Blooming Flower Pumpkin Decoration Tutorial

I am SO into pumpkins this fall.  And all the pretty red, gold and orange flowers of the season too.  The more ways to decorate with them the better!  I had a simple idea for mixing the two and decided to give it a go this week.  My Blooming Flower Pumpkin: 



This simple project turns a basic craft foam pumpkin into a beautiful bursting blossom that adds some extra decorative color to the harvest pumpkin crate I did a few years back:



It's a fun way to bring more texture & a little something different (that is quick & easy to make too).  I added my pumpkin to my fall front porch decor. And unlike the real flowers & pumpkins, that have to be tossed out in a few short weeks, this can be enjoyed year after year:

It's especially good when you're short on time to craft, like I am, but still want to make a little something for the season:

Materials:

- Craft pumpkin

- Silk flower bunches with small, medium & large blooms

- Hot glue gun

I got several bunches of large and small silk sunflowers & mums:

Plucked them all off their stems and fired up my trusty hot glue gun:

Starting with the biggest blooms, I glued them intermittently around the pumpkin - sticking the centers in the "seams" of the pumpkin so they'd lay flatter and gluing any petal edges that still stuck up.

Then I filled in the gaps with the mums and smaller sunflowers, trying to keep the colors & styles alternating, but leaving the bottom uncovered so the pumpkin would stand flat.  That's it!

Now my pumpkin is bursting with texture & color and can be enjoyed year after year:

Happy Fall!!

Quick & Easy Harvest Greetings Pillow Set Tutorial

Halloween just ended and it feels like in a flash it's going to be Thanksgiving.  These days I need seasonal projects that are quick to make, inexpensive and still pretty.  Time is at a premium lately, but it doesn't stop me from wanting to make things to celebrate this time of year.  So I came up with this Super Easy Harvest Greetings & Blessings Pillow Set.  It's the perfect seasonal project for busy crafters!

The trick to these fast & simple pillows is using a fabric panel.  You literally cut and sew pieces of it together to make perfect fall themed pillows in less than 30 minutes.  Really!  

This panel is the Harvest Greetings Blessings panel from my new store, Heavenly Fabric Shop:

A single panel provides 8 pretty harvest-themed rectangles: 4 large and 4 small.  Enough for the two reversible design pillows I'm sharing today and several smaller project possibilities.  They're also perfectly sized for some DIY wall art, placemats, a Thanksgiving table runner or fall quilt.  

These pillows look just as pretty on a chair or sofa....

As they do on a porch or mantle.  And with 4 designs, each pillow has two seasonal messages.

Now let's make some pretty pillows!!

- (1) Harvest Greetings Blessings Cotton Fabric Panel
- (2) 12"x18" pillow forms (I found some nice but cheap forms here)
- (2) 18" zippers
- Zipper foot, rotary cutter/shears, yard stick, pins

Start by cutting out the pillow pieces, making sure there's a half inch border around each rectangle:  

Center the zipper face down along the bottom of a panel, pin and stitch together.

Flip the panel right side up and place another panel face down over it, pinning the bottom edge to the other side of the zipper and then stitching along that side.  

Be sure to leave the zipper open a few inches before sewing around the remaining sides so the pillowcase can be turned right side out after.  Pin panels together along the other three sides and then stitch with a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

Clip the pointed corners off and then turn the pillowcase right side out and slip the pillow form inside and zip closed.  Repeat with remaining panels for the second pillow.

What's also great about using this panel is there's no fabric wastage.  The coordinating center squares can be used for loads of other little things - coasters, trivets, sachets, appliqués on napkins or towels...just about anything you can think up.

Added bonus: with these being zippered pillow covers, they can easily be removed to wash, as well as store when out of season. Then the pillow forms can be used with other covers the rest of the year and those no struggling to find room to keep them!

Got any other ideas on how you'd use this fabric panel?  

Quick & Easy Fall Porch Decor (Even A Non-Crafter Can Do!)

Love Fall decorations, but don't have a lot of time to DIY the decor?  I'm sharing how I made my front porch festive in record time this year by reusing a bunch of stuff I already had in a new way.

While I really enjoy autumnal decor and all the beautiful new items shown in the stores, I just can't see spending a small fortune on new decorations every year.  I'm not in love with the idea of having to store even more stuff either.  I've got enough hoarding issues with fabric going on chez Sew Can Do.  I aimed to freshen old things up by using them differently this time around and it's worked out great:

Here's how I did it:

The ceramic pots are my "always on the porch" pots.  In the summer they held dahlias, trailing vines and germander herbs, but the first two plants were pretty much done.  I transplanted the still growing nicely germander into a smaller pot and plopped my trusty silk mums into my big pots.  I've used these mums every autumn for about 8 years now.  Why buy real ones that will just get thrown away in a month or two?  These look vibrant & pretty real (at least to me) and when the first sign of winter comes, they get tucked away for the next year.  So easy - totally worth the $12 total investment they were when I bought them way back when!

I bought a good sized unfinished crate for just a few bucks.  It was the only slightly crafty thing I had to do and even that was simply painting it with some grey wood tint:

I painted 2 coats and then sprayed some polyurethane sealer on it for durability:

I bought straw bales to set the crate on and then stacked a few bricks inside the crate for sturdiness and so my old faux pumpkins would just peek out the top.  

I spread some spanish moss to hide the evidence of the bricks.

I'd bought this straw fox last year and used a wire to attach his little hedgehog friend to his back (last year the wind had blown hedgie around a bit too much):

The crate still looked a little plain and I didn't want to spend money or time creating a new sign/knickknack, so I rummaged in my seasonal decorations bin and remembered I had this little wreath from several years back.  I wrapped its twine loop and some wire around the slats of the crate to hold it on:

Now I had a cute little vignette for the normally boring corner of the porch.  

Onto the doors!  My DIY Fall Door Wreaths are a cheap project I did last year.  They literally take 10 minutes and $10 to make, but reusing them is totally free and completes the porch look:

And if you have glass doors like me (or just don't want to put in a permanent hook), use the 3M Command Hooks to hold the wreaths on.  

I use those hooks for my door decor year round.  They just stick on, hold quite a bit of weight, and, more importantly, leave no trace.  By the way, I'm not paid to pimp 3M, I just like 'em!

I'm really pleased with how my front porch looks now and am happy that it didn't take much time or money (just buying the crate and straw this year).  I can switch it up next year by using flowers in the crate, swapping in a new sign or adding a new critter or two.  Ideally I can store everything in the crate when the season's over too.  Easy & thrifty is my favorite kind of project!

P.S. If you're looking for any of these particular items, I bought just about all of them at Jo-Ann Stores over the years.  I'm not being paid to showcase them either.  Some exact items might not be available anymore, but similar things probably are.  Use those coupons & sales to score them for cheap, as well as and the teacher card discount if you're a teacher or homeschooler (like me!).  Happy Fall Friends:)

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