Monogrammed Pumpkin {“Pin”spiration}

My “Fall and Halloween” board on Pinterest is filled to the brim with so many gorgeous and inspiring ideas!  Although I would LOVE to duplicate them all, I don’t have the time, money, and quite frankly….the motivation!  I need quick and easy these days {with a grumpy and teething 10 month old and all}.

I have seen several cute pumpkin makeovers on Pinterest!  Take a look at these beauties:

{Source:  Pinterest/BHG}

 

{Source:  Pinterest/Blog}

 

{Source:  Pinterest/Tatertots & Jello via Restyled Home}

 

{Source:  Pinterest/BHG}

I love ‘em all!  So I wanted to make my own!  I really love the simplicity and stylishness of the nailhead pumpkins!  And I love monograms! 

So I made a monogrammed nailhead pumpkin!

I got the pumpkin at Walmart for $4.  It’s fake and kinda foamy-ish {yeah, I make up my own words.  It’s my blog.  I can do that!}.  I also got the pack of nail heads there for 88 cents.  I already had the spray paint on hand.

The pumpkin started out orange {obviously}.  I don’t have a before picture.  Horrible blogger.  Sorry.

I taped off the stem and took it outside and spray painted it using Krylon’s Satin Nickel.  I then printed a large W {for our last name} off the computer.  I held it up on the pumpkin where I wanted it and started inserting the nail heads.

My original idea was to put all the nail heads in, then just rip the paper off {thinking that the nail heads would stay in place}.  Well, that didn’t happen.  The nail heads popped out.  That was ok though.  I just put them right back in.  It was easy since the holes were already marked in the pumpkin.

I love it!  Simple, quick, cute, elegant.  I love that it isn’t bright orange and doesn’t scream PUMPKIN & FALL {although there is nothing wrong with that and I have some plans for some orange pumpkins}!

This took me all of about 15 minutes!  Even better!

Have you found any Fall and/or Halloween inspiration on Pinterest?  Are you just “pinning” or are you going to actually tackle some of those projects? 

 

Have a great Friday!

 

I am linking up to many of these great parties:

M: DIY Showoff Project Parade, Metamorphosis Monday, Made by You Mondays, Just Something I Whipped Up, Today’s Creative Blog, Making Monday Marvelous

T: Get Your Craft On, Tip Junkie, Home Stories A to Z

W: Passionately Artistic, Twin Dragonfly Designs, Creative Spark @ Clean & Scentsible

Th: Just A Girl, Gluesticks, House of Hepworths

F: Sassy Sites, I’m Lovin’ It, Remodelaholic’s Anonymous, Frugal Friday, Friday Fun Finds, Feature Yourself Friday, Pity Party, Weekend Wrap-Up, Weekend Bloggy Reading

S:  I Heart Naptime, Be Different, Act Normal, A Little Lovely,

Su:  Under The Table & Dreaming, Remodelaholic

Other:  Fall Frenzy

Sssshhhh…..The Baby’s Sleeping!

It was inevitable in our house.  I’d just get the baby to sleep for her nap and not any sooner than I could get down the stairs, someone would knock on the door or ring the door bell (usually the FedEx guy).  The dogs would go crazy barking and about 10 seconds later, Emily would start crying.

Disaster!

What was my solution?

A super classy hot pink post-it note placed over the doorbell.

I’ve had this on my doorbell for MONTHS now! 

I hated that the note was so……blah.  I mean, it was on a hot pink post-it for cryin’ out loud.  Not cute.  Not to mention, the post-it would fade because of the sun and I’d have to write up another not-so-cute post-it to place over the door bell.

Well, I finally got tired of that whole scene and decided to make something a little more…..cute.  And a little more permanent.  Something that I could use for a while and that *hopefully won’t fade from the sun.

I think it turned out pretty darn cute!

Supplies:

- Plain wood rectangle (Hobby Lobby, 99 cents) or scrap piece of wood

- Krylon spray paint of your choice

- FolkArt antiquing medium

- Silhouette & vinyl or scrapbook letters

- Ribbon or wire or rope to hang your sign with

I started with a plain piece of thin wood board that I bought at Hobby Lobby for 99 cents.

Of course, if you have scrap wood or MDF laying around, that would work as well.

