Finding rusty old junk is fun! Nevertheless, I have found that no matter how much "stuff" I find and collect, only God can fully satisfy my heart. Matthew 6:19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

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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Saturday, October 10, 2015

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


Friday, October 9, 2015

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

Friday, October 2, 2015

Fall Porch!

Hello on this October 9th? Time flies! And it's actually fall now so time to get this blog rolling with more fall posts. Today I'm showing you around the porch. This is the first time I have shown our porch of our new home!

I'll start with my favorite corner by the front door.
,
As I started thinking about fall decorating in late summer I was certain all these urns would be topped with pumpkins, but I loved the classic look of the boxwood and mossy spheres too much to part with them. I just kept them and added some of my faux chalk painted pumpkins around on the ground. 
This was so much less work and looks great!

 I like to evoke a magical, Celtic feeling for fall and the greens, greys, and stone urns work together like, well, magic!





You can't really make it out clearly here, but the little stone that the bird is holding says "healing." It's
one of my favorite reminders that every day I am healing through Jesus' miraculous intervention.


I have shown my small salvaged crown molding planter a few years ago in a previous post. It's one of my favorite pieces but I couldn't find a spot for it inside our new house so I put it on the porch to display my vintage Tom Clark gnomes. 

They add such a whimsical touch! I call them my fall garden helpers.

In keeping with magical fall gardens, I also created a cloche on our porch bistro table.


I already had this display with the faux succulents, garden finials, and fairy in a mossy nest. I simply added some small faux pumpkins and that's it. Fall magic!

I love how the green pumpkin mirrors the colors and patina of the finials, and the darker orange one just pops.


A few of my favorite things!

For my gothic planter I simply added a few floral picks of the same greenish-blue pumpkin and gourds and stuck some white pumpkins on there for pops of color and to compliment the other white pumpkins around my porch and yard. I keep it filled with boxwood year round so it's easy to just add
some little touches for holidays.

Love, love, love our new copper mailbox! We had looked for almost a year with no luck and when we finally gave up we found this one at Home Goods. The pumpkins sign was a cheap yard sale find and the color of the lettering just matches the tones of the copper mailbox and fall picks. I love how these things come together and I only spent about $10 on the fall picks so that's even better!

Here's an updated tweak since started this post.



I added this cute vintage style sign...




It's already October 9th and I'm not finished with my Halloween decorating? Scary!


If the rain ever stops we are going to the pumpkin farm to hopefully find the last few pumpkins for my porch to be "finished." I'll be adding some Hallowwen decor too.  I'm hoping to be able to take you on an outdoor tour next week. 

Thanks for stopping by. See you soon!