A Good Use For Last Year's Christmas Cards

Are you like me and hate to throw out those Christmas cards after Christmas? Some of them are just so pretty!!

Last year, I think it was in March or April actually, I decided to toss the Christmas cards. But then, they were so pretty, and there just had to be a good use for perfectly good Christmas cards. So I cut off the front part and kept them.

While browsing online today I came across this. Perfect!!

I didn't have the foam ball on hand, so I used a spool of thread. And I couldn't find my red ribbon, so I used tinsel instead.

I think theirs look a little better than mine, but you get the idea.

So go ahead and save those Christmas cards for next year!!

My Favorite Time of the Year!

I don't do a lot of seasonal decorating, but I did pick these cute little pumpkins up on clearance at Hobby Lobby after Thanksgiving a couple years back. So I set them around every year and the grand kids think they're fun! There are four different sizes and I think I paid 10 cents each for the small ones and 30 and 40 cents each for the two larger sizes.

Oh, I always buy the candy corn too, but it doesn't last long as a decoration!!

I picked up this cute "Give Thanks" cup and plate at Cracker Barrel last weekend. Love it!! And a friend gave me this cute tiered server for letting her family stay at my home for a couple of nights last week while they were in the area. Wasn't that sweet?

This little girl hangs on my door most years during the fall. I picked her up several years back at Big Lots thinking my grand daughters would like her. When my next to oldest grand daughter (who is six now) was younger, she didn't like me to use it. She said it hurt the little girls arms to hang like that for so long!!

And fall wouldn't be complete without a good Pumpkin Spice candle making the house smell wonderful!!

I hope you're having a wonderful fall!!

Lady Bug Nursery

I've linked this post with these parties!



When my daughter, Naomi, had their fourth girl, they had to start stacking up the kids!! The baby, Sydney, had to go in with her almost three year old sister, Sylvie. Naomi bought this lady bug crib set for the baby.






So we needed to make Sylvie's side of the room coordinate with Sydney's side of the room. Here's what we've come up with so far.

I made this blanket, the bed skirts and pillow case for Sylvie's toddler bed. I found the lady bug fabric at Hobby Lobby.




Sylvie loves her small size pillow!




This bag was given to Sydney as a baby shower gift. The colors worked perfectly!!




I picked up this cute flower hanger for a couple dollars on the clearance aisle at Hobbly Lobby.




There are two windows in the nursery, so I made a valance for each.




I tried to use fabrics and colors that worked with the crib set. You can hardly see it, but here is black baby rick rack on the dotted bed skirt. So I used that and red baby rick rack, as well as the black checked fabric to tie it all together. I found the cute lady bugs at Michael's and hot glued them to the valances.




I found this Rare Editions lady bug dress at our local DAV store and couldn't pass it up! The lady bugs are made of Styrofoam balls cut in half and covered with felt. I used pipe cleaners for the antennae.




I glued on the eyes and spots with Elmer's glue. Pardon the weird looking antennae! I think Sylvie got hold of them! The lady bugs hang above the crib and fascinate Sydney!!




The lamp was one that was already in the nursery. My daughter was going to get rid of it since is was lavender, pink, yellow and green, but I decided a little craft paint would make it work just fine.




I picked up a half dozen of the little lamp shades at a clearance sale at Lowe's a couple years back. They are a sage green, which wouldn't work, so I spray painted it white! I then hot glued on the pink and red hearts and added baby rick rack.




We still have a few things more to do to finish the nursery, so I'll wait until then to show the complete room. But for now, we're loving how it's coming together.

Book Case Dressup

I bought this book case a few months back and put it in the guest bedroom, which has a green, pink and white color scheme. (I built the color scheme around a quilt top that my husband's grandmother put together years ago.)
But the bookcase was just so stark white. I thought about painting it, then discarded that idea. Then I got the idea to cover it with different patterns of scrapbook paper in keeping with the "patchwork quilt" theme.

So I bought a book of scrapbook paper at Hobby Lobby that I thought went best with my colors. (And there's that door again! I really am going to do something with it soon.) I blued the paper to the sides of the shelf using Mod Podge. Here's a picture showing my progress.

After I covered both sides with the paper, I used pink & green rick-rack to cover the frame and front edges of the shelves. The bedskirt is green with a pink rick-rack type trim, so this kind of tied it all together. I just hot glued it on.

This was before I covered the shelf edges.

Had to take a break to feed a hungry toddler a snack. She really enjoyed her chocolate pudding!

Here are several pictures of the finished project.

This closeup of my rick-rack ends doesn't look that great. But they're not that noticeable unless you're about 6 inches away!

I love the way it turned out! I only had about $15 in the project, most of which was the cost of the book of scrapbook paper (half off at HL). And I didn't use near all of it, so I will have it on hand for future use.

I'm hoping to finish this room soon. I'll post pictures when I do.

Mirror Redo

Years ago, in another life, I was a Home Interiors demonstrator. Over the years I've got rid of most of the items I had, except for this mirror (shown here without the mirror!). For some reason, I just liked it. But I had no where to hang it so it was just taking up closet space.

