Fall Crafts

This year, I began hosting "Craft Night" at my church.  Each month we create a craft (or a few).  Most of my family enjoys crafting so I thought this would be a good way to enjoy some girl time.  Our first Craft Night was held in September 2013 and I was surprised to see that we had 7 ladies show up.  We made a pumpkin topiary and a burlap wreath.  Here is my topiary:

I saw this idea on Pinterest (Click here for her directions) and it was actually pretty easy.  I purchased the flower pot base from Lowe's, which was on clearance for $4.  I got the three foam pumpkins, the ribbon and the leaves at Michael's--the bottom and middle pumpkins are the same size, but you can get three different sizes if you choose.  For the "P," I just printed out a fun-looking one on regular paper.  I taped it to the pumpkin and put tiny pin marks around the edge of the entire P.  I then removed the paper and connected the dots.  I just used black craft paint and painted the P. Once the paint was dry, I began to assemble the topiary.  I put some bricks in the bottom of the flower pot and then put in foam blocks.  I then inserted a dowel rod into the foam.  I cut small holes in the bottom of each pumpkin for the dowel rod to fit through.  I also removed the top (stem) of the pumpkin from the bottom and middle pumpkins.  I placed each of the pumpkins on the dowel rod and then trimmed the dowel rod to fit the top pumpkin.  I hot glued the bow to the top and the leaves around the base.  It was a perfect fall piece for my front porch!

We also made a burlap wreath.  You can find the tutorial that I used here.  I followed exactly what she did to assemble it.  It ended up taking me about 45 minutes to wrap the wreath.  One thing that I did do differently is that I ordered my burlap on Amazon.com--it was tree burlap so it was different than what you get in the craft stores, but it was a lot cheaper.  I used about 20 yards on my wreath (although I could have added more--it may have turned out better if I did).  The burlap is a lot thicker than what you get in the store so I don't think you'd need more than about 30 yards.  I bought a 100 yard role for $22 including shipping--and it was at my door in 2 days.  I ended up ordering a second roll because the ladies at craft night used it too.  THIS is what I purchased.  I also purchased a "P" from Michael's as well as the ribbon to make a bow.  I used this tutorial to make the bow by hand although I will say that the bow maker makes it way easier! 

Here is my completed burlap wreath:

Make sure that when you get your supplies for any of your crafts, use the coupons the stores have (JoAnn Fabrics, Hobby Lobby and Michael's).  There are mailers, print outs from their websites, texts, emails and smart phone apps where you can easily get these.  Don't EVER pay full price for anything :)

Happy Crafting :)

Dining Room Table Makeover

I seriously can't believe that it's been over a year since my last blog!  I guess we all just get caught up with life and forget about these things.  When I began this blog, I wanted it to be a place for my three sisters to go to find my "tried and true" recipes, but I think I want it to be more.  Over the last year, I have become more crafty than I have ever been!  I still love to cook and bake and archive those recipes that we love the most, but I think I craft more than cook anymore.  I began a "Craft Night" at my church once a month so I am always creating something (or borrowing someone else's idea).  I think what really got me started was a project that my husband and I worked on this past summer.  We have been in our home for almost 13 years and we've had our dining room table for probably 10 of them.  When we got our table, I loved the light wood finish, but now I am really drawn to dark wood.  I was on Pinterest and stumbled across a lady who refinished her bathroom vanity (Click Here for her blog).  I of course pinned it and ended up going back to that and deciding that I was going to tackle this project.  This was my first DIY type project and thankfully I have an amazing husband who helped me complete it.  I was shocked at how well our table ended up coming out and since then, I have just been into craft projects.  Here are some pictures of our table before:

We purchased the exact same stain from amazon that was used in the blog (General Finishes Java Gel Stain) and it worked very well--it's not the same as a thin regular stain; it's a gel, which seems to make it work better for this project because it goes on thicker.  We began our project by taking all of the seat cushions off of our chairs.  Once we did that, we lightly sanded them--you really only need to rough them up; they don't have to be sanded down completely.

If this is a project you are going to do, just know that it takes time! There are three coats of stain, LOTS of drying time (close to a week) and then the polyurethane and more drying time.  I guess I didn't read how much drying time was required initially, but it worked out and was definitely worth the wait!

Apparently I am not the best reader because I also missed that you DO NOT wipe off the stain.  My husband and I were staining away and he's wiping so I am wiping because that's what you do with stain typically.  I went to the blog and realized that we needed to pretty much paint the gel on.  Here is what our chairs looked like after the first coat (I know...it doesn't look like much, but it gets better): 

This coat dried for 12 hours and we applied the second coat.  Here are pictures after the 2nd coat:

The chairs definitely look better on coat two, but you can still see the light wood popping through so it definitely needed a third coat.  We let the 2nd coat dry for 24 hours and then did a third coat.  Here is what it looked like after the last coat of stain:

We let the third coat dry for 5 days and then sealed it with the Poly.  In addition to staining the chairs, I decided that we really needed some new fabric on our cushions.  We have two small boys and our cushions were a cream microfiber material.  They were stained so I opted for a vinyl fabric.  I found some at JoAnn Fabrics called Whisper soft vinyl and got it 50% off (it was between $10 and $12 per yard).  I ended up spending around $30 for my 8 chairs.  Here is a before picture of my cushions:

I just put the fabric face-down on my table and cut out the pattern of the cushion with about 3 inches around each side and cut it out:

After that, I just wrapped the fabric around it and stapled it with a heavy-duty staple gun.  Then I put the cushions back onto the chair. It was actually pretty easy! Here is the finished product:

We did all of our chairs one weekend and spent the following weekend staining the table.  I will say that when my husband sanded the table, he didn't just rough it up, he completely sanded the top.  Here are some pictures:

Although this project took a couple of weekends for us to complete, I am so happy that we did it!  My table looks great and it was way cheaper to re-do it than to get something new.  We spent under $100 for this project--and we have plenty of leftover stain and poly to complete other projects.  Here is what the table looks like in my dining room:

This was a big project to tackle, but you can definitely start small--try a shelf or something if you are afraid to do something big.  In my case, our table was old and scratched up so I didn't think I could really ruin it.  It was a great experience and definitely gave me the confidence to do other projects.  We did end up doing our small half bath and this summer we'll do our other bathroom vanity.  Good luck!