Dollar Store Piñata Costume

Last week I shared a a cute idea for a costume including you AND your dog! I mentioned that the costume was made with nothing but goods from my local Dollar Store, so here I am to share how I turned $10 of random goods in to a super cute costume for two! 

The puppy part was easy. I just purchased a little girls tutu, and birthday hat. 

The idea was to have Tepe hold the Piñata stick in her mouth but she wasn't interested.... 

The more time consuming part of the costume was my piñata outfit.
But it was pretty simple and involved just a few materials.
First be sure to get about 5 different color streamers, and a XL mens tshirt (one that is long enough to work as a dress).

Then I simply took a tank top of my own to trace the arm holes and neck line on the XL tshirt.

Then, starting from the bottom of the shirt, I pinned a single ribbon of a streamer and sewed it to the shirt. I continued this until I reached the top of my shoulders, alternating colors of course :)

Once you have all of your streamers sewn on to your t-shirt simple cut each streamer to create more texture. I had no method to my madness just cut cut cut!

And to finish off the costume I wore some colorful tights, leather boots, and added a gift bow to my hair. You could always take the Piñata thing further and make a head band with horns/ears like the traditional Piñatas have.

I loved this costume idea and wish that Tepe would have been a bit more corporative, but year and a half puppies never do what you expect I guess :) 

I mean just look at how miserable she looked...
I'm thinking we may have needed a smaller hat.

There you have it, a super easy and super cheap costume for two! Now tell me what you are planning to be for halloween, does it include your sweet little fur baby??

Birthday Girl & Piñata Halloween Costume for you and your puppy!

October is here and that means halloween is just a few days away! 

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. Mostly because growing up I always had a costume party with a hay ride and bon fire for my birthday (Oct. 27th). Plus my mom and grandmother where great at keeping their old clothes so we always had the best items to pick through for our costumes. Never have I ever been a store bought costume person and I vow to never become one :) 

I couldn't just dress up by myself. I mean group costumes are by far the best so I came up with something that Tepe and I could do together. So I introduce you to our Birthday Girl and Pinata Halloween Costumes! 

To make the costumes I spent $10 at our local Dollar Store and picked up 5 packs of streamers, an XL mens t shirt, birthday ribbons, birthday hat, and a little girls tutu.

The tutu and hat where for Tepe to transform in to the Birthday girl. 

And I was the piñata :) 

If you wanna see how I made the piñata costume it was super easy and I'm going to share how I made it later this week! 

Tepe wasn't so thrilled about the dress up idea so I struggled getting some pictures. If only I could show you all the out takes... dear Lord. 

The plan was for her to hold the stick in her mouth and to sit next to me and be super precious. But as you can tell she didn't like that plan so instead she sat next to me and looked super miserable. 

But hey, she doesn't hate me any more! I think if I down sized the hat a bit she would have been totally fine with it. She was just ready to play so she kept chewing on the hat and tutu... 

Maybe we will have better success with our next costume. 

Speaking of which be on the look out next week for the tutorial on how to make your own piñata costume and for a couple more ideas for you and your pup this Halloween season :) 

My puppy portrait painting

I'm sure y'all think I'm a freak because I've written posts about our puppy, Tepe, multiple times. 

But that doesn't matter to me, I love her and I made this blog to write about what I love so HA :p

Basically,  I have a lot of time on my hands after the move. I moved pretty quickly with getting the house set up. I know I still haven't revealed the bathroom, bedroom, or guestroom/studio. But they are almost there. I've just gotta finish setting up some of the little details before I share. But with all this time hanging around I get to snuggle with Tepe a lot and watch HGTV. Then I get bored and really need to do something creative. Fixing the house is great, but its not the same as making art. I haven't been able to really do any big projects or sculptures because I just don't have the space at the time. So everything I've done has been a bit cheesy. 

Cheesy is exactly what this is, and I don't have any place to hang it so I think my mom wants it :) So glad she loves Tepe as much as I do! 

But painting was something I needed to do, no script, or furniture involved. It felt a little more like "art" than what I've done recently. But I still miss my real art, and can not wait for my studio to get set up!

  (I think its gonna happen this week!!)
Anyways, I painted one of my favorite pictures of Tepe from when she was just a tiny baby.

I just did a real quick acrylic painting. With a fast sketch and then applied the painterly monochromatic background. I played around when it came to actually applying paint to her. Technically mixing on the canvas isn't the best idea but its fast and easy, plus I like the texture it makes :) 

I'm thinking about adding this to the Etsy shop. Obviously, not selling this particular one but offering pet portraits maybe??? We will just have to see, let me know what y'all think.

*Added to the shop! Check it out here www.etsy.com

First EVER attempt at sewing :)

Goodness gracious its been almost 3 weeks from my last post!! 

Sorry it has taken me so long I've just been busy and decided that if I didn't have the "urge" to write then I wouldn't force myself. I have lots of things to share and I really can't wait to share them, I just didn't want to force myself to write cause then I never like how it ends up. 

