Frugal Halloween Decor

I started my Halloween decorating. And I am so excited.

I just love Halloween. However, I don't love climbing up into the hot attic to retrieve my old Halloween stuff. And I don't love spending money on new stuff.

Well, I do love spending money on new stuff. It's just I don't have any money to spend this year. So what's a lazy, poor girl like me to do?

Time to think frugally. So I started with decorating a shelf in my family room. I already had most of the items on hand. And it didn't require me going into the attic.

I did pick up this orange faux pumpkin at Dollar Tree. A dollar is pretty frugal, wouldn't you say? I decided that I wanted to do a black & white Halloween in my family room this year. So orange just wasn't going to do. So I spray painted the pumpkin Heirloom White.

But it was a little plain.

So I decided to cover it with some black spider web lace that I had. I had purchased 5 yards of this lace at Tai Pan Trading last month for cheap. It was like $2.00 a yard (with my 25% off). I cut a square of lace 20 inches x 20 inches. I then clipped a small slit so the stem of the pumpkin could poke through. I then wrapped the pumpkin with the lace & taped it at the bottom

You heard me right, I just taped it at the bottom. I was planning on hot gluing it, but I was too lazy to track down my glue gun, so I taped it instead, just to see what it would look like. And it worked. At least for now.

I already had the wood pedestal to place the pumpkin on. I had picked it up at the thrift store last year. All I had to do was paint it black. I also bought the crow at Dollar Tree. I just love how the lace covered pumpkin turned out.

Next I decided these bottles needed some spookiness added to them.

These 3 bottles have been sitting on this shelf for a few months now.

I found these cool labels on flickr. I saved the ones I liked to my computer & then printed them out, cut them out & taped to the bottles. Tape has been my best friend with these projects.

This bottle is Twisted Twigs. I placed a bunch of twigs from my weeping willow tree in this bottle.

I really liked this witch hazel label as it reminds me of my Grandma. She always had us put witch hazel on mosquito bites whenever we were visiting her & got bit.

This one is for graveyard dust. I was going to put some ashes of some sort in here. Just haven't gotten around to doing it.


One last look at my frugal Halloween shelf. I spent less than $3.00 decorating this shelf. I'm pretty happy on how it has turned out. But knowing me, I'm sure I'll tweak it between now & Halloween.

Hopefully I will have more Halloween decor to share with you next week. I may even venture up into the attic & get down my old Halloween crap. But then, I might not as it is suppose to be in triple digits this weekend.



Linking to:

Tabletop Tuesdays @ A Stroll Thru Life

Nifty Thrifty Tuesdays @ Coastal Charm

Making Monday Marvelous @ C.R.A.F.T.

Saturday Nite Special @ Funky Junk Interiors

Weekend Wrap up Party at Tatertots and Jello

Frugal Friday @ The Shabby Nest

Show and Tell Friday @ My Romantic Home

Halloween & Fall projects @ Living It At Home

Eternal Love

On Saturday I attended a bridal shower for my niece Taylor.

Here is the beautiful bride to be. I just love her to death. She is more like a daughter to me than a niece.

So for her shower I wanted to make her a gift. I wanted to give her something that she knew came from my heart.

Now you know how I love my letter art. So I thought I would make her a sign that would mean something to both her & her fiance Michael.

They will be getting married in the San Diego Temple on August 14th where they will be sealed as husband and wife for not just time here on earth, but for all eternity. Their marriage will be eternal. So ETERNAL was the word I decided to use for their special sign.

Here is the finished sign. And because I am such a procrastinator, I made it Saturday morning. Right before going to the shower.

How did I make this? I'll show you. If I can do this, anyone can. All you need is a camera, a printer and a little imagination.

First you need to look at everything to see if you can find a letter somewhere in the shape.

See this iron scroll work? The end looks like an "E".

So you take a close up photo of the portion that makes your letter. And now we have an "E".

Next I needed a "T"

This is a plate rack that hangs on my kitchen wall. See how the railing in front looks like a bunch of "T's"?

I just took a close up & like magic, a "T".

Next I needed another "E". But I wanted a lower case version. It really doesn't matter if you mix lower case with upper case, but since I had two E's in this sign, I wanted them to be different.

One of my patio chairs looks like it has a lower case "e" on the back.

Yup, I was right. I did have to lay the chair on the cement to get this photo.

Next I needed the letter "R". But I couldn't find another shaped like an "R" in anything around my house. So sometimes I cheat a little & use actual letters from something else.

Like this Merry Christmas glitter sign. I just took a close up of an "R".

And got this "R". I love how the glitter gives it texture. Luckily I already had this letter from photos I took last winter. But I had not used it yet in a letter art sign.

"N" comes next. But "N" was a hard letter to find at the last minute.

Luckily I have this apothecary jar full of letter balls. And look, the "N" was right there front and center. I didn't even have to dig through all the balls to find it. It was meant to be. And yes, my patriotic decor is still up. Got a problem with that?

And here is the result for "N".

Next comes "A". The only thing I already had for "A" was an Eiffel Tower. But I wanted to try and find something else. So I was at Target on Saturday night & came across a fold up chair in the garden department.

The side view of the chair looks like a letter "A". So I snapped a quick pic & was done. I forgot to take a photo of the entire chair but you get the idea of what it looked like.

And finally I needed the letter "L".

This glider bench was where I found my "L". Can you see it?

I'll give you a better hint? It's down here.

