Rustic Pottery Barn knock off

Hey HEY! The Before and After Party is going strong – be sure to check it out and link up! SO MUCH fantastic inspiration!

It’s time for another holiday link up:

We’ve seen some amazing mantels at Layla’s, beautiful vignettes at Rhoda’s, and now I can’t wait to see all the crafty goodness at Kate’s!

I was inspired by this project months ago when I got a Pottery Barn catalog and saw this:

It is three by three feet, and it was one of those made me say “Oh come ON!” out loud. :) Especially because of the price – I can’t remember what it was, but it made me freak out just a little bit.

I knew I wanted to recreate it, and initially I was going to use some big honkin’ cardboard letters like I used for my Ballard-esque monogram.

But wow…they are BIG. :) So I got to thinking and went a new direction…and I love the new direction.

I had some luan scraps in the garage and cut one to the size I wanted:

Ignore the awful tree drawing on the back – that was a project that never happened. ;) Trust me, that’s a good thing.

I had some leftover paintable wallpaper from a project in the Bub’s room, and decided to cover the board with it:

I found some letters at Joann’s that weren’t monster size, in a font I loved. I spray painted them and some leftover trim a festive red:

But because I wanted to display this project in our family room (which has a slightly rustic vibe for the holidays), the bright red wasn’t the look I was going for.

Enter my friend Beth’s sister and her take on this same project! I loved how she darkened her letters just a bit, so I did the same. LOVE when I find what I need when I’m not even looking! :)

I used some burnt umber craft paint:

And I mixed a bit of water in with it:

Then just brushed it on with my foam brush, and wiped most of it off. The top is before, the bottom after:

I did the same with the letters, but didn’t wipe nearly as much off. The wood was rougher and soaked it up a bit more, which I liked:

I arranged the trim and letters how I wanted, then attached them with my nail gun (but you could also glue them on!).

I’m really pleased with how it turned out!:

Is it still considered a craft if I used major power tools to create it? Hmmmm…

A trip to Joann’s and craft paint were involved, so I say YES. :)

I did a little rustic vignette with our new art on the Craigslist dresser. The sled was a find years ago at a farmhouse down the street that used to have the GREATEST sales:

It was five bucks and I love it so! The little mittens were supposed to be ornaments:

The little tree used to sit in the kitchen, but I thought it was perfect here:

I know little candy ornaments don’t exactly scream rustic, but I’m working with what I’ve got here peeps! :)

I mixed some ornaments and pinecones in a lovely bowl I got a while ago from Meijer of all places:

I am loving their kitchen/serving aisles lately!

And all together, it’s a slightly rustic, Pottery Barn knock-off, using what we have Christmas vignette!:

The letters were $1.99 each, I think? I had everything else. :) I luuurve that font for those letters, especially the little curl on the “O” – too cute! Altogether it took about 90 minutes to put together, but I did it over a few days.

Don’t you LOVE taking something you love in a catalog and making it your own for a few bucks?! Awwww. yeah.  :)

Can’t wait to see your crafty projects at Kate’s! And don’t forget we’re wrapping up the Holiday Home parties later this week with my Christmas tree party. WHOO!

P.S. Jess did a version of this too, and it’s identical to the PB one – for eight bucks!!

P.P.S. Many of you asked where you can find fake snow after my Walmart post – I’ve found it at Hobby Lobby in years past, and Target this year. Target has decent sized bags for $1.99 each. :)

Thank you to my sponsor!:

Santa hat craft

Hey there! Have you checked out the Holiday Home Mantel Party at Layla’s yet? Some serious inspiration going on!! (You can see ours here.) Even if you don’t have a mantel, you’ll be sure to find some great ideas for your holiday decorating. :)

Late in the season last year I did a Christmas craft that I absolutely LOVE – I wanted to show it to you again in case you wanted to try it out yourself.

I had seen some Santa hats at Stein Mart one day, and just thought they were adorable!:

Killing me. So fun! But I knew I could recreate them myself for less cash, so that I did.

Now I think mine are actually cuter, if I do say so myself:

And making them was way cheaper than buying them – score!!

Since I made them so close to Christmas last year, I just threw them in a tray I had laying around. But this week I found the most adorable tray at Hob Lob and it is just perfect for my cutie hats:

It was only $5 on sale! SCORE again. :)

I filled in around them with some extra Dollar Tree ornaments:

Well hello there!:

HA!

My Santa hats are one of my very favorite Christmas decorations. Partly because I made them myself. Partly because they are stinkin’ cauute!:

I’ve heard that some of you have made them with your kids, students and with friends – I LOVE that!! Makes me so happy. :)

For all of the details of how I made these (they were SO simple), check out last year’s post here. If you’ve made them, I’d love to see pictures!

So are you done decorating? It takes me a few days…or maybe a week. :) But I’m trying to take my time and enjoy it, especially since the Bub loves Christmas decor as much as me this year. I have a partner in crime and I love it!

 

P.S. I can’t believe how much our family room has changed since the pictures in that Santa hat post last year – all because of a $100 Craigslist dresser. ;) Love.

 

Thank you to my sponsor!:

A thankful foyer

Hello all! Hope you had a great weekend! We are DONE with marching band season (so proud of them!!) and I now have my hubby back…for approximately two weeks. :)

I haven’t done anything crafty in a while and last week I was feeling my mojo creeping back…so I got busy on a quick Thanksgiving project for our foyer.

