Thing #1 – Leave them on the ground and let them turn into pine trees like God intended. Because unless you have a herd of toddlers to put to work, why the hell would you waste perfectly good time picking up pine cones?*

First, bake them in the oven at 250 for 20 minutes to kill the spiders/bugs/nasty fungus stuff that might be living in them. Because nothing ruins the charming fall decor at your dinner party like poisonous spider bites as parting gifts for your guests.

Thing #2 – Roll them in acrylic paint and put them in a rustic basket as a centerpiece.

Thing #3 – Spray paint them and put them in a glass vase.

TODDLER FINGER PHOTOBOMB!

Thing #4 -Wrap the stem ends in yarn and make a garland.

Thing #5 – Cover them with spray adhesive and glitter and hang them up.

Thing #6 – Spread them with peanut butter and bird seed to make a bird feeder.

Thing #7 -Make scented potpourri: Put them in a ziplock bag & spray with adhesive, add cinnamon/cloves/lemon zest/pumpkin pie spice. Close & shake, open and sniff.

TA-DA! You just wasted your entire stay-at-home-lazy-day making pointless pinecone crafts!

*No toddler labor was exploited in the making of these crafts. Ok, maybe just a LITTLE toddler labor. But they liked it.

Confession: I’ve taken the “before” pictures for this makeover no less than five different times. Every time I walk through the living room (which is every time I go upstairs or check the mail) I am underwhelmed by its boringness and uselessness. We live in an old house, designed for formal entertaining (you can see the house tour here, although we’ve changed almost every room since then) which is fantastic when it comes to throwing parties but not so great for every day life. We don’t use the front door and we almost never use the dining room, so the front of the house has become a catch-all for junk. There isn’t even a couch in the living room – the free one I got off Craigslist went out with the trash before Evan’s 1st birthday and I haven’t found something I like/can afford. Which means for the last year (and then some), our living room has looked like this:

I know it was built for afternoon teas and dinner parties, but living in half our house is stupid – why feel cramped when we have an extra 300+ square feet of EMPTY SPACE to spread out in? And why do I keep insisting on using it as a FORMAL living room, when almost none of our living is formal?

So my mission was two fold:
1. Make our living room both more functional and more fun and
2. Don’t spend any money

Enter Pinterest.

{handprint art, chalkboard table, bright colored room, fabric garland, covered canvas, button letter}

And here’s how it looks now:

Breakdown:
-I bought the canvases from Michael’s when they were on sale AND I had a coupon, to save for a day when I was feeling creative. The striped ones are tissue paper attached with spray adhesive.
-All the paint, felt and ribbons are from previous projects, especially Caroline’s Nursery.
-The bright colored pillow covers are from Life’s Candy, my wonderful friend Mae’s shop. I relocated them from our entrance bench.
-The fabric on the garland was tablecloths at Little Evan’s 2nd birthday.
-The plates are straight up dinner plates from our cabinet, purchased at Walmart in 2001.
6. The empty frame was in our basement.
7. I bought the vases at Target for $3.24 each back in March to fill in the empty mantle.
8. The coffee table was in the basement, the blue chair was in the attic and the toys were in the toy box.

Since the coffee table is black you can’t really see the chalkboard paint unless I’ve drawn on it, so all it takes is a quick swipe with a damp paper towel and we have our grown-up piece of furniture back. The baskets underneath neatly hide all the toys and the chalk.

So paint, buttons, fabric, and some repurposing turned our boring wasted space into a cute, usable room. Now I just need to find a small couch, some big comfy floor pillows and a DVD player for that TV and we might actually start spending some time in there!

Of course I finished this just in time to change it all again for Christmas. Maybe we’ll go with a rainbow theme for the holidays this year.

This ain’t yo mama’s craft fair.

The adorable Jess of Allora Handmade

I’ve waited a REALLY LONG TIME to hug Hannah‘s face and I’m so glad I finally did.

I spent about an hour and a half (and sort of a lot of money) at the market, so of course I have pictures of what I bought to share:

Super hero cape from blue. by YeLLoMeDaiSY

Polka dot skirt from Stacy Lynn

I would totally post a picture of me WEARING it…if it fit. I thought it might but I underestimated the size of my hips. I’ll just call it more incentive to lose weight.

That’s actually MY headband, but she makes a better model. Also, I totally forgot which booth I got it from, so if you know tell me and I’ll link to the shop!

Headband from Little Penelope Lane

AND AND AND AND

My new favorite shop, Spiffing Jewelry. This bracelet isn’t up on her site yet – although I think we bugged her enough on Twitter that it will be soon – but in case you need help it says “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good” and is a reference to Harry Potter. Amy and Ashley and I spent a good 20 minutes looking at every single one of her geekery bracelets trying to decide which to buy. I should have bought at least two more, since they aren’t all online and I LOVE them.

I also had a super SUPER crazy run-in with my second grade pen pal at the checkout counter. Not even kidding, we wrote letters when I was 7 or 8 and haven’t seen her since. Facebook helped us recognize each other but how is that for one of those “what a small world!!!” moments?

