Falling for fall

                                                                               (If you just want to see the pictures scroll down)

I enjoy fall. The changing of the leaves, the crisp weather.  Deciding to decorate my front door, I needed some inspiration.  I consulted Pinterest, YouTube, and Google.

I decided on a scarecrow decoration  similar to the one  I viewed at Jody’s Craft Room 

Materials

$Dollar Tree items included:

Cream colored straw hat (I painted it light brown)

Light orange raffia

Fall colored flowers and berries

Wire edged ribbon

Other Items I already had on hand

A pair of old black & white clip on earrings with backs removed.

Small orange pom pom balls

Paper flowers with pearl center.

Orange and beige earrings

Acrylic paint and brush

Hot glue and glue gun

Newspaper, plastic bag, heavy string (for stuffing and hanging)

 The hat was an ecru color but I choose to give it a wash with brown acrylic paint for more of a fall look. Though it looks like straw, 60% of its fiber is paper. So, it should not get extremely wet or you'll have paper pulp.

 

Items used for facial features

Hot glued the raffia for hair

I added earrings but, they don't show up on the finished product.

I admit I had problems making the bow.

The back of the hat with a stuffing of newspaper inside a plastic bag to add weight. A string to hang it on the door hook.

The finished product on the door at night.

Close up

I later went back and cut the hair shorter.  Have a wonderful fall.

THAT'S IT ***

2013 A NEW CHAPTER

I’ve seen a number of book page wreaths all over the net. Just one of the ways to use an old book.

I still had my tablescape props and so I decided to use the 2013 book as the focal point to my door decoration. I gathered the items I needed.

Since I wasn’t making a wreath (by now you know I use what I have on hand) I went to my tried and true base product, CARDBOARD. I strengthened the cardboard foundation by taping then hot gluing two pieces of cardboard together.

TIP: Hot Gluing large flat areas

If you know like I know, hot glue dries fast and when you're trying to cover a large area that can be tedious. So what I did was to spread the hot glue over the area, sandwich it together and then reheat the glue by placing a press cloth over the cardboard ironing over the cardboard back and front and letting it cool .



The pages started out rolled and long.

 Rolling and stapling the paper tubes was the most time consuming part. The first set of tubes I rolled lengthwise and the second set width wise


Since I was working in an off center way my tubes went a little array.




Since I'm a lazy crafter I folded and flattened the tubes so
that they would fill in more space.




Here you can see the acrylic and glitter paints along
 with the alcohol and spray bottle

 After gluing everything on I wanted more color so I took a small amount of turquoise acrylic paint and put it in a spray bottle along with some rubbing alcohol and sprayed the rolled book pages. (So much for alcohol ink)


I wanted more shine so I dabbed turquoise and blue glitter paint here and there with my fingers.

After it all dried I hot glued the book in the center such as it was.

TIP: Hot Glue Tip #2   Got this tip fromYou Tube

I placed the glue on the back of one side of the book. I knew it would harden  before I could finish the areas that needed gluing so to reheat the glue, I held  a blow dryer(low heat) about two inches above the glue waving it back and forth until I felt the glue was heated sufficiently and evenly. I quickly pressed one side of the book in place. I did the same for the other side.

There were gaps between the hardback book and the glued on pages so I took a piece of fabric I’d bought at a thrift store and knotted it in various places and glued it around the book to fill in the gaps.


I had bronze colored glass beads that I felt would add to the “glamour” so I placed those around the margins of the open book.

To hang the piece I used the rest of the left over fabric  to make an adequate loop. I sewed and glued the fabric loop to the cardboard and tubes. It is now hanging on my front door. 

It’s not perfect and it has flaws but so do I and I’m still functional.

That's It ***