a dust of decoration.

Our home needed more festive flavor to really get the most out of November, a light pixy-november-y dust of fall decoration.

Well, I would have loved to tell you where I got my inspiration for this project, but it seems that when I re-organized my pinterest boards, I lost all my good holiday pins. (That will take a few, necessary hours of repinning this weekend.) I had seen a project like the one I created made from wooden letters (or something similar) painted in fall colors. Even though I can't find that original post, here is another tutorial that I used as inspiration for the how-to/design element.

I am obviously all about making free crafts rather than buying any new supplies at the store. (Although, Jenny did get her wooden letter for a good price.) So I gathered up materials from what we already have: Aldi cardboard boxes (we grab a few every time we forget our reusable bags), paint (from past projects), scissors, tape (I can't believe I don't have any glue), and old magazines (it doesn't hurt that I've subscribed to Self magazine for the past two years.)

To start, I needed to free-hand draw my letters. I started with the G, and once I was happy with that, used its height and thickness as a base for the other letters. The drawing/cutting out process took me 20-30 minutes. Put on some background TV and get started. (I really should have been catching up on TV shows I've been missing lately: 3 or 4 episodes of Gossip Girl, an episode of The Mentalist, and one of Whitney.)

I originally had wanted to paint my letters with fall colors like the original inspiration/tutorial, but decided to go with a collage look instead. (Collages are way more my style. I used to do so many magazine-cut-out projects in college for design in our dorm rooms, notes, etc.)

I cut out sections of pages with the different colors I was looking for (brown, red, yellow, and orange) and separated them into piles. Then I asked Mr. Allen to pick a color for the first letter and I got started. (I always end up wrangling him into helping with whatever project I am working on. :] ) Cutting little pieces of tape took much longer that I wanted it to, but when you don't have glue (and you don't have money), you do what you need to do. The collage cutting/wrapping/taping took me the better part of an hour or so, and I actually had to finish the E today (you can notice that it isn't finished in one picture) because we really needed to head to bed.

Here's the final look:

The letters found a home in our window sills.

[And, if you've visited our house, there's a little different room set-up. We like it. No, we love it. It's Christmas-tree and baby-swing friendly.]

And there you have it. Sorry there was no full tutorial, but I think you get the idea. Very simple, homemade, cute way to Thanksgiving-ize your home. Let me know if you try it out. And no, I didn't pick out the word "Gobble"; the original inspiration post had used it. I liked it because it was out of the ordinary, and my next project will use the word "Thanks"... there's no need to over do it.


with faithfulness. (as I decorate our home/building its character and as I blog regularly)


Also, PRAISE report - today I accepted another full-time nanny job that starts the day after I am done with Henry. This is a huge answer to prayer. The family is wonderful, it is a job that I actually want (there were some not-so-wonderful ones out there), and they are on-board with the whole bringing-my-baby-to-work-with-me idea. I had no doubt that God had/HAS a plan. He is good. He is faithful.

linking up with these parties:

Creative Me Monday (via The Southern Institute)
Ta-Da Tuesday (via Mommy by day... Crafter by night)
Made by You Monday (via Skip to my Lou)