Decorative Dress-Ups for Fall, Part 1

It gets so hot in Oklahoma in the summer that by the time August rolls around, most of us are ready for fall.  I told myself I was not going to do that this year, because I wanted to enjoy every minute of summer.  But who knew summer was going to be nothing but weeks and weeks of 108-113F degrees temperatures and a terrible drought?  

 This is one of my dwarf spruces when it was turning brown.  They are now completely brown and dry.  So sad.

And then.......

WHOO-HOO! A YIP-I-O-EE-AY!   Friends, that's Oklahoma talk for Hurray, Yay, Oh Boy, it's rainin!  A few days ago, the rain came in and cooled everything off.  Although we're still very behind on rainfall and we know the heat is not finished with us yet, Celebration is in the air.

Truly, you can just sense it.  The days are growing shorter. The shadows are stretching longer.  The kids will all be back in school by Monday.......Oh, us girls are just itchin' to set out pumpkins.  How we love us some Fall!

Since I'm not crazy about storing boxes and boxes of different seasonal decorations, I like to have my basics in place and then just dress them up.  For example, I have some of those cheap, battery candles.  They put off nice ambient light when they are switched on, but when they are off just sitting in a room, UG-LEE.

Scrapbook papers, on the other hand, are so beautiful.  Do you find yourself with a handful when Michaels or Hobby Lobby has them on sale 4/$1, with no idea of what you're going to do with them?  Yeah, me too.  To start flirting with fall decorating, I decided to dress up my ugly candles with scrapbook papers.

The simplest way is to just cut or tear some coordinating papers and wrap around the candles.  To get a nice torn look, dip a knife is water and run it along the cutting line in a wavy, jagged pattern.  Wait a few seconds and then carefully tear. This allows you to control your tear better and keeps it from looking like you've taken little bites all along the edge.

Another fun idea is to run scrapbook paper through a printer in order to personalize it.  Here I've printed pretty monograms for my favorite college football team onto coordinating papers.  GO COWBOYS!!!  You can find these monograms for free, as well as the design on the green candle above, at The Wedding Chicks Blog, found here.  They even do them in different colors. 

I'm having so much fun, it's starting to get a little out of hand.  Come back tomorrow when I'll show and tell a slight variation on the candles.

Thanks for stopping by.  If you can't find me, I'm out back happy dancing in the rain!

To see Part 2, go here.

ELLIE