Pumpkin Tree

Spooky Chandy and Other Spooktakular Awesomeness

I love the holidays!!! As soon as Autumn hits, my craziness begins.  First, lovely Fall leaves and pumpkins, then October 1st happens and out comes the cobwebs, spider webs, and black spray paint!  Ever since we bought our first house, I have done a new craft project every year.   First, 2008, I gilded pumpkins, inspiration from Country Living.  In 2009 I went crazy with Martha Stewart's website and cut out a bunch of little mice, cats, and bats.  This year, my inspiration came from Country Living again, the pumpkin(s) tree.   I found all of my white pumpkins from Micheal's, ($4- $10 at 50% off), outlined my tree with a sharpy, and painted it in with black acrylic paint I already had.  The sheets over the furniture idea came from the same magazine and give the room a desolated look.

Brainfart

Happy Sunday evening to y'all, 

This is me thinking.  Hard.

I have really been enjoying reading all of the creative blogs I have been following.  The girls (and guys) who create them are so entertaining and have such wonderful ideas for DIY projects and design on a friendly budget.  They ALL also have clever and witty blog names and subnames for their sites.  I have been rackin' my brain all day to think of a "subname" for my blog but to no conclusion.  I would love any help or ideas from YOU!  I would like to keep "A Place to Call Home"  and then I need a short description (around 10 words or so) on something about DIY projects, creating a home on a budget, ect.  but with a play on words like "A friendly home on a friendly budget."  I am expecting at least 2 ideas from you, Grandpa and Mummy!!!  Tell me what you think!  Thanks a bunch!!

New Chandy in the Dinning Room

This is how the orange wall looked for the last two years.  We really enjoyed the deep, burnt orange especially during the fall and around halloween.  I decided to try a melon orange to lighten it up and had planned on using all of my water colors, sketches, a couple of white candle sconces (they were black but I spray painted them for this wall), and hang a couple of white platters (thrift store and clarence sale finds) to create a more casual look.

This is what the light orange looked like.  After I spent hours laying out and hanging all of the my art work, I hated it.  In a drastic move to save some of the orange I painted a gray stripe, from gray paint I had from a previous room, and created a sort of modern racing stripe which looked like it should belong on a corvette not on my dinning room wall.   Luckily, I scraped the bottom of my paint can and used every last drop to paint the rest of the orange gray.  Finally, a color that ALWAYS makes since. 

Next, I patiently waited for the third chandelier I had ordered to arrive.  Yes, third!  The original one I wanted was a simple wrought iron, colonial style from Ikea but I did not want to make the 3 hour drive so I ordered a similar one from Lowes.  It was going to take a month longer than it had first said so i cancelled it found a pretty silver one on a online store.  It ended up going out of stock so my last attempt was to order a country antique white one from yet another store.   Funny thing was, before the second one went out of stock I did make a trip up to Ikea with my friend.  Well, all things happen for a reason but I was trying to keep my chandy project under a $100.  So here is a picture of a piece of the one that decided to make it's way into my house BEFORE I painted it a nice crisp white. 

 And finally, An AFTER shot!  Isn't it FABULOUS with my little $3 lamp shades from Garden Ridge.

How to Update a Lamp

Hi Folks, if you have any lamps you feel are outdated, instead of replacing them, you can try a fresh coat of paint in white or a modern color. You can also switch out the lamp shade with a new one. I found $10 large drum lamp shades at Tuesday Morning. To add a little texture, you can hot glue dress trim around the bottom of the shade. I bought black dress trim on clearance (under $3 for 6 ft) from Hancock Fabrics.

First, cut the ribbon the same length as the diameter of your lamp shade leaving an inch overlap.

If there is a seam in your lamp shape make sure you start gluing there. Put a couple of strips of glue about 6 inches at a time to make handling the ribbon or trim easier.

Work your way around the shade and overlap the two ends.

Here is what the result looks like.

Here is a lamp I updated with another drum shade and no trim in my front room.

How to display books

Good evening, today I reorganized my bookcase by "shopping" around the house to find things to brighten up the space. Here is how my bookcase looked before.....

If you want to give your books a fresh look try these easy steps.

First, only use your hardbound books, remove the sleeves off of the hard bounds and put the ones with pretty light colors aside, the remaining books recover with craft paper or scrap booking paper.

If you are using craft paper, roll out the paper and place three books vertically on top leaving enough room to fold the paper around the front and back covers. Then, trace the books with a pencil and extend the lines with a ruler to make the strips long enough. Cut out your strips and wrap around the books, crease all of the edges and handwrite the title.

