Repurposed Antique Fireplace Cover To Chalkboard

I know, I know. You want before pics! I just jumped right into this project and before I knew it I had finished so I don't have any, but I can describe it for you.

I saw this very old, chipping, dirty fireplace cover at a consignment store way back in the summer. I didn't want to mess with it because it was in bad shape, chipping and painted Pepto pink!  However the cover was still in the shop when I dropped some things off a couple of weeks ago. I looked it over more closely and noticed the awesome shield design and other cool details.

 I already had a contractor garbage bag in my car, so I asked the the associate to bag it up for me. I'm really sensitive to dust mites, molds and anything else so I didn't want to touch it. The associate obliged and my sweet husband handled it for me when I got it home. Once it was shop-vac(ked) I just painted the whole thing with some homemade chalk paint. 

I took this grate thingy from the center and filled the hole with my "chalkboard" which is actually just a black foam poster board from Jo-Ann Fabric. I just stuck it on the back wedging it into some little metal notches. No cutting. No glue. It just worked. I'm sure you could cut and hot glue to fit whatever opening you need though. Then I drew my "Noel" as on a normal chalkboard. 

I copied my hand lettering from this ornament. I just free handed instead of messing with a printable but there are tons of free printables you can download if you want.

I was even able to clean up messes with a damp q-tip like on a regular chalkboard. 

Even up close you can't tell it's a foam board. With my coupon it was only around $3.00. I don't think it can be erased but the back is blank so I'll probably flip it over after Christmas and do a non-seasonal design. Easy! 

The house is really coming together now. I hope you'll stop back in next weekend for my full Christmas tour.

Hope you like it!  Do you think we will get sick of chalkboards anytime soon? I'm still loving them!

 A Merry Christmas to you!

Amber

Parties:

Show and Share http://linda-coastalcharm.blogspot.com/2015/12/show-and-share-no291.html?m=1

Vintage Inspiration Party http://knickoftime.net/2015/12/vip217-christmas-roundup.html

Make it Pretty Monday http://www.thededicatedhouse.com/2015/12/make-it-pretty-monday-week-160.html?m=1

Feathered Nest Friday http://www.frenchcountrycottage.net/2015/12/feathered-nest-friday_10.html?m=1

Holiday Home Sneak Peak

Hello fellow busy bloggers!! Today I'm sharing some photos of some of my Christmas decorations. I'll be doing a home tour for all the linky blog parities on Friday and Saturday so I hope you'll come back! Today's posts will just be photos but I'll elaborate more on the home tour. 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here. Do you like it so far? We moved in right before Christmas last year and it was rushed, so I really feel like this is the first "decorated" Christmas here. The home is a lot different than our last with all the rich, dark wood and colors, it's been a fun challenge to incorporate my shabby decor but it's coming together. I really hope you'll come back next weekend for the tour!

Merry Christmas!

Amber

Getting Ready For Thanksgiving

Hello friends! I'm super excited for Thanksgiving this year since it will be the first one in our new house and with my new double convection oven! Today I'm going to be going over my store list and checking it twice and maybe I'll even head out to try to get most of it bought to avoid the last minute chaos. I really love Thanksgiving and I don't do Christmas beforehand. I have just a few things out this year and it's all that's really needed to add Thanksgiving beauty to our home. 

I just created a little junk vignette around my chalkboard on the big buffet in the front room. Love it! Easy and quick.

On a small side table I grouped my favorite turkey tureen, a yard sale pheasant my mom just surprised me with, a Jim Shore Scarecrow and some various pumpkins and gourds. I decorated my little ivory tree with leaves and mini-gourds. We recently repainted our living room with a historic 1920's color, (I actually ended up having to make it from several colors to get the color I wanted) it's a dark rusty orange so all of my fall decorations look great.

 

I've messed around with the buffet in my living room several times trying to find the perfect way to display this awesome $5 yard sale turkey I found a couple of weeks ago.

I got rid of tons of fall decorations when we moved, but I couldn't part with these vintage Gurney turkey candles. They always look so sweet grouped with my brown transferware and fall dishes.

I also kept all of my antique turkey platters but they are still packed away. I was missing them and contemplating digging them out but I saw this one at a thrift store and decided it would be enough to satisfy my turkey platter fix for this year, and saved me the hassle of unpacking. 

