Getting ready for the Holidays/ Making your own napkin rigs

Happy Halloween, everyone!

It is so hard to believe tomorrow will be already November!

My days/weeks are going by so fast! Is it just me?

The Holidays will be here before we know it and I am trying

to get myself ready before time by finishing all my craft projects now.

First, I am preparing myself for Thanksgiving.

Last year we had a very quiet holiday, but, this year,

not only we will have my husband's brother and family celebrating with us, 

but, our son will also be coming home on leave. :)

This will be the last time he will be able to come home for a long while.

His ship will be leaving for a world tour first week of January

 and he will be gone all of 2013, so, yes, I am trying to make it as special as I can for him.

Today, I will be sharing a project I just finished.

I saw this video on YouTube a long time ago on how to make 

your own napkin rings with paper towel tubing.

I never even saved a link to it, so I am going to try to give you a small tutorial.

Now, I am no good at giving tutorials,

 but this is such an easy project, even I can do it! LOL

All you need is the tube from the paper towel roll, whichever ribbon you want to use 

to match your tablescape and a glue gun.

Your want to cut the tube in 2 inch pieces. I did cut eight of them, 

since that is how many place settings I will need for our family dinner.

Then, you add a little glue to the inside of it to secure your ribbon.

Put a little glue across the tube and just bring the ribbon over and wrap around.

Keep repeating this process until the whole piece of tubing 

is wrapped in ribbon, inside and out.

You want to do this so the inside on the tube is as pretty as the outside.

Using the same ribbon, I made different patterns

 Here is my eight napkin rings

And this is a sample of how I am planning to use them for our holiday table.

So easy and simple to make and yet, I think it will make the napkins look very festive.

Imagine the possibilities! You can use different ribbons, Fall, Christmas, Spring

 or add little embellishments.

And the best part, since I had everything on hand, it was a free project! 

So, what do you guys think? Who would of thought, right?

I am so glad I came across that video!

Now I am working on name tags and also a centerpiece for the table using these colors and maybe, I will add one more color, just to make the table a little more fun. :)

Enjoy the rest of the week and see you all soon!

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Debbiedoo's 

Cedar Hill Ranch

DIY by Design

Have a daily cup with Mrs. Olson

 

 Katherines Corner

Kristens Creations

Curb Alert

 

BNOTP 

2805

Cozy Little House

French Country Cottage

Redoux Interiors

Imparting Grace

Stuff and Nonsense

A Stroll through Life

At the Picket Fence

The Dedicated House

From My Front Porch to Yours

Romantic Home

The Charm of Home

 

Talking about clocks

Good morning!

I hope everyone is having a good week!

In the last few weeks, I have received several emails from you guys asking me

for information about the clock on our Family Room.

I thought today, since I have a little time this morning, which it doesn't happen often,

I would put a post together to answer your questions.

We bought the clock from Kirklands about four years ago.

If you are familiar with this company, you know they change 

their merchandise all the time, so, I have not seen it again in their stores for a while now, but, you never know, it may be an item they bring back.

It took us a while to figure out what we wanted to use to decorate our fireplace.

I know you can't tell by the pictures, but we have 10 foot ceilings and 

that space over the mantle is pretty huge.

The clock is 40 inches tall by 35 wide, so, that should five you an idea.

After building the mantle, this is what we had. 

Nothing! LOL

Shortly after, we purchased a painting.

It was ok, but not what we had in mind.

I wanted that wall to be the focal point of the room.

This picture is now on our upstairs hallway.

As soon as I saw the clock, I knew it was perfect for that wall.

I loved everything about it!

The old "faux" leather finish, the engravings on the four sides and 

the gold embellishments  on the corners.

Even the roman numerals and the old look of the clock face was 

everything I was looking for.

And, by the way, it always gives the perfect time. We never had to adjust it.

It was love at first sight!!! 

But, it was a little pricey, so, after staring at it for a while, I went home.

Of course, for the next couple of days, I couldn't stop thinking about it! LOL

When I finally decided to go back and buy it, it was gone!

Yes, gone! No more clocks left!

This is something I do quite often and it always ends up the same way.

