Desperate Times...

As they say, desperate times call for desperate measures! If you follow this blog, you know that my plans had been to be in Connecticut right now spending time with grandson #1 and two of my daughters. But, hurricane Idalia changed those plans for me and I have to admit that I am in a bit of a sad mood. And so, instead of continuing to feel sorry for myself, I am trying to stay busy...but, I am having a difficult time doing so. I just don't feel like really "working" so of course I look to crafts to see what I can find. Unfortunately, ideas are just NOT spilling out of my mind right now but I was in $Tree the other day and I remembered seeing a vintage jack-o-lantern post made with funnels. And so, I grabbed a set when I saw them. I will tell you now that even though this is vintage Halloween-usually my favorite-this one took a bit of convincing but, it served its purpose and kept me busy for a bit.

I wasn't sure if acrylic paint would stick to the shiny surface so I gave all of the funnels a quick coat of ModPodge-I think I heard somewhere that that would do the trick?

Then I put on one coat of "pumpkin" chalk paint. Chalk paint also helps to give shiny surfaces a bit of "tooth". I wanted three different colors of orange so the other two funnels got coats of acrylic-although in the end, two of them look pretty much the same color.

Then I drew on jack-o-lantern faces with a Sharpie and filled them in with black chalk paint. This was a little difficult for me because I guess my favorite is always the traditional jack face and I had trouble drawing other ones-I'm nothing if not a traditionalist. Lol Seems like I'm saying that all of the time.

Then it was time to embellish. The ones I had seen all had bows but once I got the bow on the middle pumpkin, I knew it wasn't a favorite and once again had to go a bit more traditional. I wanted them to each be a bit different so this is what I came up with.

So that is that. I truly have no idea where these might end up but, since I usually decorate all of the bedrooms for Halloween also, I figure I can probably find somewhere to use them. Lol 

And so my new Halloween decor grows a bit more. Up until now, I had only made the witch stocking and the book but I got a few hostess gifts at our back-to-school dinner so the stash is growing.

And, I did decide to give the "welcome" sign just a little update. I chose to only do the leaves that were solid colors. The multi-colored ones seemed to fall behind lots of details and I had no intention of trying to reproduce this whole thing. There might be a few more leaves that could use some more color but for now, it is what it is. I did want to touch up the leaves but I love that green and I just couldn't seem to mix anything close to it. And, I'm OK with the colors of the leaves being what stand out. You can see in the first picture just how much the petals on the sunflower had faded. It may not be perfect but I think it is a bit better.

So, that is it for this morning. Now, what to do to stay busy all afternoon? Guess I'll just have to check the much neglected "to-do" list. Lol Stay safe and stay tuned.