DIY - Faux Antiqued Pumpkins

It seems like you can always find inexpensive foam pumpkins in all the craft stores.  There are oranges, browns and even greens (I guess those are technically squashes), but never white.  I can never find cheap small white pumpkins.  This year, I decided to do something about it.

I bought a collection of various foam pumpkins.  The larger ones, which I haven't finished yet, I got at Target for $2 each.  The smaller ones came from Big Lots at a buck each.  Wal-Mart also has the small pumpkins for about the same price.  I was in Michael's today and they have their Fall decor items on sale this week.  Basically, there's no shortage of these cheap pumpkins.

So you take your pumpkins, and gather the following:

• brown craft paint
• antique white craft paint
• crackle medium
• glaze

Directions:

• Paint a couple of thin coats of the brown craft paint onto your pumpkins and let them dry.
• Following the directions on your crackle medium, apply crackle.
• Next top coat with the antique white.

After pumpkins have completely dried, do another coat of antique white.  Do this until you like the look you have.  Alot of my cracks were filled in, but there were just the right kind of crack let after my third coat.  The reason I didn't stop at one coat is because if  you brush the first topcoat over the glazing medium too hard, you'll smudge it and it won't look so pretty.  I tried two different crackle mediums, one that you let dry completely before you brush on the topcoat, and one that you just let dry until tacky before brushing on the topcoat, and they both smudged in spots.  The extra topcoat layers hide this.

Once your final topcoats have dried, it's time to glaze.  See here for my glazing tutorial.  

After you've glazed, you might want to go back and paint your stems.  I just used my brown craft paint on mine.

Here's a close-up of my finished pumpkins.

 These beauties are great for a neutral Fall look and for Halloween.

Linking to:

Wow us Weds
Creative Spark 
Made by Me
DIY Fall Festival
Sugar & Spice 
Hookin' Up With HOH
Liz Marie

Repost - Halloween Ribbon Wreath

*** re-post from 2010***

If given a choice between pretty holiday decorations and cute/whimsical  holiday decorations, I will always choose cute.  I don't know why.  Maybe because cute & and whimsical = happy to me.   There have been a lot of cute Fall and Halloween wreaths floating around here the past few weeks and I'd like to show a few of my favorites.  

I love this Fall Rosette Wreath that Laura from along for the ride made.  I just packed my Fall stuff up, but will be bringing it back out on Nov 1st.  In the meantime, I'll be making one of these to hang up when the time comes.

Then there is this this.  Beverly's (from Flamingo Toes) Semi-Scary Halloween Wreath. 

 

Because I love candy corn, I love this Woman's Day inspired Candy Corn Wreath from Karly @ Jellybean Junkyard.

OK, now this one isn't a Fall or Halloween wreath, but it so could be.  I can imagine these pins alternately painted black and orange or white and black.  Also, I think you could use regular clothespins and Mod Podge some Halloweenie scrapbook paper to them.  This one is an Embroidery Hoop Wreath

and it was created by Heidi over at Budget Wise Home.

This one was actually posted last year, but I recently ran across in during a Google image search.  I've already got the stuff to make this one and am hoping to get to it this weekend (fingers crossed because I've been saying that for the past two weekends).  This Plush Wreath was made by Mandi over at Smile and Wave.

I saw this one today through the Craft Gossip Facebook page.  It's a Boo Wreath by Paige Evans.  It's one of the projects from the Oct/Nov issue of Simply handmade.   

After I did my morning chores, I went right out to the local Five & Dime to get the stuff I needed for this.  I omitted the BOO and the bow, but I love how mine turned out.  I still want to get some ric-rac to add a little more whimsy to it.

Linking to:

DIY Fall Festival
Sugar & Spice 

Happy Halloween - Take 2

OK, so I ended up dressing up after all.  After looking through the photos for yesterday's post, I started regretting not dressing up at all.  I high-tailed it to Good Will to grab a Hawaiian shirt for a buck and threw a tourist outfit together by using stuff I had around the house.

