Fall crafts: I Love Fall Printable

Fall crafts: I Love Fall Printable

Autumn is a month associated with thankfulness. So let me just take this moment and say I love my sisters so much and don't think I'll ever be able to express enough gratitude for everything they do for me. Whenever I need someone, I know that one of my sisters is only a phone call away. To make me laugh when I need it or give some amazing advice I never would have thought of. I really do have the most amazing family. Thank you! Love you guys!

 click here to download

amazing family

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Crafts for home decor: How to Make a Ceiling Fan – Fun!

  

Crafts for home decor: How to Make a Ceiling Fan – Fun!

This fan is in my oldest daughter, Kelly’s room.  Her room is nothing but a museum right now, a testament to who she was and aspired to be.  She is 22, graduated from college and not living at home anymore.  I went into the room the other day and happened to look up.  I smiled as I remember painting the fan with stripes when we first moved in.    This was a project that was included in my book, Instant Decorating.

Painting a ceiling fan is one easy way to add color to where it is most often neglected – on the ceiling.  Ceiling fans are wonderful to help the air circulate, but can be eyesores when they don’t fit into the decorating scheme.  When we moved into a previous home and my daughters were little, there was a dark-brown ceiling fan with antique brass fittings in each room.   We couldn’t afford to replace them at the time, so to make them look less obvious, I painted each white to blend in with the ceiling.  When I was decorating their room with a color theme, I continued the palette by painting each blade in a different color of decorative stripes.  When we moved into our current house, my oldest, Kelly wanted her new out of the box white fan, painted with the stripes again.  I happily obliged.

Kelly liked lots of color in her room as you can see from the neon green walls with the the colorful border of equestrian event ribbons she won.

Gather

Ceiling fan with white blades

Pencil

Roll of 1-inch-wide masking tape

5 colors of 2-ounce bottles acrylic paints , one color for each blade

1-inch foam paint brush

Water-based sealer

1. Remove fan blades from fan and clean thoroughly.

2.  Starting from metal ornamental edge, use a pencil to make marks at 1-inch intervals along both edges of the blade.  Repeat on all blades.

3.  Place first piece of tape between first and second marks and around sides of blade.  Then place tape at every other mark.  The tip should have masking tape over it.  Repeat on all blades.

4.  Paint fan blade with two to three thin coats of acrylic paint in unmasked areas, remembering to paint sides of the blades.  Let dry between coats.  Repeat with a different color on each blade. Let dry.

5.  Remove tape.  Brush one to two coats of water-based sealer on entire surface and side edges of blades.  Let dry.  Put blades back on fan.

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Crafts for home decor: Yarn Lamp Makeover

Mimi’s Lamp Makeover!

 Crafts for home decor: Yarn Lamp Makeover

 

Started with this:

The lamp base, the lamp shade, some yarn, an embellishment strip and spray paint…

and as you can see I love the colors.

After the paint dried I started to SPRAY glue the yarn horizontally all around the lamp shade. I sprayed as I went, little by little, section by section.

This step took me somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes…

If you do this project DON’T PANIC if you see glue all over the shade…

by the time you are done it will be all covered…

Cute, huh?

{Third}

I added the  pom-pom strip… You can find it at any fabric store.

I got mine at Wal-Mart with the yarn.

{ I love that the yarn has the three colors}

OK, back to the Tutorial…

So, all I did was to spray the glue carefully around the bottom edge of the shade to glue it…

{ Fourth }

It was time to sit back and enjoy the view…

So here it is

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Embroidered pictures for home decor: spring button flowers tutoriral

Embroidered pictures for home decor: spring button flowers tutoriral

Today we are turning buttons into flowers and making a cute handmade display-piece! Enjoy :)
You will Need:

• Buttons that feel "Flowery"
• Neutral Fabric (mine was a fine linen colored cotton)
• Embroidery Thread (I used a few greens for the stems & yellow for the flower centers)
• Small Needle
• Scissors
• Pencil or Invisible Marker
• An embroidery hoop to be used as a frame

Step 1: Space out your buttons on the fabric and mark a little pencil dot where you want each one. Like the example above, make sure to leave room for the stem below each button.
Step 2: Sew on the buttons all at once with one color of thread. Visit this post for tips on how to start and end your stitching.

Step 3: Stitch a straight dashed line below each button, starting just under the button and ending at an 'invisible horizontal line'.

Step 4: Frame your fabric in an ornamental embroidery hoop, hide or trim the fabric overhang in behind (I taped mine on the back).
Step 5: Hang your new artwork :)

I hung mine above my desk at the Studio :) This project would be fun as a button swap with friends (you could even do it on a teatowel)! Try it :)
Interested in another Button Craft? Check out this Cork Frame Project :)

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Art and easy crafts for kids: Crayon Art & Crepe Paper Flowers - a tutorial

If you're on Pinterest, there's a really good chance you've seen these melted crayon works of art.

Art and easy crafts for kids: Crayon Art & Crepe Paper Flowers - a tutorial

The boys and I made our pictures before I bought the frames.  I would suggest buying the frames first, so you know just how far the crayons need to be from the edges to fit in the frames.  I had to do some serious sanding on my frame, and the boys could have added another crayon to their pictures.

We were so excited to try this, that I forgot to take pictures (again!), but it's really easy.

What you'll need:

Canvas

Crayons (enough to cover 1 edge of your canvas)

Elmer's Glue

Blow Dryer and/or Space Heater

Wax Paper or newspaper

Small jar

1.  Put your canvas in your frame.  Use painter's tape to mark the edges of the frame on your canvas. 

2.  Take the canvas out of the frame & using more painter's tape, meet the edges of Step 1's tape.

3.  Remove the tape from Step 1.  You now know where you can put your crayons.

4.  Pick out your crayons.  We used 21 crayons for ours.  It was the perfect number for my frame, but we probably could have squeezed in a 22nd crayon for the boys.

5. On your work surface, line up your crayons the way you want them on your canvas.  Then, start applying the glue to your canvas, and add your crayons.

6.  Introduce your kids to some of your favorite big band songs, and dance around with them while waiting for the glue to dry.  It doesn't take long, about 10-15 minutes.

7.  Lay down some newspaper (we used a hand towel with some waxed paper on top), and prop the crayon side of your canvas up on your short jar.  With your space heater and/or blow dryer (make sure you have it on your lowest setting so it doesn't splatter the wax), start melting your crayons.

8.  Once the crayons start melting, you'll want to stand the canvas up more.  We did ours on the floor, so we just propped them up against the wall.

From left to right: Mine (when I did mine, I just had my canvas propped up on the jar, which gave me fatter drips), Awesome's (he picked his colors by how he wanted to see them mix, then wanted it hung horizontally to look like a machine gun!), and Bug's.

Now for the Crepe Paper Flowers

What you need:

Crepe Paper/Streamers

Glue

Scissors

 

 

Oops!  No Picture!

Stick your flower onto the glued area, then cut away the excess.

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