Halloween Around the House

*Can you believe this is  my fourth post in two days?  Who am I?!!

Thought I would just show some Halloween love I've got going on around the house.  I've had this up since the beginning of October, and I am actually excited to switch things up again so it's just plain fall decor.  You'll probably see a post with that too.  :)

Disclaimer:  I am not a professional photographer.  I do not have an editing program nor do I know how to use the generic one on iPhoto.  These are straight out of the camera.

First up--a little pumpkin candy bowl and a BOO sign I got from Marshalls for $7.


I know that there are DIY posts about making this exact thing, but I didn't have the time or supplies.  I would probably spend more trying to make it...  Oh!  And that Scentsy candle warmer?  It's got 'Cinnamon Bear' melting away in it.  Nothing says holidays like the smell of cinnamon, if I do say so myself!  *Side note:  That's a surfboard behind our side table.  One of 4 inside our house.  My husband has 19.  He's obsessed.  They are going to storage when we redecorate.  End side note.*


The top of our entertainment center we recently bought from IKEA.  We don't have a fireplace, so this is as close to a mantel as we are going to get.  I made that little Halloween bunting last year.  Got that idea here.



Top shelf.  Framed pumpkin button art (inspiration) I also made last year, the spray painted owl from this post, and a brass apple bell from the thrift store ($4).



Fake pumpkin atop some stacked books with scary titles (from antique store $2 a pop), and an apothecary jar (from Goodwill $2) filled with candy corn.

Here's a close up of the scary titles.  Murder in the Dentist Chair, Tongues of Flame, and The Day the Century Ended  muahahahaha

Third shelf.  Black glittery pumpkin with changing color LED light inside (Walmart $2.50) and Spooky sign from Target One Spot ($2.50).  This is the shelf I like the least.  I couldn't make it too crazy, because it's within Brody's reach.  He hardly messes with it though, since his favorite thing, books, are stored right below it.

Now let's get a close up of the top decor.

These are some random things that I had in my Fall box.  I bought some Indian corn this year ($1 each) and didn't know how to display it, so I just threw them in a vase.  meh...



Also things I have had for a few years.  Brian even had this spooky candle tree in his apartment in college!  Over 6 years ago!


Then, on this side, I have a crow from the dollar store ($1, duh), the acorn vase I made here, and a lantern from Walmart for about $5.  I liked the more square lanterns, but Brian really liked this kind and said we could actually use it camping, so ....  whatever... :)

That's it for the entertainment center.  On to.....

The windows!  Just a little bunting I made last year with scrapbook paper and twine.  super easy.

I also have this little sign on the towel closet door.  I change it out for the seasons/holidays.

From Walmart for a couple bucks.  See that growth chart?  So cute! Brody got it for Christmas last year from my parents.

Next, we have a new piece of furniture that Brian actually made and I stained.  I wanted something skinny to put in this hallway.  Love it and it cost very little. :)

Here's a close up.  Gravestones and crow-dollar store.  Then, I picked up some fake pumpkins in different sizes from Michael's, covered the stems, and painted them with metallic silver spray paint.  

And I also got the glittery pumpkins from Michael's in a pack for $2.  

Then I bought a variety of candlesticks from Goodwill, the antique store, or Ikea and spray painted them all the metallic silver to look the same.  I was thinking of adding some black candlesticks, but maybe I'll wait until next year.  I bought the skull from The Dollar General for a couple bucks.  He is actually made out of red clay (like a flower pot) and had gold glitter on him.  I didn't like, so what did I do?  All together now:  I spray painted it!!

And the chalkboard was actually a picture frame (from Goodwill) that I painted the glass with chalkboard paint and the border with spray paint.  I plan on keeping it here and changing out the quotes.

In my kitchen, I have very minimal decorations.  I use my countertops a lot and I didn't want things crowding them.  So...

We have a ceramic weaved bowl (from Target clearance $4) with cinnamon scented pinecones (yum) and a little apple pie candle for ambience.  :)

This is not necessarily 'Halloweenie', but I just thought I'd throw this picture in there.  Love my milk glass vases, and planters and pitchers.  They have the same craspedia flowers I talked about in my bathroom update post.  I'll probably move some of this onto the mantel when Halloween is over. 

*I should have posted pictures of my Halloween kitchen towels, but I forgot!  Just pretend...

And now let's go outside.

Here's the wreath I made for our front door.  Super easy.  Grapevine wreath, fake flowers, letter from Michael's modge podged with fabric.  The flowers are just stuck in there so I can switch them out with the holidays.  

Here's my front porch view.  The wreath, the mum project I talked about here, my jack-o-lantern candle buckets from Kohl's 2 years ago on clearance after the holiday, my real pumpkins on the right (Brian, Jessica, Brody), and a fake one on the left.  I think I may spray paint and carve a big "S" in the fake one and bring it inside for my fall mantel....hmmm... (here's where I got that idea from)

So...that's it!  Halloween around the house!

