Winner of Thursday's Give-Away!!

Congratulations to Danielle, winner of the Martha Stewart Glitter Kit! And thanks to Poppies at Play for the fun week!

Give-Away at Poppies at Play!

Andy is celebrating her 1000th Follow, can you imagine? Whoo Hoo! Pop on over and wish her congratulations and enter daily to win prizes! Vinyl, a blog make-over, and a hand-made baby onesie are a few of her prizes. She is also giving a special 10% off code for any purchases at Overstock.com.

On THURSDAY, I am participating with a Martha Stewart Glitter Kit! Look around at Poppies at Play and stay awhile! Andy has so many great posts to choose from. Her Before & Afters are fabulous inspiration.

Halloween Decor, DIY Vinyl and Cbsession with Crows~

I've been really thinking about stenciling, lately -checking out my blank wall space, wondering... Then I began thinking about vinyl, maybe some branches, and birds -crows in particular. Then I wandered over to Kimberly's interesting post using contact paper, and the rest is history!

I found an inspirational picture from the newspaper, of all places. (I have some ideas for a moon, but haven't gotten to that yet.)



You will need some standard black contact paper, pencil, permanent marker, repositional glue (I used Scotch 3M repositional glue stick), tape, scissors and any desired silhouette shape. I Googled "crow silhouette" to find the shape I used.

Print out your shape on standard printer paper, and glue it to the colored/non-sticky side and cut around it. Of course for the image to face the opposite way, just place on the backing side. :) If you are going to use your silhouette a lot, maybe use cardstock instead.

Since I wasn't sure how close I could come drawing out the tree I had in mind, I started off with pencil and traced over that with the marker.


I taped the tree to the wall and kept moving the branches around until it was "just right" then peeled the backing off a bit at a time. Because the color is solid black, I had no problems adding to the length of some of the branches and the too narrow parts of the trunk. I even made the trunk longer -sorry not pics of these developmental fixes!

A few leaves for the finishing touches, and that's it. My tree is so inviting, but I guess not tall enough to entice my crow over to it!


I let the light fade too much and had to lighten the first photo a bit, then added leaves to the tree and tried the flash.
And here he is around the corner, sitting on another picture.


Have you tried this before? Let me know what you come up with! I'm off to write to Magic Cover (contact paper company) and ask them to make more solid colors to choose from...

UPDATE:
I couldn't leave well-enough alone, and had to try some more silhouettes! All of the shapes or patterns I found were via Google. If you have any problems, I would be happy to help you out. I added a Skull, a pair of Witch's Boots (stockings included), and a Witch Flying Past the Moon. ~




For the Witch, I drew a circle on clear contact paper and colored it with a sponge and alcohol inks. I cut it out at set it aside. I added the Witch directly onto the moon. If you look closely, you can see that I added the broom handle separately. I should have just extended it from her body instead of setting her over it -she has a line-bump! Oh well.





I am linking to:
The Thrifty Home
Someday Crafts
Frou Frou Decor

Halloween Pumpkins, Stairs and Mice

Our stairs are all dressed up and ready for October!

After~

Here is my stand-in "Before" -sort of! These are actually our steps to the downstairs -same number of stairs, same style. Sorry! (I really do not know what happened to my before picture!)



I picked up some orange craft pumpkins from Michaels, and gave them about 2 or 3 coats of Creamy Ivory, and painted the stems black. I used pencil to draw the letters on and "painted" them with a standard "fine" point permanent black Sharpie marker. Holding the marker on it's side allowed for the best flow of ink. The pencil was so forgiving -any mistakes, and they erased right off of the paint! Lucky me, I think it took me about 5 trys before I got my "O's" how I wanted them. Because I was marking over paint, I did manage to wear out my older marker. I found that the new marker seemed to be going that way too, so I just gave it a few good swipes over a paper towel, and it came back.






Since our risers are also wood, I starched some muslin fabric on to create more of a contrast. After the Fall, I will be starching on a new fabric! (Sorry, no pictures of this step, "somehow" I missed it. ) You can just peel the fabric right off and throw it in the wash when you need a change! I discovered this idea at Sew Can Do.

The mice silhouettes are a Martha Stewart product that I found at Toys-R-Us. Each package includes 12 pieces. The mice are made from a thick cardstock and are adheared with double sided sticky dots, which came in the package. I am sure you can easily make your own too. Aren't they cute?


If I were more ambitious, I could also paint the back of my pumpkins to spell out "E-e-k-!" Then we could change them around depending on our mood! And just where did this great idea come from? Kellie, at This Blessed Nest. She has a more detailed tutorial, and a lovely loooooooong staircase where she spells out H-a-l-l-o-w-e-e-n, alternately with T-h-a-n-k-s-g-i-v-i-n-g -so creative! Thanks, Kellie!

And of course my trustee supervisor, Staxie, was helping me all the way~


Check out these links, there is so much to discover~

I am linking to:
Between Naps on the Porch_Metamorphosis Monday
Cottage Instincts-Make It 4 Monday
C.R.A.F.T-Making Monday Marvelous
Sew Can Do
All Thingz Related
Thrifty Decor Chick


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This post has been tagged! Thanks All Things!

Bringing Nature Indoors

We have a flowering cherry tree growing through our deck in the back yard and each year it sends up new branches. And, if you do not get around to trimming them, they get a little bigger! We had a few of those, and I managed to find enough beauties to make this bunch for our master bedroom. I could definitely use a larger bucket, but haven't run across one yet.


My favorite price for this decor item? Free! We have quite a few small pine cones too, just haven't done anything with them lately. (I remember painting some gold, but am not sure what I did after that....) Jess, at Frugal with a Flourish, has posted some inspirational pics for Decorating with Leaves and Branches. Makes me want to go shopping out in the yard again! :)