It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas wrapping....

I made a resolution this year to not buy any wrapping paper, bows, ribbon or ornaments.  I have plenty of that stuff around the house, and it would encourage me to be more creative.  Like I have a problem with that or something....anyway...

What I didn't think of at the time was that a lot of the wrapping paraphenalia I had around said house was of the green and black & white polkadot variety, with some zebra-print thrown in.  But I was determined to make it work, without having a repeat of the toilet-paper-and-an-old-extension-cord wrapping job I used three years ago.  I decided to rely on my trusty Microsoft WordArt and love of fonts to create my own name tags. 

Here are my first efforts...

Next up:  creative ways to wrap gift cards.

Play that funky football, right boys...

We had our last Wine Dinner of the year last week, and I could kick myself for not taking better photos of it!  My boyfriend is the photographer in our relationship, while I usually cut people's heads off and have random blurry images here and there. 

Our theme was supposed to be fairly simple this time....football.  But, of course, I can't do anything simple.  I have to make my life difficult at times, even if it makes me crazy.  So I didn't plan ahead for this one, didn't spend hours making centerpieces or name tags.  Overall, I wish I had done a bit more, because it felt like it was boring to me...even though everyone else seemed to like it.  See?  I have to make my life NOT SIMPLE!

But I digress....

At the last minute, I got the brilliant (okay, not so much in hindsight) idea of painting some football-ish shaped vases to look like....footballs...and threw some fake mums in them for centerpieces.  Not my best work, but I am happy about my name cards.  I bought some royal blue and hot pink binder clips from the office store and made Cowboy-star festooned cards and name pennants out of scrapbook paper. 

My best idea was literally at the last minute, when I needed to make cards for five more people and was out of scrapbook paper.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of them at the actual event.

Ah well.

Person of Pinterest

My name is Michele, and I'm addicted to Pinterest.  I've even found myself abandoning Facebook (gasp! sputter!) to spend time on Pinterest.  I do like that the idea is to click on something you like and it will ultimately take you directly to it's original owner or website.  I do understand that that is not always the option as well.  I've been saving ideas on my computer for many years, and saving ripped out magazine photos for decades now.  I would love to have all of those images magically transported to Pinterest, and credited to the proper people, but I know that's not going to happen easily. 

In the meantime, I'm still happily pinning away!

The party's over...

Well, the New Orleans themed Masquerade/Halloween Wine Dinner party has come and gone, leaving me with melted candles and more painted wine bottles than I know what to do with.  It was a rousing success, however, and I can't wait for the next one! 

and finally....me

 Just Buried

Black fly in your Chardonnay

I guess I should credit Martha Stewart for the idea of Halloween labels on old wine bottles, but I like my versions better! 

My dinner party is Tuesday night, so stay tuned!

S-S-S-S-A-A-A-A-F-F-F-F-E-E-E-E-T-T-T-T-Y-Y-Y-Y Safety...PINS!

Sometimes, my not-so-original idea of using song lyrics as blog post titles backfires at bit....

So, I've been saving baby food jars for about 4 months now, which gave me a grand total of 13 jars.  Before you go thinking that I'm neglecting to feed my poor child, you should know that we fed our new puglet baby food mixed with puppy chow....but I digress.  My initial thought was to paint the inside of the jars with orange paint, and make jack-o'lantern faces on the outside.  My second thought was to wrap gauze around them, and make mummies, so I ran with it.

I also had about 378 little gold safety pins (hence the overly silly post title), so I spray-painted some of them black and added them to the back of the now-wrapped jars.  I added some black marker eyes and voila! 

 I'll just add some cheap tealights and these will make great, inexpensive candles for my dinner party decorations.  I decided to save the 'paint the insides' idea for my collection of empty wine and champagne bottles.  Also leftover from the dogs, of course. 

A gratuitous photo of our puglet (pug puppy)...

Love is kinda crazy with a spooky little....sign

My co-worker and I had a conversation about funny nicknames that you call your family members.  My dear little sister is affectionately nicknamed "Scary," so Halloween is a perfect time to show the love, so to speak.  If you look past the glaringly horrible photography skills of mine, you can catch a glimpse of the letters I'm painting to add to a black feather wreath.  Now, all I have to do is find a black feather wreath.

Now, a sign fitting for my parent's cat, Spooky. 

I should say that he is more commonly known as Killer, or simply Black Cat.  My family members have never been cat people until this cunning little creature strolled in through the doggy door...and never left.  Kinda fitting that he showed up in late October, and fits in nicely with the Halloween decorations.

But if you'll sit down in that chair, right there, and let me show you how its done

I love this time of year, especially HALLOWEEN!    Last year, I painted my first Halloween chair. 

This year, I'm planning a Haunted New Orleans/Masquerade themed dinner party.  Each month, my boyfriend's restaurant hosts a Wine Dinner, and I get to plan the theme and decorating.  I only have a $25 dollar budget, so I'll be using my budget decorating skills quite a bit.  I've been saving wine and champagne bottles and glass baby food jars, so be looking for some interesting, but thrifty crafts coming up!

How did I get here?

Is it normal to start a blog with a severe case of writer's block?  I have no clue how to start this thing, so let's just get past this first painfully awkward introduction and we can get on to the good stuff....okay?

Since I was very young; I've painted, decorated, remade, recrafted, repainted and redecorated everything I could get my hands on.  I started reading Seventeen magazine at age 11, but only because it would have a decorating section in the 'Back to School' issue every year.  Imagine my frustration at not having my own dorm room in the 6th grade!  My first real decorating attempt was a near-disaster, resulting in dark lavender walls with a white canopy bed and a purple floral bedspread...which totally clashed with my Duran Duran and Wham posters.  My next bedroom sported a diagonal-striped wallpaper feature wall complemented with bright yellow paint everywhere else.  My mom and I successfully made drapey curtains out of hot pink and blue sheets, and I called myself a decorator!  Fast-forward to my high school years; and my room consisted of a bright red daybed, yellow dust-ruffle and balloon shades....and custom paint-splattered furniture.  I would take my mom's 29 cent craft paint and go to town on anything that would stand still.  It looked way awesome, but I probably did go a bit too far....learning the hard way that heavy paint splatters do not come off of antique rocking chairs or stereo speakers. 

Eventually, I went to college and majored in Art; then went on to design school where I acquired my prestigious Interior Design degree....resulting in a string of jobs ranging from used car-parts saleswoman to a 10-year stint at Home Depot to numerous secretarial positions.  But my stubborn creative streak continued, and I've taught myself many useful (and useless) crafts, budget decorating skills and countless how-to projects...which I will now pass on to you, dear reader.  And don't worry, very few of them involve paint splatters.