Pretty Pumpkins

I really wanted to call this "Glamorous Gourds" but when I googled "Are pumpkins gourds?" the answer was no....they are a "gourd-like squash."  So then I considered "Sparkly Squash" but there's something about the word "squash" that wasn't quite doing it for me.  So.... Pretty Pumpkins it is!!  It's the best I could do.  Sorry.

Anyway, as I began changing the color scheme of my living room last year from the reds, golds, and greens to the aquas, yellows and leaf greens I realized I was going to have a problem when it came to my fall decor.  It was no longer sympatico, if you knowwhati'msayin.    So I got some white and neutral pumpkins and that was fine.... for last year.

This year I wanted to punch things up a little.  I wanted to add some color in with my neutral pumpkins.  And maybe a little glitz while I was at it.  Why not?  Here's what I decided to do...

I got a $5 pumpkin from WalCrap.

I saw this stuff.  Wha?  I'd never seen it before.  I love the glitter look but glitter and I don't get along well.  It gets in.... places.  But Extreme Glitter paint sounds like just what the doctor ordered!

I removed the ugly-ish stem:

And soon realized that the glitter paint was probably not for "full coverage" type of painting:

So I painted my pumpkin with some blue craft paint I had

and then painted OVER that with the glitter paint.

Oooooh... pretty!  Pretty Pumpkin even. :)

Then I took some of these decorative "holiday picks" that I had used last year and cut them apart.

I then stuck them down in the hole where I had ripped out the stem.  So much better.

I did the same thing to another pumpkin painting it green first and using a different holiday pick.

I gave a quick coat of just the glitter over some white pumpkins and my coffee table was all set!

I gotta say, I'm a fan of that glitter paint (as if you couldn't tell).  The perfect amount of glitz for my little pumpkins!

PS If you live in Utah and are interested in coming to a fun craft night, go HERE for all the details!!

 Link parties I participate in: Tip Junkie, Sugar Bee, Not Just a Housewife, Someday Crafts, Tatertots & Jello, I Heart Naptime, Lolly Jane, Be Different Act Normal, Craftomaniac, Today's Creative Blog, Somewhat Simple, Flamingo Toes, Skip To My Lou, Thrifty Decor Chick

I've Been Writing Tutorials For A Long Time

For whatever reason, today I've decided to share a post I wrote on my family blog in September of 2008.  It made me laugh when I wrote it but I really laugh now thinking about me writing this as a real tutorial on how to hide dirty dishes here on LS, LD.  I'm not saying this is a fake tip though.  I use it.  A lot.  

Please note how blah the kitchen as before I put up the quatrefoil!  Wow.  Also, we were reading The Host in my book club.  And no, I don't recommend it.  Unless, of course, you like long, boring descriptions of desert and what it feels like to be crammed into a hole for long periods of time.


September 24, 2008  


Title: Bubbles= Clean!  Always.

This next method of shortcut "cleaning" could be used in various situations.

• People are coming over in five minutes and you have a pile of dirty dishes on the counter.
• Your dishwasher is full of dirty dishes & you don't feel like washing the rest by hand/don't believe in hand-washing (like me).
• Your dishwasher is full of clean dishes & you don't feel like emptying it to put in the new dirty ones.
• Your dishwasher is completely empty & you don't feel like loading it.
• You're a fan of "soaking stuff" (that is Gty's fave way to do dishes...soaking).
• You're trying to get away with doing as little as possible in the dishes department.

So, here's the technique.

1) Fill one side of your sink with hot soapy water like this:



2) Proceed to fill it with dirty dishes (due to any of the situations listed above). Do you see how "clean" it looks there? One would never suspect that beneath the clean looking bubbles is a couple meals worth of plates & bowls & sippy cups. If you fill it just right, the bubbles almost look like an extension of the counter top, creating a nice flat surface.

3) When you muster the strength, go ahead and load the dishes into the dishwasher. Bonus: No rinsing required now.

Question: But what if I wake up in the morning and STILL don't feel like doing the dishes? (see dramatic recreation below)

Answer: I'm so glad you asked! As you can see, by morning, all the bubbles are gone revealing the atrocity lurking below the surface. All you need to do is simply run the water again to create more bubbles!! (note: depending on how many times you do this, you may need to add more soap). When it comes to dishes, out of sight, out of mind is what I always say.

This will then free up many, many hours to do what you really SHOULD be doing anyway....

A Halloween-ish Wreath

Quick announcement before I get started here... The Utah Craft Night date has been set!!  It will be Thursday, October 13th.  Place TBD but it will be in the Bountiful, UT area.  I'm so excited!  I also think we will be doing one in Logan, UT on the 15th.  So mark your calendars all you good people of Utah!  We will be doing almost the exact same projects we did HERE.  I do think we will switch out a Thanksgiving board for a Halloween one and add some Christmas fabric to the styroballs but otherwise, it will be the same (I'll post the final projects next week)!  Have a look HERE and see what you'd like to come and make.  I'd love to meet you!

