Nature's fall decorating and an old screen repurposed

 

The first of September I decided to put up my fall wreath on the front door. Yesterday we had some family come up wondering if I had decided to decorate for Halloween a little early. If you look really close in the picture you will see my Halloween surprise.

 

Here is my Fall spider, (can you see it? It is kind of camouflaged in the foliage.)

If you look really close you can also see the web it has spun all across the front of the wreath. It actually is a perfect spider web with the center right in the middle of the wreath. I am thinking though that my visitors to my front door are not going to appreciate my live Halloween decoration so I am getting Mr. Jones to take it to the garden.

I have had these old windows and screens at the side of my shed for a while now.  We have an old 100 year old house that we rent and we replaced all of the old windows and I couldn't part with the screens and windows because I knew I could find some great thing to do with them.  You may remember the guest room redo that  I did last summer and I used several in that renovation.

They are pretty disgusting but a little soap and water and vigorous scrubbing did the trick. I had a place in mind to use them in my bedroom so I painted the frame a turquoise blue that I had used on the accent wall in my bedroom. Sorry I didn't get a picture of the paint.

Then please pardon this picture it is way out of focus. I cut some cardboard to fit in the back of the screen and used some quilt  batting to pad it with. I covered the batting and cardboard with fabric and used a staple gun to put it into the frame. Then to make it more secure I added a larger piece of cardboard and stapled it to the back of the frame.

You can see that my cardboard is not real even but it is on the back so it won't matter. I added some picture hanging wire to hang it.

I then added some little hooks to the top of the frame. I am thinking you have guessed what I am using this for! I have been really frustrated with my jewelry storage lately because I can never find what I want to wear with certain things. I think it is because I don't want to dig through the mass of tangles to get what I need. This has totally solved my problem.

Now I can see my jewelry at a glance. I used the batting and cardboard for a reason because I wanted to be able to use straight pins to push through the screen to add more places to hang jewelry.

I mounted it on my closet wall coming out of my bathroom because then it is more accessible to my clothes. (and it can't be seen when you walk into my bedroom.)

With the straight pin idea I can add more jewelry or rearrange it any way I want!

I think I am loving this old grungy screen, well, it is not so grungy anymore!

re purposed sweater

 

I have a few sweaters in my closet and some that I don't wear very often, (I know it is a little too hot today to wear a sweater, but fall will be coming.) I have been thinking of some ways to re purpose them and here is the first one that I chose to work on. I had some black pleated trim that I thought would look cute on it.

 

I added the trim around the neckline and then 2 more strips on the sides of the front of the sweater.

 

I decided it needed a little something more and then just added the pleating in a circle and it made a cute flower.

 

I added a button to the center of the flower.

 

I added a belt but you wouldn't have to wear it with a belt.

 

I think it would look cute with some black skinny jeans as well, but I was too lazy to change and besides it is pretty hot outside today.

 

I liked the finished results and am now trying to think how I could re purpose some more sweaters in my closet. This transformation cost about $2 because I got the trim at Hobby Lobby with my 40%  coupon. 

Not bad for a new sweater.