Loved the whole thing and am thrilled with my new shop discoveries.

Because I’m too poor for real Louboutins and don’t really wear that much red anyways.

The trick is to find shoes with a) leather soles (as opposed to rubber or some other synthetic) and b) the right shape. The bottom needs to have a distinct edge, so you can paint just the sole.

Supplies:

Small amount of paint (I bought 2 colors but only used the blue for these shoes), cute but sort of boring pair of shoes (these Hollywould for Target, bought on clearance years ago but only worn once or twice), sandpaper, trim roller, small brush, acrylic sealant (meant for wood, found near the stain at the hardware store).

A note about the paint: You could probably use any paint you happened to have – this is from the hardware store, the kind you get mixed at the counter, but you could probably use craft store acrylics too. The important part is sealing it.

1. Wash off the bottoms really really well.
2. Sand the whole surface down so the paint sticks better.
3. Use a trim roller to get good, even coverage without any brush marks. The roller also lets you get right to all the edges without accidentally painting the side of your shoe too. Use a small brush to do the heel and along any of the spots you can’t reach with the roller.  I used 2 coats of paint and felt like that was enough coverage. Wait at least a few hours for it to be totally dry – I waited overnight.
4. With a wide brush, give the soles a coat of polycrylic sealant. The directions call for 3 coats, so I did all three, with a light sanding in between. Wait for them to dry completely. Sand it just a little more so it’s not too slippery – you don’t want to fall on your face.

5. Wear your cute new shoes.

Remember, you’re using paint, not magic dirt-repelling fairy dust. They’re still going to scuff and get less pretty if you wear them outside. The good news is you can sand off some of the crud pretty easily or repaint them for a special occasion.

My plan was to wear my adorable new shoes for BlogHer, but all the advice I’ve read recommends comfort over style. So if you see a girl limping around barefoot and CARRYING her patent leather heels with bright blue bottoms, come say “Hi”. And also “Wow, you sure are dumb.”

I am super proud of this project because for once it WASN’T inspired by something I saw on Pinterest or in a magazine or some other creative person’s blog. It came out of my very own brain, as small and empty as that brain might be.

And don’t go raining on my parade by telling me you wrote a tutorial for the VERY SAME THING back in 1997 when it was ACTUALLY an original idea because WHATEVER DUDE. We are not special snowflakes so just let me have this one, OK? I spend an embarrassing amount of time looking at things on Pinterest and kicking myself and slapping my forehead saying “Why didn’t I think of that?!” So I finally thought of something, which may or may not kind of suck, but as far as I’m concerned is the BEST CRAFT PROJECT EVAR.

No-Sew Rag Wreath Tutorial

Supplies:
Foam wreath form
Thumbtack/map pins
Fabric
Scissors

Because I am lazy, I bought a roll of pre-coordinated fabric strips from the craft store. I think these are meant for quilting but since that is a craft that requires actual skills you won’t find me anywhere near it. You could, of course, use your own fabric just cut into strips, if you were the kind of person who just kept yards and yards of pretty fabrics lying about. I bow to you.

When you unroll your roll, you’ll see there’s two long lengths of each pattern of fabric, folded in half. I started by cutting at the folds, so I had 4 strips of fabric. Then I cut through all 4 pieces at once to make square-ish squares. It’s not rocket science, so don’t get out your protractor or anything. The goal is to cut up a nice big pile of fabric pieces without injuring yourself. IT’S HARDER THAN IT LOOKS. You should see the blister I got on my middle finger from all the cutting.

I am so hard core. A HARD CORE CRAFTER. I’m packing heat! Oh wait, that’s just a glue gun.

I wrapped some extra fabric around my wreath (it took 2 of the full-length strips) because I didn’t plan to decorate the back and I thought it looked a little nicer with the fabric. Pin the ends with a couple of map pins (note: I bought the map pins at Staples in the fastener aisle. They’re just like the pins my mom used to use when she was tacking up a hem to sew but I would bet they’re cheaper when they’re called “map pins”). I alternated my map pins with some large ball thumb tacks in colors that matched my fabric. The tacks didn’t work as well because they were shorter, but add some texture to the finished product.

Now push a pin through the middle of one of your fabric squares into the wreath. Push JUST A LITTLE BIT MORE once you get it all the way in, so the fabric sticks out. Start filling in the wreath with different colored squares. I found it was easier to cover it with a layer and then go back and fill in as needed. After you’re about 3/4 of the way done you’re going to look at it and think “This looks TERRIBLE” but trust me, keep going. Pull the edges of the fabric out so you can pin new pieces close to the old pieces to get that sticky-outy effect.

Originally, I thought they would kind of look like flowers, but because I just cut squares they aren’t especially flower-like. You could use pinking sheers to make the edges ruffly or cut circles of different sizes, but as I’ve mentioned before, I am L to the A to the Z to the Y and nap times are short.

Once you reach the desired fullness level, use two pins to attach a ribbon to the back and hang it up. Check to make sure there aren’t any bald patches and voila, you have a one of a kind rag wreath.

Ta-da!