Decorating with crushed tulle

After spending a week getting my house perfectly decorated for Halloween, and feeling completely confident in the whole setup of accessories and decor projects that I had completed, it still felt like the "spooky" factor was still missing...


During my weekly trip to Jo-Ann's this weekend, I came across a bolt of this crushed tulle. I wasn't sure what I could do with it just yet, but it looked very "halloween-y" so I snatched it up and decided on what I would do with it later.


After I got home, I just started cutting up the tulle into smaller (not so perfect) pieces and draped it over practically everything!







There is still time left & this weekend is the perfect time to finish up your last minute Halloween projects! Happy Haunting!

Favorite Finds Friday


This week has been a busy one...
most of it has been spent filling orders and working on furniture pieces 
so sadly, I only have one find to share this Friday...

This adorable country kitchen table that I picked up for only $50 bucks! Yes, all of it!

(don't mind the horrible picture... I havn't had time to take one myself so this is from the seller)

My plans are to: 
paint the chairs 
with Annie Sloane - Duck Egg Blue & add in Annie Sloane - Old White
to create this beautiful color


The table (which also comes with a leaf extension) will be re-painted in Old White

This will be my first time using Annie Sloane Chalk Paint, so wish me luck!
Keep checking back for pictures of the project in progress...
After this piece is finished it will be for sale (locally) through my Facebook page


Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!


DIY Mason Jar Crate


With a baby at home crawling and getting into everything, I like to keep my DIY projects as simple and fast as possible. Being that I am OBSESSED with mason jars, a project that I have been wanting to attempt for quite some time is doing a mason jar crate. When searching for tutorials all I came across were crates that you had to build yourself & with a 9 month old on the hunt for mischief, time isn't something I have to spare! So, instead of spending probably what would be an hour or even more measuring, cutting & nailing, I decided to go with another option...
I bought the crate pre-done at Jo Ann's!


Originally they are $7.99 ea. but I used a 50% off coupon. 
This not only saved me the extra time, but money too!

I started out with the plain wood crate & gave it a light sanding

Next, I painted the edges with Martha Stewart - brown - craft paint
& left to dry for 40 min or so


Then, I added on a base coat of Martha Stewart - beige - craft paint


After leaving to dry I added a 2nd coat


Once everything was dry, I started sanding and distressing in the areas that I desired.


The final step was adding a thin top coat of extremely watered down 
Martha Stewart - gray - craft paint


After the last coat was dry, I then went back and sanded down a few more areas that I missed


Lastly, I wanted to give the piece a wax coating. Since I didn't have anything at home on hand & it was about 8 pm when I started working on this project, I searched around my home for something that I could use. I came across some dryer sheets and gave it a try & surprisingly enough, it worked!
You may not notice a huge difference just by looking at the piece, but it seals the paint and you can feel the difference to the touch. Another way to wax seal wood is with plain soap!

After the piece looked how I wanted it to, I added on two handles to each side & then it was finished!




Confession: 
When starting out with this project, I originally thought it would be used to hold (4) mason jars - which it will... but for now, since my daughter pulls EVERYTHING off of the shelves, it houses her book collection in our living room :)


Decorate Your Home For Halloween For Less Than $50

Happy Monday! 

Hope y'all enjoyed your weekend
We have been busy around here getting everything decorated for the season and have finally finished...


Being that this is only our 2nd Halloween since getting Married and having a home together, we honestly had no Halloween decor to start with... just a few plastic pumpkins from last year & cheap ugly garland from Michaels. I am the kind of person who loves decorating my home each and every season and changing things up. But being a Military family, our paychecks don't leave much extra room to go out and spontaniously spend on seasonal decor. My goal this year was to decorate our whole home (well.. the rooms that are actually lived in) for under $50. Since I found many of the items that you see in the pictures, around my home, it made it much easier to stay within budget. Although, even if you had to go out and buy supplies you would still be able to stay under $75 (at the very most)



Welcome to our front door!
come in & feel at "home"