So anyway, this is what I did last night.

usually on Thursday nights I go out with my girl friends but this week I missed my Reed and decided I wanted to just wait on him to get off work. And I was also itching to get in to these new kelly green pants :) 

A while back my mom Lydia and I spent the weekend in Charleston to prom dress shop. And we can't go to charleston with out hitting up the Goodwill on Johns Island. We always find the best stuff there, and I was looking for some bright high waisted pants to wear to the Carolina Cup.

I found these, they were wide leg and a little short but my mom said she could fix them. 

Like everything in life it got lost in the hustle, so I decided to try my hand at them this weekend. 

Not sure why I thought it was a good idea, I had to call my mom atleast 5 times just to figure out how to thread the machine... 

But I did it and I'm gonna share how!

First of all I tried on the pants, sorry for the bad pictures. Thats what I get for being lazy and Tepe not listening last night. I really liked how they fit at my waist but just wasn't crazy about the high water wide leg look that was going on.  

So I turned them inside out and place my favorite pair of skinny jeans on top. 

The jeans aren't high waisted so I just lined up the area between the legs instead of the waist. 

Then I took a pencil and trased the inside of the pants leg. 

(Tepe wasn't leaving me alone, she always has to be close which means she is often in the way) 

 Then I pinned along the line so that both sides of the pants didn't move while sewing. 

And then finally I stuck them in the machine and went to town!

I don't know any specifics about settings, I used the straight stich and then came back with the zigzag stich. I read that gave the pants more stretch?? Not really sure but I tried it!! 

And for those of you that know what you're doing.

This is my moms machine. Maybe you can see some of the settings and tell me if they are right or wrong :) I know its holding my pants together so at least its functioning! 

Here is a close up view. Not very straight but thats the two stitches I used. 

And here you can see how I did the entire leg. I tapered them towards the middle. 

Probably could have gone up a little further but I was worried about them getting to tight across the hips and pulling funny.

And then I would say to try them on to make sure they fit the way you like. I tried them on about a million times through out the entire process. And I took out stitches at least half of those times. 

BUT I learned a lot and I know they aren't perfect, but I can at least wear them today and be happy for spring!! 

Once you are happy with the fit you could trim the fabric down but leave enough so you can play with it again if the future if needed! Honestly,  haven't trimmed mine yet because I'm terrified I didn't do it right and if I cut them no one would be able to fix them :) 

But I'm wearing them today and they feel fine so far!! 

Heres the final outcome! 

Tepe and I hit the yard to enjoy the sunshine and she just couldn't help but jump in all of my pictures. I look pretty awkward so I guess thats why I'm not a model. And I learned that I should invest in a remote for my camera cause running with 10secs is hard to look natural in the photo. 

They are a little funky. 

But for $3 bucks and a night teaching myself to sew I say they look pretty decent. 

Little odd on the inside of the legs and kinda pucker around my tummy but they are comfy and just the right color for spring :) 

My Baby Tepe

I feel like I've talked a lot about our new puppy, Tepe. 

But she is just so cute and cuddly!

She is 18 weeks old and already 25lbs! She is growing up so fast and I DO NOT LIKE IT :) 

But, she still likes to cuddle and thinks that she should always be touching someone. 

Yesterday we had to take her to get spayed. 

I was a total nervous wreck and just didn't want to admit that my little Tepe is growing up!

So basically I went down memory lane and looked at every picture and video we have of her from the first day we got her, January 8th. 

And now I'm gonna share some of my favorites with you! 

(if you follow me on instagram then you have probably seen a few of these before)
Also, please excuse the quality. Most of these are taken with my phone.

Day 1! Just leaving the shelter in Liberty, still nameless at this point :) 

Finally home and needed a bath.

Aren't those eye just killer?!

Yes, she is on our counter top. Don't judge, I cleaned it super good after. I just wanted some light from the window. We were having a photo shoot with her new collars :) 

You can see the post about the hand made collars from Etsy HERE. 

more beautiful eyes :)

Here is a series of photos I like to call "Tepe getting comfortable" 

When she was little she did not like her crate. We would try to get her to go in with food and everything but she would hang her little bitty legs out. 

Yes she fell asleep like that. 

Tepe doesn't like to sit on the floor. She will find anything to sit on as long as its not the floor. 

Laundry basket. 

Bar Stool

Reeds hunting bag

And her favorite. 

FEET. 

And this is Tepe in the car. 

She LOVES the car, one day we left the door open and she just sat in the passenger seat for an hour :) 

 She thinks she can drive. 

And always wants to be close to the driver. 

 

But then passes out in the back seat. 

These are from yeasterday after her surgery. She had us both so worried. 

She got sick twice once we got her home and was so not interested in anything related to food. 

She just looked so out of it :( 

And then this morning after LOTS of sleep she was ready to roll :) 

 This is our most recent family portrait. All cuddled up on the sofa watchin TV. 

No we didn't pose her she did that all on her own :)