A mantel, spookified!

So Friday night, I got a wild hair to make our mantel look a little more Halloweeny, which I've never done. I always leave fall decor up there till November 1 Thanksgiving. I struggle with Halloween and fall decorating -- do I do all fall, then take it all down for Halloween, do I do both? Do Halloween, then fall?

Oh, it's so hard being me. The stress of these decisions keeps me up at night. (Totally kidding! Kind of.) I have to have fall up in late August, so for me it's fall, then some Halloween thrown in, then fall, then Christmas. I try not to overdo it though -- it's easy for the house to get overwhelmed with extra decor during the month of October!

When I started the mantel, I just tried adding some spider webs and spiders but it just looked totally goofy with my gorg candles and beady stuff. It was then I decided to go all. the. way. And I LOVE IT!!!

Awhile back, I got this frame for $1.99 at Goodwill: Last week I spray painted it and completely, unabashedly copied Chris at Just a Girl and did this:I just printed out a 31 to the size I needed, cut it out, then cut out those numbers on scrapbook paper.

I put it up on the mantle and it just wasn't enough by itself. So the wheels started turning in my head and it came to me....

Another Goodwill frame in the basement, some spray paint, and some letters printed out on scrapbook paper:

Another empty frame, with another computer print out:

Next year I hope to use another ornate frame for Eek...for now, I'm not picky. :)

I saw a store display that used black tulle in their Halloween display and I fell in love. It is so cheap! I bought some a few weeks ago and didn't do anything with it till now. I nestled all my ghouly votives in it:

Don't worry, I only use LED votives anymore. No fire hazards!

I have had these candleholders for years and years, and a week or so ago I spray painted them black. They were an odd brown color and now I LOVE them:

I took an extra apothecary jar and put some skeleton bones inside:

The bones were bought on clearance last year. Do you see that nasty spider inside? Uhhh, he totally grosses me OUT. I dropped a few of them in there and was getting the heebies looking at them, they look so real. Ugh. I got them all out but this one cause I couldn't reach it. NASTY.

To create a little it one step further, I took a short strand of lights and put them under the black tulle:
I love having just those lit and the rest of the lights off. Spoooooky! But in a lovely way. ;)

Some spidey webs completed the look:

I love it. Like, I love it like I shouldn't love a spooky Halloween mantel. LURVE.

Best part? I didn't buy ONE thing for this mantel. I used the computer and pulled everything together from what I had.

A FREE spookified mantel, you can't beat it!

You can enter the Joey and Chase giveaway till tomorrow (Monday) at noon Eastern time! Rachel has graciously offered a ten percent discount for whatever you order from her site between now and this Friday, the 23rd! To get the discount, enter "TDC10" at the checkout. Lovely!!

Stinkin' cute Halloween!

First of all, thanks so much for the birthday wishes!! I had a great, relaxing birthday weekend with family and friends. I am so blessed and really can't ask for more. I feel like I have gained a couple thousand (or so) new friends in the past year because of this blog, so it was extra special with all your sweet comments.

I got the idea for this fun craft from one of my Halloween crafty mags. For the first one, I changed up their instructions just a bit to save my sanity. I started out with black card stock and used my $1.99 wavy scissors to cut out strips long enough to go around a votive holder once:The mag said to tear out little. itty. bitty. sections of paper by hand....uhhhh. Nah. This works much easier!

Then, grab a hole punch and make "eyes" all down the strip:

Hot glue the start and end of the strip to the back:

Keep going with the strips till you get to the top. I think I had about five strips per candle, but you could do less if you made them thicker.

Then, use a black Sharpie to complete the eyes:

I made them go every which way -- and some crossed-eyed. Those are my favorites! ;)

The mag said to use a small brush to paint the eyes on. Again...uhhhh, NAH.

For the second candle, I kind of just winged this little creation on my own. I took some googly eyes and hot glued them all over the votive holder:

It's OK if glue smudges out, you won't see it later.

I took some leftover cheesecloth, cut it into strips and wrapped it like a mummy!:

UM, I know! Cuteness!! I just hot glued one end, then wrapped it and hot glued the other end. I used one long, skinny piece of the cloth for each votive.

Drop in some LED votives (they are all I use for decor like this anymore -- love them!), and this is what you get:

At night, the cauuuteness really shines through:

Oh my goodness gracious, they are adorable. I heart them very, very much.

