Fall Decor: Leather and Feather Hoop Wreath

Happy November everyone! Or as I like to call it , the eighth month of "Marchvember" because...2020. I hope you all had a safe Halloween, and now we Americans gear up Thanksgiving, our annual gluttonous feast which for many will be a little different this year. 

I think I tell this story every year, but when my son was little he got VERY frustrated that things went from Halloween to Christmas while Thanksgiving seemed to be treated as an afterthought. So trying to be a good mom, I made sure to decorate sufficiently for Thanksgiving month! When he left for college and wasn't going to be able to come home for Thanksgiving, he made sure that I kept the tradition which went without saying! During undergrad and grad school we've been lucky to get him for a few weeks at Christmas so ironically, he's never even here for Thanksgiving decorating makes me feel like he's here. 

I found these Mum bushes at JoAnn for 80% off which were the inspiration for this wreath. 

Supplies: 

• Silk Mums 
• Embroidery Hoop (10 ")
• Feathers
• Leather Scraps
• Glue Gun and Glue Sticks

I had the feathers on hand from Michaels for a project I thought I was going to do last year. I decided to use the spotted ones. Pheasant, I think? 

The leather scraps were a happy accident. Before we moved from Seattle, my husband wanted to check out a store that made a lot of their own leather goods. I went with and they had these bags of scraps for sale. When he said "She makes things" they gave me one free! You can find bags of scraps at craft stores or check around if there are places that make leather goods. You never know! 

The first step was to cut the "mum head" from one of your bushes, and hot glue it to the bottom center of your wreath. I used the claspy thing at the top as a guideline. 

The next step is to add your feathers. I pulled ones from the pack that more or less went the same direction and laid them out on each side before gluing. Once I was good with the way they looked, I hot glued them to the hoop on either side of the center mum and then trimmed the stems. 

For the leaves, I just grabbed some similar sized scraps and freehand cut leaf shapes. Glued these atop the feathers, and then in the space between the leaves and the center mum, add the contrasting colored mums on either side. 

To finish, I made a "bow" of leather strips that were in my scraps. If you don't have these, you can cut your own from other straps, use leather cord, ribbon, yarn...

Follow The Yellowbrick Home

Fall Decor: Striped and Quilled Dollar Tree Pumpkin Sign

Happy Saturday friends! This weeks BFF Open House link party continues here.  I'm continuing to work on some additions to my Fall decor for when I take Halloween down and excited to share this fun and I hope, elegant, sign with you today!

Supplies: 

• Wood Pumpkin Sign ( Dollar Tree)
• Acrylic Paints (White Craftsmart and Light Gold Metallic Martha Stewart)
• Cream Cardstock
• Quilling Papers (White and White With Gold Edge)
• Aleene's Turbo Tacky Glue and White Glue (Elmer's)
• White Satin Ribbon
• Hot Glue Gun and Glue

When I was at Dollar Tree last month getting some goodies for Halloween, I picked up this plain wood sign. They have different ones seasonally ( I may or may not have picked up some Christmas ones since). As I talked about in a previous post, I started Quilling this year and decided to incorporate that into this project. 

I covered the sign with a couple coats of the white paint. Then, using the crackle technique I showed in my Witch Switch Girlfriend Gifts, covered with a layer of Elmer's glue and the light gold paint. 

Apply glue, then contrast color, crackles as it dries

After my crackle layer was dry, I taped off the stripes with painter's tape then used more of the white paint to make the stripes. 

While the stripes were drying, I made my leaves by first cutting them using my Cricut Explore Air 2 with cream lightweight cardstock and chose my Quilling papers: plain white and white with a gold edge. 

I went around the outline of the leaves with the white paper (you can see this process in my Quilled Sugar Skulls post  using the Aleene's Turbo Tacky glue and then used the gold edged Quilling strips (Quilling.com) to create swirls and coils. When complete, used hot glue to adhere them to the sign. 

To finish, I made a  bow from white satin ribbon. Et, voila!

Eclectic Red Barn

 

Fall Decor: Make Fall Acorns and Pinecones from Plastic Easter Eggs

 

While Halloween hasn't even arrived yet, I think my house is sufficiently haunted so I've started in on some Fall decorations for November. I'm so excited about how these came out and I hope you like them! 

I've always loved acorns for no reason that I can put my finger on. I just think they scream Fall. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, pinecones were literally everywhere. Now living in the desert, I don't have either so I did what Makers do and made my own versions! 

Supplies: 

• Plastic Easter Eggs (had some in my craft stash)
• Acrylic Paints ( I used Craftsmart Dark Brown and Martha Stewart Rust Metallic)
• Scrapbook Paper ( Pinecones)
• Jute Cord
• Coordinating Sequins (I love the Kids Craft section at Michaels) 
• Copper Beads
• Glue Gun and Hot Glue 
• Aleene's Turbo Tacky Glue

I wasn't sure how well the paint was going to stick to the plastic so I coated a couple with Mod Podge to increase the adhesion and then I decided to try directly on the egg which worked fine. It was easier to open the eggs to paint vs paint them whole. 