Outside I've cleaned up all of the summery decorations and packed them away. Pots are being cleaned and the gardens cleared out and leaves raked. I'm still enjoy the last of the herbs and pumpkins through Thanskgiving.

The Rosemary is wonderful and I have been using it in my homemade simmers to keep the house smelling fall wonderful and fresh.

Are you ready for Thanskgiving? I can't wait!

Amber

Bewitching Makeover!

This weekend I purchased this witch at my mother-in-law's yard sale for $10. I have always wanted one of the life size animated witches like the ones in Grandin Road, but I could never bring myself to pay full price for one. I was thrilled to get a hold of this one because I knew with a little creativity she could be awesome.

She looked like she had seen one too many Halloweens, so I decided to give her a makeover.

The first thing I did was give her some false eyelashes. I used a cheap black eyeliner pencil to reshape her eyes, and give her some brows and lipstick. I even gave her a new witch mole, I mean, beauty mark.

The next thing was take her hair out of a ratty old ponytail and let it down. She is rockin' the awesome silver hair like we are seeing all over Pinterest these days. Then I started adding style and bling with a spider scarf and vintage brooch. I also reshaped her hat and glued a black and orange glittery rose on the side. She was looking good at this point, but when I added her blingy reading glasses, Alakaazammm! Makeover magic!

Bewitching! Her eyes light up and she cackles and moves around. So funny! And now she's just too stylish to be creepy. I'm hoping the neighborhood kids will love her and that my niece won't be afraid of her like she was when my in-laws had her on their porch. 

If this isn't a case for proving the power of makeup and bling, I don't know what is! I found the old brooch for .25 at a yard sale earlier in the summer and the scarf, glasses, eyelashes and eyeliner came from the Dollar Tree. The rose was a clearance sale special at Jo-Ann Fabrics so I spent about $6 on her makeover. $16 total-Works for me!

The witch also has a sound effect of a cat meow and screech which gave me the idea to put my vintage blow mold cat at her feet. Now it sounds like it's coming from the cat!

Last night I was going through some more Halloween stuff and found this cute tag...

"She tricked and treated and ate candy all night long" 

Here is what my porch was like last week. 

This was great for earlier in October. The flowers and plants were still vibrant here and the skeleton gave it just a touch of Halloween without going overboard. We have had a frost since this photo and things were starting to wither and die so it was time to clear out anyway. I don't like to do the creepy-creepy stuff until the week of Trick-or-Treat, so this look worked well up until this week. I bought the witch just in time to make the changes.

Today I moved my skeleton to another spot on the porch and cleared out all of the mums and summer flowers that were killed by the first frost and repositioned some pumpkins. Once I had my witch in place, I added some creepy cloth with purple lights over top for Trick-or-Treaters to pass under. Now we are ready, and Halloween is definitely in the air!!!

Have a bewitching Halloween week!

Amber
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Butt-ernut squash

I have no shame! I'm only listing for blog traffic :)

So...I wanted to try some of the delicious looking squash recipes on Pinterest. I headed to the local market to pick up a couple.

 When I got to the checkout I realized my butternut squash was rather, interesting.

Then I couldn't resist the play on words. Posted on my personal fb and got quick shares so I thought maybe I should blog it really fast for blog traffic. Hey, whatever works! It's good content, right?

Anyway, hope it gave you a laugh. Life is too short to be a fuddy-duddy!

And by the way, peel and dice your butternut squash, drizzle in olive oil, sea salt and freshly ground pepper, bake at 350 degrees about 30 minutes until carmelized and crispy. Soooo good!

Happy happy fall!

Amber

Ready For Halloween Porch!

After almost a month I am almost "finished" (yeah right) with my porch and stairs. I really love it! This is our first fall at our new house so I had fun coming up with a brand new look. I didn't spend a lot of money which is the best part.

I've really toned down a lot on my Halloween decor and sold a lot of it when we moved, but this year I did purchase large skeleton since we had such a nice porch for her to sit on and greet Trick-Or-Treaters.

Meet Ms. Beatrice Bones! She loves (d) pumpkins and fall gardening too!

I mixed in a couple of light up jack-o-lanterns for Halloween and we will carve a couple of the larger pumpkins but most of the design will last through Thanksgiving.

If you missed my previous fall porch tour click here to see the rest of the post 

http://www.junkaholicsunanimous.blogspot.com/2015/10/fall-porch.html?m=1

What about you? Is your porch ready? I'm headed to the blog parties to find out!

Amber

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