Snowman/Scarecrow Craft

November 5, 2016December 2, 2016 spcountrygal Autumn, Christmas, Craft, Decorating, DIY, Gift Idea, Painting, Snowman, Super Saturday Autumn, Christmas, Craft, Decorating, Gift Idea, Painting, Snowman

scarecrow-snowman

Scarecrow/Snowman Craft: My Version

Lookie, lookie! I am finally posting my version of a craft that I’m sure most of you have seen out there in the crafting/Pinterest/blog world: A dual purpose, two-side craft with a scarecrow face on one side and a snowman face on the other. I designed this craft for our Super Saturday craft day event in 2015 and promised to included a tutorial way back then. Yep…I forgot to do that, so now I’m keeping that promise. All of the other versions of this craft that I have seen are done with pallet boards or bead board, but I wanted a simpler-to-make version. If you go to Pinterest and search “Scarecrow Snowman Reversible”, you will see oodles of versions of this craft. But, here is how I did mine:

Supplies:

Supplies for Scarecrow Snowman

2 x 8 Lumber- 13 1/2 inches

Wood trim- 13 1/2 inches (can be flat or decorative trim)

White, black, brown and orange craft paint

Textured paper for noses (mine is wallpaper)

Q-Tip (to add dimension to the carrot nose)

Two large flat marbles (Dollar Tree)

Two large buttons

Misc. embellishments for decorating

Black Sharpie

Noses Pattern

Powdered blush (raid your makeup drawer!)

Glue gun

Ready? OK!

First, figure out where you want your wood trim hat brim angle to be. I just placed it where I wanted it, traced down each side of the trim with a pencil, then roughly painted white on the bottom and black on the top. Don’t worry about painting the sides of the wood…just the top only, since this craft is reversible.

Snowman Craft rough painting

The board is sturdy enough to stand, so you can paint the scarecrow side, as well. Matching the angle from the snowman side, roughly paint the top only of the opposite side brown.

While you have black or brown paint on your brush, paint both sides of your trim pieces, one side black and one side brown. To be clear, when you are looking at the snowman side, you will be able to slightly see the back of the rim from the scarecrow side so you want to see black paint, and vise versa, so each trim piece has one side painted black and one side painted brown. A hair dryer comes in handy to help speed up drying time !

Painted wood trim hat brims

Next , create those snowman eyes. I just dipped my finger tip in black paint and dabbed a fairly thick coat of paint on the back side of each flat marble. I think these “eyes” look so reflective and dreamy! Don’t you agree?

snowman-eyes-and-nose

While the paint is drying, cut out and paint (if not already orange) the textured paper noses. Click on this blue Noses Pattern link to print out the pattern that I created, or make your own shapes.

Time to assemble:

Use hot glue to secure both hat brims. I also added a small flat head screw to ensure that brim will never fall off. You can hide that with embellishments.

The faces are where you can get creative. Play around with the “eyes” and “noses” to see how you want to place them. On my scarecrow, I placed one button eye slightly lower then the other for a playful look. For my snowman, I place the eyes fairly close together.

I added “stitch marks” with a Sharpie for my scarecrow nose. To add dimension to the snowman’s carrot nose, I grabbed a Q-Tip and glued it right where I wanted the nose placed, then hot glued the carrot shape on top of it, securing all of the edges.

The scarecrow got a large Sharpie-drawn smile with “stitch marks”. The snowman didn’t get a mouth, but I used my finger to rub a bit of blush on his cheeks.

Personalize:

Give these two some personality by adding silk or glittery flowers, patches of fabric, raffia, ribbon…whatever your heart desires. To distress, or not to distress- that is the question. You get to choose whether or not to take sandpaper to the edges.

Now, here is the best part…

You can pull this cute craft out for your holiday decorating in September as you decorate for fall, using the Scarecrow side. After Thanksgiving, flip it around to display the Snowman side and let him stay there all through January. I love that!

All in all, this is a super-simple, super-cute craft that gives double your pleasure. They make super cute gifts! I should know…I gave mine away last year. I’m off to make another one, (well, two) right this very minute. Why don’t you go do the same?

scarecrowsnowmantitle

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Roses and Rust Vintage Market 2015

November 12, 2015November 12, 2015 spcountrygal Autumn, Craft, Food, Home Accessories Food, Home Accessories, Roses and Rust Vintage Market

Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to attend Roses and Rust Vintage Market in nearby Anderson, CA and it….was….awesome! I had a friend come visit me from out of town to attend this event and we loved every minute of it. I’ve got pics to share with you!

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My favorite booth is just inside the gate and belongs to Liz and Randy Foster. They are so kind and helpful and their booth is full of old ceiling tins and all kinds of wonderful items created from the ceiling tins and moldings. See?

