Food for thought

I thought the Pixies might get hungy so I got them a little something to snack on...



And what do Halloween Pixies eat, you ask? Why, candy corn of course!

Remember that 3+1 decorating rule?...it really does look better this way, dontcha think?

Inspired by...

Because of all this blogging I'm doing, I'm getting NO sleep, but tons of ideas. Soon I'm going to have to catch up on the sleep thing, but for now...I blog!! I have decided to post on various projects I've found online that I decide to do myself. I'll link you to the orginals and we'll see how my versions turn out. :)

But my first ideas came from the recent Home-A-Rama. I'm going to attempt these on my own, on the cheap, with my own spin.

We do this quite often with client's window treatments, and I've actually seen it done better, but I've never tried it myself. I think it's time -- just have to figure out where?:

This is a Pottery Barn Kids piece, but I know I can do it cheaper on my own. ;) Love this idea!:

Umm, is this not caaauuuute?? It's a lamp, used as a ribbon holder. Darling. I will not do this with a lamp, but it has the wheels turning:

Seriously, how easy and fun is this? This one I think I will do soon...couple ideas floating around as to how I'll do it exactly:

I've seen this before but it was a good reminder of something I've been wanting to do:

I'd love to see if you've done anything similar to these, or if you decide to tackle these one your own! Have fun!

Looking Up

I love old buildings! I love the craftsmanship that went into making a building beautiful. I admire the intricacy in the moldings and trim. I'm amazed at the ornate detail in things as small as an elevator button. And one thing that I'm attracted to is the old tin ceilings. It astounds me that such detail and design was put into something that you would have look upward to notice. It is because of my admiration of the design of ceiling tins that I have manged to acquire a collection of them. I use tins all throughout my home.

I have old, authentic ones.

(The crown molding and the shelf
are made using ceiling tin)(We cut apart a tin to make the four small squares)

I have reproductions too.

Aahhh, the beauty of a ceiling tins!

Halloween Pixies and Ghoulish Delights

Hi all you lovely bloggers out there! I am so excited about this little project that I can hardly stand it! Look at these cute Halloween Pixies I made over the weekend! Aren't they darling?!?!? The idea was kind of a hybrid between lovely things I've seen here and here. I love a little whimsy in my decorating and I think they certainly provide it!

I had to included these other photos so you could see some of the fun details (and their cute little faces.)

As for this ghoulish guy, One is at that age when Halloween decor should be scary. I, myself, am not into the scary stuff. But I did give in on this. One was with me at Michael's about a month or so back, and he wanted one of these styrofoam skulls so badly. I think it doesn't look that bad under my cloche. It's kind of Martha-ish, don't ya think?

Together with the pixies, it makes a fun little vignette. I think I need to get me another apothecary jar to make it look right, though. Remember the 3 and 1 rule that Kimba talked about here?

And finally, here's a fun little pumpkin I picked up TJMaxx. I got him for a discount because his balloon was loose. A little bit of hot glue fixed that. I'm always up for a deal!

I have a few more Halloween projects to come, so stay tuned!

AND Last but not least... the winner of my 50th post barn star drawing is Ashley from the Linares family. Congratulations Ashley. Please email me with your contact info and I'll get that fun little barn star in the mail to you! Thank you to everyone for leaving such lovely comments! I've got a great group of bloggy readers out there!!

Pouring rain. Too many people. Gorgeous homes. Heaven.

So tonight my decorating-loving pal and I went to the local Home-A-Rama. I can't get enough of the Ramas....and I am a sucker for model homes too. There's not a model home within a ten mile radius of our home that I haven't been through at least once.

This Home-A-Rama did not disappoint...for the most part. Love the houses, love the decorating, the ideas, the landscaping AND the bad decorating. Some are just. plain. bad. But there's more of that to come...first, a sampling of my 142 pictures. Yes. 142. Did I mention it was pouring rain? And that we didn't bring an umbrella? We didn't care -- beautiful homes don't judge.

Sorry the quality is bad... the battery was dying, wonder why??

I LOVE these windows:

This is the most unique window I've ever seen in a home. The picture doesn't do it justice:

Reminds me so much of Candice Olson!:

Choco-lucious:

Creamy cabinets were the rage:

Wow, none of these do the homes justice. I'll share more soon...and the home with the worst decorating I've ever seen. I feel awful saying that, but really, it was bad. You'll die. Just die. Die! Die! Die! (Jack McFarland anyone?).

Where's My Head?

Oh dear! I totally forgot
to pass some more fun info on to you.
(I apologize Heather!)
Heather has a wonderful tutorial on her blog BeTasseled.
Now, with last weeks post and this one,
you have even more tassel making inspiration.
What are you waiting for?
Go make a tassel.

Sweets!

Who doesn't love cupcakes? Especially, precious, cute, custom cupcakes? A friend of mine makes the most beautiful cupcakes I've ever seen. They are little works of art. And they are goooo-ooooood. I know, I've tried one (nine).

