I have been dying to make a barbed wire wreath ever since I saw this post by Donna at Funky Junk Interiors.

I know a length of barbed wire is not the bees knees to most people, but I just happen to see beauty in the industrial.  Maybe it’s the juxtaposition of rugged, hard-working pieces brought into a home environment.

My husband helped me bend the barbed wire into a wreath and secure it with some wire.  I hung it up on the front door and stood back to admire my new treasure.  Hmmm, it didn’t seem too welcoming.  I whipped up a few burlap rosettes and glued them onto my wreath.  Ahhh, much better.  Still, it may not say welcome to most people, but I can’t think of a better way to welcome people to our home than by giving them a glimpse into my soul.

I found this cute little wheel barrow/planter at my favorite thrift store today.  I think this is the first thrifted treasure I have used “as-is” (except my dishes).   I love the rusty front wheel and the scuffed, white-washed finish.  It is the perfect little accent to balance my step ladder/planter.  While I was working on getting this planter in just the right spot and filling it with flowers, my kids were enjoying a lazy summer evening.

First popsicles for dessert, slurped up quickly before they melt.

Followed by splash time.

 Hope you are keeping cool and enjoying your summer!

I was inspired to create this feathered wreath by one I fell in love with at Hobby Lobby. It looked a lot like this one I made but it was more three-dimensional.  This one is bigger than the one in the store but it only cost me $2, instead of the $12 Hobby Lobby wanted.  Usually I don’t worry about spending $12 for something I really love but I thought it would be fun and easy to do it myself (and it was on both points).

The first thing I did was draw a heart on some foam I had lying around.  My husband cut the wreath out for me with one of his straight-edge razors.  The second thing I did was to spray paint it red with some extra paint I had.  The last thing was to hot glue the feathers I purchased at Hobby Lobby onto the wreath (that is where I spent the $2).  To hang, I hot glued a loop of red yarn to the back of my wreath and hung it on the door with a Command Strip.

The whole wreath took me about 30 minutes start to finish.  Easy, peasy, quick and easy.  The only draw back was the little bits of feathers that were hot glued all over my fingers.  I felt like a mad Big Bird .

     I wanted fun and festive and I wanted a serene winter scene so I did both.  I’m not entirely happy with the results but hey, I REALLY need to stop decorating and get shopping.  I guess the reason I’m not as pleased with the porch as I usually am is because it was an afterthought.  Everything that didn’t fit in the house got stuck out on the porch.  Everything that is except the wreaths.  Both are homemade, one was made by my Mom about 35 years ago and the other was made by me this week. 

     This colorful one above the presents is Mom’s.  She let me borrow it this year but I am hoping that she will give it to me one of these years ’cause I love it and because it brings back soooo many wonderful memories.

     This is the one I made.  This is the one I hinted at earlier in the week.  This project went as well as I had hoped.  It was an easy and fairly quick wreath to make.  It was cheap too.  I used stuff I had around the house.

I used cardboard as the form. 

 I wrapped the cardboard with batting.

     I wrapped the whole thing with yarn.  I went around the square twice to get all the bare spots.  Going around twice also helped give the wreath some strength.  I just held the first and last bits of yarn in place with a dab of hot glue.  I bought some white, silk Poinsettias at Hobby Lobby.  They were half price so I only paid $6 for the whole wreath.  This is the project that did work.  My other project did not work, not by a long shot, but I am going to keep trying until I can make it work, (yeah, I’m stubborn like that).  Anyway, below is the serene winter scene a.k.a. all the stuff leftover from our Jack Frost Christmas last year.

 Happy Holidays!

     It took me most of October to decorate the outside of my home for Halloween (even with the kids helping).  I kept having to stop decorating because of bad weather or to work on ceiling repairs and painting in my family room.  But it’s done and it came in on budget ($15).

     I have had the haunted house for years.  The spiders and webs were leftover from last year, I was given the pumpkin and we made the ghost.  I used cheesecloth and starch to make the ghost.  There are tons of tutorials out there on how to make these ghosts so I am not going to do one here but I do want to say I’ve tried a lot of the different methods of stiffening the cheesecloth and have found that the starch works best. 

     Making this web was a much bigger project than I first thought.  I decided to do it on a whim and started putting it up and it didn’t look right.  I had to take everything down and turn to the internet for help.  I checked out several sites and then tried again.  I’m still not wild about the way it turned out but it’ll do. 

     I made this wreath.  I bought the wreath at Hobby Lobby for my Fall porch but didn’t like it much and didn’t end up using it.  I thought it might have to go into my donation pile but one day I was in Target and saw a wreath that inspired me to make this.  All I had to do is spray paint the wreath black and hot glue these little bats on.  Easy peasy and half the price as the one in Target.

     I reused the hay bale from my Fall porchscape.  Most of the money in this Halloween porchscape was to buy these pumpkins.  We had more black spray painted pumpkins but there were rotting and got tossed in the trash.  I think that the kids dropped them when we were spray painting them. 

 Bones here is an old friend who likes to hang out with us this time of year.

     This wreath was one of the first decorations I bought after I married Handy Hubby so it has a lot of sentimental value.

     One last picture at twilight to show the lights.  That’s about it.  We will carve our pumpkins Sunday and light them and add them to the front porch on Halloween.   Happy Halloween!