Pumpkin Spice is Oh, So Nice!

Remember this little wooden sign I mentioned before? 

I told you it would become a feature in a post soon. I am going to turn this blank piece of wood into this cute sign for my mantle! 

First, I painted the frame. I chose a bronze color, but you can do whatever you want. I also thought gold would look nice. 

As you can see in the picture, it doesn't have to be perfect because I will be going over the inside with a darker color. For that darker color, I mixed brown, blue, and black. It made it come out to this really neat charcoal grey color! 

I know it looks black in the pictures, but up close it is a dark charcoal grey. Plus the paint was still wet in this picture. 

I let the paint dry overnight. Partly, because it is a good idea to let it dry all the way through, and partly because I have a 2 year old, and nap time was over. ;) 

Then, I sketched out what I was going to paint. In the interest of full disclosure, I didn't come up with this out of thin air. There was a print that said this at Hobby Lobby, and I loved it but it was HUGE! And it didn't have the coffee cup on it. Also, I practiced on a piece of sketch paper before committing it to the sign. 

You can see, that even with practice I had to do some erasing. 

Once I got it looking exactly how I wanted, I painted in the words and pictures with white. 

Honestly, you could stop here. And I almost did, but I decided it needed a little touch of color. 

I also painted over the spots of the background that were affected by my erasing mistakes. Once the paint dried you weren't even able to tell the difference. (it's still wet in the picture) 

Here is my finished fall mantle! I love the way everything turned out! The sign looks like a chalkboard, and in case you couldn't tell, I am absolutely LOVING chalkboards! The saying on it is also kind of tongue-in-cheek, which is totally my sense of humor! Soon, I will have some more fall decor for you guys! 

Talk at ya later! :)

Fireplace Banner

I LOVE Fall!

Fall and Winter are my favorite seasons! They hold my favorite holidays, and I love the clothing way better than in summer (not big on showing lots of skin)! 

Now that September is here, it is time for me to start changing up my decor. I usually start with my fireplace because it is the easiest to change. The reason it is the easiest, is because of this nifty banner I have! It is actually three banner sets purchased from Joann Fabrics. I used my own twine (so it would be long enough) and strung all fifteen pieces together and it remains tied to my mantle all year long. I change what it says based on the season, or holiday. 

So, I started with my most recent banner. This one was for summer. 

Then I cleaned it off with a wet paper towel. What you need to know is that these are just little pieces of wood painted with chalk paint. The woodgrain still shows through, so some of the chalk (or liquid chalk markers, like I use) gets stuck in the grooves. After I clean the banners, I color over those spots with a black chalk marker. After it dries, I wipe it off and I am left with a clean slate to start with!

Then, I rearrange the flags to what they will be with the new design just to make sure it won't look weird or off center. 

BTW, there MIGHT have been a Hobby Lobby 

Trip between cleaning off the banner, and arranging it. The little wooden sign on top of the mantle will be a feature in an upcoming blog post. ;) 

I have been enjoying the saying, "Happy Fall Y'all" so I thought I would include that in my decor this year. 

That is all there is to it! Here are some close ups so you can get an idea of the details! Hope you all have a great weekend and I will see you Monday with my next planner post and a drawing challenge update! 

P.S.: The Hobby Lobby trip was actually for the orange chalk marker that I used on the banner, so it was totally necessary! So what if I ended up buying other things too.......right?!