelashes before I cut them out. Once I put the eyes on, I lined the remaining felt up underneath to measure the perfect-sized mouth.

Next, all I had to do was peel the paper off the back of the felt and stick them on there. To make it nice and secure, I flipped the sweatshirt over and ironed the back. This helps to seal the felt on. Do not iron the felt directly—unless sticky, melty ghost faces are your thing.

Pretty stinking adorable, right?

I tied an extra piece of tulle around her head for a wispy headband and put some black leggings on under the tutu to complete the look.

If you trust her, she can wear her DIY ghost sweatshirt all October long. If not, you can at least be sure that she’ll be warm and toasty on Halloween night, especially since you can layer underneath without totally distorting the look of the costume.

If you use this tutorial please send me pictures of your little ghosts! I would love to see them. You can either post them on my Facebook wall or email them to me at jen@cuddlesandchaos.com.

I’ve been wanting to make a fall wreath since we started talking about apple picking way back in August. I didn’t want to rush into fall, I just wanted to know a pretty wreath would be waiting for me when we got there.

Well, now that fall has shown its face, I decided to tackle the project that’s been floating around in my brain for so long. The only thing is, like most things I embark upon, I had no specific idea of what I wanted. I knew there had to be leaves and texture and autumnal colors. But that’s about all I knew.

So, I did what I usually do when I’m completely clueless. I laid all of my options out in front of me.

I went downstairs to where all of my crafty stuff is and rounded up every vaguely fall-looking supply I could find, including a failed attempt at a wreath from last year (a green foam floral ring that I wrapped in orange and black yarn).

I laid it all out on the table and hoped for inspiration.

First, I decided to wrap grapevine, which you can can get at any craft store, around the outside of my yarn-covered floral ring. It was just the kind of texture I was looking for–although I would go all the way around if I were to do it again.

Ignore the hot glue blobs in the photo. Its from taking my failed project apart.

Next, I started hot gluing glittery leaves around the bottom. I would recommend laying out your leaves before making a commitment with the hot glue. Try to change up your colors and sizes. It makes it look more natural and adds nice contrast.

I didn’t exactly listen to my own advice here, so the right side of my wreath was full of large orange leaves. It was a little blah on its own so I broke off a bit of fall berry garland (if you keep bending it the floral wire inside will break off) and hot glued that on.

Lastly, I wrapped a strip of burlap around the top and tied a piece of orange ribbon to hang it from. Everything is prettier with a little bow, right?

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out considering how quick and easy it was. The most time consuming part of the project is hot gluing yarn all the way around the ring. Luckily, I didn’t have to worry about that this time. I put the whole thing together while Ellie took a quick nap (small victories!).

What do you think? Is this a fall wreath DIY you would tackle?

I am Queen of the Big Idea. I get them regularly and plan them out in my head before I get distracted by something shiny that makes me start planning the next Big Idea. As you can imagine, this results in endless half-started projects that are like little mines sprinkled throughout my house.

“What’s that?” my husband will ask pointing to a pile that looks like a heap of garbage.

“Oh, that’s just my stack of supplies for the mini-replica of the Eiffel Tower I want to build for Sam’s room.”

[insert eye roll and snarky retort here]

My DIY gallery wall Idea has been in the works for months now (I don’t even think it would be stretching it to say a year). I was sick of our living room set up and hating (seriously hating) this hat rack thing we had near our front door.

Here’s what the wall in question looked like:

I decided I wanted to move my husband’s beloved off-center print to the wall that the stupid hat rack was on (not pictured). The print just seemed completely lost above the love seat, don’t you think? I thought it would be way better to fill the wall with family photos and other fun little things.

So, of course, I had to collect frames for my cute little DIY gallery wall project. And what else would I do with the frames but stack them up in piles around my bedroom? I mean, really. Do you want me to forget about them???

I’ve had teetering towers of frames strategically placed around my bedroom for months at this point. I’m cheap, so I don’t want to spend money on frames all at once. But I struck gold when I finally got around to cleaning out Ellie’s closet. There were a bunch of frames we used at our wedding just sitting there collecting dust. Perfection! I went to the dollar store and picked up a few more.

