DIY

CHIC AND TIMELESS DIY PUMPKINS

September 11, 2017

Hi Friends!

Happy Monday to you all…I hope you had a great weekend. I gotta tell ya, Michigan gave us some beautiful end-of-summer weather this weekend and I enjoyed every second of it! It was so nice to spend some time outside in the cool air and sunshine!

With fall right around the corner and me still thinking about how I want to decorate some spaces around my house, I started searching for some inspiration. Two of my favorite things to incorporate into fall decor are pumpkins and gourds. I’m thinking that I want to do a few DIY adventures with them this year to make them my own. I like to get crafty, and since fall is such a long season, I enjoy working on fall projects because I know I will enjoy them around my house for quite a while.

One of the first ones I saw were these beautiful pumpkins that were painted white and gold. I MEAN COME ON. Let’s talk about chic for a minute. It would be so simple to do these with a few cans of spray paint and these would look so beautiful on a mantle or used as a centerpiece on a table.

Megan Clouse Photography

Then I stumbled upon these beautiful ink-swirled, tye-dye-esque little pumpkins. Any color is fair game for these, so it’s such a great way to customize them for any space in your home!

Alice and Lois

I had never thought to use a pumpkin as a vase, but it’s such a great idea! If you’re having friends over for dinner, this is a great way to fill the table with fall decor without spending a lot of money. I’m not a whiz at arranging flowers, but even simple roses and some leafy greens can make a beautiful arrangement. And let’s not forget those two cute little mini-pumpkins that were given some flair with gold thumbtacks. So simple and so cute!

Good Housekeeping

I have seen decoupage pumpkins popping up all around my feeds lately. I had never known you could take Mod Podge and some simple scrapbook papers, book pages, or sheets of music and stick them onto a pumpkin. I would really like to give this a try! I know I have a bottle of Mod Podge lurking around this house somewhere!

Better Homes and Gardens

Instead of designing the base of the pumpkin, the stem of these beautiful pumpkins with succulents, flowers, and greens are the focal point. Making a few of these and placing them in different areas around the house would be an eye catcher, and they could create a cohesive decorative flow throughout the house.

H2O Bungalow

And finally, chalk-paint pumpkins! The matte quality of the paint gives these pumpkins the most perfect rustic look, and some attention to shading and color mixing make these look real!

Anderson and Grant

I’m hoping I can get to some local nurseries and craft stores this week so that I can start messing around with a few of these techniques for my house!

Have a great start to the week, everyone!

Organizing the Kitchen

August 29, 2016

If you follow me on Facebook and Instagram you know I was having frenzied Saturday of kitchen organization. We all have a couple of drawers in our homes that act as a catch-all. Besides the obvious ‘junk drawer’ that we have, the drawer to the right of my stove and my spice shelf in the cabinet above it became quite a mess and I was starting to get twitchy about it. You know how every time you go to grab something and get so annoyed that it has become so out-of-hand-ridiculous? Well I have been giving that drawer and the spice shelf the side-eye for about six months now.

See what I mean? Not organized whatsoever. So…time to switch some things around! I would have taken a picture of the spice bomb zone but I was in a frenzy at that point and emptied it all out before I grabbed my camera.

Instead of putting the utensils back in, I found a new home for them. I turned this drawer into my herb and spice drawer instead!

This is already so much better. I’m so excited to be able to see everything at once when I cook now. I moved some things from the old utensil drawer into the drawer on the left of my stove. I turned the utensil organizer vertical instead of horizontal and moved my measuring cups and spoons over to this side. (How cute is my little vegetable scrubber?!) I put the rest of the spatulas and random utensils in their own designated drawer now. This drawer isn’t the most organized but at least everything is close to the same size and easy to grab!

So glad I finally organized these! It didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would and I’m interested to see if this will make navigating around the kitchen a lot more pleasant now!

A Quick Lamp Facelift

August 1, 2016

I have had a mini project on my mind for a while that I decided to do this weekend. I’m still trying to get everything pulled together in the guest room and end table lamps are something on my list. I have been scouring our house looking through our boxes of stuff that we *still* haven’t fully unpacked.

It’s been almost 3 years.

Yikes.

Please tell me I’m not alone in this?

I digress. There was a pair of lamps that we used in our old house that we liked at first but…they just weren’t that great anymore. They felt out of style and stuffy so I figured I would at least try to coat them with some spray paint and see if that would work for the guest room so I don’t have to invest in lamps quite yet.

I ran into the hardware store and grabbed some silver paint by Rust-oleum. There is silver nailhead trim on the headboard in that room so I figured I would try to tie that in and see if it works with the big picture.

I taped off the electrical parts of the lamp and then got to work.

I have never used spray paint before, and this stuff was super easy to use! I put one coat on in about 2 minutes, waited about 5 or 10 minutes for it to dry down a bit and then did coat number two.

Not bad! The paint took really well and I’m happy with it. Are they going to work in the space? Not sure yet, I will have to add some white shades and go from there. If it doesn’t end up working out, I may paint them another color to see if that will work or I may use them in a different area. We’ll see! That’s half the fun of taking your old things and trying to make them new again!

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