What a fun project to do with the kids! My guy is still a little too small to do this one, but with some supervision, and an adult handling the hot glue, they could definitely join in.

I made eight of them for ten bucks -- but I bought new votive holders and googly eyes because what I had were too small. Cheap!

Do you love my little ghouls??

P.S. I hope to open my Etsy shop tomorrow! I will do a post when it is up. :)

Constructive criticism (?!)

Do you Rate My Space? It's a fantastic spot for inspiration over at HGTV. I used to be quite obsessed with it. Like, blogging obsessed. I would post my rooms and wait by the computer for those first few comments and ratings, biting my nails....all a-flutter.

Well, it wasn't quite like that. But it was exciting to get decent ratings. But about a year ago I was a little over it. There was so much drama on that site...weirdos who would post a room over and over and over (and over). And whooeee, people could be mean! I got some really nasty comments, which always seemed to override the bunches of sweet comments.

But the not-so-nice comments would stick with me. And eventually I would realize, they could be right! (Dang it!) So I would move the furniture, change the drapes, remove items, and I would fall more in love with my space.

There are a few decorating tips I have learned through RMS and elsewhere that started out with a big fat "What? They are sooooo wrong, I am sooooo right, my room is perfect, they don't know what the heck they're talking about." I have hesitated to mention these, because I never want to come off as trying to tell you how to decorate your home. They are just things that helped me to grow, decorating-wise.

The first is rug size. Most of the time, we buy rugs that are waaay too small for our space. I have done it, mostly because I don't want to spend a load on a large rug. Here's our family room, a couple years ago:
This was right after we got our floors installed, and I was happy as a clam! I was soooo happy that I had found a new spot for this rug. Then I posted the room on RMS and I got railed on for my small rug. :)

Eventually, after looking at it, I agreed, begrudgingly. I found a GORG rug at JC Penney's and still love it:
This is the room today. (It's like one of those comparison games in the kiddo magazines -- can you find all the changes?) Honestly, I feel like it's still too small. I got this size so we could still see the floors in this space. (And because I'm cheap. Shhhh.) Now, I want a larger one so the furniture will all sit on it. The consensus seems to be your furniture should either be all on the rug or all off.

The next one is a doozy. The owner of the decor firm I work for told me this a couple years ago and at the time I was all "Oh no she didn't," wagging finger in the air, taking off my earrings. But, she was right -- I challenge you to find something other than a mirror for above your fireplace.

I know, I know! Stop yelling at me! I know! We ALL do it, I KNOW! Think about this though -- what is the reflection that turns into your "art"?:
See that ceiling fan in the before pic of our bedroom fireplace? That was our "art" -- it could be the light fixture, the ugly ceiling, whatever. Obviously, this happens because it's hung so high.

This one is hard, in my opinion, to get around. Mirrors are easy to find, they are affordable and they can be found in pretty much any size you need. It is a challenge to find something else that works. Hence my wallpaper art I've shown you before:
And my molding and iron work on our family room fireplace:
Again, this is all relative. I have seen plenty of mirrors over fireplaces that I think work well -- my girlfriend has a gorg round one with really thick framing that I've always loved. I love it because it is so large and such a statement.

My last one is another one I feel I'm bad at -- hanging pictures at the right height on the wall. The recommendation is to hang everything at eye level. Well, I'm a monstrous 5'9" so "eye level" for me is like, two feet above everyone else's.

OK, not two feet, but it feels like it. I feel like I'm 11 feet tall sometimes, serious. So when I hang, I deliberately hang my art shorter than my eye level. And even then, I think it's still too tall.

So what do you think? You know above all else, I believe you should do what makes YOU happy in your home. These are all just things to think about, because when you get over "Awww, heck NO! I can't believe she said that I'm hanging my pictures too high!" and are talking to me again, you may change your mind.

Maybe.

Wringing hands. Crossing fingers.

I'll leave you with another caa-ute baby gift for a friend. I took this:

And turned it into this:

Adorable, eh?

Gettin' my craft on.

***I added some how to's for this project below, based on the questions! Hope it helps!

Keep linking to the party here ladies! I may have to take down Mr. Linky in a few days and just put up the links -- the linky is causing major issues with my site. Either way, you'll be able to keep linking up! (Anyone out there happen to be a computer expert by the way? I would lurve you forever.)