And look at this goober!  He was actually not very happy at this moment because he was STUCK!  But I thought it was hilarious!  And look at those cute monster baby legs and fluffy baby butt!

...and THAT MESS!!

Bathroom Reveal!! (Finally!)

This post has been a long time coming!!  Admittedly, the bathroom has been almost done for a while now.  I have just been procrastinating putting the frames above the toilet (that you'll see below).

This bathroom started out as lime green with a rainbow striped shower curtain.  We were young, loved bright colors and wanted to go crazy with our house.  You will see in posts later on down the road, that each room in our house is a different color.  Finally, after 6 years of living here, I wanted a change.  Something a little more sophisticated and something that's a little more 'sellable' in the future.  So, we started small with our master bath.  This house is small, and our master bath is really small.  But that's okay. :)  Well, I better stop jabbin'.  Ready?

Disclaimer:  I am not a DIY blogger.  Though, I wish I was. :)  You would think after reading hundreds of before and after posts, I would remember to take really good 'before' shots.  I thought I did, but they magically disappeared from my camera.  That or I was having a mommy hallucination....

Before:



Seriously, Jessica this is the best cabinet shot you could get?  But alas, yes.  Yes it is.  I was actually taking a pic of the havoc wreaked by my son.  We had brown, wooden cabinets that are typical in most homes.

Here is the aforementioned green walls, but the cabinets painted white.  Here is a cheap-y trick:  We didn't want to buy all new hardware because that stuff adds up, so we removed it and spray painted them with brushed nickel spray paint!  Genius!  Got the idea from an awesome DIYer that I previously talked about here, and you can see where I got the idea to reuse my hardware here.

Let's back up the shot a little bit.  Oh, hey hubby!  We took down our previous light fixture because it was the Hollywood lights, and while I'd like to pretend I'm famous, I was over them.  You can't really tell, but when they installed the lights, they decided not to center the hole, so our new lights are a wee bit off center, but it's not that bad....

And guess what?  Those are all the before pics I could find! ahh!  Just pretend there was a towel hanger above the toilet, a rainbow-striped shower curtain, three small white shelves to the left of the sink, and a towel hanger and sparkly rainbow fish decor on the wall opposite the toilet.  Classy, eh?

During:

  Our paint color was Valspar's Stone Partition, in case you are interested! (from Lowe's)

  

There were a few places that needed to be touched up, so I just grabbed my craft paint brushes and went to town!  Some places even had the previous green paint poking out, so I went over that too.  Suggestion:  If you plan on painting your baseboards to freshen them up a bit, I would take the primer all the way from wall to baseboard, so that you have no previous color when you pull up the tape.  Live and learn...

And the after!  Some of these were taken with my camera and some my phone.  Surprisingly, the phone ones turned out MUCH better.  This bathroom gets NO natural light, so sorry for the 'yellow glow' in some of them.  :) 

AFTER!!!:

New paint, new medicine cabinet, new shelf, new light fixture!

The painted cabinets.

New dark brown rugs from Kohl's.  They were 60% off in a one day only sale!  Lucky me!

Our biggest purchase-from Lowe's.  I just loved the baskets.  See that mercury glass owl up there?  Got it for free!!! From Kohl's!  I received a $10 off gift card in the mail from Kohl's and it was 50% off on that one day only sale.  Originally $20-->50% off-->$10 -$10 gift card --> FREE!  I  may have done a little dance in the parking lot. :)

The only issue with the cabinet was that since it was large, it covered the only electrical outlet in the whole bathroom!  So, my handy husband sawed out a little rectangle and VOILA!

And it's hidden with the basket when not in use.

Isn't it funny how all guys need is a toothbrush and deodorant?  Girls on the other hand...

We kept our faucet because those things are 'spensive!  Holy moly!  I was walking through World Market and saw this soap ($4--I'm a sucker for nice soap)  and cute yellow tea light holder for just $2!!  

It used to look like this above the toilet, but I got a few frames from the antique general store in town and...

much better!  (This was taken with my phone--see the difference?)

And now, the shelf and towels.  Those towels!!! I am in LOVE!!  I actually saw these babies on a few different bathroom makeover blogs and I coveted them!  The bloggers said they got them from World Market.  I went to worldmarket.com and it said this item was no longer available.  I googled them and 'decorative yellow and white towels' and was having no luck!  I stopped by the World Market closest to us and GUESS WHAT!  These were on the clearance rack!  WHAT??!!  You better believe the angels were singing from Heaven and there was a light shining down directly on them!  HALLELUJAH!  I snatched up these, the hand towels, and washcloths!  Yes please!  can you tell i was am a little excited?  

**Picture taken a different day, with my phone, with different towels ($2 a pop from Wal-Mart).  It just showed the shelf better. :)

I "shopped my house" for decorations to put up here.  The basket holds toilet paper, and I originally made the 'S' for a wreath that I needed to finish up.  I did buy the vase/containers from Wal-Mart for a couple dollars and I bought a big bunch of preserved Craspedia/Billy Balls/Billy Button flowers from this etsy shop.  

