Sweater Pumpkins

 My best seller of October has been the Sweater Pumpkin!  Made from old sweaters that I had in the donate or dispose of bag and some odds and ends.  I have made a lot and spent only $1.50 for supplies.  All of the remaining pumpkins in my booth sold this weekend so I whipped up this basket full during tv time last night.

One of my customers complained that I did not have any orange pumpkins so I spent $.50 for a thrift store sweater.  For small pumpkins cut off sections of the sleeves.   Gather one end.  Stuff. Gather the other end. Decorate.

I used twine, a felt leaf, a branch and 2 buttons.

One button is glued on the bottom,

They are each unique.

For the  bigger pumpkin just cut a circle out of the body of the sweater and gather the edge like I did with this one-

 

I hope all of these little ones find new homes this weekend !

 

Editted- Seven of the ten pumpkins sold before I left Angels on Friday!  I will have 14 more in the booth by Sunday :) 

Extreme Measures

I had to make some changes at the Swamp.  Lulu, the Boy's cat, declared war on my parlor furniture.  There is no way to keep her off the furniture - there is no door-   I tried sprays, aluminum foil, water gun, even a motion sensor- she could not be stopped.

So as much as I did not want to do it - I switched the parlor and dining room furniture.  The dining room has pocket doors that the cat can not get open.   Since I was beginning to decorate for fall and cleaning up this seemed like the time to take these extreme measures!

So now when you walk through the front door you see the dining room first.

Now I really have to keep this table looking good so I played with my dishes to have a fall look.  We have not had dinner in here yet.  It will be a few extra steps to bring the food in here,

I will try to live with it a while or until I outlive the cat!

If you turn right and go thru the doors you are in the parlor.

The thing that I like about this arrangement is that I can sit in here in the morning with my paper and coffee.  The room is very light.  I also can have a rug in here since there will be no animals to destroy it!

I am going to have to make curtains for this room now.  I have them cut out but I liked the light so much that I never finished them.  There will be times when I will  want more privacy now.  It never bothered me that the neighbors could see us having dinner but I want to read the paper in my pajamas without company!

A Little Bit of Halloween

I love to decorate for seasons and holidays.....

Inside and

Outside.............

Of course the less money I spend, the better!

Total spent for this year's fall decorations.....$5.97.....for glitter and Dollar Tree pumpkins. Everything else is recycled, saved from years past, or made from supplies on hand! I have two more almost finished projects that will add about $4 to my total. I'll share them soon!

Fall Cleaning?

Before we moved into our house I would drive through the neighborhood and covet the porches. I wanted a big old Southern porch with white rockers, plants and a swing! Please don't get me wrong...I Love my porch...but, here is the dirty truth: I can not keep it clean! In the Spring there is the pollen and in the Fall there are the leaves.....and in between there is the mold and DIRT! The maintenance of an older home is unreal! Just look at these window sills-

And the porch railing............

So this weekend we moved all of the clutter off to the side of the house (hoping no one would think it was a yard sale) and we got out the most wonderful power machine we own- the power washer.

Here is my favorite guy going to town on the ceiling. We knew there would be paint loss, but it was time to repaint anyway!

Here it is with a bright, new coat of paint!

We have not painted these yet- they are so much cleaner!!!

Out came some wreaths made from Dollar Tree supplies and ribbon bought last year on sale!

I also spray painted the milk can this weekend. I think I may paint our house number on it!

It makes me smile to go sit on the porch now! I wish I could use the power washer inside the house!

Update from the Swamp

The pugs are all dressed up in their skeleton shirts due to the very cold weather we have had this week! It went from 85 degrees down to 40 degrees in two days!

We have been back at work on our dining room project that has been on hold for the "swimming pool season" - I have been playing with our old fireplace tile and some new pieces we are adding. Several of our tiles were broken so we are rearranging, replacing, and adding to the pattern.

We had a family dinner that all of our children, son-in-law, and future daughter-in-law were all able to show up for! This is quite amazing since they came from as far away as Alaska and Afghanistan. I did manage to catch dinner on fire before dinner and we had to evacuate the house due to the smoke! Thank goodness it was still warm enough to move out by the pool to eat!!!

And finally, please forgive me if I'm not around much in the next couple of months! I have computer issues- the poor old thing is hanging on by a thread! Added to that is the holiday/wedding season that is approaching!!! I would love to replace my computer, but now is not the time. See ya' later!

A Thrifty Tassel

This week, instead of a thrift store bargain, I have a thrifty craft project to share. I have been experimenting with making tassels over the last year. Some I have liked....some...not so much. They are not cheap and I hate to waste ribbon on a flop!! This one I like! The thrifty part is using things I already had and using 50% off items from Hobby Lobby.



I have also struggled with the top of the tassel. You have to be able to hang it so resin tops do not work and everything I liked that is "Fallish" is resin! You need to be able to drill a hole in it or find something that already has a hanger. I found a Styrofoam acorn pick that I could poke a hole in!

Most of the ribbon came from my stash- I bought $2 worth of plaid and gold - and I have enough to make one more tassel. I glued the ribbon to an empty thread spool. I stuck the wire pick of the acorn through the hole of the spool and bent it to secure it. I also used the glue gun to make sure it was not going anywhere!

To cover the space between the spool and the acorn I glued more gold ribbon -looping it up and down. Then I sewed the little tassels on the gold ribbon because they were left over from other projects and not attached to any braid. Finally I tied the this burgundy ribbon in a bow and used that same ribbon to make a hanger.

Total for the project: $6 for 2 tassels

Don't forget that Leigh hosts the Thrifty Thursday party here!

Yard Sale, Mantles and Kitten Gymnist

One of my friends had a yard sale today to raise money for the big walk for Breast Cancer in Atlanta. They had tons of donations and lots of stuff. I hope they met their goal. I saw many interesting things when I dropped off my donations and had good intentions of getting up early to go. It didn't happen -I was lazy and didn't go until 9:30. I still got a few goodies. Another suitcase, dented cake cover, tarnished pitcher, old Christmas balls, Christmas cross stitch, parasol and my favorite - box of leaves and tiny flowers! They will be great for Victorian hats! The parasol will also go to the Porch Tour for a display.

I worked on my mantles more. The kitchen has some BOO blocks that DH and I made years ago before we had the house! We were more "crafty " then! The towel has an applique that I have used on kid's clothes .

The parlor got a swag and a pheasant added. I usually decorate in the dining room too, but not this year. When we redid the parlor, the dining room became storage and the electricity was cut off and has not be rewired yet! That will be a goal this month! Pay no attention to the shot of me taking the picture- I didn't notice that before!

Finally -one more shot of Lulu! Chasing her tail while hanging upside down from a kitchen chair!! This kitten is crazy!

Wordless Wednesday