I'm the "make-up" lady and did the sad clown's make-up and at the last minute I decided to make myself a little sunburn.

Happy Halloween!

I know it's technically not Halloween yet, but it sure feels like it to me.  We live in the Bible Belt and so a lot of neighborhoods will be giving candy out tonight.  I'm planning to have candy available both nights, just in case.  

Han decided at the last minute that she in fact, did want to dress up this year.  We just happened to be in a thrift store (shocker, I know) and we were able to throw something together really fast.  She said she wanted to be Willy Wonka and so I headed back to the ladies' suits and found a horrid purple blazer. It has SHOULDER PADS, people!  I think maybe Clair Huxtable wore it back in the day.  When we were looking for a top-hat, we found the perfect ruffled shirt, just hanging out of place, right there!  The last thing we were able to get at the thrift store, was found over in the Christmas section.  An awesome giant candy cane.  I bought the top-hat at our local 5&10 store.

Here's the end result, which I think looks pretty dang good.

Charles and I aren't dressing up this year, but I wanted to share a few of my favorite, homemade costumes from the past.

Melanie from The Birds - Halloween 2003

 Helen Roper from Three's Company - Halloween 2007 (the name-tag says, "Come and knock on MY door!"

Charles as a Mad Scientist - Halloween 2003

He made it himself!

Charles as a Wendy's Zombie - Halloween 2007
He made the shirt AND the wig!

close-up shot of the shirt

While these aren't fully homemade, I think I did an awesome job on make-up.

The Coven - mys sis, Han and myself .  Halloween 2008.  Doesn't Han look mean???

Ha ha.  I love this one!

and this one too!

Last year, I learned how to do Zombie make-up with liquid latex and toilet paper. 

  
Go here to find out how to do it.


Hope everyone has a great rest of the weekend.  I'll be back on Monday to announce the winner of my Follower Appreciation Giveaway, but then I'm taking the rest of next week off.  The ol' homestead needs some sprucing up.  I've not really organized much since Jan and its time to do that again.  

Decorations of Halloweens Past

Before moving into this house, a little over three years ago, we never really decorated for Halloween.  After we moved here, we decided that since Han is an only child, it might be nice for her to have a Halloween party every year.  So far, we've done this for two years; 2008 & 2009.  I thought I'd share with you, a few of the decorations we've had out for these parties.

Halloween 2008

I'm so lucky to have a fella who's even more creative than I am.  He set all of this up.  I was the purchaser and he was the mover and shaker.

I'm pretty sure my inspiration for a Boneyard came from the Martha Stewart Living of Oct 2008.  I remember finding lots of ideas in that mag and making a scrapbook to show Charles some of the things I wanted.

 Charles made the tombstones from cardboard boxes.  

 How cool is this grave??? 

 

We had this creepy guy up for a couple of weeks before Halloween and he gave me a fright several times.  I got the jeans and shirt from GW and the mask on clearance from Party City, the previous year.  Charles made the frame and put him together.

 I really loved how it all looked at night.  The ghost was inspired by the Martha Stewart Living from Oct 2008.  You just make a kind of cross from some wood and then wrap white tree lights around them, then use a balloon or something for the head (Charles cut head shapes from plywood).  Wrap in a sheet and there you go.

Halloween 2009

We planned to do pretty much the same thing last year, but Mother Nature had other plans.  It rained, and rained, and rained.  So, we had to cram all of that stuff inside.  Again, Charles did all of the work.

 Is he not creepy?  It's our scarecrow from the year before.  He looks so real!

Tomorrow, I'll be posting some of our Halloween costumes from the past few years.

Linking to:
Frugal Friday @ The Shabby Nest
Feature Yourself Friday @ Fingerprints on the Fridge 
Met Monday @ Between Naps on the Porch 
Market Yourself Monday @ Sumo's Sweet Stuff