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Just looking at the pictures makes my mouth water. Amazing stuff!

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Click here to see their Flikr account, which has oodles of great pics of their tins and some items that they have crafted with them. Dreamy!

My next stop was a booth that had tons of hardware for doors, cabinets and drawers. Lots and lots of bins to go through.

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Yeah, my pics are a bit blurry, but you get the idea. The place was hopping with people and I had to snap pics as quickly as there was a break in the crowds.

I parked myself in front of a bin that had goodies priced 3 for $1. I sorted and searched and my hands got absolutely filthy, but just look and see what $10 bought!

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This tub-turned-planter was pretty interesting. We surmised that it had a backrest, armrests and a place for the bather’s legs to hang out. Makes me love my garden tub (which I very rarely use) all the more.

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We spent some time sampling some amazing jams and jellies. My favorite, oddly enough, was Horseradish Jam. Weird! I don’t usually even like horseradish. These were the jars that I took home:

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This little sign cracked me up!

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As we drove away, we started planning to attend Rust and Roses’ Spring show in April. And of course we will be back next Fall as well. If you happen to be in Northern California, I would totally recommend it. If not, you should at least check out the picture gallery on their website to see what you are missing.

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Let me know if you plan to attend!

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Concrete Look Dollar Store Pumpkins

November 9, 2015October 5, 2016 spcountrygal Accessories, Autumn, Craft, Decorating, DIY, Dollar Store Craft, Gray and White, Home Accessories, Painting, Super Saturday Accessories, Craft, Decorating, DIY, Dollar Store Craft, Gray and White, Home Accessories, Painting, Super Saturday

If you have been in pretty much any dollar store in the last month or so you have likely seen lots of bright orange light-weight pumpkins. El cheapo looking pumpkins. But, for some reason, they inspired me in a big way. I bought a couple of them and before I had even gotten out of the store, I knew what I wanted to do with them. Happily enough, they turned out exactly how I envisioned them!

Concrete Pumpkin

I love them! The process, once I figured it out was quite easy. It took some trial and error, so to help you avoid all that, I will show you the easy way to make these concrete look pumpkins. First, though, my base ingredients:

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I had noticed this half used bag of thin-set mortar in our garage recently and wondered what a person actually does with it once the tile job is done. The trial and error portion of my project consisted of just mixing water with the thin-set mix and painting it on. Not wanting to use a nice bowl to mix the stuff in, I cut down a gallon sized milk container. The handle made it really easy to hold while I stirred. I used the top part for my scoop. See what it looked like after one coat:

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Too transparent for the look that I was going for so I made some changes to my thin-set mix. First I added some white paint and then decided to add some Plaster of Paris powder, as well. I didn’t have any specific recipe, just added until it was the consistency of pancake batter. A couple more coats (let it dry completely first) and this is what they looked like: WP_20151106_008

As you can see, I added some short twigs to make stems for my pumpkins. At first I added a silk leaf to the top, but removed it because I liked the starker look. Can I just say that I’m loving the white pumpkin look this year? Truth be told, however, these could be made in any color… of course your paint color will dictate that. It would be fun to make gray or peacock blue or black concrete pumpkins, don’t you think?

Since these pumpkins are made of Styrofoam, they can be easily pierced on the bottom and place on a candlestick that has a “nail” for holding candles in place:

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Isn’t it amazing how just a few items found in most garages can make el cheapo look high end? I’m loving my new pumpkins and plan to make several more in different sizes next year.

So, what do you think? Are you still there, or are you grabbing the car keys and heading to your local dollar store to buy some pumpkins?

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Great Ideas — 18 DIY Thanksgiving Ideas Part Two!

Autumn Colors: Peacock and Pumpkin

October 29, 2015October 29, 2015 spcountrygal Autumn, Decorating, Flowers Autumn, Decorating, Flowers, Home Accessories

As of last month, I have a new favorite fall color combination:

I came across it by fluke, really. First I purchased this shower curtain

I bought it for $10 at Ross with the intention of turning it into decorative pillow covers, but I threw it over my dining room table to get out the wrinkles and it morphed into my new table cloth instead. I must say that L*O*V*E it. The above pic reflects its true color. I call it Peacock Blue. I wish that all of my pics reflected this color correctly, because, sadly they don’t. I’m not sure why. Hmm. Anyway…when I brought my Fall décor in and threw my regular Autumn flower pot in the center of the table…magic happened.

I admit that I had to manipulate the hue in order to get the true Peacock Blue for the above image. It looks a bit oranger than it should. But I still love the color combo. More pics