Bless This Home/Cupboard

A couple months ago I went to a Habitat for Humanity store to see if they had anything that needed a little crafty love.  I found an old cupboard door for $2.  This week I finally got around to doing something with it.  I sanded all the old stain off of it and painted it white.  At first I was going to just spray paint it, but I didn't really want it to have an even finish, so instead I just used some acrylic paint so now it looks kind-of whitewashed.  Then instead of using vinyl I printed out some letters, outlined them and painted them black. 

Now I just need to get my husband to help me hang it over the front door. 

Eat, Sleep, Swim

My kids are both on a competitive swim team so pretty much their lives are eat, sleep, swim and school.  But since school is not always so fun I left that one out and truly captured life on my oldest son's wall.

Fall Decorating with Pumpkins

I'm so excited that it is almost October.  A whole month of doing fun things with pumpkins.  Here are some of my past pumpkins pictures. 

2009

2010

2010

2011

 I can't wait to find something cute to do with pumpkins this year.

Harvest Banner

The other day I left my friend's house and one of her neighbors had a cute banner on their front porch.  So I decided to make one of my own. 

 Burlap always reminds me of fall so I used that for the letters.  First I cut out some rectangle pieces.

 Then I printed and cut out letters in a cute font.

 I used the letters as a template on the burlap.  I traced them with a black marker and then filled them in with black paint.

 I got four different pieces of material.  There are 7 letters, but I chose to repeat the colors.  I got a quarter cut of each and was able to use each color twice.  I sewed around three sides of two pieces with the front sides towards each other. 

 Then I turned it right side out.

 And added a piece of batting to the inside.  I just wanted to give it a little more dimension.

 Then I sewed the burlap letter onto the middle of the fabric, leaving the open side to the top.

 Then I folded the top so the raw edge was hidden, sewed it and then I sewed a piece of burlap in between each letter.

 Then I add a piece of burlap to each end and capped them off with a pretty burlap bow.

I used command hooks to hang it over my front door.  Almost all my decorations for this time of year are Halloween-ish, so I am excited that I can use this one all season long. 

Family Blocks

At the beginning of the summer we had a craft night at church and I was in charge of one of the classes.  About the same time, we were putting up the paneling in our front room so I thought it would be a good idea to 'kill two birds with one stone'.  I wanted to make something that I could easily help a lot of people make and yet be able to bring home my example one to put on the wall above the paneling.

 

 First I cut out 7" vinyl letters and cut 1x6 or 1x4" pine boards to fit them.  Then I picked out 6 different black and white patterned papers and cut them to fit the boards.  I painted the boards white (the side where the paper goes really doesn't need to be painted) and then glued the papers on with a gluestick.  This actually works really well with the pine wood.  If you buy cheaper boards the paper can start to peel off and Modge Podge always leaves crazy bubbling, so I just stick to gluestick on pine.  Then you just add on the letters.  

 This is what I helped everyone else with, of course all of our paper combinations were slightly different.  I chose black and white because it matched the best with my house.

 After I used mine as a demo, I added ribbon to each one, that I just attached with the staple gun.  I hung an old curtain rod on the wall.  And there you go!

Left Over Ideas

I really wouldn't consider myself a seamstress; sewing is still something that I really have to experiment with.  However, I had no idea how much sewing I actually have done until I started looking around my house at all the ways I have used material.

 

Every time I have finished one of these projects I have had at least a little material left over.  I hate throwing things out if there is ever a chance I could use them for something else, especially crafty things, so I just have a big bag of scraps in my craft room.  Every once in awhile I find a fun way to use those scraps and I feel like I have gotten a free little bonus.  

Here are some of my left over material ideas: 

I guess left overs are not such a bad thing after all.

Fall Centerpiece

Here is the beginning of my fall decorations.  I love this season!

Rosette Wreath

My cute little fabric rosette wreath.  All you need is a styrofoam wreath form, a hot glue gun and a couple hundred (I'm guessing) 6-9" fabric strips.

 It took quite awhile and I have a couple blisters (hot glue is hot :)

 Then I hung it with a large strap that I made from some left over patterned material.