The Halloween Mantel

It seems I have this crazy inability to sit and do NOTHING!!! Seriously, if I sit still for too long, I think I start to twitch. Maybe someday...

It took the better part of a week, due to all that life has to offer, but the Halloween decorations are up! I'm pretty sure I'm in love with them too! You ever have one of those projects that just seems so much better than others? I think this year's Halloween displays fall in to that category for me.

The mantel started out a little something like this.

I wasn't happy. It didn't matter how many times Jim told me "The mantel is looking good Babe."

 I WASN'T HAPPY.

The skeletons spent the night on the mantel, while I thought about their future and that of the mantel display.

There was a trip to the local Goodwill store to see what sort of inspiration might be found there.

This is what we came home with.

That trip must have done the trick.

That awesomely (yep a word!) tacky orange, but very classic, pumpkin did just the trick, or is it a treat?

Isn't the gargoyle cat cool?? She is super cute and with a black cat in the house it seemed fitting.

She was a little scuffed up in places, poor thing. A makeover came a few hours later!

Alright back to that awesomely cool plastic pumpkin.

It reminded me of a picture I had "pinned" onto my Halloween board on Pinterest.

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I did look around while I was there. There is plenty of vintage greatness to be found at 

Very Merry Vintage Style. I hope you will stop in and give a look around and maybe even say hello.

I knew I had a couple other similar pumpkins. I was hoping I could pull something similar to this off.

What do you think? Is a mantel full of these pumpkins for you?

To each their own, but I'm going for it! Or as close as I can get with the 3 pumpkins I have!

But first...spray paint!

The Gargoyle kitty needed a makeover!

Much better don't you think?

Ah, the joys of spray paint!

Between Jim spray painting the gargoyle and the thought processes going through my head for the dining room, I broke out the spray paint the next night. I wish I had taken a photo of my hand with spray paint all over it. I didn't, but my left hand was showing several shades of spray paint. /sigh

Armed with some spray paint and bunch of "stuff" to paint, outside I went.

I started with two pumpkins from the dollar store and an empty Magic Eraser container.

Magic Erasers might have score a few more points, because their container was suddenly cool for more reasons than just functionality.

Yep, black spray paint....

Lots of it!

Even these frames would receive a spray paint makeover.

All of them had been sitting upstairs feeling completely and utterly unloved!

Do you like my fancy pumpkin drying rack?

Hey, it worked!

Alright, back to the mantel!

The other thing I did was download this cat

He came from HERE.

There are plenty of great printables at Free Vintage Digital Stamps!

He would find a home in one of those frames that were spray painted.

When it all went on the mantel it looks like this!

I played off the black and orange theme.

I think it worked out pretty well.

The only thing that wasn't in the Halloween stash was the fabric draped across the front of the fireplace and that came from the dollar store. Have I ever mentioned the dollar store is right next to where I work????

What? You want to know what I did with the Magic Eraser container?

Okie dokie, lets have a looksee!

I downloaded some more graphics. This time from the Graphics Fairy. If you haven't been to this blog, YOU NEED TO GO AS SOON AS YOU ARE DONE LEAVING ME A COMMENT! 

(and not a moment sooner!)

This is the direct link to the post with these graphics.

I have been wanting a project where I could download something from her blog.

I'm hooked! I will be thinking up more projects for her graphics. I love looking at them.

I used some adhesive to put the Web of Spider of label onto the Magic Eraser container.

This meant there needed to be some cobwebs and I added a little spider from the card stash to help accent the container. What do you think? You think the big spider coming out of the container is too much?

Here's another look at the whole mantel.

I'm pretty pleased with it!!

Ooooh! Aren't you curious about the fireplace?

Ah, ha ha!!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Do you follow us on Facebook? You never know what sorts of crazy things I might share on the FB!

I hope you will leave a comment and then run off to check out those blogs, OR sit a spell here!

Speaking of sitting a SPELL! Wait until you see the dining room!

Hugs! ~Jen

Linking up here:

A Bowl Full of Lemons

A Pallet wall

Hi Everyone! The weekend went by so quickly, why is that? The sun was out today and it was gorgeous!! I opened the office/computer room/paper crafting room/the room where Jim has only enough room for his computer and himself window and Jynx has spent the day there. She is still there, actually. The windows in this room face west so it is a nice place for a Jynx to be in the afternoons. (oh I do feel bad about Jim's limited space in here, but for now we don't have many other options. There is a whole upstairs waiting for us to do something with it, but...)