I know 99 percent of you don't live close enough to order from her, but you can still drool. Check out her out here:

http://www.happinessinabite.com/

Ooooo La La!

Most people Spring clean. I Fall build. I don't know what it is about the Fall, but I suddenly get the urge to build items for my home. I'm not sure if it's the nesting instinct left over from having my last three children born in the Fall months. Or if it's the desire to have a nice home for the holidays. Or maybe, I no longer feel the need to work on outside projects, so I can devote my time and energy to the inside of my home. Whatever the reason, I have the urge to Fall build.
And so it was on Saturday.

I went into my garage and found an old door
that I bought months ago at a thrift store.(You see those french doors? I have plans for them too.
Won't they look great on a garden shed?
That project will have to wait until next Spring)

My trusty assistant (aka: hubby) cut the door in half,
leaving the vintage doorknob,
and reattaching the hinges.In the meantime, I sanded some metal legs
that we bought months ago
at that big blue box store that sells Swedish furniture.
The legs needed to be sanded
in preparation for their makeover.Then I primed them with a good primer.Next came a few coats of satin black.I sanded the door where there were chips and dings.

The sanding uncovered a few layers of paint.When the legs were dry,
we screwed them onto the door.

And voila! A beautiful desk was born! Don't those legs give it a French flair?It looks a bit like a grown up version of the tray
from my previous post.
I'm enjoying the combination of cream and black lately.
This beauty is going to find it's way
into the master bedroom.
I think I'm feeling a bedroom makeover coming on!

Literary Pumpkins!

I saw this darling idea on Shabby Vintage Chic, a fun blog I discovered last week! I had done several projects like this when I was a little girl, but never for Halloween! (think Christmas angels) I loved the idea of folded books as jack-o-lanterns, so I spent the better part of Saturday night folding all the pages in an old paperback novel. The Hubby thought I was absolutely nuts...but after seeing the finished project, he decided it was a great idea. I'm going to make this little guy a bunch of buddies. I didn't glue the face on very tightly because the Hubby and I both decided that jack-o-lantern and his buddies would look very sculptural gracing our bookcases after the holidays are over. So I'll just remove the faces and VOILA! Kari & Kijsa suggested a similar idea here.

And because I couldn't decide which photo of Jack I liked best, here are a few more!

As you may recall, I seem to have lost/misplaced a bunch of my fall decorations, so I am kind of starting from scratch for Halloween. So this last weekend, I really caught the crafting bug and I got to work creating a bunch of cute little goodies for Halloween that I will be sharing this upcoming week! Stay tuned...

Also, before I forget, I was tagged last week by The Hinesley House to list 6 random things about myself. I must admit, these sorts of things are always hard for me because I try and think of interesting stuff, and I always draw a blank. But here it goes anyway...

1. I danced for 25 years, right up until I found out I was expecting One. I danced precision, ballet, tap, jazz, ballroom and even Irish Step! I thought of pursuing dance as a career, but I had a bad knee because of numerous injuries, so I worked in marketing/PR for a professional ballet company instead!


2. I suffered from infertility problems for 5 years before the Hubby and I were finally able to conceive. I guess my body figured out how it all works, because now I have four kiddos!


3. I am an obsessive/type A personality.


4. I was named Wendy after the character in Peter Pan.


5. All my childhood years, my parents took us a camping in a native American teepee. (It's a nice way to camp, plenty of room, and you can build a fire right in the tent - but it takes 2 hours to set up!)


6. As a kid and a teenager I could never sleep in past 6 am no matter how late I went to bed. It was horrible at slumber parties, because I was the only one awake in the morning....for hours!

I'm not going to pass the tag on, but if anyone wants to play, please do so and leave me a comment so I can drop by your blog and see what fun things you have to say about yourself :-)

And finally, some bloggy love from Celita at The Spices of Life. Thanks Celita!

I hope to have the winner of last week's giveaway ready to announce tomorrow. I had over 100 people leave comments and you all had such lovely things to say! (WOW! You really made my day!) So thank you!!!

Lampshade tutorial.

I have a lampshade that has been bugging me for months -- I wanted to recover it but couldn't find the perfect fabric. Tonight, at ten minutes to closing, my Bub and I ran into Hobby Lobby (my second trip today, yikes!) and I found the PERFECT fabric! And trim! In less than ten minutes! Yayeeeee!


So I took pictures as I recovered this time just to prove how easy it is! Before:

You really don't need much fabric, just depends on the size of the shade. I lay mine out and trace it (using chalk) -- giving extra room so the fabric wraps around:

Use a hot glue gun to secure the fabric. You can cut little slits every couple inches so the fabric wraps easily:

Taadaa!! But it still needed something...

Trim! I found the perfect match:

If you've seen my family room, you'll understand how perfect the swirlys (swirlies?) are! I loved it so much, I did the little shade in the kitchen:

I'm so excited! My cat, however, is thoroughly unimpressed:

That looks says, "You add this crap to my food bowl and I will pee on your drapes, lady."