A Dicken's Christmas Lamp Post

"'Tis the Season" as they say this time of year! Around here though, 'tis the season of crafting & craziness! I barely have the first decoration up yet in the house ... thank goodness we have a wee bit of a dusting of snow outside to give you a little bit of that Christmas feeling at MY house. 

I finally finished my last craft show of the year and it has been a whirlwind year for me. I was up until 1:00 a.m. the night before trying to finish some last minute projects & still didn't get a few others done that was on the list, but only because I couldn't find some of the materials needed to complete them. They've gotten "misplaced" in all the madness. I'm trying to locate them & clean up now, so I'm hoping they appear so I can finish them up & save them to have a head start for next year's holiday craft show madness. Sometimes it's all about shortcuts, even if I have to store them for 11 months. It will be a nice surprise when I discover them next year!

I already shared with you the pretty Christmas suitcase I made, which there were 3 made & sold. 

Then there was the little bitty Elf Christmas tree in a wooden boot. If you missed it, you need to check it out.

Today, I'm showing off my Dicken's style Christmas Lamp Post.

It sort of reminded me of a lamp post you might see in a Dicken's Christmas Carol. It was originally a honey brown wood tone when I got it, but I thought it would be more striking in black. I think it really makes the red & white candy stripes really pop!

 

I made the little sign myself & I am so happy that I was able to make that candy stripe bow...I'm not good at making bows to begin with, but this ribbon was super stiff. I had a hard time twisting it so that the white backside wouldn't show, yet not look like a wadded up mess, but I got it & I actually like it! Even my 21 year old son was impressed & he could care less about how my crafts look. 

I just added some home grown grapevines, some skimpy tufts of wired greenery & the ever popular pip berries in red & white, which completes the final touches to the post portion.

I hope some of you are able to create some holiday crafts either to sell or just to add your own personal charm to your own home. Which ever it is, just enjoy the creative process.

  
I'm linking to these parties:

Remodelaholic

My Simple Fall Blocks

I found this idea on someone's Facebook page that I had come across. I wished I would have saved their page, because if I remember correctly, they had some pretty cute things. But once I saw these, I forgot about everything else ... I was on a mission. I had to go outside & dig out the pieces of scrap wood my husband cut from odd sized trusses he couldn't use & threw out in our burn hole the night before. He always seems to shake his head when I start pulling things out of the burn hole. LOL

I painted the blocks orange first & then lightly sanded the edges & rough spots til they were sort of smooth with my cheap hand sander, but you could do this step by hand if you don't have a little hand sander. 

Then I had a big bagful of small wooden spools I picked up at a flea market a few years ago. I almost put them in our garage sale a couple of different times, but talked myself out of it. Good thing!

I painted the spools brown & kind of sanded the edges of those too, but sanding probably isn't necessary. You could paint them green if that suits you more. I tied a few strands of rafia around the spools. Nothing fancy, but it does add a little something extra to the look. The other lady used dark green rafia on hers. I screwed the spools onto my blocks with drywall screws, but the original ones had just hot glued the spools on, so you don't really need anything out of the ordinary to make these. 

I used a different font than she did too, but it isn't really that much different. The letters are stenciled on in the same color of brown as the spools.

You can use what ever font you like to make it yours.

Here they are, along with a sign I also made using the same colors, & some fake pumpkins. Truly nothing fancy here!

So if you're wanting to make a simple, yet cute fall craft - this just might be what you're looking for.

  
I'm linking to these parties:

Funky Junk

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:

Fall Decor & More

I'm slowly but surely trying to get back into the blogging swing of things. It's an easy habit to let slide when you haven't done it months, but I'm working on it.

It's been in the high 90's for temperatures around here lately, but with it being mid-September and all, we have to start thinking about Fall. My yard is trying to prepare me by already requiring a raking of the leaves. Since we live in a clearing in the middle of the woods, this is an all season endeavor until the yard is then covered in a blanket of white (if we're lucky).

Since I have started selling my re-designed items out of my home now, I have to try to be prepared for all the seasons & more holidays than before when all I did was just 3 Christmas time craft shows. 

This isn't my first fall project this year. I've started quite a few, and moving along at what feels like a snails pace, I'm getting them done, one by one.

If you want to see what is listed so far, you can click on my Rustique & Chic Facebook link located in my sidebar at the right. Once there, everything is sorted into Albums. If you like what you see & want to be kept updated on any new listings, be sure to click the "Like" button. 95% of my items are one of a kind and don't have multiples of.

If you look at the upper left-hand corner of the photo at the beginning of this post, you'll see a hint of a wreath I made that's listed on my selling page.

Sorry about the shameless plug for my "shop", now to get back to the subject.

Sorry about the poor photo quality...

I found the nice foam pumpkin at a sale & it already had a small bouquet of yellow carnation-like flowers in it. I added the sunflowers, cat tails, spikes, orange pip sprays, leaves & some different little pom-pom looking things to make it look fuller & more proportional.

It still looked kind of plain & uninteresting to me, so I added the quote on the front with a matte finish brown vinyl. The grooves in the pumpkin made applying the vinyl a bit, shall we say....interesting?

The font I used was Exmouth, except for the "B", which is Edwardian Script. I wanted something that was more elegant looking, since I had Thanksgiving in mind when I started this project.

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If you're lucky, more posts with Fall & Halloween themed projects will be following soon!  Want to see these, and many more wonderful ideas for making your home Fall cozy and inviting? Then you need to head on over to Reveal: Fantastic Fall Decorating DIY Ideas for inspiration overload!




Linking up to the following parties:

 

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

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