One of the easiest ways to change your decor is with pillows, but at $9-$25+ each that can get costly!
Here are two of my tutorials on how to make your own pillow covers using minimal fabric & only requires 3 straight lines of sewing!
POCKET PILLOW COVER: [HERE]
EASY-SEW PILLOW COVER: [HERE]


I found this vintage window for FREE off of Craigslist a few months ago & recently just got around to hanging it. For Halloween, I decided to line the back of the window with leftover burlap from my burlap chair makeover. (HINT: Burlap is on sale 50% off all month of October at JoAnns)


But the window with burlap alone was still pretty plain, so I decided to look around my house for something to use to spruce it up a bit. I came across and old book, which I used to make the wreath & banners, plus some leafy book page garland (below)



I am absolutely in LOVE with how my chair turned out!



For the leafy book page garland, I originally got the inspiration from Nesting Place - The Blog, and wanted to make my own version. I started by folding book pages in half, then cutting random leaf shapes out of them. I used a hole punch, then strung them using twine (tying a knot after each leaf)



The mercury glass pumpkin was from TJMaxx - $12.99



Since the book was FREE, I decided to use it for banners as well.


& then decorated using some handmade bows out of ribbon


For the book pages, I just drew on the letters & strung them on twine.


It didn't feel finished, so I sprinkled the pages with the spray on glitter that I found at Paper-Source


These adorable little tin containers I found at the dollar store & painted on numbers using craft paint to make it more decorative. 


After looking at my bookshelves, I knew I needed something more to fill them up with, but the books that I had didn't match my decor, so I covered them using brown craft paper & lace ribbon.




& being that my daughter is now obsessed with books (and anything else she can get her hands on) I made this crate to hold just a few of her MANY books


These pumpkins were leftover from last year, all I did was give them a coat of spray paint & they were good as new! Krylon - Metallic Silver & Satin White)



Here is another plastic pumpkin leftover from last year. I used some chalkboard spray paint & now we have a Halloween countdown!


For the wall in our entryway, we recently gave it a coat of paint! I figured that painting a small wall wouldn't hurt, since we have now lived in base housing for almost 2 years and have no signs of moving anytime soon. Plus our house was in desperate need of come color!

To make it a little more festive, I turned it into a Halloween themed gallery wall


Scrap of burlap + numbers I printed on card stock


For this I used leftover linen & cut the silouette out of gray felt


Framed skeleton key fabric - 1/4 yd = $2.25


Thermostats are always ugly and I have never figured out how to hide ours, so why not frame it?! With this styrofoam wreath and linen fabric make a cute Mummy Wreath



This print has to be one of my favorites! I remember singing it in preschool and actually have a video that my Dad took of me singing it when I was about 4 years old :)
I thought it would be cute to type it out and frame it and sing it to my own daughter


Remember these that I showed you on Friday from my Favorite Finds Friday post??!



To learn how to make this vintage book page wreath, click [HERE]



To add a unique & spooky touch to the decor, I used our old family dugeriotypes and old paper clippings + medical perscriptions. 


& our kitchen decor...


For more pictures of our kitchen decor & a tutorial on how to make these banners, click [HERE]


So what do you all think??? 
TOTAL everything came out to be $46.57! Can you believe it?!


All in all this weekend was pretty busy getting everything done around the house & finishing up projects, but after everything was done...
 we took a little trip to the pumpkin patch!


Do you and your family have any seasonal traditions?
For us, this year started a new family tradition
we took Madisyn Grace to
The Pumpkin Patch
to pick out her very 1st pumpkin


In years past, I always thought about the future & what life would be like with a family of my own. As a child, my Mother always knew how to make each season extra special. I knew that someday, I wanted to honor those traditions that she set in place and carry them onto my own children. I have always looked forward to the Holidays, but this year is so much different. Now that my Mother is gone, I feel it is more important than ever to hand down those family traditions & enjoy every single memory that comes with them


Happy Halloween!

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