{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!

{Hand-made Goodie of the Week} Paper Flower Wreath Embellishment

If you weren't able to get over to She Wears Flowers last week to see what I shared with Tammy's readers, here's what you missed:

 Last fall, I made my first ever wreath.  If you've been following along for a while, you might remember it.

When spring finally rolled around, I wanted to make a pretty little something for my wreath, and since to me, flowers scream spring, I made an embellishment out of paper flowers.

Pretty and simple.  To make your own, you'll need:

Paper-I used scrapbook paper and some book pages for mine

Something to cut circles with-you could find something to trace or use a hole punch.  I used this handy-dandy gadget that I picked up a Michael's a while back.  It's by ek.

Glue

You're going to begin by cutting out 20 circles per flower for the petals.  Decide how big you'd like them.  For my small flower made out of book pages, I made each petal 1 inch.  Using my handy-dandy circle cutter, I cut out 20.

Then gently rolled them around a toothpick to curve them, like so.

Then I cut out a 2 in. circle to use as a base.  Start gluing your petals to your base as pictured above.

Slightly overlap them a bit.  Once you've come full circle,

Add your next ring of petals, gluing them down so that the top of the inner ring is just about the base of the outer ring. Repeat until you reach the middle.

Taking 3 of your remaining petals, cut them into leaf-like shapes.  Then arrange them in the very center of your flower.

Ta-da!  Repeat with the rest of your flowers.  For my larger flowers, I made the petals 2 inches and the base 4 inches.

Since they were going to be hung outside, I wanted to protect them from getting ruined.  I coated them with a clear protective spray.  I found this at Michael's.

Let them dry completely.  Then arrange them how you'd like them on your wreath, glue together where they over-lap and attach.  For mine, since the embellishments are interchangeable, I attached two pieces of velcro to the backs (you can find out more about that in the original tutorial.)

Hang and enjoy!

I'm really happy with how it turned out.  It adds a nice touch of spring to our front door.

Now my front door is all dressed up and ready for spring!

{Hand-made Lovelies} Felt Playhouses by Miss Pretty Pretty

I heard about the cutest shop from my blogging buddy Tammy over at She Wears Flowers and I just had to share it with you all.

Miss Pretty Pretty makes the most amazing felt playhouses.  They fit over a card table-how simple and easy!

How neat is this pirate hideout?!

This one would be perfect for my little guy-he loves playing pretend.  I love the working mailbox on the "front porch"-too cute!

How about this sweet bake shop for your little princess?

Or this cool train station for your little conductor?

All of the houses are 100% handmade by Julie, the shop's owner and can be customized to fit any size card table.  They also come with a handmade storage bag for when it's time to put it away.  I think her creations are breath-taking!

I'm so glad Tammy shared this awesome shop with me.  She's going to be doing something fun with this shop in the near future, so I'd start following She Wears Flowers so you don't miss out!

{Hand-made Goodie of the Week} Mod Podged Magazine Files

In case you weren't able to make it over to It's A Hodgepodge Life last week to see my guest post, I didn't want you to feel left out.  Here's what I shared with Gay's lovely readers:

Today I've got something to help get you organized.  We recently bought our first house (yay!) and I wanted to start things off clean and organized.

Our magazines needed a home-they were previously living in a cardboard box in our spare room, and never being used (which is why we saved them!)  I found a set of 5 plain magazine files at IKEA for only $1.99!  But I wanted to jazz them up a bit.

Ta-da!

Hand-made Goodie of the Week: {Anniversary Gift}

So, I know, my anniversary was like, 2 months ago.  But as most of you who have been following along can atest, things have been SUPER crazy these last few months for me.  I'm just glad that they're beginning to return to normal.

Anyways, this is what I made for my hubby for our 5 year anniversary.

It's a book with a page for each month of the year.

And on each page, is a date already planned and paid for.  Like this one, our date for the month is bowling.

Some of the dates, like this one, I couldn't get ahead of time.  The Strawberry Festival is a big thing here in Florida every March and my husband loves going.  But you can't buy tickets until February.  So, for this one, I already have the money set aside for it, just have to go pick up the tickets when they become available.

I decorated each page to go along with that month's date with cute little saying and sweet notes to my hubby. This is for June and we're going on a little beach getaway : )

Here's my inspiration for the whole project:

A Year of Dates by Lady J Creations 

{A big HUGE thank you to the awesome person who helped me re-find this link.  You're da bomb!}

She has a ton of other lovely paper, scrapbooky projects over on her blog-I definitely recommend heading over and taking a look around!

I've got a sweet guest for you all tomorrow {hooray for the return of Who's That!} and I'm guest blogging somewhere, so stop by to find out who and where!