So last week when my grand kids were here and I was needing to do something crafty or decorative or adult, I decided to give it a quick coat of spray paint and hang it in my guest room that I am very slowly putting together. The spray painting was quite interesting since I had a three year old and an almost two year old "helping" me!

The quilt reflected in the mirror was given to me by my mother-in-law. Her mother made the quilt top years ago and my mother-in-law had it quilted recently and now it graces our guest bed.

And the door that is also reflected? I still haven't decided exactly what I'm going to do with it. I want to use it in this room since it just "goes" with it. So I'm mulling over several ideas such as a headboard, a bookcase or just hanging it on the wall as it is.

I also have an old dresser with a round mirror that's been a part of our family for the past twenty years that I'm going to refinish this summer and put in the room. And I recently re-found some little plaques from my husband's childhood that I'm going to put on one of the walls.

This is turning into my nostalgia room! It must have something to do with my looming empty nest.

Maybe after my son's wedding in August will be the perfect time to put it all together!

Fancy Light Swith Plates

Recently, I was browsing through blogs, checking out all the neat ideas, and I came across this DIY Coasters blog on The How-To Gal’s site. She makes a neat coaster by attaching a napkin to a ceramic tile using Mod Podge, then coating it with polyurethane.

What a neat idea!!

I didn't have any tile or old coasters to work with, so I got to thinking, "Why not do this on my light switch plates???"

So I tried it. It was simple and they look fabulous!!

Livingroom light swith before:

Livingroom light swith after:

I used a red napkin since I have a lot of red accents in the room.

A close-up of the finished product:

This is just after I attached the napkin to the plate. I brushed on the Mod Podge, then carefully pressed the napkin on. It crinkled up a bit - but it just added some texture.

Kitchen light switch before:

Kitchen light swith after:

On this one, I applied another layer of Mod Podge instead of the polyurethane. I can't tell much difference, but we'll see if it holds up as well.

Now I can't wait to make some coasters!!

Just Paint It and Use It Again!

I love decorating with old things - things that have character and history. I like the distressed, weathered and worn look. (I also decorate with a lot of photographs of family members, which is easy to do with a photographer in the family - but that's another blog!) I also love to give things new life with spray paint. So I hardly ever get rid of anything. And if one of my kids or grandkids gave it to me, it will be with me forever. Like I said, I like to decorate with things that have a history.

I bought this candelabra at Hobby Lobby (on clearance, of course) three years ago for my daughters wedding. It was dark brown. Her wedding was light blue and silver. So . . . . I pulled out the spray paint, and it became silver.



After the wedding, I stuck it in the attic. I really didn't have a place to use it, but since it now had sentimental meaning, it was part of the family. After we moved, I had a lot more room and could do a lot more decorating.

But the silver didn't work, so I once again pulled out the spray paint. So the once brown, then silver candelabra is now black. You can't really tell from the picture, but I kind of wiped the paint so that a little of the silver would peak through.

The frames behind the candelabra were also bought at Hobby Lobby on the clearance aisle for 90% off the original price. They are beautiful wood frames. Someday I'll do something special with them. For now, they make a nice backdrop!

The scarf covering the chest top is from Vanuatu. The natives actually wear these beautiful pieces of fabric as skirts. I think they call them sarongs.

Anyway, my son is planning to live in Vanuatu after he gets married - he's going to be a school teacher in a small villiage on one of the islands. On his most recent trip there, he picked up the scarf as a gift for me and since it has sentimental value for me, I wanted to use it somewhere in my house. So here it is!

My Kind of Deal!

I picked up these neat metal wall hangings at Hobby Lobby a few months back for $4.00 each. They were clearanced because they were missing the diamond shaped tiles that were supposed to be in the diamon-shaped openings.




For that price I couldn't pass them up! I knew I could come up with something.




I was going to have amber colored glass cut into the shape and size I needed, but I happened to be at Lowe's one day and found the little rectangle pieces on clearance. They're mirror add-ons. They were kind of a putty color. I got them for something like .42 cents each, brought them home and they were a perfect fit!




So I painted them with black craft paint, then aged them with terra cotta and bronze craft paint. I then used a little of the bronze and terra cotta on the whole wall hanging to pull it all together.




Here's the finished result! I absolute love them. And no one who has looked closely at them knew they were refurbished. (The only thing I didn't do was take pictures before I started! Gotta work on that!)


Definitely my kind of deal!

It Doesn't Work!!

Here's a picture of a cute sign I found at Hobby Lobby last week. It's not working though!!

What Should I Do With It?

I rescued this old door from a really old abandoned house. It was calling my name. Practically jumped out and grabbed me.

My husband grudgingly loaded it in the truck - but only because my eldest daughter (who is so much like me it's scary) had picked out two doors for herself! So since he was doing it for her, he could hardly tell me no!

So now I need to figure out what I'm going to do with it. I want to use it in my guest bedroom somehow, as a decoration.

Any ideas?