Fall Mantel

I love holidays and decorating for them ... but when they are over, they are over! Let's pack it up and move on! This morning I stayed home not feeling great from work. It is a lot different to sniffle on some decorations then it is to sniffle over your desk. So, after sleeping in and doing some dishes, I began to put some halloween decorations away.

What, first let me say that last night I helped at a Halloween Carnival at my church and someone had donated about 100 small to medium sized pumpkins. Afterwards, they were just piling the pumpkins outside for anyone to take and enjoy. That is how this all started.

Looking at this wall - I'm so going to paint it this weekend!

 1 - This is an indoor/outdoor clock my mom got for me at Wal-Mart of all places, on super clearance! It measures humidity and temperature. I think she paid about $8 on clearance for it - but I've had it for years already.

2. Those are my table legs! They had weathered nicely outside my house and were left when I loved in. They seem like art on the mantel now.

3. Babies breath found in my Halloween box.

4. Freebie Pumpkins!

5. This is tiny and you can't see it - there is a gold votive holder, Cinderella's Pumpkin Carriage, my green E, and a purple glass jar filled with book page roses. This is also where a bunch of the table scatter I bought it. I got red leaves and golden acorns at target for $2.50 a box. It is now everywhere in my house because that little box really goes a long way.

6. Sunburst Mirror

7. Glass water jug (like Culligan, although it doesn't have specific markings)

8. One of my tall glass vases filled with pinecones from the yard

9. The smaller of my apocathary jars with orangy-gold bulbs that I picked up at a yard sale two weeks ago

10. Paper lotus flowers

Curious Fabulizations

Curious Fabulization

Love the idea of Fabulization but don't have the time/patience/materials to do it? Well, you're in luck :) I've just opening an Etsy store to supply the teaming masses with my fabulized items (that might be more wishful thinking than anything else).

So check it out today! Introductory items are available at a discount for a limited time! 

Western Colorado Botanical Gardens

Today I was able to go to the Western Colorado Botanical Gardens for a Summer Reading Workshop sponsored by the Colorado State Library. 

The workshop was fantastic and I got SOOO many ideas that my head is spinning!

In addition to a great workshop, we got a tour of the gardens from the Master Gardener. What a lovely place!! Enjoy these pics!

It's Delightfully Spooky!

I saw something like this on pinterest and I decided to create my own. 

I started with a bag of bones (literally) {$10} and a sad looking wooden wreath {$2}.

I already had the "spooky fabric" and those strange looking berry/floral things. All I needed was some hot glue and it was all easy peasy from there. 

{This is also the saddest tutorial ever because hot glue doesn't really wait around for you to take pictures}

This what it looked like when I started.

Total creepiness!

That is the wreath hanger I picked up this weekend for $0.50!

What did you do this weekend?

Not to brag ... but I had a delightfully busy weekend :)

Yard Sales

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Fabulized Mozart

Book Pumpkin

Book Page Lotus Flowers

Book Page Roses

Hand Dyed Coffee Filter Lotus Flowers

That was one big spider I think

Through the front window ... I think a murder happened in my house :)

Help, this fake blood stained my hands red!

Finally, my totally spooky, utterly fabulous, Halloween Wreath!

Paper Flowers

After finding a great paper fold ... I spent my weekend doing these.

From a book page

Series of flowers on some stems

The flowers in their new home ... along with some halloween decorations.

Book page roses

Lotus Flowers from magazine pages ... easy and lovely (and HUGE)

Lotus Flower Fold from hand dyed coffee filters

Later this week you will be able to check out these items on my Etsy store :)

Book Pumpkin Tutorial

Maybe you've seen all these pumpkins everywhere too ... I really wanted one.

So I decided I needed to make it and I now understand why people pay for these :)

Step one was to pick up a cheapy hardback from the library book sale. 

I took off the cover and traced what I wanted the pumpkin to look like. 

I used these clamps to even the pages and help to hold onto the book.

Then I cut the pages - which made a GIANT mess and was the most difficult thing I'd ever done - but I did it without cutting off my fingers :)

After cutting I opened it up - fabulized! I did file the pages to make things smooth.

Here on my handy-dandy drop cloth.

I used this spray paint that was made for paper and Styrofoam. It was pretty terrible - thick and goopy, had great coverage. It also smelled terrible. So, I was distracted and forgot some in-between pictures. 

Here is a nearly dry pumpkin ... which looks pretty awesome. This was a decorative stick that was a left over from some wedding decorations. 

Here it is finished (and sitting next to the candy bowl). I took two pages from the leftover part of the book and cut out some leaves. Then using two colors of dry pastels I covered the leaves and rubbed them together. A little hot glue and it looks better than I would have imagined. I love it! 

Maybe I'll make some for Etsy ... if I can figure out how to hold this without cutting off any fingers!