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Fringed Streamers
We are planning a little birthday soiree’ for our daughter this coming weekend, so I wanted to stop in quick and share a fun party decorating idea. As you probably already know, streamers are super inexpensive, so this project totally helped the birthday party budget. All you need is crepe paper streamers, scissors and a little bit of time. I whipped about 40 of these out in an hour while watching the series finale of Gossip Girl on Netflix with a tear in my eye. Don’t worry. None of them got wet.
First, start out by figuring out how long you want your streamers to be. I wanted mine to hang from the ceiling and pool on the floor, just a bit, so they ended up being a little longer than 8 ft. each.
If you are lucky, you will have a helper to keep you
offon task and make you a spot of tea while measuring.
Next, fold the streamer in half a bunch of times until it is a manageable length to work with.
Then, working along one edge, make cuts almost half way into the middle, about every 1/4 inch.
After that, turn it around and fringe the other edge, lining up your cuts with the middles of the fringed pieces on the opposite side, but still not quite snipping to the middle.
Lastly, unfold the streamers and admire your new party embellishments.
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Halloween Mantel and Decor
Halloween is always a fun holiday to decorate for. Spooky skeletons, creepy spiders and black roses. What’s not to love?
For my mantel, I put down a layer of Spanish moss that I has snagged at the dollar store. I love the eerie look it gives the entire mantel. The skull, roses, spiders and ravens are also dollar store purchases.
I recently became the proud new owner of a mountain of yarn. Amongst the pile, was this black yarn that reminded me of spiders and I thought it would be perfect for Halloween decorating. Wrapping it around a white vase gave a look that resembles a parade of marching spiders.
My “Happy Halloween” sign was so easy to make. If you would like to duplicate my sign, here are the supplies you’ll need.
Burlap
Scissors
Twine
Stencils
Paint brush
Black acrylic paint
Pencil
Sewing machine/ Hot glue gun
First, cut 14 burlap rectangles 6″ wide x 12″ high.
Next, fold over the top 1″ and sew. Leave a pocket big enough to thread the twine through.
Then, paint one letter on each rectangle and let dry.
Jetspencil, thread the twine through each piece.
Now you have a cute greeting!
Holiday decor would be nothing without a little kitchen decorating. I found these fun little owls at the dollar store. Not sure if you can tell, but I love, love, love the dollar store! Awesome finds for a buck!
The bats were printed out, traced onto black card stock and cut out. You can find Erin’s bat design here, in this post. They are a great way to embellish a blank wall, a mirror or kitchen cabinets.
Well, there you have it. Simple, spooky, budget friendly decor. How do you decorate your home for Halloween?
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Things Have Changed
Yup, that’s right. This past weekend we updated our blog and added some new features, although, hopefully things still look fairly similar to how they did before. What exactly did we do, you ask? Well, let me tell you…
1. After installing a new theme, we tested things out on multiple browsers (Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Internet Explorer, etc.) and on a handful of devices (laptop, iPad, Nook, iPhone, old school Blackberry.) Luckily, so far we have only found a few issues with Internet Explorer not showing our header, but other than that everything seems to be looking OK from our end.
2. We have had several requests for posts by email, so now, in addition to our rss feed, you can now get our posts delivered directly to your inbox, if you so desire. You can sign up over there on the bottom of the sidebar.
3. On the social network front, we’ve finally joined the Twitter bandwagon, although we are still trying to get a grasp on how the whole thing works. You can follow us here.
4. We’ve also now made it easier than ever for you to pin our projects on Pinterest. Just hover over the photo you want to pin and click on the icon. Super easy!
So, that is it. It was a lot of work on this end, with our minimal coding knowledge and all, but hopefully everything still looks good on your end. Please, if you see any glitches, don’t hesitate to let us know!
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Lazy Upholstering
A few years ago, I inherited this small bench from my parents and had big plans to make it over.
However, having a baby, making a cross country move and project procrastination led me to cram this little guy into storage
and it was never seen again. A few weeks ago, while trying to come up with some seating options for my daughter’s upcoming birthday party, I resurrected him and decided it was finally his time to get a transformation.After a little searching online, I found {this bench from West Elm} which was inspiration for the leg color and fabric. Since I already had some gray and white chevron fabric, I just needed some paint. My husband was sent out to buy some black semi-gloss paint and this is what he returned with.
Yup, that is black satin paint. But I decided to roll with it and got to work.
First, I removed the 4 screws that attached the seat cushion to the base.
Next, the entire base got a few coats of the black satin paint. (I sanded everything in between each coat to give it a super smooth finish and help the paint adhere.)
While the paint was drying, I started working on the “upholstery.” I just used quotes there because I didn’t really do anything special, besides cover the current seat cushion, tan pleather-y fabric and all, with my chevron stuff. Is that technically upholstering it? Or just covering up something ugly? I don’t know and I was just too lazy to do anything more complex, hence the title of this post.
Using a manual staple gun, I secured the fabric to the underside of the bench seat. ({This tutorial on upholstering benches} was what I followed to figure out how to attach my fabric and attempt to make the corners look presentable.)
Then I placed the seat cushion back on top of the base and screwed it all together. Done and done. Not too shabby, right?
My favorite part of this project was that it was so easy to work on and finish. Plus, besides just being a bench, it is also a great place for unicorns and whale sharks to frolic. Or so I hear. Oh yeah, pants are optional too.
(Did you see the chevron and unicorn sneak peek photo we posted on Instagram and Facebook earlier today? If not, you can follow on Instagram {erinejd} or {click here} to find us on Facebook.)