Easy Halloween Chalkboards

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Dollar General for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

October is a BIG month in our family. My daughter, neice, and dad all have birthdays this month. There's also a couple anniversaries, not to mention Halloween (and all the school events that go along with that... how many costumes does one kid need, really?). Needless to say, we see a lot of each other during the month of October and entertain almost every weekend. Because my house is already decked out for Halloween, I just roll with the theme for the rest of the events. (Sure there might be a princess crown thrown in here and there)  This week the kid and I made little Halloween chalkboards to label our goodies when the whole fam is over for such events.

Since it's 5 seconds from my house (yay for no traffic!), I was happy to get my Halloween supplies at Dollar General. They had an entire Halloween isle with not only decorations, but party supplies and some costume items too. I picked up a few things there and a couple frames from the home isle.  I think I bought out the googly eyes. Sorry about that. :) I was going to list out the supplies for this but really it's entirely up to you. You really just need frames, hot glue, and a variety of small Halloween items. I chose googly eyes, spider rings, and glow-in-the-dark skeletons.

Step 1: Remove the glass from the frames.

Step 2: Hot glue your favorite items to the frames. We painted the backs of the skeletons white first so they would show up better and cut the ring part off of the spiders so they would sit flat.

Step 3: Paint an old cereal box with chalkboard paint, cut out a rectangle, and add it to the frame. If you don't have chalkboard paint, you could always use a sheet of black construction paper. You'd just have to change the paper out each time you wanted to change the sign.

Reassemble your frame (no glass) and that's it. Really easy, really inexpensive, and a fun afternoon craft with the kids. These are especially helpful when you have a kid's punch and an, a'hem, adult version. :) For even more Halloween ideas, crafts, recipes, and party ideas, follow Dollar General on Facebook and Dollar General on Twitter.

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Italian Themed Kitchen Printables and Recipe Cards

This post brought to you by World Market.

Click here to get your free kitchen printables (3 - 8" x 10" signs) and recipe cards.

I have a secret. This past month I've been in cahoots with World Market. :) You see, they've partnered up with the new LiveWell Network Show “My Family Recipe Rocks”, starring Joey Fatone and have the Gourmet Getaway Sweepstakes going on. Since I love World Market (and food, and Italy) and shop there anyway, I was super excited to participate.  However, the nice people at World Market wanted me to make you guys a recipe. Since I still want you to like me, I came up with a better idea! I designed Italian themed kitchen printables and recipe cards for you and your kitchen. This way you can visit all the other talented foodie-type bloggers making delicious Italian recipes and keep your favorites on new recipe cards. Win, win.

Here's just a few of the recipes made by very talented cooks/bloggers (a'hem, not me) using World Market products. See what I mean? They know their stuff.

Italian Chicken Gnocchi Soup - Katie's Cucina

Tiramisu-Chocolate Trifle - Celebrations at Home

Grandma's Lasagna - White House Black Shutters

Antipasto Risotto - Sweet C's Designs

Spicy Cioppino My Way - Pineapple & Coconut

Now just because I'm not sharing a recipe doesn't mean I don't know my Italian food. My dad's entire side of the family is Italian. I grew up eating pasta and homemade sauce every Sunday of my life. I just don't have time to stir a pot of sauce for 4 hours (how did my mom do that with 3 kids?!). I'm more of a "open-things-up, place-on-plate" girl. :) So thanks to World Market's extensive Italian Food isle and Gourmet Food & Drink section, I still look fancy and everything tastes great with minimal effort.

With Piquillo Pepper Bruschetta, an Italian red wine, and some wine chocolate (yes, they have that!) from World Market, my loaf of bread suddenly becomes a fancy pants happy hour. (Even if it is just me and the hubs on the porch while the kids ride their bikes wildly through the streets).

While we were shopping, I also picked up some olive oil for my day-to-day cooking and the hubs loaded up on craft beers of course :)

Last stop was the Table Linens section. I picked up a set of Nouveau Vine Napkins and a couple placemats. This is the napkin I used as inspiration to design the printables and recipe cards from. See? They all coordinate. :) Yup, planned that.

So what's the Gourmet Getaway Sweepstakes? Right now through October 18th you can enter to win a 6 Day Culinary Trip for 2 to Venice, Italy. Trip includes airfare & accommodations, Cicchetti Tour, Hands-On Venetian Cooking Class, Cheese Making Demonstration & Tasting and a $1,000 World Market Gift Card, PLUS 3 First Prize winners will receive a $500 World Market gift card. Think about how much wine chocolate you could buy with that! You can earn bonus entries for liking World Market’s social media pages too.

My Family Recipe Rocks features amazing hometown cooks across America in their own kitchens. Joey Fatone and his crew are cooking up old family recipes, new homegrown dishes and meeting the people behind this great food in their own kitchens.

