{Handmade Goodie of the Week} Painted Polka Dot Monogram Pumpkin

What a better way to come back to blogging than with a fun fall tutorial!

Today I'll be sharing with you all how to make this super-cute Painted Polka Dot Monogram Pumpkin.

Try and say that 10 times fast!  

It's no secret I love pumpkins.  Well, it might be for those of you who are new to Scraps and Scribbles.  So now you know.  I love pumpkins.  Which is probably why I love fall so much.  Each year I try to make a pumpkin-type craft to add to our Halloween/Fall decor.  This year, both of my littles are old enough to get in on the action, so I wanted something we could do together.  Little Man was really taken with the craft pumpkins at Michaels and they were half off, so I grabbed one for us to decorate.  I'd really been wanting to make a monogrammed pumpkin, so this was perfect.

To make yours, you'll need:

A craft pumpkin in whatever size/color you'd like
Paint-you'll want a background color, a dot color and an outline color
Brushes
Dotting sponge or pencil with unused eraser
Accent Ribbon

What to do:

I started by drawing a large "D" on my pumpkin.  You can either free-hand this, or use a stencil or if you have a crafty cutting machine, cut out some vinyl to use as a stencil-whatever is your style.

Then, using your background color, fill in your letter.  You might need to do more than one coat.  Allow to dry completely before moving onto the next step.

Once your paint is completely dry, it's time to get dotting!

I used the eraser end of a pencil for my dots, swirling it around to make some a little larger.  You can use whatever method works best for you.  Again, let your paint dry completely before moving on to the next step.

Once your dots are dry, take a fine tip brush and your outline color and outline your monogram.  Now, this step is completely optional, of course, so if you feel your monogram looks awesome without an outline, skip to the next step or call it done.

Once your outline has dried, take a piece of your accent ribbon and tie it in a nice bow around the stem of your pumpkin.

And that's it!  An easy, cute DIY project that's great for Halloween AND fall decor!  I'd love to see your take on this-if you make one, post a pic of your finished project on the Facebook page!

{Handmade Goodie of the Week} Hoop Hair Bow Holder

Today I'm sharing a little project that I made for Korra's room.  She has a lot of flowers and bows that clip onto her interchangeable headband that I made her as well as some bigger headbands, so I made her a little organizer.  The nice thing is it's not too baby-ish, so she'll be able to use it as she gets older.

The very best part about this project?  It was completely free!  I had all of the materials already on hand!  Always awesome when you can use what you've already got!  The hoop and the ribbon were left over from the chandelier I made for her nursery, the wooden dowel was left over from another project and the spray paint I already had.

To make yours, you'll need:

One large embroidery hoop-you'll only need one of the circles

Wooden dowel

Coordinating ribbon and spray paint

Hot glue gun and glue

First, spray paint your hoop, making sure to get all of the sides

and the wooden dowel.  This is my trick for rounded things like this-stick them in the dirt, just far enough in to hold the item up and spray paint.  Once it's completely dry, stick in the painted end and paint the other end that was previously in the dirt.  You get all of the sides at once with less dry time to wait on.

Once your hoop and dowel are painted and dry, it's time to start adding the ribbon.

The spacing of the ribbon is completely up to you.  I started with one in the middle of the hoop and spaced them from there.  I recommend not cutting your ribbon until you've decided where you want it and have glued down either end, as shown above.  That way you don't have to worry about your ribbon not being the right length.

Repeat until you're satisfied with the number of strands.

As you can see, I spaced some of them a little farther apart that others.  Some of her flowers and bows are bigger than others, so I wanted to have room for those without it looking crowded.

Once you've finished gluing your ribbon to your hoop, it's time to add the dowel.  For this step, I laid my finished hoop on the floor and laid my dowel under it, spacing how I'd like it to hang.  The dowel is going to hang from two loops of ribbon attached to the hoop, which we'll tackle in the next step. 

  Figure out where you want the loops to attach to the hoop and measure from there and double.  Attach to the hoop with some hot glue.  {You can skip the dowel if you wish-totally up to you!}

Add clips to the ribbons and hang the headbands from the dowel.

I love it because now I have a visual of what she has and what goes with what she has on.

And the dowel slides easily in and out of the loops so her headbands hang all nicely and are easy to get at.

Super easy and FREE!

