❈Sac Thrift Chick❈

DIY Snow White Family Costume Mirror, mirror on the wall who's the fairest of them all? Snow White was the fairest of them all in the original 1937 movie that my daughter loves, and she was the fairest of us all in our Snow White family costume. Still, our DIY Evil Queen costume and DIY Hunstman costume weren't too shabby, either.  Family Snow White Costumes for Halloween For our family Snow White costumes for Halloween, my 4-year-old daughter already had a second-hand Disney store Snow White costume. I added the sparkly cape from my Little Red Riding costume and made her red bow headband to complete the look. My husband had a Peter Pan costume, and I had some weird purple alien/choir robe and a vampire cape. Starting with those pieces, I knew I could assemble a DIY Evil Queen costume and DIY Hunstman costume, thrifty style. DIY Evil Queen Costume For my DIY Evil Queen costume, I started with this random purple robe and cut off the silver pieces that were not part of the old ha...

  How to Restore Vintage Holiday Blow Molds I love me a vintage holiday blow mold. They stand out from the sea of yard inflatables (I have those, too), and they are just nostalgic. But for all the memories they evoke of decades gone by, holiday blow molds are not as easy as yard inflatables to maintain. That's just the truth.  Sun exposure can fade the paint to the palest shades; they can crack, and let's be honest, they are cumbersome to store. That's why vintage holiday blow molds need to be restored from time to time. I restored two vintage blow molds for the holidays: a snowman for Christmas and a pumpkin for Halloween. Refreshing a Christmas Blow Mold Much like Frosty the Snowman needed the lousy magician's magic hat to come back to life, my vintage snowman blow mold needed new paint to shine with life again. Having very little experience painting anything detailed, I was nervous to touch the snowman. But just as Frosty braved the greenhouse to warm up Karen, I bra...

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 Gr...

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 u...

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.)...

This is DIY Halloween ! This is DIY Halloween! Our DIY scary movie themed Halloween decorations will make you scream! At this house of crafty Halloween. I am the vampire bat born of poster board and felt perching on a rectangular board nailed to a 2x4 and secured to the bench. Cover me in garbage bags and webs to decorate a stucco wall. I am the spider with my black widow markings. Garbage bags and felt make me large and in charge of the patio bench. We are the floating ghouls of 99 Cent Store masks and fabric scraps. Red tape makes my eyes shine and my mouth slither like a snake. We are the tombstones of political signs of old . Upcycling is the name of our game. And I, Michael Myers, am the costume that keeps on giving. Watch how I come to life with furniture foam and pool noodles . I ain't afraid of no Ghostbusters 3D ghost with furniture foam and Duck Tape . I am the fully poseable skeleton someone put out on the curb. One man's tr...