Homebody: Trinkets

The first "finished" section of my bedroom redux is the wall you enter through! Through the door that is, I assume people aren't just whisking themselves through my walls. (Sir Nicholas?)

I'm particularly fond of this step, as nearly all of the items are hand-me-downs or neat things I've picked up in the past. I actually didn't buy anything expressly to put on these shelves! There isn't a whole lot of instruction on this, I just moved things around until I liked where they were.

That definitely applies on this first shelf, with a couple of the books on their sides. They were so much larger than the rest that they just looked silly. Solution? Knock 'em down! The armadillo-pig is a piggy bank, and it's next to a bell from Switzerland and my grandmother's baby photo.

This shelf may have a little more on it as I continue to redo my room, but don't you just love that fish? It has a slot in it, so it's anyone's guess as to what it is. I love it. The little pigs are salt and pepper shakers. My grandma loved pigs.

And this top shelf at the moment is rather uninspiring, but I'll be getting something to put in those bud vases eventually. If you like them, they came from Pottery Barn! The sea shells are there from various trips as well.

Bonus shelf! This is the top of my desk, which is still a bit cluttered, but I can't live without that carved wooden colt and the white horse bottle. Great stuff.

So, what do you think of my progress so far? I know, there isn't a photo of the whole wall, which is embarrassing, but hopefully I can put that up after I get something in those bud vases. Give me some comments on progress or ideas!

Halloween 2010: Wrapped Wreath

Back for more? Sick people, you readers. Welcome to the club!

Today I wanted to share with you a cute idea for your front door this spooky season. I've seen hundreds of ideas for wreaths for every season and for no season at all, so unfortunately I can't give credit to any one source. However, I'll link to a few similar ideas at the bottom, just in case you want some other options!

Spooky Ribbon Wreath!

First your materials:

1 straw wreath (mine came from michael's)
20 yards of 1 1/2 inch ribbon (i used satin in two colors!)
+ another 5 yards ribbon (i used sheer black)
glue
patience (you might run out...)

Step 1: Attach your ribbon to the wreath.



Step 2: Wrap the ribbon around your wreath slowly, securing with glue if you think it's necessary. (If you are using two colors, like me, leave a ribbon's width between each wrap, then come back and fill it with your other color.)
I also stapled mine, thinking it would work, but I just used a regular paper stapler and it fell out after a few minutes. A nice thought, though.



Step 3: Tie a sheer ribbon in a long loop around your wreath, and hang it up! Ours will soon be hanging on the front door here, and then traveling home to do the same. :)



Easy, right?

Hopefully that will give you enough information to jump right in. I still haven't hung my on the door. Maybe I'll go do it right now!

Any fun last minute projects for me? We're almost there!

Halloween 2010: Spooky Scenery

Since the date is fast approaching (and my fete will actually take place the day before), I have my nose to the grindstone for the decoration portion of this hoedown. (Did that sentence mix metaphors? I'm not sure.)

After rounding up some ideas for you all, I've narrowed down the things that I would like to put into practice at my party. First, let me share some purchased items:

At my local Savers, I picked up this fun glittery candelabra (and for less than you can get it new on Amazon! Ha!):

And these creepy handprints are up in our dorm until I head home:

These will be accompanied by some glittery spiders, those stretchy faux spider webs and other such things. I will hopefully also get some black crepe paper to use around the house.

But for DIY (which I imagine you love as much as I do) here are a few selections that I can't wait to put into practice.

Martha (are you surprised?) has a bunch of great resources like these rat and mice templates to scatter around your floorboards and cabinets. Easy and very inexpensive, I might whip them up early! One of her other ideas is to transform a wine bottle, or in my case a 2 liter bottle of Dr. Pepper, into a convincing mummy:

Some eerily black poms a la Martha should also make an appearance. But the final touch that I am especially proud of? Let me tell you about it. (Perhaps this excitement stems from studying a chapter called "Uncanny" in my Literary Criticism class...)

On a site that I just recently stumbled upon, called Vintage Printable, you can print any variety of images free of charge and copyright restriction! Conveniently, many of the images are strange hand-drawn botanicals and even portraits. The best way to use these bizarre images? Replace your regular photos with something like the particularly detailed Hawaiian octopus study:

All in all, I expect a frightening but simple set up. I want it to look cool in the background, but you should know I'm not gonna slave over it!

Any ideas you know I would love? See anything that you are gonna try or have already? Fill me in!

Halloween 2010: Haunted House

Hiya friends!

For each of the categories that I'm writing on related to Halloween (food, costumes and decor, approximately) I wanted to start with a post that detailed what I've done in the past. Unfortunately, I have to report that as far as decor is concerned, I haven't done much more than stretch a few dollar store cobwebs! I guess we have some spiderweb outdoor lights, but the inside of the house has been pretty bleak.

So for decor, we're skipping straight to ideas and inspiration. Isn't that the fun part anyway?

For Halloween decorations, there are essentially three options: creepy, cheesy or classy.

I'm leaning towards a mix of creepy and classy. But really, who am I kidding? I'll have all three with a healthy helping of cheese!

Here's what the cat dragged in for each of the three:

Creepy: You get some gross stuff with this option!

