Holiday decorating Archives - Page 9 of 21

accessories, arts and craft, Crafts, decor, Door, Halloween, Halloween decorating, Holiday decorating, Home Decor, wreath

Halloween Canvas Door Decor

Today I have a special guest rockstar for you! Kim is here to show you how to whip up the quickest Canvas Halloween Door Decor.

Kim is the creative goddess behind Today’s Creative Life. She truly has an eye for the awesome. I mean have you seen her bathroom makeover for $110?

She effortlessly pairs colors and textures together in the blink of an eye. Get ready to learn how to make holiday decor as quick as a guitar riff.

Welcome Kim, our next Rockstar to take the stage!

Hello Pretty Handy Girl readers! I’m thrilled to be hanging out at Brittany’s place today sharing a quick and original way to decorate for Halloween with this DIY Halloween Canvas Door Decor.

DIY Halloween Canvas Door Decor

If you follow Today’s Creative Life (formally Today’s Creative Blog), then you know I’m not talented like Brittany in the ways of building, but I sure do love me some quick and easy ways to bring more creativity to my home!

I share DIY Decor, DIY Projects and Recipes for families. You’ll find easy to follow tutorials for bringing creativity to your home and a lot more for holidays!

I’m always looking for something a little out of the ordinary for decorating my door for Halloween. Sure, I could just slap a wreath on the door and call it good, but that would be way to sensible.

Last year, I created a fun Halloween wreath from a ceiling medallion.

I love the way it turned out and may use it for my Halloween mantel this year.

This year, my ideas kept coming back to using fabric or canvas somehow. My first idea was to use Iron On Transfers with the fabric from a drop cloth and then, I remembered I had some printable cotton canvas that was printer ready.

Materials:

Printable Graphic (I used The Graphics Fairy)
Printable Cotton Canvas
Ribbon
Stick
Paper hole punch
Paper Trimmer

Instructions:

1. I found and downloaded the image I wanted from The Graphics Fairy, as I do for all my iron on transfer projects. She has just about any image you’d ever want for any time of year. Such a great resource.

2. I used PicMonkey to create the text and frame, but any photo editing tool would work. Of course you could just print the image only and keep it really simple.

3. I printed it on printable cotton canvas. This particular paper ended up having a self adhesive backing, so I just left the protective paper backing in place.

4. Using a paper trimmer, I trimmed the bottom.

5. I punched a hole in each upper corner with a paper hole punch.

6. I tied a coordinating ribbon to a stick from the yard (actually I broke it off my lilac bush) and called it good!

After I got it hung up and looked at it for a day or so, I think I may try to age it a bit for an older distressed look. You can do that easily by brushing on brewed tea and lying it out to dry.

I like the way it looks. It’s original and can be used anywhere in the house. The possibilities are plenty!

Here’s more creative Halloween ideas from Today’s Creative Life.

DIY Halloween Table Decor

DIY Halloween Terrarium

Simple Halloween Decor

Are you running off to make your own Halloween decor now? Me too! I hope you are enjoying the Rockstar DIY series and are ready for more talent next week.

October 9, 2015/4 Comments/by Brittany Bailey

accessories, arts and craft, Decorating, Holiday decorating

Egg Place Cards

Finally Spring is on the way! Hello Pretty Handy Readers, I’m Jaime from That’s My Letter here to share a simple DIY project for your Easter table: DIY Egg Place Cards.

Or as my kids like to call these: eggs on a stick. These egg place cards add a touch of Easter charm to your place settings with a little height and color to boot.

You can simply print the names onto heavy white cardstock and cut them into small rectangles to fit into the eggs.

Follow along to see how to make these egg place cards with a few simple tools.

Supplies:

craft eggs (I used ceramic painted eggs.)
1/4″ wood dowel (4″ per place card)
1 x 2 pine board cut @ 1 1/2″l (per each place card)
drill and 1/4″ drill bit
sandpaper
measuring tape
pencil
wood glue
coping saw or other small hand saw

Instructions:

Step 1: The ceramic eggs I used already had a small hole in the bottom but not big enough to fit the wood dowel.

Using gentle pressure enlarge the hole to 1/4″ with the drill bit.

