**Follow me on Instagram @diaries_of_a_supermom to see more of the crafts that I do!**
Today I'm going to be talking about crafting on a budget and hopefully will inspire others! You don't need to spend a fortune at Hobby Lobby to be able to make fun crafts, not only for you but for your kids!
Before I had kids I was not an artistic or crafty person. At all. That was always my sister-in-law's department. I often looked on with envy at all the fun things she did (and still does!) When we moved to Maybrooke (Maybrooke is my house... That's another story for another day!) Drew was about 7 months old. I wanted to start creating fun things like my sister-in-law always did. There was just a major problem in my way.
We were poor. Everyone hits rough patches. We had just bought our house, Tyler was in school and working full time and because of my hard pregnancy we had medical bills to pay. My crafting budget was very small, but Tyler agreed that I needed it to help keep me positive and happy. It's such a good feeling to create something with your own two hands!
So! After a lot of thinking, researching Pinterest, and experimenting, I have found so many fun crafts to do with just things from your local dollar store! These are just a few things I have done, and I will be posting more things as I find them. All of my crafts are usually under $5, but sometimes I will go a little over that!
The craft I'm going to share today is probably my most popular idea.
Styrofoam.
At my local Dollar Tree they sell these styrofoam blocks for floral arrangements. But I use them to craft. They are SO much cheaper than wood.
They are really fragile at first, but after a coat of white acrylic paint (.50 cents at Walmart!) they are more sturdy, and any dents can be smoothed over with sand paper. You can also cut them VERY CAREFULLY into other shapes.
(I should also warn that they take forever to dry, especially the first coat of paint. It also soaks up the paint a bit so you need a little more than you'd think for that first coat. I usually do the white paint right before I go to bed and then it's all dry when I wake up so I can paint the rest.)
This is what I did for Autumn
Everything on that mantel for Autumn is from Dollar Tree. Even the framed chalkboard, which is just a dollar store picture frame painted with chalkboard paint ($5 at Walmart). I painted the letters on the blocks with stencils from Walmart (about $3).
And these are my Halloween blocks!
These were made from the solid blocks. I cut the pumpkin and Frankinstein from one block. Total cost of this project: $2.
Along with the Styrofoam blocks, Dollar tree also sells styrofoam boards that are great for flat pieces, and still cheaper than wood! You can cut out letters, numbers, shapes, or whatever you want and just peel off the paper layer, paint it and you can hang it on a wall! Or...
A styrofoam wreath. This is a dollar tree pool noodle wrapped in my left over scraps of burlap. A friend suggested that I make the decorations with tacks on the back so I can change them out as the seasons change. I buy a board, draw the shapes that I want and use an exacto knife to cut it out. Then I paint it and use a hot glue gun to glue the tacks to the back and stick it on the wreath!
The total cost of this wreath (pool noodle, styrofoam and tacks) was about $4. I had the burlap on hand.
Happy crafting!
•Avery
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