You think I would of learned by now! :)

It took the wonderful employee at Kirklands, Sandy,

(she and I have become best friends since then)

several weeks to find it for me, and, when she finally located one,

it had come down on price, so it worked out very well.

It took us several hours to get it up there.

The rock wall just did not want to take the screws and the clock is extremely heavy.

After going through all that trouble, I have to tell you, it is there to stay!

And, as I decorate the mantle for every season, 

I always work around the clock as you can see in the pictures below.

 At this time, I also want to thank you all for your wonderful comments

and emails about our sweet puppy, Angel.

I am happy to report that the medicine treatment the vet put her on seems to be working

and the change in her has been like night and day in the last few days.

She still has a while to go and then more test will be taken.

But, she is sure smiling again and full of energy. 

Yes, dogs smile also! LOL

Thank you for stopping by and always taking the time to leave me a comment.

It sure means the world to me!

linked to:

A SMALL FALL TABLESCAPE

Sooo glad it is Friday!!!

This has been one long a difficult week for me.

First, I want to apologize for been MIA for over a week.

Our precious little puppy has been sick and we have spent most of

the week at vet appointments and taking care of her.

She is on medication now, which we are praying will start working very soon and

she won't have have to have surgery. 

Yeah, this is serious!

Anyway, due to all this, I have not had a chance to do any projects or

even sit at the computer more than five minutes a day, so, before the weekend gets here, I just wanted to share with you guys a small Fall tablescape that I did last year.

It is very simple, but I have to tell you, we had a heck of

a great meal that day! LOL

For this tablescape I used my, then new, Gibson dish set.

 I love the warm colors on these plates. Perfect for Fall.

Placemats came from Kohls. Oneida flatware.

Fall centerpiece and candles from Kirklands.

Also used my old Cristal d' Arques glasses with gold trim that I had for so many years

 and added Fall napkin rings and little ceramic pumpkins in different colors

 to dress up each place setting.

 

I sincerely wish you all a happy and restful weekend.

Hope to be back next week with some new post.

See you soon!

 

NOT SO EASY!

Hello, everyone!

Where did this week go?

Before it comes to an end, I wanted to share our latest project.

We finally got brave and stained our front door.

It was something that really needed to be done since the high

temperatures we have every summer in Texas had faded our

front door badly as you can see in this picture.

Before I continue, I have to say, we were not born to stain! LOL

We just can NOT figure out how to do it right.

This turned out to be a very difficult project!

First, we had to take the door down to be able to sand it in the garage.

This door is solid oak and it was so heavy that, that in itself, was a huge job.

Of course, we had to cover the entrance with plastic, to make sure we did not get

any creepy crawlers inside the house. 

Scorpions have been a serious issue this summer and even with the cooler temperatures,

they do not seem to want to go away.

After many hours of sanding and preparing the door for staining,

we applied the first coat.

Oh, boy! That was a real disaster! The color was coming out orange!!!

I know you can't tell very well on the pictures, but believe me, in person, it was orange!

 You want to talk about panicking!!! LOL

After a whole day of sanding, staining, cleaning and sanding some more,

we found ourselves with the sun going down and no front door!!!

With a lot of praying and heavy lifting we got the door back up for the night

and next morning, with the door in place, 

(there was no way we could take it down again)

we went back to work.

It had to be sanded again.

Do I have to tell you the mess that it created inside my house?

And after, came the problem of the stain color.

Don't ask me what is the name of the color we used.

I could never tell you! LOL

We have several cans of different stains in the garage,

so we mixed them, a little bit of this and that, until we came up

with a color that we liked. Just crazy!

After we achieved the desired color, we gave it two coats of satin polyurethane.

Our second issue was the hardware.

We wanted to replace it with something in silver, but,

after checking every store we could think off, we could not

find one that would work for our door.

We are going to have to research this a little further, so, meanwhile, we bought

a special high performance metallic spray paint and gave it a new look.

And here is the finished project.

 Before and after

All in all, it turned out to be a four day project.

Don't laugh! LOL

We are hoping it stays looking like this for many years to come,

because that is how long it is going to take us to recuperate from it.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Ours is going to be "project free"! :)

Until next time!