I also bought this antiquing glaze because I knew I wanted to give it some dimension and texture with that “distressed”/antique look.

I took my board outside and drilled 2 small holes on either side for the ribbon to go through.  In hindsight, I wish I would’ve used a larger drill bit because it was kind of hard to get the ribbon to go through those holes.  Then, I sprayed it with a few coats of Krylon’s Bahama Sea {LOOOOVE this color} in gloss.  After the spray paint had completely dried, I brought my board inside and rubbed some of the antiquing glaze on top with a paper towel.  I wiped it off in circular motion right after.  {Sorry I don’t have any pics of these steps.  They’re pretty self-explanatory.}

I then made the text for my words in Silhouette Studio.  If you don’t have a Silhouette, scrapbook stickers would do the trick too.  Here’s after “weeding” my vinyl and getting it ready for placement:

Don’t ask me why it didn’t cut out the word “sleeping” but it didn’t.  No clue why.  I had to go back afterwards and cut that word separately.

I used some contact paper to transfer my vinyl onto the wood board.  I then added my piece of ribbon and knotted it off!

And here she is:

 

So, what do you think?  Mamas, do you have a way you keep the FedEx man from waking your baby up?  I’d love to hear it!

Amy

 

 

 

I am linking up to many of these great parties:

M: DIY Showoff Project Parade, Metamorphosis Monday, Made by You Mondays, Just Something I Whipped Up, Today’s Creative Blog, Making Monday Marvelous

T: Get Your Craft On, Tip Junkie, Home Stories A to Z

W: Passionately Artistic, Twin Dragonfly Designs, Creative Spark @ Clean & Scentsible

Th: Just A Girl, Gluesticks, House of Hepworths

F: Sassy Sites, I’m Lovin’ It, Remodelaholic’s Anonymous, Frugal Friday, Friday Fun Finds, Feature Yourself Friday

S:  I Heart Naptime, Weekend Wrap-Up, Be Different, Act Normal, A Little Lovely

Su:  Under The Table & Dreaming, Remodelaholic

Painted Beadboard Bookcase

I won’t bore you with the long drawn-out story of my battle with finding a craft space in my home.  I am so frustrated with the whole situation.  How is it that we have a very good-sized, beautiful home but I can’t seem to be satisfied and I stay frustrated with the fact that I don’t have a room for my craft stuff. 

Uuuhhhh……get over yourself, Amy.  Seriously!

Good news!  I think I found a solution!  Now, my craft space has gone from the carriage house (our mother-in-law suite above the garage), to the guest bedroom upstairs, to the dining room downstairs, back up to the guest bedroom upstairs, and now it’s coming back downstairs and sharing a space with Emily’s playroom.

There is a good, unused corner in her playroom that I decided I wanted to occupy.  It will be perfect because Emily can play to her little heart’s content and I can do some crafting and/or blogging while she plays!  Win, win for everybody!

I didn’t want anything fancy or expensive.  I needed to do this on the cheap but yet also try to match the décor already in the playroom.  So I went to my home away from home Target and got a white 5-shelf bookcase {$30} and a white desk that was on sale {$80}.  The desk was a little more than I was hoping to pay but was the perfect size for the space! 

I got home and put together the bookcase.  I knew that if I nailed down that flimsy white backing to the back of the bookcase, it would leave me bored.  I knew I could do something more to “shnazzy” it up a bit and really make it stand out.

So I decided I would paint it!!  I had some $5 oops paint from Lowe’s that would match the blue in the playroom perfectly!  Great idea, right?? 

WRONG!!! 

I am an amateur painter.  It’s not my forte.  Apparently, the paint wouldn’t stick to whatever this backing was made of.  Dangit!  What now??

I figured I’d just wallpaper it.  Great.  But I don’t have any stupid wallpaper. 

Waaaaaiiittt a minute!  Yes I do!  About a month ago I bought a roll of that paintable beadboard wallpaper from Lowes.  I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but I wanted it and I knew I’d find a project for it sooner or later.  The lightbulb went off!

I broke out my spray adhesive, cut some strips of the beadboard wallpaper to fit the backing and glued it down!

At this point I was so tickled that I almost left it white.  But I just knew that pop of blue color coming through would be to die for so I went ahead and painted it.

