creative little daisy

I found my ring

I didn't tell you it was lost, did I? Well, it was. And now it's found, and I have my friend Kelli to thank... in a round-about way.  A couple of months ago I was fidgeting with my wedding rings, I'm a fidgeter, and something didn't feel right. Only one of the two rings was on my finger and  I had no idea when or where I lost the other one. It was a simple band with stones, like this one.  I searched in pockets, in the bed, under the bed. Mitch checked the sink drains. No ring. I had given up on ever finding it and today it fell right at my feet.

I was getting some burlap out of my fabric closet and something fell from between the stacks of fabric onto the floor. It was my ring. I guess when I was stacking the fabric on the shelf my ring slid off my hand with out me realizing it.

What does Kelli have to do with this?  I was getting out the burlap because she had seen this pretty  wreath and thought I should make her one.  I had to make myself one first. You know, for practice, to be sure I know what I'm doing when I make hers. 

I'm not loving the brown bow, but it was the best I could do with what I had on hand. It'll be simple to change out if I find something I like better. This was easy to make -messy, burlap fibers everywhere, but easy. If you make one, don't wear black pants. 

Kelli, I think I have it now, yours is next, and thanks for helping find my ring.

**On a completely unrelated note, I have a question about comments. When I receive a comment on a post, I get an email to my gmail account. It used to be I could hit reply and it would reply to the email address of the person commenting. Then typepad made some changes and now when I reply that way the response is published in the comments of the post. In order to reply directly to the commenter you click on their email address in the body of the email sent by typeapd. Am I totally confusing you? I'm getting to the question, I promise. When I hit reply and it becomes part of the comment, does the commenter also get the reply sent to their email? I don't mind the reply being posted in the comments, I kind of like that in most situations, but I personally don't go back and read comments on other blogs after I've commented. So, if the response to a comment or a question is only posted there, I will never see it.  Although, it is helpful if a question gets answered in the comment section for others who may have had the same question. Am I making sense? I just want to be sure if I reply to a comment, the person actually gets the response, and doesn't have to come back to my comments to check to see if I've responded.  

Just a few creepy touches

I'm not one to go all out with Halloween decor, but a spider web here and a scull there adds a nice spooky vibe to the place, don't ya  think? 

 

~ $1store skulls in an apothecary jar

~dollar-general pumpkin in a thrift store sugar dish

 

~vinyl  {glittery} letters to spell boo on plain dollar store white plates on easels anything looks more important on an easel
I'm hoping I can find some Christmas tree or snowman vinyl stickers to use on the same plates for Christmas. 

 

~dollar store crows, spider web, and white pumpkins

I printed the the letters B O O each in a different font and framed them in little black and silver frames.  (inspired by this boo-tiful hutch)

Are you excited about Autumn?

Not me Autum, the season autumn? I am. I love the cool crisp air, and the lower humidity. Ahhh the air just feels wonderful in the fall, doesn't it? The latest Pottery Barn catalog had some great fall decor in the back. Out of my budget, but great. I already have some pumpkin topiarries I made at least five years ago,  I'll drag them out of the garage, but I wanted something else to spice things up, add some fall fun to the place. I found a couple of white plastic urns at Roses for $2.50 each.

I got two grapevine pumpkins at Hobby Lobby (40% off 14.99) and a string of 35 Christmas lights.  I had some fake fall leaves in the craft room and spray paint in the garage. Now I have a Pottery Barn inspired decor not only for myself, but for less than the cost of PB's version, I was able to make one for my sister as well. If I remember correctly, PB's price is for the pumpkin only, urn not included.

Faux Coffee Sacks

The buffet I bought from Walmart has been a great place to keep the pet food, but I don't really like seeing those plastic containers. I searched for some baskets to camo the containers, but had no luck finding anything affordable that were the right dimensions. I considered frosting the glass, and mentioned it in an earlier post. Someone, I'm sorry I don't remember who suggested putting burlap behind the glass. That got my wheels turning. Then I got this little glimpse of how Layla of The Lettered Cottage was lining her china hutch with vintage coffee sacks. Brilliant! I did a google search for images of coffee sacks to get some ideas and made my own version with burlap and stencils.

 

 

 

The camera doesn't pick up the weave of the burlap behind the glass, I think they look more authentic in person. I'm just happy to have the ugly plastic bins hidden.

Rope covered lampshade.