So tune in Sundays on the LiveWell Network at 8:30 pm/ 7:30 c.  Buon Appetito!

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Fall Porch Makeover + Fall Banner Tutorial

This post is brought to you by Home Depot. I received gift cards for products from Home Depot to decorate my porch and one to give away, but was not compensated otherwise. My opinions are my own.

Okay, so I realize the first day of fall was a week or so ago but I'm in Florida and just this week we've finally started to feel the slightest bit of cool breeze in the evenings, in the shade, if you sit really still, and are slightly damp. That totally counts so I'm going with it.  My porch never really gets decked out for any holiday. We decorate, but it's nothing to write home about. I've always wanted that really welcoming, warm, fall front porch you see on Pinterest where you could just curl up with a mug of something and a book your iPhone (just being honest). Thanks to Home Depot, I'm totally that girl this year! They have everything to buy your fall favorites or costume supplies (anyone want to be a minion?!).

Here's where I started. Admire the splendor. While peach wouldn't be my first choice for a front door color, we're renting and I can't change it so let's roll with it.

The first thing I did was make the triangle "FALL" banner for over the door. To make this you will need:

• Thin piece of scrap wood about 12" wide
• Rope (mine was leftover from the Tire Table)
• Chalkboard Paint (I used Rust-Oleum)
• Saw to cut the triangles
• Drill

First off, I got my wood  from this little fun cart at Home Depot. I have no idea what Cull Lumber means (I'm assuming extras, slight defects?) but my piece was only .51 cents! Score.

Step 1:
Make a triangle paper template, trace, and cut your triangles.

Step 2:

Drill holes in the top two corners about the same diameter as your rope.

Step 3:
Paint your triangles with chalk board paint. (The kids did this part)

Step 4:

String the rope through the holes in the triangles.

Step 5:

Write your favorite sayings again and again. Here Kaley is writing her friends' names. I convinced her that "FALL" would probably be more appropriate.

After the banner was done and hung, we went to work adding our Home Depot finds. How fantastic is this potted mum in the "Farmer's Market" basket? Love it! There was a whole selection of these in the garden center.

Also, did you know you can buy giant stalks of dried corn at Home Depot? Corn! I have corn at my front door. Never thought I would say that. I really like how tall they are (we're talking 8 feet!). Very dramatic for very little money.

Another bonus about shopping for fall decor is that the summer decor is on clearance! I got a ton of outdoor pillows to dress up the bench we already had on our porch. All of the pillows were under $5 each. No one ever sat there before the pillows except the frogs... I've been out there a ton this week spying on the neighbors and stuff. It's great!

Of course there are tons of gorgeous mums in every color to choose from as well as a variety of pots and urns.

And plenty of new door mats to wipe your feet.

And quite the assortment of cute scarecrows.

This is the one the kids picked to come home with us. If you're wondering about the halloween signs in the pics, I made those. Another super simple DIY project.

I just purchased wood stakes in the garden section at Home Depot and scrap lumber. Screwed the scrap lumber to the stakes and painted each board with leftover paint. Super easy and super inexpensive.

Of course there are tons of pumpkins available a Home Depot. We chose to do a mix of real and fake pumpkins (Bonus: The fake ones light up). The kids insisted we get this little kit to decorate one of the pumpkins with. I pretty much let them get it because I knew it would keep them busy while I worked, but it turned out to be one of my favorite things about the porch! Look how adorable he is!

And lastly I was going to do a traditional wreath on the door but challenged myself to think outside the box. I opted for this Martha Stewart mirror instead. And bonus, you can check yourself out every time you come home. Well hello there! It's not too heavy either so I hung it using Command Hooks.

So thanks for taking my front porch tour. I don't have any candy yet, you'll have to come back later. I figure after Halloween I can just remove those touches and we're good to go through Thanksgiving. :) Are you ready to deck out your porch this weekend?

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{Series Part 2} Designing House Plans with an Architect

That's my house!

Oh man, it's been a while since Part 1. If you haven't read that post, it will give you a little background on our house building adventure. Today I'm sharing all about how we came up with a house plan and got it on paper. And, to put to rest that funny little thing people like to say when they find out you're building a house... "You can get exactly what you want then!". I think sometimes people confuse building a house with winning the lottery, because if that were the case, I'd have a mansion on the ocean with a water slide in my living room. ;)

So last time I told you about how our builder introduced us to our architect. Before I even met him I had been pinning plans, and searching realtor.com, and saving everything I loved about houses. Seriously, not only did I have a pinterest board ready for my architect, I also had little packets printed out, stapled, and labeled. (I just googled "house plans" to find them). "I like the front of this house". "I like the master bathroom in this house". Etc. Because I pretty much stalked realtor.com in our area, I knew (ballpark) what a house of the size we wanted was going to cost. We were looking to build a 4 bedroom, 3 bath house with a 3 car garage, around 3,000 square feet.