I am so impatient and almost died waiting for it to dry!  But I was good and waited.  Once it was fully dry, I brought it inside and nailed it to the back of my bookshelf.

 

Isn’t it perfect??  I am going to get some baskets today to put on the shelves and hold my craft stuff!  I was going to wait until then to show you guys, but I just couldn’t wait any longer.  I am so thrilled with how it turned out!!!  I love the beadboard and I love the blue color!  I can’t wait to show you when the space is completely finished!

So what about you?  Have you ever done a project with paintable wallpaper? 

xoxo,

Amy

 

I am linking up to many of these great parties:

M: DIY Showoff Project Parade, Metamorphosis Monday, Made by You Mondays, Just Something I Whipped Up, Today’s Creative Blog

T: Get Your Craft On

W: Passionately Artistic, Twin Dragonfly Designs, Creative Spark @ Clean & Scentsible

Th: Just A Girl, Gluesticks, House of Hepworths

F: Sassy Sites, I’m Lovin’ It, Remodelaholic’s Anonymous, Frugal Friday, Friday Fun Finds, Feature Yourself Friday

S:  I Heart Naptime, Weekend Wrap-Up, Be Different, Act Normal, A Little Lovely

Su:  Under The Table & Dreaming, Remodelaholic

Front Door Sidelight Window Solution

A while back I was struggling with a privacy solution for the windows on either side of our front door.  Our front door is g-i-a-n-t!!  It is super tall (9 or 10 feet).  Therefore, the windows on either side are also super tall.  When we first moved into the house, we purchased some of Rustoleum’s “frost” spray paint.  We never used it because we were afraid of uneven coverage.  I didn’t really want sheers to go there, but I literally was about to have my mom sew some because I just couldn’t find another solution.

Enter Madigan Made.  I saw this post where she had the same issue and used some stained glass paint to make her sidelight windows gorgeous!

Doesn’t that look awesome!  I was sold.  She gave a tutorial and off to Michael’s I ran to gather my supplies.  I followed her tutorial to a “t”.  Let’s just say, mine didn’t turn out all that great.

The black stuff (I don’t even remember what it was called now) kept peeling off.  It didn’t look “awesome” like I thought it would, so I took the black stuff off.  When I first painted the windows, I left the outer portion unpainted.  I still kind of wanted to be able to see out.  So, when I peeled the black stuff off, it looked horrible because there was an uneven line of unpainted space.  So, I went back over the unpainted portion with some more of the stained glass paint.  Well, that left me with uneven coverage. 

See what I mean?  You can totally tell where the black outline used to be.  It stayed like this for about 5 months. 

Until yesterday.

I finally got tired of looking at the ugliness that was my front door.  I couldn’t stand that it was the first thing people saw when they first came to my house.  Even though no one probably noticed, it bothered me. 

Fortunately for me, the stained glass paint scraped off really easy!  Just a little Windex and a straight edge razor was all I needed.

It peeled right off. 

I cleaned all the windows really well and taped them off.

Then, I proceeded to spray the windows with the “frost” spray paint.  It turned out much better than I expected!!!  It’s not perfect, but it definitely looks SOOOOO much better than what was there before!

Nice and even coverage!

Light still comes in, but we have privacy!  I love it. 

I’m also thinking about painting our front door.  Shelley at House of Smiths recently did and it looks soooooo good!  Hmmm…we’ll see.  I have about 501 things to do instead of that so it will probably have to wait.

So what do you think about the sidelight windows?  Have you used the “frost” spray paint before? 

xoxo,

Amy

{DIY Project} Vinyl Tablecloth Diaper Changer Pads

I just love it when genius, creative people such as Ashely @ Lil Blue Boo take items and totally re-purpose them for use as something completely different! 

Ashley shared today a great tutorial for making roll-up diaper changing pads out of vinyl tablecloths!  I love it!

I just thought I would share this amazing project with you all.  It would be great for a baby shower gift!!

I am going to attempt to make one of these as soon as I get all of my craft/sewing stuff organized!

I hope you all had a wonderful & relaxing 4th of July!  Mine was great!!  It was spent with family and I couldn’t have asked for anything better!  Emily didn’t even have a meltdown at the fireworks!  I was afraid the sound would scare her but she did so great.  So proud!