raggedy pumpkin

Happy Monday, folks! Hope you all had a good weekend. I traded in my sewing machine and glue gun for a fabulous weekend with my sweet husband who has been MIA all week. Nothing better than a date that starts on Friday evening and ends on Sunday :)

But with Sunday comes football. Lucky for me, there's a TV in my craft room and ABC Family plays the best movies EVER on Sundays. Anyone else catch Princess Diaries??

Anywhoooo, I've had this Dollar Tree pumpkin in my closet for a while, but I wasn't feeling the orangeness of it. I'm more of a maroon and rust kind of girl - can I get an amen?

Inspired by my raggedy wreath, I just plugged in my glue gun, ripped up some fabric and started wrapping.

And tying the loose ends together.

[Can you spot a curious puppy in the background??]

When I was done, I used some raffia to tie wrap the stem and tie a bow.

Adorable, eh?

There's no light because the flood is upon us. Anyone else living in gloomy land today??


And did you notice the flowers I bought myself?

Grocery shopping is way better when you put these in your cart first :)

Happy Monday, my dears.

Sometimes I like to party....click here to see where I link!

when you say crazy, you mean...

This is what happened: I finished setting up my home office. And my office shares the space with my craft room. And in the process of straightening things up on my desk, I stumbled into the craft side and started feeling a little jittery. Like I needed to do something. So I scanned through my blog roll for the day and saw two things. Two beautiful bits of inspiration: Decor Chick is getting organized and in the process, I caught a glimpse of her toolbox and the ladies over at The CSI Project are hosting a Mod Podge Party. Music to my ears. And what do you know, I have a toolbox AND Mod Podge. Hollerrr.


I knew when I bought Sassy [my toolbox, duh] that she was going to need a facelift if she was going to live in my craft room. Let's face it, that blinding neon yellow just doesn't go.

She could stop traffic. And not in a good way.

And where else in my whole entire house can I be as girly as I can be in here, my very own craft room? No where, I tell you. It just won't fly with that burly submarine officer of mine. So I rooted out my Mod Podge, my pile of scrapbook paper and some paint and got to work on adding some frills to my girl:

Oh, I did just do that. I totally painted her snaps purple and Mod Podged some scrapbook paper to her front parts. I did it. I was in the middle of it all and thought, "Am I really doing this??" The answer is YES. And any of you, finding yourself in my situation, would have done the same thing [maybe not, but keep that to yourself] and you would be proud to show it off. Please don't judge me.

Check out the other Mod Podge creations going on today...

weekend recap: fall raggedy wreath

I was feeling borderline sickly this weekend, like I might be trying to catch a cold. So I decided that a lot of rest was in order. I stocked up on home decorating and sewing books from the library, unloaded my Netflix Watch Instantly queue [Fried Green Tomatoes...love!] and dug out a stack of magazines that have been neglected over the last few months. It was a good weekend, my friends.

I started getting a teensy bit restless, but didn't feel like doing much, so I picked a craft that could be done while I kept my fanny on the couch :) I'm trying really hard to savor the last few weeks of summer - I don't want to wish it away for daydreams of crisp air and cinnamon in the kitchen. But it is HARD. Especially since I just saw a line of trees that have already turned. So I've tricked myself into thinking that preparing to decorate for Fall is not quite the same as actually doing it and I opted to make this little beauty under the guise of planning ahead. I'm smart like that.

I found this in blog land a while ago, but I can't remember where. If I'm ripping off your original idea, please let me know so I can give you credit :)

Start with a wire wreath like this:

It was the smallest of the variety at Michaels and cost about $3.

Then, pick out some fab Fall-inspired fabric...

I got about a yard, but had plenty left over. Start by cutting your piece into strips that are about 6 inches wide. Then take each strip and cut those into smaller strips [about 1 to 1.5 inches wide]. I actually ripped them, because I wanted a raggy look. When all is said and done, you want a pile of strips that are about 6x1 inches. Make sense?

Now get comfy and start tying :) Just tie the strips all the way around the wire. It's up to you how fluffy you want it - the more you squeeze on there, the fuller it will be. I made mine pretty tight, but only tied strips to two of the four rings within the wreath. You couldn't see the empty rings, and I liked the way it looked as is, so I stopped there. Two reruns of Friends later and you've got yourself a cutie little wreath.

Isn't it adorable?? I'm thinking of ways to use this in my mantel display and I've come up with a few things that make me reeeaaally excited. I'll keep you posted!

Have you started pre-planning for Fall? :)

And don't worry, I'm not the only one dreaming of Fall. Today I'm linking up with Thrifty Decor Chick, a fellow Fall fan!

this is where the magic happens

Welcome to my craft room. A real, honest-to-goodness craft room(/office). Sharing it with bookshelves and a desk isn't all that bad - just to have a place to spread out my junk potential masterpieces without losing it in the clutter is heaven. In every other house we've lived in, we had what started out as an office or a craft room and it inevitably turned into the catch-all room. What should I do with this bag of Goodwill stuff? Oh, just put it in the office. That makes sense. (Why we wouldn't just TAKE IT TO GOODWILL is beyond me, but that's me. I big giant put-er off-er.)

But I digress...welcome to my beautiful craft room! I feel good about this one. Allow me to show you around:

Isn't it happy? I love the quote on the wall - it inspires me to be patient :) The bulletin board is an old one I had that I just painted and covered in fabric and below that is a dry erase board I made out of a picture frame. All for my magazine clippings and various other inspirations. Don't mind the pile of bags and lampshades in the corner - that's just where I stash all my finds. It's my favorite corner in the house, to tell you the truth.

And that table has been one of the best investments we've ever made. It's the perfect size and so easy to fold up and use elsewhere (i.e. yard sales). I was feeling like it was a little boring, so I wrapped it in fabric. I didn't want it to be too permanent, in case I wanted to change it up or use the table for something else, so I had to get creative. I just tied yarn through little holes that I made around the edges and then tied the yarn pieces together, pulling it tight. Like so:

Eaaaaasy day (as my hubby's drill instructor used to say). As for all my "stuff," my crafty collection used to look like this:

Until I scored a sturdy little shelf at Lowes with a giftcard and now it looks like this:

Take a deep breath, everyone. That's much better, isn't it?

The other thing I love about this side of the room is that it's mine-all-mine and I can girly it up big time. With all the cutie little accessories I can find...

AND I like that I have space to keep my ironing board up all the livelong day. I hate unfolding and folding up an ironing board. I'd much rather toss something in the drier than iron it. Or take a hair straightener to it. Unfortunately, that doesn't work for fabric, so I make it as easy as possible by keeping it as a fixture. Although I did hate not having a convenient place for my ironing accessories (iron, spray starch, vase for filling iron with water, etc). Enter the ironing board caddy! Just tie some ribbon to a basket and then tie that to your ironing board. Voila!

So there it is, my friends. One of my favorite rooms in the house. It's good to have a little place of refuge, no? And because I'm never "finished" with a project, I'm on the hunt for a chair that I can cover with this:

love.it.