Acorn Makeover

The before picture....

And the after picture...
My sister Sarah and I felted some oval/ball shapes to go into these acorn caps. We let the deer eat the actual acorns (because they would have whether or not we allowed them to do so) and we used the caps!

We used wool roving in all sorts of fall-ish colors and needle felted or wet felted our creations.

I decided to use more than one color on each acorn, so there were some interesting colors.

This is one of my favorites...it has a nice marble look to it.

The tiny ones are especially cute.
The double ones have their own charm.To match or not to match is the question....

We Felt Pumpkins!!

Wool pumpkins! I love to felt, but hadn't done it much lately. Well, my sis Sarah came to visit for a weekend and we did nothing except craft projects! It was very relaxing for both of us...and we always have a great time together. We whipped up these wool felted pumpkins in very short order...

We started with a ball of wool batting in white (because white is less expensive than the dyed wool roving) about twice the size of the pumpkin we wanted to make.

We needle felted the wool until it was small and compact. Notice the finger protectors--very helpful to prevent those painful punctures with the barbed felting needle!

Then we covered the white ball with a rich pumpkin orange wool roving.

and began to needle felt it into the pumpkin shape.
When it was totally felted and firm, I made a leaf for my pumpkin using two colors of green roving.

Then I just felted it onto the pumpkin, right next to the stem which I forgot to photograph...
And here is the cooooool needle felted pumpkin. I gave one to a friend and the other three are sitting around my house all fall-like.

Basketmania

Our church had its annual fundraiser this past weekend. We always have a silent auction with lots of neat baskets...this was donated by my brother and included elderberry jelly, wild plum jelly, salsa and Blowin Smoke barbecue sauce. We will put almost anything in a basket together!
This isn't a basket, but it is an afghan I knitted for the event...using four strands of worsted weight yarn and size 35 needles, it doesn't take long to make.

We had a baby basket...

and a fall mum basket (my mom bought this one for her front porch).

Handmade thumb tacks to go with a new bulletin board and

more Blowin Smoke barbecue sauce with three cookbooks and an apron and hot mitts.

This basket was donated by Rendezvous, a great coffee house here in Columbia...yummy stuff here!

This basket has five different kinds of soup mixes, a large soup cup and a matching ladle in blue spatterware (if that is a word). I made two napkins and an apron to go with...and then I liked it soooo much I bought it myself.

A kitchen basket with three knitted dishcloths and six patchwork potholders and some liquid kitchen hand soap from Bath and Body Works.

And who could forget Rover? Here we have a reversible pet bed with treats and toys for that favorite canine. The reverse side is a cat print flannel.

Another non-basket--a scrapbooking assortment

and a watermelon basket with some Avon watermelon foot products.

A nice bathroom basket with a lovely candle and some more Bath and Body works products

and a pampering basket, full of Mary Kay and candles and beautiful note cards and who knows what else? Overall, we had a very successful event!

The Moonflower Vine

If you ever get to a chance to read the book "The Moonflower Vine" by Jetta Carleton, please do so...it is a great book about family dynamics and life. I read the book when I was young and it is something I re-read regularly.

After reading about the moonflower vine which was in the book, I discovered the seeds one spring in the store. I thought it would be cool to grow some. I think maybe in the last 20 years there may have been only one year that I haven't grown a moonflower vine.

They are really beautiful and the smell is heavenly. They start opening their huge (dinner plate size) blooms when evening begins. You can stand and watch the flowers slowly unfold and the fragrance comes with the opening.

Tonight I have six blooms, which is really nice. Some nights only one or two bloom.

I can almost smell them just looking at the picture!

My Family Picture Makeover

Here is the before...all beloved photos and a clock on top of the entertainment center in my living room. Lots of different style frames...lots of different color wood.
I have been keeping an eye out for some different cheap frames. I routinely shop at Goodwill and The Salvation Army for new decorating items. I found several frames, but what did the trick was spray painting all the frames a matte black.
And then I found this Families are Forever plaque at Hobby Lobby for 50% off, which made it a whopping $2.49.

Here is the finished product. I love it and changing things up a bit only cost around $6.50 (the plaque, $3 for the paint, and $1 for only one new frame).

Elena's Second Birthday Present....Will she like it???

It all started with this picture....Elena just loved Grandma's really neat dollhouse back in July. Here she is rearranging furniture. And then I was at Goodwill and I found this plain simple dollhouse that can also be a bookshelf and hung on the wall. It was very solid and put together to withstand the test of toddlers, so I decided to buy it ($5) and make it into a real dollhouse for Elena's September birthday.

I put a solid coat of primer on it to seal it and prevent future stains.

I taped off different areas...I painted one of the upstairs bedrooms, painted the roof and the outside of the house, all with either acrylics or paint I had left over from other projects.
I used scrapbooking paper for wallpaper and carpet and attached it with Mod Podge (of course). There is such fun scrapbooking paper now and I had fun with decorating. There is the pink monkey room...

There is a nice green carpet in one of the bedrooms...and a mod black and white in the dining room (at least I think it is a dining room!)

See the trim I found in the garage and mitered all by myself? (Note that I am not showing you the place where the two pieces join at the top) I thought that trim added a bit of pop to the whole project!

Here is the completed project sitting on my wood stove...just waiting until Saturday.

The "great room" downstairs has cat carpeting and a lovely pink stripe wallpaper with a border.
I made a card for Elena too with that is really cute! She loves my white cat Frosty (she loves all animals for that matter) and so I included a likeness of him inside the card.

I can't wait to give it to her!!