My Own Fall Wreath

I have to say that I don't really decorate for holidays, except for Christmas, but I do put out a few things that relate to whatever season we're in ... & I don't go for cutesy so much.

I'm also not one to go around saying that I can do flower arranging or wreath making either. I know where my weaknesses are and these are just a couple of my many crafting deficits.

But I tackled a fairly simple Fall Flower arrangement in my "Fall Decor & More" post, which didn't really have much decor or any "more" in it. I guess writing blog posts is another one of my deficits. However, I was pleased with the end result of how that flower arrangement turned out.

My next little project was adding some fall decor to a twig wreath I had. I have to say that I like the way it looks, except for the burlap bow. I may try to change that... oh, did I mention I can't make bows either? yeah, add that to the list.

It doesn't show up well against my stone wall. The twigs are too much like the color of the stones. I guess you'll have that. It's not for my home anyway, it's for sale in my Facebook shop, which you can find the link to at the top of the sidebar on the right. ya know, just in case you're interested in this beauty.




This project was a chosen one at these blogs:

  
Parties I'm linking to:

A Pretty Garden Chair

I kind of want to call this post my "Un-Craigslist" chair find. I choose to give it that name based on a recent encounter with a Craigslist seller that pretty much left a bad taste in my mouth (& he wasn't the first either). If you want to read an entire post about it, you'll want to go back to my March 27th post. Since I tend to go on & on about things enough as it is, I won't bore you with repeating that story here.

But, I do have some good news! I did manage to have a BEFORE picture of this chair. If you read my blog enough, you know I'm really bad about getting, or finding Before shots of the things I refinish.

There is actually 2 chairs that I found at the curb of the before mentioned Craigslist deal gone wrong, along with some other things you see here.


I just want you to know that I braved the mosquito infestation this morning to take these pictures. I think it was the quickest photo shoot I've ever done.

The one I worked on first is one that had a broken leg brace. So I fixed the break & decided to make it a garden chair. The chair is still pretty sturdy, but I don't want to take that chance with anyone's safety, but it will hold a heavy planter of pretty flowers just fine.

I wanted to make it bright enough that you could see it out in someone's garden or a shady porch (like mine-not shown). 

Using my Silhouette Cameo cutter, I made this design. I've always loved the quote "Time Began In A Garden", because my husband always thought that me having flower gardens was kind of senseless & a waste of time. I felt it was necessary to remind him of where time began. He doesn't say that anymore.

I think this scroll bracket was a freebie from the Silhouette store a little earlier this year. Did you know that they offer one free design each week? They choose the design, but they do pretty good about selecting decent ones. Anyway, I felt this one was perfect for the front of the seat. It fit the curve nicely without getting blocked by having a potted plant or vingette sitting on the seat. 

The blue is more of a teal blue color and I just used a Glidden sample bottle that I got at Walmart. The color is WGB09 Deepest Aqua. The green is an Apple Barrel brand acrylic paint in Pale Green, also from Walmart.

I love those set-back spindles and I wanted to accentuate those by painting them in the green accent color.

If you look closely, really closely, you can see the break in the "cr" letters of the word Scrap in my watermark.

I traced the Petunia/Morning Glory image from clipart I found online, as well as the butterfly, in the Designer software add-on for my Silhouette.

The font is Guttenberg MF and can be downloaded for FREE at Dafont.com.

This is just a close up of the white accent painting I did in the grooves at the back of the chair.

I sprayed the entire chair with Krylon Clear matte spray sealer and called her good and took a day of rest (actually I didn't rest, I have more projects to finish).


This project has been featured at these blogs:

PJH Designs

 Parties I'm linking to:

Alice In Wonderland Tea Party -long post.

Alice In Wonderland

I know when I Google that title or enter it in the Pinterest search engine, I get ALL KINDS of amazing ideas for just about anything you can imagine, or even not imagine.

In all honesty, I've never been a fan of Alice In Wonderland. I think she's a darling girl and how CUTE are most of the characters?? I just can't seem to follow the story and keep my patience. LOL!  That's not really saying much about me though, it can be a challenge for me to follow a typical conversation too.

I do love the artwork aside from the story. I even love some of the more modern takes. Graphics 45 has a stunning scrapbook line that doesn't look anything like the traditional Disney design. It's stunning.

So why am I carrying on so much about Alice In Wonderland then?

Let me back up the story just a bit here. 

I have a friend who belongs to a sorority type club and they have a yearly fund raiser called Ladies Night Out. I went to it last year for the first time and had a blast. I wanted to donate something this year for their raffles. My friend said they'd love any donations. The next day she made an unusual request. Could I maybe make something with this year's theme of Alice In Wonderland? Sure! (did I really just agree to that?)

Hmmm...I could try. Don't ask me why, but I'm up for a challenge - sometimes. I just happen to have a Cricut cartridge with the Disney Classics characters on it & Alice was one of them. Now to think of what to do. I could do plastic drink tumblers. That would be cute. No. It wasn't my cup of tea. ;)  I guess I was trying to think of something out of the box. Maybe something no one had seen before, at least not in this fashion.

I definitely needed my hubby's help on this one but I was sure we could do it. I worked on this right up to the last minute. I do that with just about any event that I've making something for. It's a given. If you keep following along with me on my blog, you'll begin to see that.

Are you tired of waiting for the reveal?

I know the teapot lamp isn't original for any Alice in Wonderland theme. After I finished mine, I found a ton of them on Pinterest. BUT,  I didn't see a one with a Mad Hatter's Hat as the lamp shade. Not even when I googled it. Can you tell in this shot that's what it looks like? I didn't realize that I was dead on with the camera when I took the picture. It's kind of hard to see the brim.

Want to know a secret?

When you turn the light on, there is a secret message that can be seen. And would you believe that this lamp shade did not come in this shade of green? I bought an ivory colored one at a thrift store and spray painted it. Then I made the brim by hand and spray painted it too.

I couldn't find any ribbon in the color or width I wanted so I resorted to using tulle. I actually love the look it gives it. 

I made the tag that sticks out of hat band with the 10/6. Do you know what that stands for? Some of you may, but many of us Americans, we do not. I had to look it up. LOL! It stands for the price of 10 Shillings and 6 Pence in Great Britian money before the days of the Euro. gosh, I hope I got that right. Hopefully I won't get slammed for not having my facts right about that if they're wrong.

Since I don't know the story that well, this probably isn't depicted properly, but I thought the flowers were awesome for the look I was going for when I spotted this flowered tea pot in a church thrift store that I sometimes check out on their Half-Price Tuesdays. I picked it up for $2.50!

How cute is little Alice with the big flowers having a tea party? I know I should have done some placement of the characters differently, but it wasn't until after I had them stuck on there that I realized it, and there was no way in Wonderland that I was going to try to take the vinyl characters off to move them or cut new ones. It took me the entire day to make all of them & moving them would have messed them up. Some of those pieces in the layers are super duper tiny. Yep, they're good right where they are.

I handed it over today & my friend acted genuinely tickled over how it turned out, or else she's just a superb actress. I admit that it didn't turn out exactly like I had hoped, but I didn't think it was that bad. I think my favorite part is the hat/shade.

Linking to these parties:

Creative Crafts Thursday