If someone said to you, “I made a cloche out of a garbage can,” your first response probably wouldn’t be, “ooh, I bet that is really pretty!”  And yet…  it is really pretty!  I love how Krista from The Gathering Place Design styled her creation with a nesting bird figurine, giving it a look reminiscent of a vintage bird cage.  On her blog, she also shows the same arrangement with a different cake stand and a crystal knob instead of a filigreed finial to demonstrate that the project can also take on a softer look.  [how to make a wire basket cloche]

Project estimate:

• Wire trash can, $1
• Spray paint, on hand or $1 and up
• Knob or finial, on hand or $1 and up
• Cake stand, on hand or $1 and up

Total:  $1 and up

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Okay, readers, we need your brainstorming for this question from Heather:

Help! My daughter will be 14 in 2 weeks, and wants a Twilight party- I need some inexpensive ideas on what to use for decor!

Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1)

The good news is, just a few decorations go a long-long way! Here are some ideas of how to decorate cheaply for your Twilight party.

Suggestions for cheap decor:

• First of all, you have to pick up a couple bags of Red Delicious apples! It doesn’t get any cheaper than decorating with fruit!
• Pick up black and red partyware at the dollar store: tablecloths, plates, cups. Very cheap yet impactful, and a great backdrop for other decor.
• Hannah at the DSC Facebook page suggested: Glitter ’cause the vampires sparkle!

New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2)

• Pick up some faux tulips from the dollar store. Custom paint some white tulips with red paint or nail polish (for a more blood-red color).
• I know roses aren’t part of the books, but if you can find red rose petals in the wedding section of your dollar store, they still might work! Or, white rose petals and give them the red paint treatment. It’d be cute to sew them into a quick garland!

Eclipse (The Twilight Saga)

• A few spools of red ribbon will tie in with “Eclipse” and also be useful for decorating for the party. Ooh, it could be cute to glue red ribbon around some black party cups.

Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4)

• At the DSC Facebook page, Chris suggested: Create a chessboard feel on the tabletops by using your black tablecloth as a backdrop, and taping white cardstock squares in a checkerboard pattern across the top of the table.

• If you can find them, use a few dollar store finials painted in black and white (or white and red, like on the “Breaking Dawn” book cover) to further suggest chess. (These are some of the finials I have at my house, and they just remind me of chess pieces!)

Other Cheap Props:

• Netting is cheap at the fabric store (I found red tulle at Fabric.com for $.99 a yard, and also adds a romantic air to decorations. If you have a black backdrop, either white or red netting could be a good accent to your table decor.
• I swear by crepe paper streamers. There’s not a bigger bang for your buck! To make them more sophisticated, make these 2-layer ruffled streamers.

Twilight Food Ideas:

• Red Velvet Cake: you can get red velvet cake mix at the store. I think this is the most frugal way to make a RV cake because otherwise you have to use an entire bottle of red dye in your scratch cake!
• Ooh, it’d be cute to make cake pops, a la Bakerella. Make ’em look like apples (without happy faces)?
• Hannah suggested candy apples at the DSC Facebook page, and they would look super pretty. You can get a candy apple mix at the grocery store for a buck, or make your own.

Other Resources:

• Some good decoration ideas at this Craftster post
• Twilight Roundup at One Pretty Thing
• Another Twilight Roundup at OPT

Update:

• How Heather decorated for her Twilight party

Readers, add your great ideas in the comments! How would you decorate for a Twilight party on a budget?

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Every time I go to the dollar store, I see so many things that would be great additions to a craft project or someone’s decor, but I just can’t buy them all. On my last trip to the dollar store, I decided to snap a few pictures to share my finds with you. I usually go to Dollar Tree, and we have about ten or more in our area (I alternate between about four or five of them). Maybe you’ll see something here that you want to get.

First up are these cute little birdies – they are pretty charming as is, but you could paint them and/or antique them to alter their looks a bit.

I found these cool finial things near the birds. I read a lot of your awesome blogs, and these would fit right in with a lot of people’s decor as is, or you could add them to other projects to add some drama. They’re about six inches tall. I bet they’d look awesome spray-painted in fashion colors (my current favorite color: red-orange). If you painted them and then sprayed them with clear gloss, maybe they’d look kind of like wrought iron? (I think I just talked myself into going back and getting some, by the way!)

Here are some paper lanterns in fun colors, and they come with a lightbulb and a spot for a battery, so you don’t even have to figure out how you would light them up. Easy! Fun party decor, or an easy way to add some color in a tween’s room. You can’t really beat the price, either!

This photo is bad, but these bulletin boards have nice wooden frames and are a pretty generous size (about the size of a legal sheet of paper – approximately 11×17″). I would love to see someone make a miniature version of this Pottery Barn rustic wall organizer with a burlap covering stenciled with postmarks.

(Pottery Barn Inspiration)

The last item is random, but I thought some of you would think these colored staples were fun. They can add a nice little touch if you are making booklets or zines, or I bet they’d be nice in scrapbooking.

What have you found at the dollar store lately?

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