Anyhoo, my mind has been absolutely swimming with projects to do around the house lately, so I have had no desire to work on anything crafty. I have about five gifts I need to get done, but nada...nothin'...

I have even driven right past Hobby Lobby about five times in the past few weeks with no urge to walk in. (I know! What is wrong with me?!) My crafting mojo needed a major kick in the pants. For some reason today, Hob Lob was pulling me in...I couldn't resist it:
I have three girlfriends who all had baby girls within a week of each other, so I've been trying to think of personalized gifts to give them all. I had the egg sign above from the dollar store, and today I got paper, ribbon and itty bitty flowers to make an adorable sign for one of the new arrivals.

The paper wasn't big enough to cover the whole plaque, so I just placed the paper diagonally so it would fit over most of it. I spray painted the sides and the corners, then used my spray adhesive to add the paper:
I found a font and color on the computer that worked and printed out baby girl's name:
Getting there...it needed some bling:
I hot glued them on:
Added some chocolate brown ribbon, and voila!:
Caaaauute!! Isn't her name adorable? Colleen, I hope you love it! (Katie and Steph, yours are coming soon!)

I forgot to show you all my latest favorite Goodwill find!! It is FAB. You've probably seen it in some of my recent pics. And it is waaaaaay more than I usually spend there, even on furniture:
It was $24.99 -- I told you it was a lot! I actually saw it, admired it, cackled at the price and said out loud, "There is NO WAY someone is paying that much for this!" and left it there. Then I got home and couldn't get it out of my mind. I got back in the car, sure it would be gone...but it was there. (With a beam of light shining down on it.) I got it. Love it.

Join me later this week -- I'm going to share every. single. little. thing. I know about paint. I know you are waiting with baited breath.

***Here is what I do to get my words to work for each project --
1. In Word, make sure the paper layout is set to Landscape (horizontally) -- go to File, Page Setup, Paper Size to do this.
2. Make sure your margins are as small as possible. Again, go to File, Page Setup, Margins and lower the sides, top and bottom to 0.3 or so.
3. Once you find the font and size, you can change the kerning or leading, or how much you want to stretch the words vertically or horizontally. Go to Format, Font, Character Spacing. To move the letters out or in, go to Spacing, and adjust the pt. size to what you want. To move the lines of words closer or further apart, go to Position, and raise or lower the pts. to where you want them.
4. I only use the fonts I have on Word, but there are a ton of free sites you can search to find more!

I use all of these tools each time I do a project like this! My picture may be misleading, the plaque is only about 16 by 3.5 inches. I hope that helps!

Using Ballard Designs as inspiration (part deux)

Here I go again! I tell you what, if you really look through the Ballard Designs catalog, you can find so many items you can make on your own, for a fraction of the price!

I saw this one months ago, and I've had everything for a loooong time to make it on my own. I mean, a LONG time. I kept hesitating because of my new found fear of mod podge.

I'm sceered.

It bubbles up EVERY time I use it. It is driving me batty. I bought a fun new tool to keep it from happening with this project, but in the end, I decided to just go with my trusty spray adhesive and it worked great!

This project is SOOOO easy and will take you about an hour to do. You'll need 12x12 paper -- I got this large book on sale awhile back for $9. But this would be even cheaper if you just bought the paper in singles:

I had a ten foot MDF board cut down into one foot pieces at Lowe's:

And used a brown spray paint to spray the sides and the edges:
Then spray adhesived (my made up word) the crap outta them -- the back of the paper and the front of the board. I let them both set up for about a minute, then just placed the paper on each board:

I decided to do the nine squares like Ballard:

I nailed them right into the wall, instead of putting brackets on the back:

I love it! I bought trim to do the edges like Ballard, but now I don't know if they need it...what do you think?:

I don't know I don't know! Help! I've seen this done all over blogland, and I think most people use canvases. I was being cheap -- I think all the wood for this was less than $10. Total with the wood, paper and spray paint, this cost less than $25. The Ballard version is $200!

Many of you asked about the arch that used to be in this space (a couple posts back). It is uber-cool...I got it from Goodwill years ago for two bucks!!:
I was just reallllly tired of it in that spot, and needed something new. I was going to take it to Goodwill but I think I'm going to use it outside -- fun eh?

To see my other Ballard inspiration project, go here.