Did you figure it out? If you use your imagination you start seeing letters in most everything.

Once you have taken your photos. You then upload the photos to whatever photo editing software you use. I use Picasa. It's free.

Once uploaded to Picasa, I crop the photo to whatever size I needed. In this case 4" x 6". I then make the photo black & white and add a little tint to make it darker. I then print it out on white card stock, cut it out & place in frame. I actually tape the back of the photo on top of the display paper inside the frame. That way you get the photo positioned in the right spot. Plus it is easy to remove & change out the letters to change up the sign.

This particular frame came from Kohl's last year. The positioning of the openings are a little skewed. But that makes it more fun.

Kohl's has been a great source for finding frames with numerous openings for making these letter art signs. Just be sure to wait until they are 1/2 off. I've even found frames at Walmart that work. You could also use a separate frame for each letter if you wanted.

And here is my niece after she opened up my "Eternal" sign. I wish I had snapped more than one photo as she is making a funny face in this photo. Doesn't show her true beauty or gratitude.

Here is a better photo of Taylor with her fiance Michael. Aren't they a cute couple?

And one final look at the sign. My niece loved it and so did everyone else at the shower.

Have you priced this kind of sign? They can be quite pricey. Since I already had stuff around the house & yard I could photograph, and I already had the frame, all this cost me was my time, a few pieces of card stock and some printer ink. And we can't forget a whole lot of love. This was the biggest ingredient in this project. But we all know that I have a lot of love to give, so it was a pleasure.

Thanks for taking the time to look at my letter art transformation. Now if I can do this, you can too. Now get out there and find some letters and make your own, or if you want, you can borrow mine. Be sure to let me know if you do, I want to see what you make. I'm noisy like that.




Linking to:

My hutch is finally painted!

Did you hear that one of the signs that we are in the end times is when Kim's china hutch is finally painted? What? You haven't heard that? Well, that is what I thought.

If I'm the only one who thought that, then I guess we can all relax a little. As I have finally done it! I finally painted my china hutch.

Those of you who have been following me know that I have been wanting to paint this hutch like forever. Or at least for 15 years since I purchased it. But I could never decide on white or black.

I'm not good at making decisions. So hubby finally made the decision for me. He said to paint it black. That way it would go with our table & chairs.

Plus it sits right next to a huge white TV armoire. And my walls are white. It would have been too much white. But I do love white.

And you know what? Hubby was right (but don't tell him I admitted that). Black is the perfect color for this.

Here she is all dressed up in her Sunday best. She even got new pulls, knobs and hinges.

And here is the before photo. She was just a plain Jane. And I hated the hardware.

Here I am painting the hutch. What do you mean that doesn't look like me? What is hubby doing in the photo? Ok, I'll admit, hubby did the actual sanding and painting of the china hutch. But I was a great supervisor.

I even got hubby to put on new glass knobs & pulls. So much better than the ugly ones that were on it. I purchased these years ago from ABC Distributing online. They were cheap. Four knobs or two pulls for $4.95. I still have a bunch more knobs. And they are glass, not plastic. Too bad they don't have them anymore. Don't you hate that I just had to rub that in?

So I admitted that hubby actually did the sanding and the painting. But I got to do the fun stuff, decorating. I pretty much set it back up like I had it before painting. My plan was to decorate it for Easter, but I've been too lazy to climb up in the attic to get down my Easter stuff. And since Easter is this coming Sunday, not sure I will bother at this point. But then again, you never know.

I did pick up this little birdhouse ornament at the thrift store this past weekend for 50 cents. It kind of matches the one I had already that is on the left side of the same shelf (see photo below).
I put the 2 bird finials from Michael's on the this shelf. When I first showed you my Spring decor a few weeks back, I had the smaller finial on the top shelf where I now have my new birdhouse.

I did add a little Easter sign to my cloche I had picked up at Michael's last month for 99 cents. The sign was 99 cents, not the cloche. I wish Michael's had cloches for 99 cents.

I love how the white ironstone pops against the black.

It's fun to find stuff to put in apothecary jars. Almost anything will work. I may change mine out for candy for Easter. But if I fill them too early, they will be all gone by Easter. So I'll probably wait till Friday to fill them with candy.


I just love how my china hutch turned out. It's going to be much more fun to decorate now.

Maybe I will climb up to my attic to get down my Easter stuff.

And speaking of Easter. I did add a little decor to sit on top of my hutch.
The bunny usually sits outside in my yard. But gets to come inside for Easter. I've been having lots of fun with this photo holder. I added letters to spell Easter as well as some Easter prints. All came my collection of vintage image CD's.

I hope that you like my china hutch makeover. I love it!!! I am so happy with the result. Except since it is black, I will now have to dust it much more often. I hate housekeeping.

And I still want to distress the edges. But I was too tired after all this work to do so. I'll have to do it later. Hopefully it won't wait another 15 years.

Did I tell you I was lazy?

I think I will go and take a nap now.

Thanks for visiting.




Linking to:

Furniture Feature Friday @ Mustard Seed Creations

Metamorphosis Monday @ Between Naps on the Porch

Tabletop Tuesday @ A Stroll Thru Life

Its So Very Renovated @ Its So Very Cheri

Ready, Set, Vignette Party @ The Stories from A to Z

Transformation Thursday @ The Shabby Chic Cottage

Show and Tell Friday @ My Romantic Home

Weekend Wrap Up @ Tatertots and Jello

Saturday Nite Special @ Funky Junk Interiors