Chicken Scratch

Pinspiration Thursdays: Pumpkins

My online friend, Kristina, does Pinspiration Thursdays on her blog and I thought I'd steal the idea. ;) Basically it's just me sharing some awesome inspiration from Pinterest. I love am totally ADDICTED to Pinterest! If you haven't heard of it or checked it out, you should! It's the best site for saving/organizing ideas that you find online. You can learn more about it here on their site.  I can't tell you how many places I've tried saving ideas I find online... in emails, my bookmarks, favorite message boards, etc. and how many times I've gone back to find an idea and can't remember where I saved it. No more! All my favorite images, home decor and craft projects, recipes, scrapbook layouts, etc. in ONE place. LOVE. IT. :)

So on to Pinspiration Thursdays. Today I want to share my love of pumpkins with you. Fall is my FAVORITE time of year and I love ANYTHING pumpkin. :) Here are some of my favorite Pinterest pins about pumpkins. Click on each image and it'll take you to where I pinned it on Pinterest and you can pin it, too. :)

I made the above garland last year. You can see it on my blog here.

Thanks for stopping by!

Old Mattress Springs

I went to one of my favorite thrift shops over the weekend and they had a box of old mattress springs for $1.99/each plus 20% off. I grabbed three not knowing exactly what I'd do with them at first but thought they were too cool to pass up. I left and as I was driving in my car I was brainstorming what to do with them when it hit me... I'd put ornaments or pine cones on top. So earlier this week Kaleigh and I went outside looking for pine cones. We picked out 3 good ones, brought them home, and put them on the springs. I love how they turned out. The wheels are spinning for what to do with them after Christmas. :)

More Fall Decor and a Couple Thrift Shop Finds

I just wanted to share some more fall decor and thrift shop finds.

Just a quick photo of the vignette I made for our entry. I have this old screen door propped up behind this table that belonged to my husband's grandmother. I usually have a red berry wreath hanging on it with a framed embroidery but for fall I hung this cute button wreath I got on clearance at Home Goods a couple years ago. The garland is metal with acorns that say BLESSINGS (I got at a flea market a few years ago). I shared the pumpkin under the glass bell jar in this post. The little frame is one I got at the same flea market a few years ago and altered (you can see a closeup here). I like to replace the photo with one to match the current season/holiday.

I bought this wooden pumpkin at Hobby Lobby last year on clearance at the end of the fall season. It was defective (they spelled friends with an E) so I got it for about $2. I decided to wrap strips of burlap around it to cover the misspellings.

Before

After

I bought this white metal planter at a local thrift shop for $1.99. I loved the chippy white paint and the black paint peeking through. I threw out the ratty flowers and replaced with these fall-colored hydrangeas I got on clearance at Hobby Lobby. I added in a few sprigs from a fall floral pick I got on clearance as well.

Before

After

In addition to the white metal planter, I also found this old rolling pin for $2.49. I have two already and would like to collect a few more. I added it to a vintage enamelware pot with another rolling pin I have.

We're hosting our first Thanksgiving in our home and I have a couple more projects to do for that. I'll share when I'm done. :)

Thanks for looking!

Fall Wreath

So I finally got around to making a fall wreath for my front door. Only a week and half before it comes down and I put up my Christmas decor but oh well. Better late than never, right? At least it'll be ready to go next year. :) I had a hard time finding fabric for it which is what slowed me down. There just aren't that many cute orange fabrics out there. I finally found some at Hobby Lobby that worked. I was inspired by this wreath by Stacey. Hers is adorable. Mine I'm still not sure.

My wreath

I used two different fabrics and two different colors of burlap to make my fabric flowers.

I added in some fall picks from the floral department at Hobby Lobby.
 

I bought this trim at Hobby Lobby but it was plain so I hand-stitched a border along both sides.

Thanks for looking! Now to get started on my Christmas wreath. ;)

*Thankful* Framed Embroidery

I stitched this framed embroidery for my fall/Thanksgiving decor. I found a pumpkin image online that I modified a tad and, using Photoshop, combined it with the *Thankful* word (using the font 2peas Handwritten). I printed it out and traced on muslin fabric with a washable pen. After I stitched, I rinsed out the washable pen and ironed. I don't know how/why but the iron left these (burn???) marks on the fabric. I love how it turned out though because it gives it an aged/stained look. I added the three buttons and matted on a piece of cardboard that I hot-glued into a thrift shop frame (which I painted black and distressed). I love how it turned out. :)

And here is our buffet vignette where I displayed my embroidery along with other fall decor. I do want to swap out the flower art on the wall and the framed button heart on the easel with more fall-ish decor. But this works for now.