Then, I bought some chevron fabric from fabric.com and decoupaged the light switch.



I'm kind of in love with it:).  Got the idea from etsy.

And just for kicks, a zoomed out pic with the white towels.  

Here is the shower curtain that I got from Marshall's, along with a new brushed nickel rod and hooks.

Just to see the transformation:

 Before



After:

There you have it!  We had lots of fun doing this project and am sooo excited to get started on the other rooms of our house! 

** I also have to add that we did this project just to change the look.  We were trying to save as much moolah in the process.  So-same floors, same countertop/sink.  The most we spent (like I said) was on the medicine cabinet (which I know takes up a lot of space) because I hated stuff sitting out all the time, and then with the cost of the shelf, hooks, paint, rugs and shower items, this only cost us maybe $200/$250.  :)  Ask if you have any questions----unless you're spammers.  I have gotten so many spam comments lately! boo!

Gettin' All DIY Up in Here

I really want to show you our bathroom and all the progress we have done on it so far, but I think it would ruin the big reveal.  Not that it's going to be like fancy shmancy DIY bloggers, but it's definitely a change from what it was.  I will show you a pic of the wall before we painted so you know that I wasn't lyin' when I said it was lime neon green.

ummmm...yeah

Those are some paint colors we were looking at.  I said, 'I wonder which one would look best with the yellow accent color and my redneck husband whipped out a can of yellow spray paint and sprayed it on the wall.  Gotta love him....

In the meantime, I have been spending a lot of my computer time looking at DIY blogs and pinterest.  There are so many that have inspired me, but one that I love that has really good ideas and easy craft creations was 320 Sycamore.  I have spent a lot of time going through her posts.  And then going to Lowe's.  And Wal-Mart.  And Goodwill.  Now, I wish it was yard sale season so I could scope out some awesome deals like she does.  Go check her out.

Here are a couple things that I have been up to.  Quick, inexpensive, decor ideas.

1.  Spray paint makes it all better.
After reading through Melissa's blog, I realized that spray paint can turn something extremely ugly to something that looks like it came from a magazine (sort of).  I was inspired by this post of hers and off to The Dollar General I went.  They had a lot of their spring/summer stuff on clearance, so I picked up a few tacky, redneck figurines and tried my hand at it.  I was actually really embarrassed checking out with these because I didn't want people to think I was putting them in my home as is.
My lovely woodland creatures:

And their cost:

I grabbed some spray paint primer and went to town.  And then some basic semi-gloss white.  I might get the Heirloom White color next time.  Perfect timing because after these guys, I ran out of paint.

Stupid bug decided to meet his death on the birdie tail, so I just scraped him off, waited for it to dry, sanded a little and sprayed some more.

Trying to decide if I like the flowers or not...It was only $2.50...Who cares!?

So much better!!!

I am using the owl for my fall decor, but the rabbits and bird are going to wait until springtime.  I am thinking of doing something like this.  

2.  Look around your yard!

As I was painting these dear creatures, I noticed an acorn on my blanket that had fallen from the tree.  I had just purchased some different sized vases to decorate around the house from Wal-Mart.  If you look in the fake flower/wreath form/craft area, you can find some super cheap ones.  I bought a couple bud vases and long skinny ones too.  AHA!  I shall collect these tiny acorns and put them in the vase!  This cost me about $1.25.

Voila!

3.  Buy some mums.

This flower just screams fall.  They are hardy and will last for a couple months (if you remember to water them...)  I didn't have any pots to put them in, so while I was perusing Wally World, I found some big, green plastic ones for $4.95.  And the mums were $4.95 each, so here we have a $10 project.  Now, I love the color green.  It's my favorite.  But I really wanted black because it's universal and I can use it throughout the seasons.  So...revert back to #1.  I spray painted it black.  Brian brought some flat black spray paint from work and I sprayed a couple coats. 

Next up--plant the mums.  Now, these pots were a little big for the $4.95 mums, so I put a few rocks on the bottom to take up space. 

I had some leftover soil from the spring, so I started to fill up the pot.

When I went over to the bag, look what I found on top!

I plan on keeping this and using it for my spring vignette.  yay!  Brian said, "You better Lysol the heck outta that thing before bringing it inside!"  yes, master...

Well, along with having two planters, I also had purchased a new utensil holder at Wal-Mart.  The one I bought was much wider than my old one, but it was a dark bronze color.  So guess what I did?  Spray painted it! HA!  So, now I had a white ceramic container waiting to be filled with mums and brought inside.  I tried to separate one of the mums and...it was hard.  And I'm not sure if the indoor mums will live.  But they sure look pretty now!

In my utensil holder.  This and my pots looked kinda puny, so I rummaged through my ribbon drawer...

Ahh...Much better! :)

Grab an awesome pitcher and water them suckers.

Then take a pretty picture with a sign you made (that was free to make!) and post it on Instagram.   **I used a technique similar to this.  

Follow me: @brodiddly

Hope you got inspired!  Have you done any fall projects yet?