DIY Beautify - Creating Beauty at Home

Can you believe what people throw away? Completely sound, functioning furniture just in need of a little tlc! Several years ago when we lived in Florida, I found two chairs waiting in a trash pile for pick up one day.  It was my very first 'dumpster dive'.  I was so excited, I had to remind myself to breathe!! I hopped out, loaded them up and raced home. Eager to begin work on them, I pulled them out for closer inspection.  They were GROSS. Bad paint job with bad paint. Lots of drips and globs. And sticky. And the seat cushions?  Eeeek! Someone had taken a can of lime green spray paint to the old shiny damask fabric, rather than recover them. Ok, I was starting to understand why they were in the trash :)

These homemade date and nuts bars taste just like Larabars, and they're quick and easy to make!

I think it's official.  Orange is out.  Black is in!  Even better when it's soft black velvet pumpkins, topped with real stems! I've seen these around blog land for several years now and have been just waiting for the right time to try my hand at some.  I found a great tutorial over at  The Lemonista Velvet Pumpkin Tutorial . She figured it all out and it was easy! If you can push a needle in and out of fabric, you can handle this too. Check out these cuties I made!  My only problem was that I didn't have any real pumpkin stems.  It's only August here after all...pumpkins aren't even in stores yet!  What's a girl to do? I went out to our garden and looked at our zucchini plants. Hmmm.  Some of the stems were starting to dry out, and they do bear a similarity to pumpkin stems.  I cut them long because I really wanted that free form, curly look, laid them on my pizza stone in my oven at 170 degrees, and let them dry ...