I like to spookify a section of our house every year while the kids are at school, they love the surprise when they come home.  One year I painted a ghost on the mirror above the mantel, and another year I made glowing eyes Halloween art.

This year I decided that while they were away, big black spiders would invade the family room bookcases, and bring some feathered friends.  Since I painted the built ins white this year, they were the perfect candidate for some black and white Halloween fun.

The glittery spider webs were a DIY project and I used craft supplies from Martha Stewart’s collection to create them.

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While recently hunting through a local fabric store, I came across a few rolls of laminated cotton and became obsessed with the idea of creating something out of this very cool material.  I didn’t buy that day but the idea was wedged in my brain for a few months.  Laminated cottons like these are great for lining makeup or tote bags or even making tablecloths, but I had something slightly different in mind. 

With all the weekend picnicking we like to do with the kids, I got to thinking I could combine this reversible placemat idea with this makeup brush holder idea and I came up with picnic placemats with pockets for utensils for all of our summer outings.  

In a patriotic spirit, I chose red and white fabrics and I love how the touch of red check is a throwback to the traditional tablecloth in the same classic pattern.  

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Hey there, hope you had a great weekend!  We did some organizing and gardening and had a big birthday party for both the kids at the local park – it was a lot of fun and also relaxing too!  I can feel summer coming with the warmer weather and everything in bloom, and we’re loving spending more time outdoors in the sunshine, aren’t you?

Last week I mentioned I came up with a few creative ideas for container gardening for a Home Depot workshop, the first was the wood shim planter, the second was this mosaic tile window planter box seen below.  I’ve got a third project to share with you later this month, but before I do, here’s an example of how you can use mosaic tile to dress up an ordinary redwood planter.

Any small scale mosaic tile you find will do and there are so many available to choose from.  This project can be done without the use of a tile cutting saw if you stick to the mesh grid square mosaics like the one seen above instead of an offset or brick pattern tile.  I chose white because the planter was destined to be part of a raffle at the Home Depot presentation and because basic white would be at home in any backyard.

If you’ve never tiled anything before, this is a good place to start!  It’s a small enough project for you to get your feet wet with a tiling, and you’ll be so excited you did it!   To recreate your own mosaic tile planter, here are the basic supplies: wood planter box, thin set mortar, mosaic tile of choice, grout, stain or outdoor latex paint (optional), polyurethane (if staining), sponge brush, large sponge, grout float or spackle/putty knife, and painter’s tape.

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My oldest daughter is away at college and it’s her birthday this week so I wanted to send her something special for the occasion (and something easy to ship too!)  She mentioned she didn’t have any decent makeup brushes so I made a trip to Sephora to splurge on a new set for her.  While I was there I thought about something to hold them all and wanted to give her a little handmade gift to go with the new brushes.  I thought a cute fabric pouch would be perfect so I stitched up a makeup brush holder with some leftover fabric remnants from my stash.

This was one of those projects that I made up as I went along but I tell you this, if you can sew a straight line, you can make your own too!  Here’s how I made this fabric makeup brush holder for my college girl in about an hour.

First grab yourself some fabric, for this I used two remnants, one a blue medallion cotton fabric, the other a cotton duck lining.

Here are the measurements of fabric used:

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