Step 2: Make the slot for the cardstock in the top of the egg with a coping saw. Because my eggs are ceramic they did chip a tiny bit. Not a big deal, just sand smooth. Read more

March 18, 2015/3 Comments/by Jaime Costiglio

accessories, arts and craft, Crafts, Decorating, Holiday decorating

Cute Sock Snowmen

I have a very special guest for you today. This woman is a very talented artist and art instructor in Northern Virginia. She is the one responsible for my artistic genes and half the equation for my DIY passion. This woman is my fabulous mother, Shari! (She’s also affectionately referred to as Grammy Mac in our household.)

Please give my Mom a warm welcome here. She was kind enough to put together her first blog tutorial showcasing these cute sock snowmen that she made with her students (she teaches private art lessons after school.)

Take it away, Mom!

Snow Days! Here in Northern Virginia we have already had too many! The most disappointing part about this is that we haven’t had enough snow to make a snowball let alone a real snow person. In an attempt to make the kids happy, we headed to my studio to make snow people from tube socks. Perhaps if we make enough of them, they will bring on the real deal!

Materials:

(Shopping at the dollar store makes this project much more economical.)

1 White tube sock (Adult Size 9-11)
Rubber bands
Rice (1/2 to 3/4 cup per person)
Polyester fiberfill stuffing
Buttons, pompoms, sequins, orange felt
Tacky glue
Brown pipe cleaners (to make stick like arms)
Black acrylic paint
Acrylic paint in your favorite colors for tie-dye hats and scarves
Cotton Swabs (a good tool for painting dots for smiles)
Faber-Castell Gelato pigment stick Bubblegum Shade (if you can’t find this, you can use watered down pink craft paint)

Optional:

Kitchen towels, fabric or ribbon cut into strips to make the scarves

Instructions:

Tie Dying the Hat & Scarf:

Cut the foot off your sock. (This will be the hat.) You may leave this white, or paint it.

Fold the foot part of the sock accordion style, like a fan. Secure the folds with three rubber bands.

Pour your acrylic paints into a small tray or paper plate. Water the paints down slightly. Wet the wrapped sock in water, and roll it into two or three of your favorite colors.

Let dry. Unroll the sock to reveal the beautiful colors. Cut off a 1” piece of the raveled end of the sock to make a matching scarf. Read more

January 28, 2015/7 Comments/by Brittany Bailey

accessories, Centerpieces, decor, Decorating, Holiday decorating, Home Decor, Home Tour

Holiday Tablescape

Can we be honest for a minute? This year when Jen Woodhouse from The House of Wood asked me if I wanted to participate in a holiday tablescape blog tour I nearly replied, “No way!”

Not because I was too busy…

… and not because I didn’t want to.

The truth is, I’ve never created a tablescape before. Yup, it’s true. Go ahead and google “Pretty Handy Girl tablescape,” I’ll wait.

Did you see my Pinterest board filled with tablescapes pop up in the search results? Yup, I had to create one for inspiration.

The other reason I was cringing at the idea of a tablescape is because I don’t own chargers. Well, I own lots of chargers for my battery powered cordless tools. (Bah da dun. Sorry bad joke.) How can you create a tablescape without chargers?! Read more

December 12, 2014/38 Comments/by Brittany Bailey

accessories, decor, Decorating, Holiday decorating, Home Decor, Home Tour

Pretty Handy Girl’s 2014 Holiday Home Tour

Pretty Handy Girl's Holiday Home Tour 2014

Welcome to my Holiday Home Tour 2014! If you are just arriving here from The DIY Showoff, welcome! If you came here first, be sure to catch up on the other tour participants by following the links at the end of my post. A special thanks to Chris from Just a Girl for putting together this fabulous tour.

I’m thrilled to be able to open my door and let you in to see all the decorating I’ve been working on. I admit to you that my home doesn’t normally look this clean. And there may be a pile of papers or shoes behind a door, so watch your step.

I love to update fake pine wreaths every year by tucking new elements inside. This year I used some tree picks from Lowe’s. You can see my old Presto Chango Christmas wreath if you want some more quick ways to dress up a cheap wreath.

The front door wreaths benefited from a few sprigs of cut holly from the yard.

Adding some ornaments to my little red wagon planter will take the place of plants until the spring.

Come on inside the foyer, I know it’s a little cold outside.

The kids’ advent calendars are filled and await their eager hands each morning. The colorful little houses look right at home on my IKEA hacked cabinet.

This year I wanted to add a lit garland onto the stair railing! If you look closely you might see a white cord taped around the baseboard leading into the office. I refuse to be dissuaded by the lack of a nearby outlet. Read more

December 11, 2014/18 Comments/by Brittany Bailey