Hand painted horse accent pillow

My thing right now is accent pillows. I wanted to make some durable pillows for my son's room that would show his interests, so I purchased some canvas/duck material and have some design ideas, but first I wanted to do a test pillow...I went with a horse design because I love horses and horse art and statues are throughout my home.

I made an envelope style pillow cover, hand drew my horse and then turned it into a stencil that I can use over and over, traced the stencil onto my pillow cover and then painted it in black with gold accent. I think it came out nice for my first attempt. Now I have to make my son's pillows.

Gingerbread House

Years ago I would watch the, Omni Grove Park Inn National Gingerbread House Competition Display in Asheville,North Carolina, on HGTV.  I was always in awe of all the gingerbread pieces the contestants would come up with, and I  thought that one day I would try one of my own.

Every year, my family and I like to visit, Peddler's Village in New Hope, PA,  for their annual Christmas Festival, and that is when I realized, they host a Gingerbread competition of their own!  I knew one year I would enter....and finally, this was the year!!

My son and I spent two months creating our very first gingerbread house. We had so much fun, and even though we didn't win, it was a wonderful experience and I'm glad to say that I finally did it!! :)

Have you ever entered a Gingerbread Competition?

Our masterpiece...

 Trees from ice cream cones and icing

 Sugar glass windows and pond

 Jelly beans as rocks for our chimney

 Fondant Santa and snowman

 Mini-wheats roof

Mini Home Project: Built-in Bench Cushions

I've been wanting to dress up this built-in that is in our media/theater room, for awhile now.

I had purchased this really cool, Timeless Treasures Movie Popcorn fabric on Amazon, awhile back and finally found the time to do this project. I used an old flat sheet that we never use, to make the bottom of the bench cover, and also create a pillow case for the accent pillow. I had an old cushion from a couch that we got rid of, and that cushion was a perfect fit for the space.

For the accent pillow, I used felt to create my popcorn bucket.

I'm pretty happy with the way this project turned out. Down the road, I will probably add some sconces and some type of movie poster on the back wall.

Some of the sconces I'm considering. I love that they are wireless, so set up should be a breeze.

Mini Home Project: Sconce Makeover

When we first purchased our home in 2004, I was not a fan of all the polished brass fixtures through-out the home. So over the past few years, I have been slowly changing my door knobs and other fixtures over to oil rubbed bronze, which I just adore.

In our bedroom on either side of our bed are these, not so cute, sconces. I have always wanted to change them, but it has never been on my list of high priority. What has been on my list of high priority, is my master bath update, which includes getting rid of my polished brass shower door frames. Well, one day I came across, Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch Premium Metallic Paint, in oil rubbed bronze, and thought this would be a great option to replacing the whole shower door frame. I eagerly ordered a quart to try out.

 Hesitant to start such a big project, not knowing what the results would be, I decided that I wanted to try this paint on something smaller. That is when I got the idea to make-over my sconces. I figured if it didn't go well I wouldn't be too upset.

Well, let me just say, I love this stuff! As promised the product goes on brush stroke free with a nice smooth finish. Now, I can't wait to tackle my shower doors!

The other thing I did to make-over my sconces was to add an edge of turquoise blue stained glass paint by, Gallery Glass.

While I will never love these sconces, I think they look so much better, and will satisfy my need to replace them, for awhile.

So just remember, sometimes all you need is a bit of paint and an imagination.

What do you think of my sconce make-over?

 

Elf On the Shelf Ideas

Elf On the Shelf: A Christmas Tradition, started in our house last year. I was able to escape the insanity until my son started school but once kids start talking.....you know how that goes....

So now we are an Elf On the Shelf family, too! JOY!

My son's elf, Mischief, usually makes his way into our home on Thanksgiving night. Mischief is a good elf and likes to do good deeds. So here I am, starting to think of what fun things I can have Mischief do this year. Pinterest here I come!  And, because I know there are other parents out there looking for ideas, I'm going to share some of mine from last year.

Enjoy! :)

Mischief colors a picture for my son

Mischief just hanging around

Mischief helps me work on my puzzle

 Mischief doing some house cleaning....if only we had little elves that would swoop in and clean in the middle of the night....one can dream.

Mischief reads the Rudolph gang a story

  Mischief captures Spiderman's arch enemy, The Lizard

Oh, and did you know there is now a new tradition called, Elf Pets??  Guess who will be jumping on that bandwagon soon? Darn you cute Elf pet reindeer!

Upcycle: Old sweater into cute pet bed

My kitty has been in need of a new good resting place, and when I saw this idea on Facebook, I decided to give it a try.

What you need:

1. old sweater
2. polyfil or cut up rags for stuffing
3. yarn needle
4. yarn

Stuff top body and arms of the sweater with Polyfil. using yarn needle and yarn rough stitch where the poly-fill and at the body of the sweater. Like this…

 

Stuff one end of arm into the other end of the of the other arm, and fold the remaining body of the shirt over the arms. Stitch the folded over part to the body of the pet bed

Next, you will stitch the arms to the body of the pet bed. The finished product will look like this…

You can stitch shut the neck opening, but in this case I left it open, so I have the option to remove the Polyfil and wash the sweater

This project took me a little over an hour and my cat loves his new pet bed

Mint Candy Decorations Made From Recycled Styrofoam

              This year, my Christmas decor is inspired by my sons, Gingerbread Friends, book.

  I have been busy making felt gingerbread men ornaments (like pictured above), and this weekend my son and I made some, mint candy decorations, using some recycled Styrofoam, that had come as packing material in some recent orders.

All you need is a little bit of paint, glitter and imagination!!


I took the Styrofoam insert and used a dessert plate to to trace my candies.

 We used the knife from a pumpkin carving kit to cut out our candy circles. I must warn that cutting Styrofoam, makes quite a mess and took a bit of vacuuming up. LOL!

Next we free-form painted our candy swirls. Using glitter glue, we painted the parts that were meant to stay white, and then added more glitter on top of that.

After the paint dried, I inserted some pop sticks (not shown), so that they will easily stay on my tree.

And here is my Ginger bread themed Christmas Tree