Crock Pot Taco Soup

So we welcomed Fall with a nice hot bowl of Taco Soup. So delicious

Taco Soup:
{This is pretty much a doubled recipe}
Soup Ingredients
2 cans diced tomatoes
2 cans corn
1 can kidney beans rinsed {You can use 2 but I only used 1 because I don't like beans}
2lbs hamburger
2 packets taco seasoning
2 cups water
Instructions

1. Cook hamburger in non-stick pan, drain grease
2. Add hamburger and all of the rest of the ingredients into a crock pot, stir well
3. Let soup simmer on high heat for about 1 hour or until hot, stir regularly 

Once soup is done enjoy with tortilla chips, I really like the {Hint of Lime Tortilla Chips} they give it extra flavor. Add cheese and sour cream and even avocado slices and enjoy.
{Happy Souping}

Halloweenatized

Alright this craft blogging is going to take some getting used to. I am going to have to get used to posting every couple of days instead of once a week :)  I will work on that!

On a different note I can't believe it is almost the middle of October. Halloween will be here before you know it. My house is almost 100% Halloweenatized. Aaron is actually the one who is wanting to go all out. He keeps saying our house needs to be "Halloween on Crack" I say I am fine with that! I guess I get to spend money on what ever we need :)
I will say a lot of the decor that is up is from the dollar store. I LOVE that store! It is the best and they have a lot of good Halloween stuff.
I am sure you will notice that we love the spider web.

You can find tutorial here, for wreath

Just print pictures out in negative version

For the books I covered old D.I. books with paper. Super easy

Notice the crockpot: Yummy Taco Soup
Oh and if you notice the risky woman on my fridge, that is my "motivation" for eating healthy and wanting to work out :)

The house is almost there!
If you want any of the print outs you find them here:
Snow White Poison Apple
Halloween Subway Art
Keep Calm & Spook On 
All you do is download them and then I uploaded them to Costco online and ordered prints.
Snow White is 8X10
Halloween Subway Art is 16X20
Keep Calm and Spook On is 8X10

I will just let you know what things are from the dollar store so you can see what I am talking about:
Spider Web, and we still have more than half of the webbing, it goes a long way
Rats
The crows in wreaths
The haunted house
Candy Corn
Cheese Cloth on windows
See the dollar store is amazing!
I bought all of the spiders at Target, it came in a pack of 100 and I have used them everywhere. I love them
Also skulls were bought from Target
Hope you enjoy
{Happy Halloweenatizing}

Halloween Wreath Tutorial

I love Halloween!! Now being married I love decorating for Halloween!! This is s super cute, cheap and easy project.

Things Needed. . .

1. Wreath, any size you want. {I used a wicker 8 inch wreath at the dollar store}
2. Black scrap fabric
3. Old Book {$2 D.I. find}
4. Old Frame {$5 D.I. find}
5. White scrap fabrick
6. Black Bird {Dollar Store}
7. Hot glue gun

1. Cover the wreath nice and tight with black fabric

2. Draw a swirl on pages and then cut. {I cut about 5 pages at a time}

3.Roll and hot glue little by little, 

4. Then place book rosettes strategical on the fabric cover wreath

{I used different sizes to give it a little variety}

Once you have all of the book rosettes placed, 

5. Center the black bird on the wreath

6. Now paint your frame black

{I only added one coat because I wanted it to still have a rustic old look}

7. For the fabric to hang the wreath I just ripped about 4" X 24" piece of fabric

{I ripped it for a more shappy old look}

8. Then I made up some tea and let the white fabric soak for about 45 min

Once frame and fabric are dry then

9. Hang the wreath from the frame

10. When the wreath was finally hung, I distressed the fabric a little more with these ink pads

And . . . you have an amazing Halloween Wreath

{Happy Halloween Crafting}

"Boo" Blocks

It was so much fun but I didn't realize how tiring crafts make you. I love crafts and it was nice to take a break from sewing and to do more crafty things.

Here is my supplies needed. It is really inexpensive which is one of the best parts.

Supply List:

• Desired paper
• Stickers/what you want to decorate with
• Ribbon
• Hot glue gun
• Mod Podge
• Desired sized wood blocks  {best thing to do is go to Home Depot and look in the scap bins, find yourself a piece of wood. decide what size,my blocks are 4X3.5X1.5. They will cut the wood there for you.} Price = $0.54
• Letter stamps and craft paint{or you can use vinyl lettering}
• Sandpaper

1. I cut the scapbook paper to the right sizes
2. Then I Mod Podged the paper onto the wood. { I put paper on everything except the bottom}

The blocks should start looking like this, here is side #1 of the block

Side #2

3. Once the paper was all on I sanded the edges of the paper to distress and antique the blocks

4. Then I decorated the blocks how I wanted. {There are so many things you can do to decorated, NO LIMITS}

Side #1 "Boo" side

Side #2 "Trick-or-Treat" side

I absolutely love them! They turned out so cute!!

Heating Pad

Heating Pad Tutorial
Things needed

• Fabric {your choice} 1/2-1 yard
• non-cooked white rice 2 bags
• sewing machine of course :)
• Optional. . . Lavender oil

I started off with cutting 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 inch squares. You don't have to do squares you can just do one solid print.
If just one solid color, {depending on how big you want your heating pad} cut a 12 x 12 inch piece of fabric. You will need 2 squares of fabric, one for the front and one for the back.

Once squares are cut and sewn together. Sew front and back together,
{pattern sides together facing, so back side of fabric facing out.}
Make sure you leave a 2 inch opening to turn the fabric right side out.
Note: If any extra fabric on the outside edges cut them off before turning right side out

I bought two bags of long grain white rice at the dollar store {love that store}
Note: You will will need more/less rice depending on how big the heating pad you want is.
I added Lavender oil to the rice, to give it that relaxing and calming effect.
You only need like 5 drops {a little goes a long way}
Note: I used a little sandwich bag because I didn't have any large gallon bags so I had to do like 5 little bags full and I added Lavender oil to each bag If you use a large gallon bag then you probably could do all of the rice with like 10-12 drops of Lavender oil.

Once rice and oil were in the plastic bag, we shook it to mix the oil all around

I funneled the rice into the little opening. Now this is where it gets tricky, now we have to close the opening. So make sure you don't fill the pouch super full of rice. Very carefully sew the opening. 

You could use fabric glue or hot glue if you don't want to sew it, but I don't know how long it would hold.

Here is the pad all sewn up. It was harder than I thought, I think it was because I added to much rice and I used a zig-zag stitch which didn't make it easy to see where I had to stop and start. I should of used a straight stitch.

Once it is all done then put it in the microwave for about 3 min and enjoy.
You can put it anywhere, the Lavender makes it that much more relaxing


{Heat it up and enjoy}

Bar Stools Reupholstered

We were given these bar stools by my aunt and uncle. They were still in very good condition, but the cushions had some stains and they weren't the cutest color. So I decided to reupholster them!

It was my first reupholstering I have done. It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be

Here are the bar stools before:

All I did was cover right over the original fabric, but before I did that I put 2 extra layers of batting for some extra cushion. 

I found the cutest fabric at Joans. You should only need 3/4 - 1 yard of fabric, depending on how big the bar stools are.

All you have to do is first cover the seat with the batting pull it nice and tight then staple it to the bottom of the seat. Then do the same with the fabric, pull it nice and tight and then staple it to the bottom of the seat. It is was super easy and can be done in a half hour. 

They turned out so great. I love them.