❈Sac Thrift Chick❈

Double, double, toil and trouble! This spooky season, I turned my China cabinet into a Halloween apothecary cabinet. With a hefty dose of Eye of Newt and Toe of Frog, some live Bat Wing Balm and Web of Spider, plus a bottle of Poison for good measure, my cabinet of curiosities is ready to conjure up potions and spells. Apothecary Cabinet Containers To create my Halloween apothecary cabinet, I focused on filling the containers I already had inside my China cabinet. My collection of vases, candle holders and bottles of sand (from our wedding's sand ceremony and favors from a friend's coastal ceremony) served as my apothecary cabinet containers.  Free Printable Potion Labels No good witch wants to confuse her poison potion for her potent potable, so I used free printable potion labels to keep my spells straight. I taped the labels on, but they are generally designed to be printed on sticker paper.  I found my free printable apothecary labels at  Hale Grafx.com ,  The Graphics Fair

For Halloween, some little girls want to be princesses, fairies or the ultimate girly combination -- the princess fairy. My little girl wanted to be Casper the Ghost. At age 3, my daughter had a dress-up closet full of princess costumes, and she loved them all. But she was adamant, for the first Halloween she was old enough to have a say, she was going to be a ghost, the friendly one. Now if this was 30 years ago, I might have been able to find her a Casper costume in a store. In the year 2022, the closest thing I could find was vintage Casper masks. That wouldn't do. Mamma had to DIY a Casper the Friendly Ghost costume. Making a Kid's Casper Costume for Halloween To make my kid's Casper costume, I started where I always start for Halloween costumes when I don't have anything on hand: the thrift store, namely a wonderful hole-in-the-wall gem in Citrus Heights called Mary's Thrift Store. Mary's has routinely delivered at Halloween time, and this year was no excep

Ah! It's the most wonderful time of the year. The time when the leaves change color, the air gets crisper, and I make spooky DIY Halloween decorations with items I find around my house.  OK, actually, I live in California where it's mostly been warm and sunny, and everything is still green outside. But I did use my free (read: sick all the time because my daughter started preschool and brought home all the viruses) time to make a DIY Halloween wreath with a bicycle wheel rim.  Why use a bicycle rim for a wreath? Well, in my case it's because my husband is an avid bicyclist. At any given time, I have no idea how many bikes he owns; all I know is that bikes and their parts are all over our garage. At some point, I kept seeing his stripped down bicycle rims lying around and thought, I bet those would work for wreaths! Personally, I like that a bicycle rim is larger than your standard wreath. I place the wreath on a stucco wall above my porch bench, so the larger size does a gr

When you love Halloween, but you also want to keep your family safe during a deadly pandemic, what do you do? This was our dilemma Halloween 2020. We always pass out candy, but there was no way we were opening our door to a crowd of germy trick-or-treaters on our cramped porch. And with a house known for its Halloween decorations, not passing out candy wasn't really an option. Plus, I wanted to see kids in costumes. I wanted to have some lighthearted Halloween fun after such a dark year.  The solution: Make a DIY candy shoot for a COVID-safe Halloween. I'll admit our DIY candy shoot was created at the very last minute, and it could have been flashier. But it did its job: It delivered candy and fun from a safe distance, and it was super simple. Hot to Make a Candy Shoot Really, all you need for your DIY candy shoot is a delivery system that starts high, slopes down to a kid's reach, and, ideally, is at least 6-feet long for social distancing safety. Working in a custom sunsc

To all the superheroes in the Justice League and all the supervillains in the Suicide Squad, Happy Batman Day! In anticipation of Batman Day 2018 on September 15 , here's a look back at my DIY Joker and Harley Quinn costumes from Halloweens 2014 and 2015. DIY Joker and Harley Quinn Couple's Costume Inspiration  Why so serious?  Our costumes came pre- Suicide Squad and Justice League movies, meaning before Joker and Harley Quinn were reduced to Hot Topic cosplay characters. Instead, our DIY Joker and Harley Quinn couple's costume inspiration came from sources including Tim Burton's Batman movie, Christopher Nolan's  The Dark Knight movie,  the original Batman TV series   and the  Batman Arkham Asylum video game, among others. Thrifting and Crafting Batman Character Costumes We used second-hand clothes and basic craft materials to create our Joker and Harley Quinn couple's costume. By thrifting and crafting our Batman character costumes, we spent under

For many years, if you asked my husband the material things he most desired, he would list video game systems, an air conditioner in his truck, an MP3 music player ... and a gorilla suit. Why? Because doing things in a gorilla costume — driving, playing an instrument, holding a kitty like Koko — is hilarious. But quality gorilla costumes are not cheap, until they are. Last Halloween, I found a $100 gorilla costume for $20 on Craigslist. Aaron's costume was set. I scoped out thrift stores for coordinating inspiration. Once I came upon leopard leggings, it was decided. For Halloween, it was DIY leopard with gorilla for our couple costume! Cheap DIY Leopard Halloween Costume For my cheap DIY leopard costume, I bought leopard print leggings at Atlas Thrift Store in Carmichael for $1 and a fuzzy, leopard print pillow sham at Goodwill in North Highlands for $0.99. I also spent $2 at CVS for Wet n' Wild eyeliners in black and gold. (Cheap and cruelty-free makeup FTW.)