Wednesday, September 14, 2011

A Little Fall Crafting







We have guests coming later this week. You all know what that means?! You guessed it! I've been cleaning and sprucing up. And bring little touches of fall in along the way. I was feeling a little crafty yesterday and decided to play with an idea I have seen floating around.




This is how it began...a big mess. I drew a rough shape on the book after ripping off the cover. Cut, trace, cut, trace. Pretty basic. The one, only, solitary, all by their lonesome pair of scissors that I could find in the ENTIRE house were anything but sharp. I'm sure when Miss H and Miss K get home they will know precisely where the good scissors (yes plural) are. They both tend to hoard them for projects. At any rate, the dull scissors I was left with would only cut a few pages at a time. Because of this I had to keep adjusting the size a little. My pumpkin kept getting bigger. I then took the glue gun and attached the front and back sides of the book to one another. 




It looks like a pumpkin...kinda. But I still needed a stem. Most of the pics I have seen included a sawed off branch as the stem. I wanted to put my own flair on it.




Enter the wire cutters.

I had this coil of wire left over from the sofa table transformation in the girls' school/tv room.




 Beware! Wire cutters like to take little nibbles of flesh now and then...




I cut a half dozen three inch long pieces of wire and bound them together with 
some narrower craft wire. I used the same smaller wire for a couple of curly ques.




Pencils have so many uses, don't they?




There's my stem :)
I twisted more wire around the end that I planned on attaching to my little pumpkin.




WAIT! I don't want a silver stem...




Time to break out the spray paint. I wanted bronze, but we don't always get what we want. 
I had white or black to choose from. Black it is!




A little help from the glue gun and we have a completed book pumpkin.
All told it took a couple of hours to do, but I was reading blogs and doing laundry too.
I like it. Especially the curly ques.




Don't you like the chewed up dog brush on the floor? That's what I get for ignoring my puppy.
He entertained himself.

What are you crafting to bring fall indoors?
Joining the Party:

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Tip Junkie handmade projects

16 comments:

  1. cute..I've seen this done in other shapes etc and I alway think they are neat:)and I've always loved book pages...
    xo

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  2. This is delightful! I love that it's neutral and plays off that love of typography we all seem to have-- thanks for sharing!
    Heidi @ Show Some Decor

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  3. Well now I'm off to look for a decent book to use..lol My hubby is going to scream "Another project?" Thank you so much for sharing!

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  4. I love this idea...anything with words on it is inspiring to me!

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  5. Looks SO cute! My post is the next one after you, and mine didn't turn out near as nice, lol!!!

    Cara

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  6. This looks great!

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  7. I saw this project featured at Nest of Posies. I think it is wonderful and I am off to pin it on Pinterest now so I can come back to it.
    Love it!

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  8. Very clever! If I knew how to pin to my Pinterest. I would.
    Smiles, Alice
    Ps I am your newest follower!

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  9. I am adding this my crafty board on pinterest. Genius! Love your 'writers voice' too- you seem like my kind of gal!

    Visiting and now following from Nest of Posies.
    :) crafty texas girls

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  10. Love this take on altering books, so far I have seen X-mas trees and birdhouses, but this i haven't seen , Love it!

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  11. Thanks for the inspiration! I LOVE working with wire. Cannot get enough of it!

    Emily
    threfty.blogspot.com

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  12. This is a great tutorial. I think I need to try this...but I'll be extra careful with the wire-yikes!
    Thanks for sharing this

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  13. Love this. I've seen others like it but I love your stem. Thanks for sharing.

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  14. This is adorable. I'm glad I came across this post at the link up for 320 Sycamore. Ironically I came home this afternoon to find that my puppy had chewed the cover off several play books that I had on the floor! Yikes. I was unpacking a box and let them sit...bad idea! They were old...from school, and I think that this is just what I will do this weekend to "recycle" what is left! Thanks for the inspiration! Have a super weekend!

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