So once you collect all of your supplies for your Big Idea, what the hell do you do? I usually don’t get this far.

I decided to use paper to figure out the layout I wanted for my DIY gallery wall (it sounds way fancier when you call it that). I totally saw this idea on Pinterest somewhere.

I taped paper up on the wall to see how big I wanted this thing to be. My first attempt left too much empty space (my naked helper in the bottom corner agreed).

My second attempt made it way more substantial, which is what I was going for. My helper, however, was a little unhappy with my sloppiness.

Next (and I’m not going to lie, this was weeks later–which means the rolled up paper was just chilling behind the TV in my bedroom all that time), I laid out my frames. First I did it with empty frames so I could get a better idea of a layout I liked without being constrained by how many pictures were vertical and horizontal and what sizes they were.

Once I was settled on the layout, I started picking photos that fit what I needed. Then I laid them all out again to make sure I liked what it looked like when everything was framed and ready to go. I took a couple of pictures of it, so that I could refer to the photos when it was time to hang the frames on the wall.

When that was all set, I took a Sharpie and marked the paper where I needed nails to hang each of the frames. From there, I re-taped my paper to the wall and started putting nails where each of my little black dots were drawn. Once all the nails were in, I tore the paper down and got my trusty old camera to help me remember which frames went where. Here is the finished product:

It’s admittedly imperfect. But, you know what? So is life. And perfectly spaced and placed photos just wouldn’t suit us.

I used a mix of frames in different colors and finishes because I wanted an eclectic look. I also added the DIY word art I made awhile back (it’s the yellow rectangle that you can’t read), a couple of Sam’s masterpieces and CD covers to albums my husband and I like.

I’m happy with how mine turned out, but if you’re a stickler for clean corners and symmetry, try drawing a square or rectangle on your paper and making sure that the edges of each of your frames is in the same spot. If you’rereally anal, you could also measure the spaces between your frames to make sure they’re all the same.

Have you ever done a DIY gallery wall like this? I want to see it! And if you have any tips, share away!

I’m linking up with A Glimpse Inside this week. Check it out for lots of other fun DIY ideas!

Converse / Keds for Madewell / Vans

I’m a little bit of what one might refer to as a polka dot whore. I guess aficionado is more politically correct. But it’s also slightly boring.

Anyway. I digress. I love me some polka dots. Lately I’ve been obsessing pretty hard over polka dot sneakers. They’re fun and a little whimsical and (most importantly) comfortable.

But I’m cheap. Like, really cheap. So I have a hard time parting with money when I already have a couple of pairs of perfectly acceptable sneakers. Tear.

Just when I had given up on the thought of owning a pair in the near future, I remembered the cheap canvas sneakers I picked up in Walmart earlier in the summer. At first, I wanted to glitterfy them (no, that’s not a word). After a bit of a DIY fail on a glittered pair for Samantha, I started thinking maybe I’d attempt a tribal print a la a pair of TOMS I’ve been loving on. After much soul searching I realized that was a terrible idea.

I’m no artist. But polka dots I can do.

I also decided to be wild and go neon. I’m loving the trend but it’s not destined to be a classic so I’m not about to spend a lot of money incorporating it into my wardrobe. A nice, cheap DIY project is the perfect way to sneak it in there.

So here’s how I made my polka dot sneakers:

not pictured: glue gun, scissors and popsicle stick

This photo is admittedly horrific, but I thought it was necessary to show how I made my circle stamps.

Trace or draw the shape you’d like to stamp onto a piece of foam (I had a big multicolored pack of it from the dollar store). Cut it out and hot glue it to your popsicle stick. I found that gluing two pieces of foam on top of each other made a much cleaner stamp. Neat edges are important if you plan on wearing it!

Now all you have to do is dip your homemade stamp into some paint and stamp it onto your shoe. Remember that less is more–a little dab in the center will spread out when you push down. Doing it this way is much less messy than using a lot of paint.

Fun, right? I think I might have to buy another cheap pair of black canvas sneakers and stamp them too. Maybe I’ll do little hearts or stars or even stripes or chevron.

What do you think?