K, moving on.... Halloween decor.  ::big ginorm sigh::  I have a love/hate relationship with it.  I love it because you can get as cheesy and over-the-top as you want but I hate it because the color scheme doesn't always gel with what I've got going on.  Case-in-point is my entry way.  I really wanted to add some Halloween decor there but I painted it all a fun turquoise/robin's egg blue a while ago and now the orange and black just aren't working.  Not to mention that the whole "feel" of the place doesn't exactly scream spider webs and witches.

Regardless of all that, I did want to do SOMETHING in this space to celebrate the upcoming season.  So I decided to make a wreath.  I had pinned this fabulous wreath from Desiree at The 36th Ave. and was beyond excited to find the same fabric she had used at JoAnn's!

I'm calling this "The Halloween Version" because this is the same straw wreath I have used for my spring mantel and for the 4th of July.  I love a good recycle project.

I enlisted some help unpinning and unwrapping the patriotic ribbons:

This is an especially fun project when one uses pliers to remove the pins, by the way.

Then I cut my fabric into strips and started wrapping and pinning!

For the "leaves" I took two strips of the contrasting fabric, cut the ends into leaf shapes, twisted and pinned.  The twisting gives the leaves a little 3-dimensionality (is that how you write that word?  You know what I mean).

Then I did the same with a couple pieces of the orange fabric:

I then took a few of these "holiday picks" I found at JoAnn's and spray painted them to give them a more Halloween-y feel.  (I said weenie...::snicker::)  I just stuck them in behind the fabric leaves and they stayed right where I wanted them to stay.

Lastly, I clipped on a pre-made black satin rosette and I was done!

I don't think it SCREAMS Halloween, but it definitely whispers it. I may need to make it scream as October 31st approaches but for now this is perfect.

Side note:  Here is what Brynn (the 5 yo cutie who lives here) made out of a smaller straw wreath and the scraps left over from my craft night.  I helped her tie the bow but otherwise she was a wrappin' and pinnin' fool!  It's now on her bedroom door and she is beyond proud of it.

Link parties I participate in: Tip Junkie, Sugar Bee, Not Just a Housewife, Someday Crafts, Tatertots & Jello, I Heart Naptime, Lolly Jane, Be Different Act Normal, Craftomaniac, Today's Creative Blog, Somewhat Simple, Flamingo Toes, Skip To My Lou, Thrifty Decor Chick

Halloween Moulding Bunting

First of all, I just wanted to say thank you to all you fabulous ladies who come over to my house on Friday for some fun crafting!!!   I met some of my readers and it was so much fun!  I also loved hanging out with some of my long-time friends too (love you guys!).   We painted, we sanded, we sang songs, we ate...and ate... and ate... yes, people brought some YUMMY stuff for us all to eat.    Thanks again to everyone who came by.  Maybe we'll do it again in the spring?  :)

Today's post was my contributor post at I Heart Naptime last week.  It might be my favorite project I've done in a while. Easy, fun, inexpensive and high-impact!

The ol' faithful Wikipedia defines bunting as this:  "Bunting" is a term for any festive decorations made of fabric, or of plastic, paper or even cardboard in imitation of fabric. Typical forms of bunting are strings of colorful triangular flags and lengths of fabric in the colors of national flags gathered and draped into swags or pleated into fan shapes.

Fabric, plastic, paper, cardboard... well, today we add wood moulding! 

Someone notify the Wiki people, ok?

After completing a large framing project, I was left with a goodly amount of these.  They were so cute I couldn't bear to throw them away... and yet, I had no immediate plans for them.  It pays to hang on to things sometimes (insert theme song from Hoarders here).  

These adorable little triangles now have new life this Halloween season.  

Here is how it went down:

1. I decided on my color scheme and then spray painted them in cream & black.

2.  I then drilled holes in the upper corners of each.

3.  Using various orange & black ribbons, I tied them together and hung it all on my mantel!

(find out how to make those decorative fabric balls there in my lantern here, in case you were wondering)

Here is what my completed mantel looks like!

(if you're wanting to know where to get that awesome subway art, you can purchase it HERE!)

I absolutely love how much my wood bunting adds!  And it was so easy, it's almost embarrassing.   I decided to do these for Halloween but using different colors would create an entirely new look.   These very pieces of moulding might get a few more coats of spray paint on them as the seasons change.  My mantel will look so bare without them now!  Thank goodness I didn't throw those little pieces away.

In other news, I'm now a hoarder. You just never know when you might need something.  :)

Link parties I participate in: Tip Junkie, Sugar Bee, Not Just a Housewife, Someday Crafts, Tatertots & Jello, I Heart Naptime, Lolly Jane, Be Different Act Normal, Craftomaniac, Today's Creative Blog, Somewhat Simple, Flamingo Toes, Skip To My Lou, Thrifty Decor Chick

Decorative Door Stop

This post was originally published over at I Heart Naptime about a month ago.  I'll be back there on Wednesday with a fun Halloween project!


