• giveaway
    This & That

    $50 Oriental Trading Gift Card Giveaway!

    Summer has officially begun in our neck of the woods, which of course means Vacation Bible School is right around the corner. As many of you know, I have been coordinating VBS at our church for several years and that means stretching a budget to educate, decorate and plan for a whole week of fun. One of my favorite budget-friendly places to purchase supplies is definitely Oriental Trading. I order decorations online each year, because they always have fun items for some of the most current VBS themes. Of course they also carry loads of other decor, prizes and fun stuff too. If you are looking for some good ideas…

  • Halloween treats
    Halloween

    Stock Up on (Trick or) Halloween Treats!

    Did you happen to notice all that fun Halloween candy that filled my festive buckets in yesterday’s post? Well guess what? All that yummy stuff arrived courtesy of Oriental Trading and there is plenty more where that came from. Oriental Trading has some of the cutest and most affordable Halloween treats you can find and much of it is actually on sale right now.  So today I thought I would show you just a few of my favorite treats available online.   This green sour apple-flavored saltwater taffy is delicious! So good in fact, that I was afraid my stash would be gobbled up way before my photo shoot. If…

  • tracking the days to trick-or-treat
    Halloween

    Track the Days Until Trick-or-Treat

    Hello October! I’m so excited to welcome the month, which also means hello Halloween. I’ve slowly been sprucing up the homestead for fall, but today is officially decorating day for bats, spiders and all things spooky. As we count down the days until Halloween, what better way to keep track than with a crafty chalkboard pumpkin. I used the last of three large wood centerpieces from Oriental Trading to create this cute countdown calendar and I used the same basic technique as I did for the teacher’s apple from August. The main difference with this project (other than the obvious change of color) is the finishing technique. Instead of wax,…