Beyond the Cornucopia

I volunteer at a Thrift Store every Friday. It is such a cool thing to do! First of all, 100% of the proceeds go towards the running of a bereavement center for kids. Kids who have lost a loved one have a safe place to come and talk, get help, and honor and remember the one they've lost. That's huge.

But, on a personal....FUN!....level, it's such a cool thing to do because I get to lay my hands on everything that comes through the donation door that day! And I get to browse the goodies that have come in all week out in the store. I've scored a couple great pairs of jeans and nice clothes for my kids. I look forward to my 4 hours on Friday sifting through bags and bags of goodies!

Here's what I found last week. I keep drooling over everyone's festive fall mantels. As I may have mentioned here, my decor hasn't gone much beyond a cornucopia stuffed with fake gourdes. So, I was on the look out for thrifty additions to my holiday flare.

Here is the nice brown vase I found already adorned with a lovely orange ribbon for a buck! Nice. Autumnal. But, I thought I could jazz it up a bit. So jazz I did....

I simply removed the ribbon and wrapped some raffia around the vase (adhering with a little hot glue every here and there as I wrapped it around) and tied on some decorative berries and a leaf. Much better! I love it!

Can't wait to see what I find next time!

Jack-o-Lantern T-Shirts

This has to be my last post of 2008 Halloween projects. But, I think they're totally worth going back and posting about. Such great projects! These are tie dyed pumpkin t's. I know this idea was from Family Fun Magazine.

We took plain white t-shirts and tie dyed them in orange. We achieved the white rings in the pattern by tying rubber bands randomly around the shirt. Once they were dyed and dry we took black fabric paint and painted jack-o-lantern faces in all of the white circles. Like I said, we did this in 2008 and these shirts are still around and being worn! I'm sorry I didn't get better pictures of the faces all over the front of the shirts, I wasn't in blogging, picture taking mode yet!


Incidentally, it was from this picture above that I created my all-time favorite edit:

"Paigey and the Purple Flower"

Woodland Creatures

Another project from 2008, pre-blogging era!

The girls and I went on a "nature hunt" and collected sticks, twigs, pine cones, pine needles, and acorns. We came home and created these adorable little creatures. Unfortunately, at this point, I only have one left. It's on my "Fall" shelf right now. I guess we should make more.

Spooky Spiders

I made these little spiders back in 2008. Look how little my kids were! It was before I was blogging. Oh, how lonely it must have been to make such an adorable project and not have tons of people to share it with!

I may have gotten the idea from Family Fun Magazine. I simply took a button (and I found big orange and black buttons with 4 holes) and stuck pipe cleaners through the holes as legs. Then I glued on really cool googly eyes and hung them from spider web stuff. So easy and fun for my then 4 year olds (sniff sniff).


Have a great weekend!

My Halloween Decor for this year

Everything I've made this year is a total knock off! Can I get a hip-hip-hooray for blog parties?? Without them, I'd still be sitting around with nary a ghost or a goblin in my house!

I love this acorn frame! I can't link to it because I couldn't find it on line, but I can tell you I saw the idea in Better Homes and Gardens magazine. I just took a thrift store frame and hot glued acorn caps all around. I took a single leaf to frame. Perfect and simple.

This is the dollar store wreath that's been circulating like wildfire from House of Hepworth's.

I just HAD to do the dryer ducting pumpkin, also from HOH. And the paper centerpiece by Lil' Luna.

I am such a late bloomer when it comes to decorating. I spent the first part of my married life not decorating AT ALL. Not for NOTHIN'! I wasn't interested, I wasn't inspired. But, I've added little festive pieces of flare here and there since I had my kids. I add a couple pieces every year. I still only need one big storage container for each holiday, but I'm getting there. I'm not trying to break the bank all at once ;-)

And even though these are all borrowed ideas, I'll link to these parties just to spread the word and inspiration!