Lamp Make-over and an EPIC FAIL

We all know that not every craft or project comes out exactly how we envisioned it in our minds.  Such was the case with this lamp.

I got this little guy from my sister-in-law when she and her hubby moved and didn't need it anymore.  Now, I'm not a huge fan of gold, so that had to be changed 

And the shade had gotten mucked up a bit.  I tried cleaning it, but whatever that was, would not come out.  So, I thought, I'll make something cute to cover it up!

First things first, I spray painted the lamp black.  I picked out this lovely satin finish that works great on metals.

See, doesn't it look better already?

Then onto the shade. I decided I'd make some rosettes to decorate it with, so I grabbed some burlap and some matching fabric from my stash

And made a bunch of rosettes.

I laid them out on the shade before I glued them on, and it looked nice.  But somewhere along the way, it did not turn out right.  So I gently pulled off the flowers and was going to try again, this time pulling off the accordian-like outside and covering the whole thing in burlap.  I'm sorry there are no pictures of the awfulness that was.  I was so frustrated with how things were going that I totally forgot to take some.  But, anyways, I was trying to cover the shade, 

when this happened.  The whole shade just crumbled in my hands as I was putting on the burlap.

Seriously.  Every time I touched it, it crumbled more.  So now I had a freshly painted lamp and no shade.

I finally found a shade that would go with my lamp for only $4 at Goodwill-score!  I still wanted to dress it up a bit, so I put those flowers I had already made to good use.

I picked out a few and played around with where I wanted them, until I got this.

Hot glued them in place and...

After months, my lamp is finally finished!!!!

{Hand-made Goodie of the Week} Wooden Firecrackers

Um, where did it go?

That's what I asked myself when looking over my blog this morning.  I posted this last week, but it magically disappeared.  And it's one of those things that only I would notice, since you guys never even got to see it, so how would you know that it was gone?!

So, yes, I know, it is way past the Fourth of July by now, but I really wanted to share this fun, fast project as it can be used for decor for our other patriotic holidays throughout the year.

Enough of me rambling, to the crafting!

These cuties took me only about a half hour to whip up.  And I love them!  

If you want to make your own {and I know you do!}, you'll need:

three pieces of wood: 1 7 inches long, 1 6 inches long and 1 5 inches long and all about 2 inches wide

Red, white and blue paint

Wooden star

Hemp or twine

Hot glue and paint brushes

I started with this block of wood.  It was left over from the posts of our fence.  Pre-cutting, it was about 4 inches wide.  I divided it in half on two sides and drew some lines.  Then, my brother-in-law helped me do the cutting-I don't trust myself with power tools while being pregnant.  Once I had four pieces, I had him cut two shorter-taking one inch off of one and two inches off of the other.

So they looked like this.  Now, my pieces were pretty rough and I wanted them that way.  I liked the rustic look of them.  So I just lightly sanded the edges and tops and bottoms to smooth them out so there wouldn't be rough edges to catch on things or scratch up the furniture.

Once they were sanded and ready to go, I painted them.  Each piece got two coats of paint, which I let dry in between coats.

Like so.

Then it was time to add the "wicks."  I used three pieces of hemp for this that I just cut at random lengths.

Then glued to the top of each firecracker.

So they looked like this.

Then I wrapped a piece of hemp around the whole thing a few times and tied it in a knot at the back, then slid the star in.

Here they sit with some of my other red, white and blue decor.

I quite like the way they turned out.  And since I had almost everything on hand already, they were super-cheap.  The only thing I had to buy was the little star, which was a whopping 79 cents at Michaels!

My First Attempt at Glazing and Some Pretties

I tried my hand at glazing for the first time last week and I must say, I'm quite pleased with the results.  

Last week, I gave you all a sneak peak at some projects I was working on.

They're all finished!

I attached the birdhouses to the candlesticks and glazed the frames.

Here's the frame before.

And here it is after some paint and glaze.  I love how the glaze brought out all the neat details of this frame.  Right now, it's sporting my spring printable from Very Jane.

Here are my birdhouse pedestals.  I sanded the houses to give them a worn look and then glued them onto the candlesticks.

Here is a before of the other frame I glazed.

And after.

This one is waiting for something to go in it.  But I love how it turned out!  Isn't amazing what a coat of paint can do?!