I also want to say at this point I was warned by my builder, architect, and another architect separately not to buy pre-made plans online. They all agreed that you, 9 times out of 10, end up having to have them revised by a local architect and engineer anyway. Especially in Florida, where there are a ton of hurricane codes houses must follow. My advice would be, get a plan done by someone local and familiar with the special building codes in your area.

One Saturday morning, my builder and architect came over. We sat around my dining room table and I gave him the basics of what we wanted (I like to say "we" occasionally since my husband will very much be living in this house too... however, he gave all design control over to me since it's "my thing". Yeah, he's pretty great like that.) Our basic must-haves and the size house I was thinking of.  He jotted those down and asked about the style of house we wanted. Spanish, Modern, Traditional... etc. I was set on having a Southern/Country style house. You know, the really big covered front porch? I was also set on having a 2 story house... however, I was talked out of that at this meeting. That's a pretty huge thing you have to figure out right from the beginning.

You see, we live in Florida. It's hot. All. The. Time. Having a house the size I wanted would make for a really large area on the second floor. Heat rises you know. Not only would it require a second air conditioning unit (that's code for more money), but it meant high utility bills forever (cha-ching) and a greater chance of damage in a hurricane (yeah, we get those here too). Thus, practically, it didn't make sense to go 2 floors since we had the space on our lot to fit the house all on one level. We proceeded with a one story plan in mind. (Dang logic!)

After chatting, jotting down notes, looking at my printouts and Pinterest board, we took a stroll around our current house.  I showed him how we live and what was and was not working for us. Tiny laundry room: not working. Giant master closet: working. Tiny pantry: not working. Separate office: working. Etc.

I also had to pay the architect a deposit at this 1st meeting. His pay structure worked something like this. Your architect's structure might vary a bit. Make sure to ask at the first meeting.

• Approximately 10% deposit to start (percent of the estimated architectural fees, not percent of the cost of the house)
• 40% due when a plan started to come together. (like 3 weeks in?)
• 75% at the start of the front elevation
• 100% upon completion of the floor plans , elevations, electric and foundation plan

Up until the plan is complete, these numbers are ball park estimates of what the final plan is going to cost. Remember, you pay an architect per square foot. You really won't know the exact square footage until the plan is complete.

In the weeks that followed I got tons of little emails from my architect that started out like big boxes. The basic shape of the house...

and eventually got fine tuned into rooms. The first area we fine tuned was the kids' bedrooms/bathroom. He'd send me an idea and I'd make changes or little drawings (or send him pictures I found on Pinterest). I really wanted a Jack and Jill bathroom for them but was SO not a fan of a half wall between their bedrooms and their sinks. I was just imagining the cups of water being dumped into the carpet. Plus the original bathroom was just taking up too much square footage.

One thing my architect told me was to be a pain in the butt. No really. If there was something I wasn't sure about or didn't like or would like to see another way, he told me to email or call. Don't assume your architect remembers every little detail you ever told them. If you assume they know something but aren't seeing it on the plans, speak up sooner rather than later. It's gets harder to change things the further along you go along.

After we got the majority of the plan hammered out via email, my architect dropped off a paper set of plans for me to look at and "draw all over". He told me to move walls, make notes, and be as detailed as possible about everything I wanted moved or changed. He also gave me little hints on how to save some money. For example, if we kept the guest bathroom against the same wall the master bathroom was on, we'd save money in plumbing. Same went for keeping the washer and dryer near the powder room.

After 3 rounds of paper plans and me adding skylights (I need natural light for blog photos you know) and little things I saw on Pinterest :), our plan was complete.

So without further rambling, here's our house!

Would you like a tour? Well come on in! The front porch is big and covered. The office and dining rooms (to right and left of the front door) have french doors out to the porch. The dining room is huge to fit my giant family for Thanksgiving. :) The living room and kitchen are one big area with a really big island. Walk-in pantry! The kids share a jack and jill bath. The guest room has its own bath. I would have loved to make the laundry room even bigger but at some point you have to cut off the square footage to stay in your budget. 3 car garage with plans for a bonus space above that we probably won't build out right away. Large back porch ready for a pool one day. We ended up with 4 bedrooms, 3 and a half bathrooms, just over 3,000 square feet.

After the plans were done we gave them to our builder who gave us an estimate to build. It was actually lower than we were expecting, however, I realize he is not familiar with my expensive high quality  taste. Marble and crown moulding anyone? I'm assuming picking the finishes is going to be an uphill battle for me!

Finally the plans will need to be sent to a truss plant to make the plans for the roof trusses. The builder should do that for you. The architect will make sure those plans jive with his plans. And, an engineer needs to sign off on the plans. The builder should take care of that too, however, you'll have to pay for it up front. 

So they're done and we're ready to submit them to the bank to get the loan to start!  Finally! :) Stay tuned.

Let's be friends!