"Give Thanks" banner

Because I loved my Halloween fabric banner so much, I decided to make a banner for Thanksgiving as well. I didn't want to do the same thing, though, so I browsed through pintrest and found a free printable. I didn't want to use up all of my color ink, though, so I took the general idea of the printable and created my own banner. I started by picking out some fall looking scrapbook paper out of my pile of stuff. Once I had the paper picked out, I cut a small piece off of each one to lay out how I wanted the letters to print out.


Once I had the paper in the order I liked, I wrote out "GIVE THANKS" on the pieces and then grouped them together by paper type.


I knew I wanted to print out two letters per page, so this way I knew exactly which letters to put together. At this point, I just opened a word document and picked a font I liked. I added a simple border from AutoShapes and tweaked the size until I could get two on a page in a size I liked. The letters actually turned out a LOT bigger than I thought they would be, but the size worked for the space I have. The most annoying part of this project was cutting everything out. I used my paper cutter to cut on all the straight lines and scissors for the curves.

Once the letters were all cut out, I laid them out on the floor on a piece of ribbon. I stuck them on using double sided tape so they would be easy to move around and arrange if it wasn't what I wanted.


Well, it turned out that I got it basically how I wanted on the first try. Because I am lazy, I didn't go back and glue gun the letters on or glue gun the ribbon onto itself to make a loop. This was a mistake. The banner has fallen several times. I need to go back with the glue gun and permanently attach everything so that it can be reused without fear of falling apart!


Like I said, the letters are bigger than I thought they would be, but are the perfect size for being on the bookshelf! I think it's really cute and I love how it turned out. If they had matte laminating, I would probably laminate it to make it more durable and lasting. This project cost me a grand total of zero dollars, as I had all the materials on hand already. That's my favorite kind of crafty project: FREE!

Thanksgiving wreaths

Does it really annoy anyone else that they go straight from Halloween decorations to Christmas? There's a whole holiday in between! Unfortunately, I seem to have bought into the idea of Thanksgiving not counting as a holiday, since I have exactly six things to decorate with: a turkey salt shaker, turkey pepper shaker, and four place mats shaped like leaves. SO, I decided that I was going to decorate for Thanksgiving this year by making all my things! I gave myself $20 at the dollar store and bought some stuff. The first thing I made were these wreaths. I saw something on pintrest about taking dollar store stuff and painting it with metallic paint, which makes it look a little nicer.


Here are my supplies: four wreaths, a thing of fake leaves and a thing of fake flowers. I picked the flowers based on what I liked best with the petals. I didn't worry about the colors, since I knew I'd be painting them anyway. Total cost: six dollars.


The first thing I did was pull off some leaves and a flower head. If you are stressed, this is a fun thing to do. Makes you feel better. =)


Next I spray painted them all gold. I wanted to use a few metallic colors to look more fallish, but we only had gold on hand and I didn't want to spend more money. If I had other colors - like a metallic red or something - I would have lightly sprayed the leaves on top of the gold, just for some contrast.


I was lazy and only painted the front of the stuff, as you can see from this picture. (I might end up painting the back, just because you can kind of see the red of the flower from the side. But, it depends on how lazy I am feeling when I get some free time!) I also had some ribbon on hand that I used to hang the wreath. I just threaded the ribbon through one of the gaps in the wreath and glue gunned it on.


I think it turned out pretty cute! I definitely don't think it looks like it's from the dollar store, which was my ultimate goal. These wreaths are small and cute and hang on our inside doors. I'm still waiting for my pintrest inspiration for an outdoor wreath for the front door.

Lamp Makeover

When my husband and I moved into our new house, we needed bedside table lamps. My mom had these sitting in her house and offered them to us. Free is always better than not free, so I took them, but I've never really loved them. Plus, with our new white and gray bedding, they really didn't go. This picture really doesn't do justice to just how ugly they were.

I decided to paint them and figured if I screwed it up, then I could go buy new ones because again, these were free, and I really wanted to replace them anyway.

I started by bagging and taping the important parts of the lamp - the bulb and switch and the cord. I put a sandwich baggie over the bulb and then folded a page of a magazine in half and taped it around the base. My lampshades were big enough to cover anything that didn't totally get painted, so I wasn't too worried about it.

Try not to be too jealous of my hot pink duct tape. It's pretty awesome. ;)

I used Valspar spray paint for this, but only because I had it on hand in silver. We had thought about doing a non-metallic color, but again, free always wins in our house.

When I read the directions on the spray paint, it said to sand a glossy surface first. Well, I am lazy and, AGAIN, if I screwed this up I didn't really care because free lamps are free. So even though the lamps are some kind of metal and the finish on them was shiny, I didn't sand it down.


Now, see how the paint is not covering the surface evenly? I think it would have covered better if I had sanded it down.


This is what it looked like after one coat. I was originally going to do two or three coats and make it a smooth, even finish but I actually kind of liked this look. It was antiquey and, as mentioned before, I am lazy so that was good enough. If it annoys me in a few weeks, I can always repaint it again.

One helpful hint - try to make sure you get every part of the lamp as you are painting if you only want to do one coat. I didn't get this part and figured I'd get it with the second coat, but then decided not to do the second coat, so I had to make sure this part of the lamp faces the wall.

I like these SO MUCH BETTER. It just goes so much better with our room and our bedding and it lightens everything up. My next project is to figure out what to do with the lampshades - I was originally going to replace them, but now I am thinking of maybe just embellishing them a bit to tie into the bedspread. We'll see what happens!


You can see a better view of the "antique" finish here. I don't mind it, but you may want to do the second coat for a smoother finish.