I put my "pretty" colored books on a different shelf, here is how my craft paper books looked after..

After

A new idea for my fireplace mantel

I have been struggling with our fireplace room since we moved in. I painted the old maroon bricks a crisp white and the rest of the fireplace a dark gray. I love the way the clock looks in the picture below. I was going to make an old "cottage" style clock but this could be a little easier to create. I also love the driftwood sailboat to the left. If I ever make it the beach this summer and be lucky enough to find the "right" driftwood this could be a great little project. I will keep you updated. I have purchased the paint to cover our awful stained ceiling tiles and Styrofoam beams on the ceiling, just need to get a move on it!
By the way, I found these pics on....... www.frugalfarmhousedesign.blogspot.com

How to decorate a vignette

I have been wondering what to do with my big buffet but I kept seeing the same trends in all of the articles I found, "use odd numbers of a small grouping, a couple accents, lighting, blah, blah, blah...... but my little birds and egg holders and my hodge podge of things were not cutting it so i searched the internet for more. Good thing i did because I found a great blog that is very funny and entertaining to read. If you want to look at it, www.allbowerpower.wordpress.com. Here are a couple of examples she gave.

I actually took a tape measure and calculated my percentages, what a nerd! I hope you enjoy my table top vignette.

West Elm Comforter

Yay! I found an alternative for my $300 coveted bed comforter, this one is a duvet cover but it looks the same and comes in many colors for $99. Hummm, my bed might get a makeover after all!

Anthropologie!!!

Wish this was me! On a beach, enjoying the sun, in a fabulous bathing suit from anthropologie. I guess it could be, if I had an extra couple of hundreds of dollars........

Well, I might, after I start my new job!!!!! But first, I have been wanting, no, coveting this bedspread for years. Literally. I do not think it would be practical to have with two young children, however, they are hardly on the bed and they never sleep with us so......... a girl can dream!

An easy table setting

I thought of a fun way to dress up our dark wood dining table. I found fabric for $2 at the thrift store and made a table cloth. I also bought 4 fabric placemats ($2 a piece) and splurged on a woven textured table runner ($17 at Tar jay!) which I cut in half to use vertically across the table. The candles, vase, and shells I had. Oh, and another great find, four gold chargers for $4 from goodwill. Love it! Well, I already had a black fabric marker, so to make the placemats have a bit more fun I drew the numbers 1-4 on them freehanded. I also ordered a chandelier and will hopefully have it by June so I can complete the dinning room. I also am doing a cute surprise in the living room and waiting on an order to complete it. I think I will leave the front living and dinning space alone after that. At least for awhile.......

My husband did not like our new "spring meadow" front door and said he prefers hunter green. ewwww

$3 front door makeover

After reading a fabulous article with 101 ways to spruce up and change your decor I tried a few. One suggested to make a bigger impact use a small picture for a center wall, you can see this in my master bedroom photo. To do this I had to brin

g a little symmetry to the wall with a window to one side. Everything I used I had in my house expect a $2 bottle of silver spray paint I bought to change a curtain rod from brass to match the other two in the room. I also purchased a $10 mirror and painted it white to create a faux window. I was pleasantly surprised on the outcome. With the afternoon sunlight the mirror lights up quite nicely reflecting the sun from the "real" windows.

A second idea was to paint your front door green

. I bought a $3 sample can of Valspar's Spring Meadow and it covered my maroon door completely in 3 coats.

The third change I tried was grouping all of my gold framed watercolors, prints, and etches and hung them on my orange dinning room wall to

break up the bold color and to complement my recently decorated dinning table. I am still looking for a chandelier so i will post a pic of the dinning room when it is completed.

Before

After

Sleepless night

Okay, so after laying in bed for hours last night, thinking about the changes I want to make I hit the stores first thing today with my little boy and baby girl. I found a cute old school desk, maybe as old as the 50's or 60's but not sure. Bought it for $20 from a thrift store! Found a silver plated sea shell, an updated light shade for a lamp, and a tablecloth. Would have love to find some more but the kids were done. I am trying an idea I found on a website in our master bedroom, with shopping around my house, the only thing I need is an extra curtain rod. Hopefully will finish the master bedroom and front living and dining room this week, and maybe the kitchen.

My first blog ever!!

Today, I stumbled across some really cute blogs on cottage styles and inexpensive DIY projects and thought I would give it try a blog!