A grotesque tablescape, roaches come with no extra charge.

You might want to avoid this if you have squeamish guests! If you like it, see these specimen lanterns or dissection favor bags.

Cheesy: Your traditional decorations;

Cutesy tablecloth and lanterns can surround your candy offerings, too. But spiders, angry black cats, pumpkins and fake cobwebs are ideal here.

Classy: Eerie, but stylish, too.

These sparkly skulls are quite the representatives of that, eh?

This relies on subtle changes to your every day decor (like diy silhouettes), and of course, glitter.

Anyone else notice the excessive alliteration in this post? Weird, and unintentional, believe you me. Are you a fan of decorating the house or would you rather just get yourself all dolled up?

Halloween 2010

Though I love Thankgiving, Christmas and Easter as much as anyone else, I never ever have as much fun on those days as I do on Halloween. Halloween is tied with Thanksgiving for the infamous "Favorite Holiday" spot -- and that's only because no one has served me turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes on Halloween yet!

For the past two years, I've thrown a pretty casual Halloween party at my house, with the only condition to the invitees being that they must wear a costume (and have fun!). My costume is always a secret; the first year I chopped my hair into pixie cut the day of the party and went as Edie Sedgewick, last year I was Amelia Earhart with a (p)leather jacket and penny loafers. This year... well, you'll just have to find out!

In any case, with only 49 days left until the holiday arrives, it's time to kick costuming and party plans into high gear!

While I get to work on brain cupcakes, spooky lanterns and a sweet get-up, I'll also post inspirational costumes from the web, photos of my past costume successes, recipes and DIY ideas for you try. Here's one to whet your appetite:

This, my friends, is a disco ball costume, by user atozfriendly on Instructables (this photo is property of atozfriendly, and it's awesome.)

Excited yet? I am. So fill me in on any cool costumes or H-ween things you've done before, and let me know if there is anything you wanna see!

P.S.: Have you ever thought about the word brainstorm as a noun? Weird, eh?

I DIY: Christmas Cards

This year, I really wanted to make some cool and crafty things to give out to my friends and family. Though most of my gifts were handmade, there were still some people that I wanted to have a card, but didn't have a gift for them.

After perusing all sorts of blogs and crafty websites, I conglomerated what was in my head to make these!

It got a little messy... I broke a NEEDLE!

The initial idea of a card made with fabric came from seeing these valentines, from the Purl Bee. I just warped it and added some of my own touches to make it the perfect christmas card.

To make your own, gather the following:

• your choice of cardstock
• a scrap of festive fabric (my pieces were probably only 3 inches square each)
• thread that coordinates with your fabric
• seed beads of assorted colors
• scissors and good lighting!

First decide how large you want your cards to be. I had cardstock that was meant to be folded into a greeting card size, so I just cut each one in half to make two cards.

Next, cut your fabric into little tree shapes. I decided how big I wanted mine to be and then cut a long strip of fabric and marked little triangles onto it.

Now, here's the only hard part. Before you even think about trying your first card, TEST your sewing machine. I sewed a whole bunch of scraps onto paper until I decided how tight I wanted the stitches, where I would start on the trees and how many times I would stitch them. So make sure you are happy with what you do on those cards before you start the first one!

Sew each tree to a card, and don't worry if you mess up, the fabric can be reused and the paper, well, you can punch it full of holes and use it as anger management.

Once all of your trees are sewn on, you can add the little zig-zag down the side, like I did. Again, test your stitch width and length on a scrap of paper before your cards.

Now you are ready for the seed beads. (It's really difficult not to type seed beeds. Weird.) Easy one here, just thread a needle (with dark colored thread, preferably) and knot the end before putting each bead on with one stitch. Tie on the back and snip off excess thread. Oh, and occasionally I found a bead that wouldn't fit over my needle. No big deal, toss it back and use another!

I will say that the back of these cards are not especially pretty, but I liked the homemade feel that you got from feeling the stitching.

There you have it! I hope this comes in handy for you!

Dorm Decor: Christmas Edition

Ah, dorm life... It has it's ups and downs, it has it's cupboard sized years and it's suite-style eras.

This year we (the roommate, Nicole and I, that is) happen to live in a suite style dorm. It's pretty nice, but those white walls can get old after a while! Most of all, it's just a shame to walk down the hall and see so much of the same boring wooden door. Like a sad little sub-division of houses, all the same.

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So in some cheery Christmas spirit, I got a cheap roll of wrapping paper from the local drugstore and decked the hall! (Haha - ah, terrible pun.)

I also jumped on the bandwagon and threw some paper-cut silhouettes on there to replace the name pieces that our residence assistant usually sticks on. Nice, eh? I'm telling you, once you get a silver pen, you final all kinds of uses for it. I got mine at Michael's, and it's a fine tip.

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But really, it's pretty simple. Cut the paper to size (I needed Nicole's help for that) and then stick it up with tape. The cutout for the peephole was a a little ragged. Exacto knives are nice, but if you are just cutting with a hope that it's accurate, that's less helpful!

I'm back at home now, and helping my mom decorate around our house. The inside is mostly finished, but the outside still needs some light.

Do you have any favorite semi-crafty decorating ideas?