I used a bamboo skewer to help hold the eggs in place as I painted. I started with a coat of the plain brown paint and then went over that with a couple of coats of the metallic rust. I made some "egg holders" from scraps of paper glued together in a circle. 

I'm a "figure it out as I go along" person so initially I didn't think I needed to paint the tops of the eggs since they would be covered with sequins but after I could still see a little of the color when I did the first one, I decided to do that w/ the rest. 

Once your egg is completely painted ( you can see here I reached my decision to paint the tops after I'd already added the twine to one, so it's shown here w/out paint) then add a drop of hot glue on the seam, wrap around the egg as shown and when satisfied, glue then trim the end. 

For the acorn stems, I just folded some of the jute twine over itself 2 or three times and sealed the ends w/ a dab of hot glue and then glued to the middle of the top of the egg. Then, using the Tacky Glue, start gluing the sequins around the egg, starting at the top edge of the twine. Work up to the top and voila!

I had some copper beads in my stash so I added on sequin to the bottom along with one copper bead. 

Pinecones:

For the pinecones you will need an oval craft punch or a digital cutting machine. I used my Cricut Explore 2 and created an oval shape in Design Space for my pine cone parts. 

I had some silver polka dot foiled kraft papers in my stash and I liked the way I thought they'd look with the acorns so to coordinate, I used silver sequins around the small end of the egg. Starting around the sequins, start gluing the ovals around the egg. I did use the hot glue for this. Continue until you get to the top of the egg, slightly offsetting each row of petals. Once you get to the other end, decide if you want them more open or closed and glue the petals down accordingly. 

I hope you've found some inspiration! 

Eclectic Red Barn

Honored To Be Featured At

My First Heat Transfer Project: Fall Pillow

The first thing I'll say is, if you've wanted to try heat transfer vinyl and been intimidated so keep putting it off because you think it's too complicated ....DON'T. Because that was me, I used it for the first time and was kicking myself saying "Why didn't I do this sooner?"

There's no logic behind why I thought that, just did. But I finally decided to go for it and it's a game changer. I decided to start with something simple: a pillow. I also decided to go w/ a design that didn't matter if I messed up the mirroring because I kept reading how key that is to using HTV. 

Supplies: 

• Fabric ( I used flannel which was very receptive to the vinyl)
• HTV ( I used Siser Easy Weed which really was easy)
• Fiberfill to stuff pillow
• Thread
• Image to transfer ( mine is from the Silhouette Online Store)
• Cutting machine ( I used my Cameo 3)
• Iron
• Pressing cloth

I'm not going to describe pillow construction. My sewing skills extend to four straight lines. 

Lessons learned on HTV Vinyl: 

• The front side goes down. When you put your vinyl on your cutting mat, you're cutting from the underside of the vinyl. It took me one attempt to figure this out. HTV comes with a clear plastic liner, its own transfer tape in a way which is the side you want to touch your cutting mat. 

See how the matte side is "up"? That's what you want. The shiny side is what will go on your project and this is a shot during the weeding process. About that. I HATE WEEDING. If you're not a vinyl user, weeding is removing the parts of the vinyl you don't need to reveal the image. This stuff just pulled away so easily! 

This is a (bad) picture of the front / shiny side that will go on your project. Once your project is weeded, it's already on the equivalent of the transfer tape so it's super easy to lay down on your material. 

The heat process is more press than iron.

• When applying your iron, it's  more of a press and pick up than slide your iron around. Press, hold, pick up, move to next session. Now, I did do some slight gliding but the main process is press and lift. This is why you'll see serious HTV people use a heat press which is like a vinyl panini maker.  

Don't Make This Mistake! 

• You will use a pressing cloth on top of the plastic carrier sheet when applying heat. This is good. What's not good is deciding to use said cloth directly on top of the vinyl when you're just trying to make extra sure that you've applied enough heat. This will result in the weave of your pressing cloth ( mine was a scrap of a flour sack towel) transferring to your vinyl. Now as it turned out this was OK w/ my project because the texture looked kinda cool but in general, if you don't want this, keep the plastic from the vinyl between the surface of your project and your pressing cloth! 

Once my image was applied, I went about construction my pillow. And voila!

Some other tips: 

• If you're using words or letters, you will need to "mirror" (flip) your project before you cut it or your letters will be backwards when you apply. I chose this image because it didn't matter if I messed that up since it was the same either way. As it turned out, the Cameo 3 asks you if you want to do this because you will have selected the HTV material in your cut settings. 
• If you're not using a full sheet of vinyl, you need to pay attention to which side of the mat you put your vinyl on, again because of the mirroring. So if you place a smaller than 12x12 piece on your mat on the left side, choose mirror, the Cameo at any rate will actually cut from the right side of your mat so put your vinyl on the right side of the mat! 

I'm happy with my first attempt and have a new addition to my Thanksgiving decor. 

Fall Mantel

Side Table. Found these pumpkin signs last year 90% off after Halloween. Painted and applied glitter vinyl. Turkeys were 75% off at JoAnn one year. Painted w/ glitter paint.

Marc Roberts Harvest Fairy. I have a collection of Christmas fairies but found this Fall themed one on sale one year.