I love these lamps from Ballard Designs. I'm cheap and not about to pay $79 (plus shipping) for a lamp.  So I spray painted a lamp I had in the closet and glued some sisal rope to a plain white shade. It's not hand braided natural sea grass like the Ballard lamp, just a $1.50 roll of sisal twine, but I'm happy none the less. And it didn't cost me $79 dollars, plus shipping to be happy. 

 

Seasonal nesting

Some people make redecorating a big event. An event that is planned months, sometimes years in advance. Carefully thought out, budgeted...  Those are usually the same people who live with that redecoration for 10 years. I'm not one of those people. A typical room around this house stays the same for about 10 minutes. OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but seriously, I'm constantly changing things up. I don't usually plan it out more than the length of time it takes me to hop in the car and drive to Lowes or Goodwill. That's how the recent living room mini makeover came to fruition. I was in there with Bayleigh trying out a DVD with not much luck. Bayleigh has no interest whatsoever in TV. Not that I want her glued to the set for hours at a time, but I wouldn't mind 15 minutes of distraction so I can load the dishwasher now and then. 

This was a photo of the living room before we put in the hardwood floors, taken in July of '07 and I'm shocked to say, besides the change in flooring, and moving that chair, everything else stayed pretty much the same till recently. I'm really, really surprised by this. Maybe it's because decorating that mantel is not easy and once I came up with something I could live with I was just tired of trying?? Anyway back to Bayleigh and the TV. I noticed the only time she would even pay one second of attention to the sweet little children singing to her was if she stood on the hearth and looked right at it. Hmm...  I thought to myself. I wonder if she would enjoy it more if it were more at eye level for her. Right then I had to stop everything and go in search of a lower tv table. I wanted something with a shelf on the bottom to hold tapes (we still have a VCR) and DVDs. A couple hours later I had just what I wanted. Almost. I was stained a dark cherry color and had nail polish around the edges. I'm guessing the previous owner used the coffee table to prop her feet on to paint her toenails. Just a guess.  For $24 and the cost of some paint, you know I already had that on hand, I have a new lower TV table. Bayleigh still isn't interested in the sweet little children singing to her, but you can't have everything.

 

Of course with the new black tv table the white bookshelf seemed out of place, so I replaced it with my granny's old sewing machine cabinet that had been in the hall. Then as things go in my decorating method of madness, the items on the bookcase would need a new home, and the domino effect continues with a  mantle makeover.

The old shutters and window came from the Habitat for Humanity re-store (7 for the shutters 2 for the window) The tall dark candle holder was less than a dollar from Hope Harbor the hydrangeas where a from a sweet blogging friend Kate. The photos were taken by my mom, years ago. Bayleigh's little red rocker was originally three dollars at thrift store, but I bought a few other things and talked him in to throwing in the chair for free. I planned to paint it, but have since added a few pops of red to the room, so it's staying as-is. The table the tv was previously perched upon was actually the lower portion of a hutch, the white "bookshelf" was the upper portion, turned upside down. Confusing? Now the pieces have been reunited on the other side of the room as a hutch.

 

The wall behind the couch is naked. I moved the three bird prints from that wall to the wall adjoining this hutch wall.   I've commissioned Alyssa to make me a sign to go there. One of those hand painted antique looking signs that says something inspirational. She's crafty and artistic, so I'm sure she'll come up with something wonderful.

 

See that pop of red I was talking about? In that pillow up there? Pottery Barn has some really cool pillows made of linen and hemp, but 45 dollars is out of my pillow price range. Since I know how easy it is to sew a pillow cover, my pillow purchasing budget is really low. I had some natural linen and some red fabric paint, so I went to work and made my own. I really want to put a rug in here, maybe something sisal, but with  dogs who refuse to be completely housebroken, rugs just don't mix.  Have you seen the commercial for the potty-patch? Any rug I put down is automatically a potty-patch to those little @$#@# sweeties.  I'm home all day and take them out 75 times a day and still, they think all rugs deserve a good christening. I wish I could get the dog whisperer to pay me a visit. Anywho, that's a little TMI and has nothing to do with decorating. Nothing good anyway. 

Did you notice the little rusty wire basket on the hutch? It isn't really a rusty basket. I just painted it to look that way. I found it in the dollar bin at Target and sprayed it with three different colors of spray paint till I thought it looked old and rusty. 

 

I just grabbed what I had, I used the chalkboard paint because I wanted something flat not shiny. The rust is colored one is actually red oxide primer.

 

I just kept spraying and layering till it looked old to me, no real method.

 

That's what it looked like before. Older is better, don't you think?

Tomorrow I'll share how I covered the glass doors in my Walmart buffet with faux coffee sack to hide the plastic dog and cat food bins.