The Checkered Pump

Ok, here's the tutorial on the checkered pumpkin. They are cell phone pics and not great cause its hard to take an action shot of your own hands. But you get the idea.

Conveniently, I had a roll of one inch blue painters tape. So to start I folded a post it not to approximately one inch wide to use as my guide and marked off one inch squares all the way around the roll of tape. I know that doesn't make perfect sense yet, just hang in there...

Once I had marked all the way around the outside once, I unrolled the tape and cut at the last mark. I stuck it to the tv tray that acts as my crafting space when I am doing something and want to be in the den with the ummm TV. I got about 12 1 inch squares each time I marked around the tape. This part is kind of tedious, but I was totally done in less than 1/2 hour.

Then I just cut one square off at a time to stick on the pumpkin...

Now this part wont be perfect. Its a pumpkin people... its round-ish, and wobbly and particularly as you get to the top its diameter starts to change and complicate things... just eye ball it. I had to adjust a few squares as I went, but it generally turned out fine.

As I got to the top it was getting more complicated so I decided to just tape off the whole top to preserve more orange color.

Then I just took it outside and did one heavy coat of gold spray paint. I actually didn't checker down to the bottom either. I just went to where I could kind of see. So ultimately the bottom of this guy ended up gold.

I left it outside for a good hour to dry then peeled all the tape off, added a ribbon and voila! Fancy Checkered Pumpkin!!

Gorgeous Gourds

I really LOVE fall. I love that we can finally open the house back up and let fresh air in (and the stinky 3 dog, summer air out)! I don't however really love halloween. I have no moral objections to halloween and like that people really enjoy it, but I am NOT a fan of creepy, gory, gross and frightening. I ALSO don't really love the country kitschy look of a lot of the mass produced fall decor. (Man, I am difficult!). So I've been looking for fun fall/halloween (I totally dig cute/whimsical halloween) decorations.

 I found my inspiration (via pinterest and Southern Living). FANCY PUMPKINS!

This weekend I made a trip to Lowes, and then ultimately Michaels in search of pumpkins to make fancy... I've been eyeing the craft pumpkins at Michaels for a few years now but they are EXPENSIVE. Well this weekend they were half off and the SAME PRICE as fresh pumpkins from lowes. So I umm bought a lot. And some stickers and rhinestones from the 2 for $3 bins at Michaels. My goal all along was to spray paint some of my pumpkins gold... to make them fancy you know. Then I just went to town putting dot stickers and swirly stickers and using blue painters tape to tape off some stripes. Easy peasy.

See this one got swirly stickers... they didn't all stick perfectly and I was worried I would need to touch them up but really they are cute and imperfect. I also might have an obsession with fall ribbon. Almost all the pumpkins got a little bit of ribbon too :)

 Now they are all over my house.. some inside... some out.

This one got all rhinestones. (FANCY)

I even spread my ribbon obsession to this little crate I got at Michaels to stack them on. It was $9.99 not sure if it was on sale or not, but it was a lot cheaper than a bale of straw and a lot more versatile. 

Did you spy that checkered pumpkin on the front porch?  He might be my favorite and I took pictures of all the steps... It was easier and faster than I expected.

Linking up to Saved by Suzy. 

Quick and Easy Picture refurb

I got this "Cooking With Jazz" print several years ago when I moved into one of my first real apartments. Its not something I looked long and hard to pick out... it was a leftover piece at hobby lobby that someone had custom framed and matted and never picked up. My mom and I thought it was cute enough and picked it up... When we bought it it had a bright teal mat but somewhere along the way I had it re-matted to fit the scheme of whatever kitchen it was in. When we moved here I just hung it up, but it never really fit in.

Sorry about the glare... annoying. 

And its really "bugged" me because it looked really washed out AND there was a gross little dead bug stuck in between the glass and the print.

I'd seen here that you can actually just spray paint mats to update a picture... brilliant. Well I didn't have any spray paint in the right color but I did have more of the bright green latex I'd used on the inside of my kitchen cabinets and I figured it was worth a shot. Worst case scenario I'd just have to have the thing professionally re-matted.

I actually added a tiny bit of brown/sienna acrylic paint to tone down the green (did you know you can tint latex with basic acrylic paint?... AWESOME) and TRIED to tape off the second matt to retain the white edge and some definition in color. Well the taping DID NOT WORK so I just used a foam roller to paint over the whole thing. Then I left the house and ran some errands. When I got home I was pleasantly surprised. Not only did the green dry to 2 completely different yet complimentary shades on the 2 different mats, but the suede look of the larger matt seemed to re-appear as well.

I also spray painted the silver frame black. 

Check out the 2 colors!

So for about 30 mins of effort and ZERO dollars, I totally perked up the look of my bargain print and made it match THIS kitchen.

I'm linking up here today (where the inspiration came from!)