Furniture Feet Pumpkins.....?

Yesterday I shared my fall mantel here on the blog with a little teaser that I had a confession to make.

I've said in the past that nothing in my house is that valuable; therefore nothing is really sacred.  So, when I noticed that the feet of the ottoman I am currently reupholstering would make great pumpkins - well, off they came.

They are just perfect with these candlesticks.  I get bored decorating with candles, so these feet made me happy - and they gave Edward a good laugh when he realized what they were.

Luckily, I had a spare set of feet in the garage, so the poor ottoman can still stand tall.  Don't you just love them as pumpkins, though?  They're such a great color.

Display Pedestal Made From Old Lamp Base

One of my favorite places to get beautiful decorative elements for new projects - is from old lamps.  They are so available and overlooked, especially if they are broken in any way.

This lamp is not the newest fashion, but look at its pretty base and other individual components.  Are they not gorgeous?  I can't wait to use them.

This glass sphere in my garden was once a hanging lamp.  I found it at a yard sale for $1.

Lamps like this mantel lamp are not necessarily out of style, but they are inexpensive to start with.  I think when people can afford to upgrade to something nicer - they do - and so many end up in the thrift pile.  Yay for me, for if you take them apart and get rid of the metal tubing, you're left with a lovely little base.  Glue a glass plate to that -

- and get a darling little pedestal like this!

And if you need a cloche to go with it, 

click here for a few ideas on how to make one.

Not bad for something you can often pick up 

for a dollar or two.

Plate Rack Upcycle To Burlap Cork Board

Something I see often when I'm thrifting are plate racks designed to hold 3 or 4 plates.  I don't know if people don't want to hang plates anymore, or if they have too many racks already, or if they don't like that particular style now.  It just seems you can pick up some very pretty ones fairly inexpensively.

  

If plates aren't your thing, you could use them to display picture frames with pictures, or even make a jewelry hanger/memo board.  Here is one idea:

I took 3 oval frames and painted them to match.  
Then I covered cork with burlap, and put that inside the frames.

To cut the cork the correct size, I placed a sheet of paper over the back opening of the frame, and did a pencil rubbing to create a pattern.  I cut out the oval that appeared on my paper, and then placed that oval on my cork.  By doing a second rubbing over the edges of the paper onto the cork, I could see exactly where I needed to cut the cork.  It works best to cut slightly smaller than the line, and my kitchen shears worked great for the cutting.

Elmer's Glue-All was perfect for gluing the burlap onto the cork.  Just spread a nice even layer.  You want enough to soak into the burlap and hold it, but not so much it oozes out the front of the burlap.

That's it!  I know this is kind of a no-brainer craft, but thought someone might have a plate rack in their garage sale pile who would decide to hang onto it instead.  I actually find lots of uses for these racks.  Here is how I used this one before I changed it up:

Junk In The Garden

Junk is hot.....or have you noticed?

I've always been a person who decorated with 2nd-hand, possibly broken, overlooked, outdated treasures.  It's so nice that it is actually in vogue now, because you can make a fun friends' outing by going to Junk shows.

But what do you do with that junk once you find 

something really interesting and fabulous?

I especially love junk in the garden - so today I thought I would share some of the gems tucked in my garden areas in my backyard.  Almost everything featured was either picked up for free, or was less than $3.

 

Lest you think my entire backyard is really cluttered and junky - here are a couple of views to show that is it fairly contained.  Edward, my neat CPA hubby, does need some visually clean spaces.  I could go crazier, but I do try to keep him happy, too.

How I Hung The Chandelier In The Tree

LOL, 

enough people have asked, so here is my answer

to how I finally got the chandelier (see my post here)

way up in my tree.

 

I first tried throwing different things with a thin chord attached - up in my tree.  Sadly, the only throw I was successful at had to do with my shoulder - as in "throwing it out".

I did get the most height with this wreath.  Unfortunately, though, it landed on our roof, in our neighbors yard, in our gutter where it got stuck, and almost on my head.  Not 

a great plan.

I really didn't want to ask Edward for help, because I knew he would poo-poo the whole "chandelier in the tree" thing anyway.  He never likes my ideas in advance - only after they are in place.  I knew I was on my own.  So, I secretly pondered and pondered and pondered, and after much pondering I gave this a try - and it worked!!!

We have these 3 fiberglass rods that hook together.  I can't tell you where to get any - ours were just left here.  3 of them got me to about 18 feet.  Not nearly enough.  

Then I found this thin piece of wood trim that was small enough to fit snuggly inside the fiberglass pole, but sturdy enough not to break.

I attached a metal eye on the end of the wood, then ran a thin chord through the eye.  I tied a piece of metal on the end of the chord and unwound chord the full length of my combined poles - so I could hold it tight.  I then lifted all 28+ feet of pole into the air and balanced the pole until I made contact with the tree branch I wanted.  I pushed the metal piece over the branch and let it fall down the other side - releasing the chord I was holding tight.

Next, I attached a much stronger rope to the chord and pulled that back up over the branch.  Finally, I added some chain to the rope and hung the chandelier.  The rest of the rope is wrapped around a concrete pillar, so I can raise and lower the chandelier at will.

Was this easy?  No!

Did I strain muscles I didn't know I had?  Yes!

Can you hold me liable if you try this and hurt yourself

Never!

There! Now you know my story 

and that I am, indeed, a crazy woman

But a crazy woman with a really fun chandelier in her tree ;) !

Think Outside the Box - Candelabra Sleeves & Post-It Note Trick

One of the problems I ran into on my chandelier restore that I wrote about earlier this week, see here, was the candelabra sleeves.  Some of them were missing, and the ones that remained were so brittle they basically fell apart in your fingers.  No problem - just buy new ones, right?

  Not!  I searched and searched, but couldn't find this size anywhere - not even the internet.  I finally decided to just make sleeves out of something else......and another search began.  I'm not kidding when I say it took me weeks to find a solution.  After trying one thing after another, I finally found a less than perfect fit with the cardboard tube that comes in foil purchased at the $ Tree.  It was less than perfect because I still had to cut it down the side to fit it over the socket.  Once cut, however, it fit snug and held the crystal bobeche' in place perfectly.  

Since segments of cardboard tube are not terribly attractive on a chandelier, I decided to cover them with vintag-y,  light blue, letter scrapbook paper.  

Lavender Tub Tip:  Rather than measure and cut all of those rectangles, I just measured what size they needed to be and cut several at one time using my Silhouette Cameo machine.

Lavender Tub Tip #2:  When I was gluing the rectangles onto the sleeves, the edges didn't want to stay together.  By covering the glued seam with the sticky edge of a Post-it note and pressing it down well, the edges were held tightly shut until the glue dried.  Because of how Post-it notes are made, they came off the scrapbook paper quite easily and left no residue behind.

It wasn't my plan to have custom candelabra sleeves, but now that they are finished - I think they add a nice touch.

What have you created out of necessity?

Isn't it amazing what you can come up with 

when you're in a bind?

Ellie