I mentioned on the facebook page Jim had completed a project  in the living room! I am going to share it with you. I am still completely blown away by how it changes the whole room! Let's go back in time a little bit though, roughly 3 years. You see this wall has been somewhat of a thorn from the start.

We sanded, primed, painted, decorated, etc.

It looked like this.

this pic was taken LONG before blogging, don't mind the clutter

or that LOVELY front door

If you've been following for awhile you know that I painted the fireplace

on our first Thanksgiving in the house!

Here is the painted fireplace.

See the crock in the above picture? At some point the paint started cracking in the area of the crock. 

I believe this photo was before the paint started cracking, but once it started it was obvious!! and I began decorating around the cracks to conceal them. :)

When I brought the winter/Valentine's stuff down I didn't rush anything else up. The mantel was bare and it was Jim's day off. He decided to check out what I had been hiding and the checking out process quickly turned into this:

Look at that spot to the left of mirror. AWESOME!!!!

This led to conversation, and ideas, and conversation, and ideas...

and then to this:

and then................... to this:

pallet wood to the rescue...

Now lets add some decor shall we?

Pin It

This one was taken with my cell phone. Not sure why I didn't take any with the camera when the lights were on. (thank goodness for facebook huh?)

What do you think?

I can't get over how it changes the look.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you will leave a comment!

Linking up here:

Sunday's Best at My 1929 Charmer

Craft-O-Maniac
Pinkapotamus for the Pink Hippo Party
A Bowl Full of Lemons for One Project At a Time
Between Naps on the Porch for Metamorphosis Monday
Coastal Charm for Nifty Thrifty Tuesday

This year's Christmas Mantel

I LOVE LOVE LOVE having a mantel. It is truly my seasonal canvas! If I didn't enjoy it so much though, the mess would get cleaned up a lot faster.  Do you ever get in one of those "Oh I just don't know..." and there it sits for a day sort of moods. This mantel went together fairly quick when compared to some others. It was fun though and I am definitely happy with how it turned out.

The mantel is where the framed peace art found its home

A side profile

Looking in the mirror...

One of my mischievous elves

And now for the "lower mantel." We have this old railroad shipping crate. It was displaced a couple months ago when the living room was rearranged. I am thinking it works well here! :)

The village was one of our summer yard sale treasures.  I PROMISE you it was a thrifty purchase!!!!
The bigger church is one that we have had.

Christmas is such a magical time of year! Thanks for stopping by.  Hope to see you again soon!

Linking up here:

Here a turkey, there a turkey!

I told you yesterday that the turkeys made their way out of the tote! What is bothering me is I swear I/we picked up a turkey or two at yard sales this summer, but I only found one. Could I have possibly picked them up and set them back down? It would seem so or I will find them in another month. (wait until you see all the yard sale/estate sale treasures that are waiting to be loved again) Alright, before I am tempted to go get those items out and take pictures and become COMPLETELY distracted...back to Thanksgiving!

What do you think about the turkey? He is one of those plastic cake toppers. You know, the ones that get pressed into the icing (hmmm....yum). Picked him up at a yard sale for a dime. I wasn't sure what I would do with him then but when I took him out of the China cabinet this is where he ended up. What? Where do you put your out of season yard sale/estate sale/flea market finds? :)

I needed the crock that was in the center so that meant something to had to fill in that hole. That move created another hole. Am I the only one that moves half the house around? I'm pretty sure I'm not. I've read some of your posts. :)

Not only do I move half the house around, I have a tendency to move things around multiple times. Look at what is on the table now. I think it is an illness, but I guess it could be worse.

With the crock on the table, the basket needed a new home!

But....to put the basket there....yep I had to move some stuff...perhaps I could market an exercise program doing this... This is what was on the victrola before the basket landed there...

And the lamp ended up here!

Here is one shot of the mantel.  Only a couple small changes were made.

For the posts on the first round of fall decorating see here and here. We skipped Halloween decorating this year. I am sure we will make up for that next year. Last year's Halloween can be seen here and here.

Did you miss the post with my Thanksgiving cards?

Thanks so much for stopping by. Please leave some comment love and stop on over to the places where I am linking today!!