I took the three wooden pumpkins from the center of my mantle (which I like my mantel so much more without them - it was looking a tad cluttered) and put them on each end of the shelf. The charger I bought today at Walmart on clearance for $2. I also bought 12 others to use for my tablescape on Thanksgiving. They are so pretty! I'm going to spray them with a matte clear coat to protect them as the paint chipped off the edges of the ones I bought a few years ago for Christmas. :( I layered a tin star in front of the charger and my framed embroidery next to it.

My fall-themed Scentsy warmer and a mini pumpkin under a glass bell jar.

Here's the candle I shared the other day and some floral picks in front of my framed button heart (I have a fall-themed project in mind to replace this with).

So there's some more of my fall/Thanksgiving decor. Thanks for looking!

Fall Decor

Since I didn't blog much in October I didn't get to share any Halloween projects and decorating that I did. :( So I'm going to try and share some of my fall decor.

For Halloween I bought some mini orange pumpkins to decorate with. They were great with their bright orange color for Halloween but for fall they're a bit much. So I toned them down with a faux glaze of watered-down brown acrylic paint. It's really a simple project but for those who are visual and like pics, I made a mini tutorial for you. :)

Supplies:
brown acrylic paint
water
foam paint brush
paper towel

1. Add water to brown acrylic paint in a small dish. I honestly never know the ratio. I just eyeball it, but it's roughly 1:1. Just enough to thin out the paint so it's runny and not thick.

2. Using the foam paint brush, brush on the watery paint on the pumpkin.

3. Take the paper towel and wipe off the paint. I like to leave more paint in the cracks for added dimension. I found I liked the paper towel better when it's more saturated after a few rounds of wiping. When it's dry in the beginning it tends to wipe off too much. And the beauty of this project is if you don't like how the paint turned out, take a tooth brush and scrub the paint off under running water and go again!

All my pumpkins

And to show you the contrast of the faux glazed pumpkin vs. the regular one

I put one of the pumpkins on a plate with moss under a glass bell jar.

I put three more on my mantle with other fall decor. I should've taken a photo of the pumpkins on the mantle before I faux glazed them to show you how bright they looked with everything else. The glaze tones them down just enough.
  

I made the vase two years ago and went out this year and got new tree limbs for it. You can see more pics of it here. I loved the original limbs I had with acorns attached!

This is the garland I made last month. In case you missed it, here's the blog post with more photos and the link I used to make it.

I saw this idea earlier this week that I want to do for the center of my mantle instead of the 3 wooden pumpkins. I need to find some more flower frogs first and then get some cute fall-colored scrapbook papers and alphas. I want to spell *Thankful*. 

A quick fall project. I took a mason-type jar and put moss in the bottom. I put a glass votive candle on top of that and surrounded it with mini pine cones I bought at Hobby Lobby. I tied with this yummy ribbon I bought at Jo-Ann's. I absolutely love this ribbon. It screams fall. :)

I'm currently working on a fall wreath for our front door, a fall framed embroidery, and doing a simple altering of a defective wooden pumpkin I bought at Hobby Lobby. I'll share as soon as I'm done!

Pumpkin Crisp

I had my first Pumpkin Crisp of the season this evening at my mom's retreat. It is sooooo freakin' yummy!!!

Pumpkin Crisp

1 box yellow cake mix
1 can pumpkin
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
3 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 can evaporated milk
2 sticks of butter or margarine, melted
chopped nuts

Mix pumpkin, sugar, eggs, pumpkin spice, and milk until well blended. Pour into greased 9x13 cake pan. Sprinkle dry cake mix over pumpkin mixture. Melt butter and drizzle over cake mix. Sprinkle with nuts. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes. Great with Cool Whip.

Enjoy!

 

Pumpkin Garland

I saw this adorable garland on a blog and knew I had to make it! And it's made from toilet paper rolls! I'm on a scrap retreat this weekend so when I get home I'll take a picture of it on my mantle. :)

 

Happiness is...

*smelling Pumpkin Roll in my Scentsy warmer
*football season and the Cowboys winning their game last night
*waking up to 71 degrees this morning
*having my first Pumpkin Spice Latte this morning
*Friday
*a 3-day weekend
*19 days until fall is officially here

Yeah, I'm in a good mood this morning. :)