I’ve been admiring the cute “Thankful” banners I’ve seen over blogland lately, and figured it was high time I made one of my own. I picked up about $3 of paper from Hobby Lobby:

And warmed up my sah-weet Silhouette machine:

My original thought was to do some circles, then put leaves in pretty colors over those, with letters on the leaves to spell my thankful message:

But after I cut out the leaves, I realized they were going to be way too small for the letters. Plan B was to cut out additional circles a bit smaller than the original ones:

I love love LOVE that cardstock – I use it all the time. It’s got a simpler, lined side, and a side (the one I prefer) with a linen-like texture to it. And aren’t those scalloped edges too cute? (I purchased the design on the Silhouette site for a buck.)

When I was done cutting, I ended up with large and small circular cut outs, the leaves that I wanted to try to use, and the letters:

Normally I use spray adhesive for paper projects, but the glue stick was closer. :) It worked great!:

Using my hole puncher, I added two holes in each one, then strung the letters and little leaves on some twine. I absolutely LOVE how it turned out!:

Isn’t that so stinking cute?

I had the buffet in our foyer dressed for fall six weeks ago, but took it all down for the Halloween display. I just put everything back the way I had it, even though it’s only for a few days, week, couple of weeks till Christmas starts peeking out. :)

I plopped one of my (real) blue Cinderella pumpkins on some burlap:

Can you believe I’ve had that pumpkin for about eight weeks now? It’s still perfect! Crazy.

Back in August, I was strolling through Pier 1 and saw some beautiful faux leafy stuff, and it was gorgeous. I especially loved that it was really, really tall and full. I knew I’d need a few of them though, so I held off. (They weren’t really cheap.)

Imagine my glee when I saw something very similar at Hob Lob:

I think they were $3 each, half off? Wicked good. :)

When we were working on my father-in-law’s house a couple of months ago, I saw this beautiful amber glass piece and swooned:

Isn’t it gorgeous? Perfect for my fall display!

I filled it with little beady stuff, pine cones and acorns I’ve used through the years:

All together, with our new Give Thanks garland on the mirror, and it’s a lovely, warm welcome!:

You’ll notice my Cinderella pumpkin tower shrunk by one. I noticed the other day that the middle one had cracked and it was NASTY. Ew!

I can’t even believe the difference a year makes – this little bitty table just didn’t do it for that spot:

Thanks to Craigslist, I have a lovely new spot to decorate each season!:

Yippeeee! For that, I am thankful. ;)

I’ll show you a few more of my fall goodies soon, and then it’s all over folks – get ready for some magic!!!

Are you still working on fall decor? Has Christmas crept up around your house?

Thank you to my sponsor!:

A dollar store fall wreath

Hellooo there! I’m finally pulling out the fall decor this week! This is SO late for me -- usually I’m itching to get it out in August! This year I wanted to make sure I was completely done going through the basement before I started lugging the (cough. numerous.) bins up.

One of the projects I wanted to tackle this year was a DIY fall wreath. I was inspired by this one last year:

But because I was too cheap impatient lazy to come up with a rectangle shape, I just did a smaller, round one. It’s pretty darn cute, but also a bit wimpy. :)

So this year, I was determined to make a large, square, fluffy fall wreath. I started with some thick foam core board from Hobby Lobby for $5 – it was half an inch thick and it was already 20 inches wide, so I cut it down to 20 inches in length as well:

I wanted it to be four inches thick, so I marked a square in the middle accordingly:

I used my jigsaw to cut it out (it cut like butta!), but you could probably get away with cutting it with something else (especially if you use a thinner foam board – I use scissors on that stuff) – just be careful!

Remember it does not have to be perfect – you won’t see the exact shape when you’re done!

I did a really quick spray of the edges, (with red because it was the closest to me) just in case they’d show through at all:

They don’t, so you can save the two minutes and skip this step.

You’re welcome. :)

Last week I bought four swags of leaves from Hobby Lobby to use for this project, and they were half off, at $5 each. But the $25 price tag for all the supplies was getting a little expensive for something that may not even turn out how I envisioned.

I was trying to think of a cheaper way to do it, and remembered some packets of leaves I bought at the Dollar Tree a few weeks ago for another project. I absolutely loved the colors, the texture, and they were large – perfect for this project!

WHOO!!

I started laying them out to see what I liked:

Hmmm – it wasn’t random enough for me. So I tried a willy nilly way:

MUCH better, but the leaves were a bit flat for my liking. I wanted some POOF.

Because they’re made with wire, that was an easy fix – I crumpled up a few at a time (gently) and gave them some dimension:

(I ended up snipping off the wire stems.)

I fired up the hot glue gun and started placing them here and there, filling in any empty spots:

There was no rhyme or reason to it – just stick ‘em on!

And less than an hour later, I had just what I was looking for!:

(Our door always photographs blue, but it’s a dark brown.)

I love love LOVE these leaves! They look so real! They are made of a material that reminds me of crepe paper – but not nearly as delicate:

You do have to be gentle with them though – they tear if you’re not careful. I didn’t mind though – it made them look more real.  ;)

If you have a door that’s exposed to the wind, you’ll want to add weights to the “frame” because it is very lightweight. We don’t have that problem, but I may add some sticky tack to the back just to make sure it stays put. And I’m not sure how these leaves would hold up to the elements – so you may want to test out a leaf or two.

Last year some of you suggested using a large frame as the base, and I thought that was a great idea – it would be heavy enough too!

I absolutely LOVE it – lots of color, texture and it’s simple. The best part is that it only cost $11 total! (Five for foam and six packages of the leaves at a dollar each.) And that’s only because I got the thicker foam – if you got a thinner piece from the dollar store, you’d get this done for well under ten bucks!:

It's gonna look FAB with the rest of the fall decor on our porch! I’ll share that with you next week!

It’s getting just a bit cooler here…slowly but surely. It was in the 80’s today but there was so little humidity, it felt pretty fantastic! Yay…it’s coming!! :)

 

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