Also,  if you're interested in attending or ordering something from my upcoming Craft Night, today is the deadline to get your orders in!  Hope to see you there!

**********************************************************************************************************

Today I'd like to talk about some ugly things.  They are things we all have in our homes and we allow them to reside there, no questions asked.    And we don't have just one... we have them everywhere we look!   Around every corner!


These hideous beasts are these "boing boing" doorstops (official name from here on out).

Ug.  They do have one redeeming quality though.  Once discovered, they have the ability to keep a scooting/crawling baby entertained for a good 10 minutes (which is 2 hours in adult time).   But, other than that, these brassy coiled atrocities are nothing but eyesores.


Today, we shall fix that.


I admit I do have an ulterior motive behind this project.  I've been needing to replace or move my "boing boing" in my entry way since the genius who installed it had some miscalculations.

See how the front door easily glides right past it?


I didn't discover this, however, until I hung a mirror behind the door a couple of years ago.

Someone is lucky that I want to refinish that mirror anyway.


Anyway, so I've been needing to do something about this situation for quite some time.  And what I came up with was easy as pie and took mere minutes!

I went to Lowe's and got a package of 2 "large craft finials" (found back by the lumber near the mouldings, etc.) for $2.93.

These were perfect because they already had the screw in the bottom.  

I dug out our trim work paint from the basement, painted the finial the same color and allowed it to dry.

Next I stuck one of these bumpers onto the end where the door would be hitting (package of 12 for $2.58, also found at Lowe's).

Then I removed the "boing boing" and used the existing hole to install the new finial!

Due to the difference in length, it lines up perfectly now and the mirror is safe!

Not to mention no more eye sore in the front entry.  :)

A little side note: I probably wouldn't install one of these in a narrow, high traffic area such as a hallway.  I can imagine they would not be great to stub your toe on!  But it's perfect for an out-of-the-way-behind-a-door area of a contained room or entry way.

 Link parties I participate in: Tip Junkie, Sugar Bee, Not Just a Housewife, Someday Crafts, Tatertots & Jello, I Heart Naptime, Lolly Jane, Be Different Act Normal, Craftomaniac, Today's Creative Blog, Somewhat Simple, Flamingo Toes, Skip To My Lou, Thrifty Decor Chick

Vinyl Label Intervention Needed

I think it's time for you all to bring in the folding chairs and Jeff Vanvandervanson* from Intervention and start writing your letters on how our relationship is going to change if I don't stop this behavior.  

Hi.  I'm Landee.  And I'm addicted to vinyl labels.

But how can you blame me when my boys' closet looked like THIS??

Heck, even I didn't know where anything was supposed to go.

Thank goodness for Ikea.  One recently opened just a few miles from my house here in Denver and it was absolutely in the Top 10 Best Days of My Life.  No, I didn't GO opening day (are you crazy?), but I could just sense something good was in the air that day. 

I have since gone and perused the merchandise and partaken of the meatballs in their cafeteria.  I will never be the same.

Ok, enough.  Let's get back to the issue at hand which is my addiction to vinyl labels (see here and here for my recent past offenses).

I went ahead and got four sets of Ikea's TROFAST storage unit thingys (only $39 each!).  

I then proceeded to spend an entire afternoon putting them together.  

I then spent an evening cutting many, many labels with my Silhouette.  

I then spent a morning applying the labels to the bins of the TROFAST system.   

I've since spent a week unable to walk into my children's rooms without smiling.

You saw the before up there?  Here's the after:

Yes, there is an entire bin dedicated to Nintendo DS stuff.  And one for the Gamecube. And one for the Wii.  This has been a looooong time comin'.

I mean, right?  Even Zeus the Guinea Pig now has his own bin where all his supplies can go!  

And, I didn't snap a picture of my daughter's little kitchen area in her room before I got started, but imagine more of those cheap plastic drawers jam packed with crap and with more crap on top of them.

And now...

I'm feeling like I've now set my kids up to succeed.  They can keep themselves organized so much easier now.  And these TROFAST bins are awesome because they come all the way out and can be carried around to clean up/play.

So yes, I'm addicted to vinyl labels.  You can send me off to rehab if you want but I guarantee I will relapse.   As for now, I feel like as long as I don't have labels on the microwave saying "microwave" or on a lamp that says "lamp" I'm probably ok.  

Probably.

*That's not Jeff's real last name but I can never remember what it is and that is dang close.  There are a lot of Vs, that's all I know.
**If you're interested in purchasing some of these labels from me they are $1.50 each (8 for $10).  Totally customizable.  Just drop me an email!
*** Ikea did not sponsor this post but I reeeeally wish they would have.
**** Live in the Denver area too?  Come to a fun craft night!
***** Hi.


Link parties I participate in: Tip Junkie, Sugar Bee, Not Just a Housewife, Someday Crafts, Tatertots & Jello, I Heart Naptime, Lolly Jane, Be Different Act Normal, Craftomaniac, Today's Creative Blog, Somewhat Simple, Flamingo Toes, Skip To My Lou, Thrifty Decor Chick