DIY Chinoiserie Chic Mini Pumpkins

September 17, 2020September 17, 2020 deb@bluewillowlane1 Comment

Like to Doodle? You Can Create A Beautiful Fall Decor Piece For Your Home

Okay so I have a long, long love affair with Asian style design, art, and porcelain pieces. Hence my blog name. And my overflowing china cabinets. 🙂 Chinoiserie Chic is a huge trend right now in home decor, and honestly it’s enough to make me want to redo my whole house.

But for today, I’m going to settle for four mini pumpkins. I love creative projects, and I have to say, this one really brought me joy to work on and I’m so happy with the results. Even with their imperfections, the pumpkins are unique works of art that were created by me.

This is a super low-stress project. Just get a few pumpkins, some really good fine tip permanent markers, some inspiration from your china dishes or a quick google search of chinoiserie prints, and spend a couple of hours creating. So de-stressing and relaxing! The only downside to my pumpkins is I made mine out of real mini white pumpkins and now I’m wishing I had used artificial white pumpkins so I could have kept these through Thanksgiving and for next year!

If you want to try this project, I recommend you consider buying some small pumpkins, spray painting them with chalk paint, doing your marker design, and then sealing them. That way you will have them for years to come, unlike me who will have to say goodbye to my little pumpkins in a few weeks.

Here are the step by step instructions for creating these little beauties.

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Supply List

Pumpkins

White Chalk Paint

Krylon Clear Finish

Bic Ultra Fine Tip Permanent Markers

Select your small white pumpkins. See my previous note about using artificial pumpkins.
If you are using real pumpkins, seal them with polyurethane or another sealer first so that you have a nice smooth surfact to work on.
If you are using artificial pumpkins, spray them with white chalk paint.
Allow to dry thoroughly. I waited for a day before I started on my design.
Decide on what designs you want to use. I made two pumpkins inspired by hydrangea and chrysanthemum motifs similar to some beautiful Asian-inspired wallpaper I saw online. I made one based on a traditional cherry tree painting, and one taking its design elements from blue willow china.

Churchhill Blue Willow Dishware

4. Using a fine tip marker in a color you would like to have throughout your design, draw the basic elements. I used this wonderful set of fine tip markers which gave me a huge variety of colors to work with. The great thing about the Asian motifs I used is that they are fairly simple–geomentric shapes, curved lines, flowers, and leaves. I used a brown marker for the outlines on two of them and the black for the blossom branch design. For the blue willow design I only used a couple of the shades of blue.

5. Once you have a rough outline, go back and fill in with the colors you want in your design.

6. Look back over the design and see where it could use some depth. Use another color to add a bit to some sections. For example, on some of my light green leaves, I added some purple.

7. Spray the pumpkins with a light coat of sealer.

That’s it! Such a fun project! Easier than I thought and great results! I hope you will give it a try and let me know how yours turned out and post your picture!

Have a beautiful day and create something that makes you happy! 🙂

Make A Beautiful Autumn Hued Wreath From Dried Hydrangea

September 14, 2020September 13, 2020 deb@bluewillowlane1 Comment

DIY Hydrangea Wreath

Hydrangea is such a beautiful flower! I keep adding more and more of them to my home landscape! Several years ago we traveled to Maine for a family vacation, and I came back inspired to add even more after viewing so many charming New England homes surrounded by the striking shrubs. Now, I have my own supply of hydrangea blossoms that are terrific for preserving and using in crafts. If you have some too, give it a try! The dried flowers can last for a year, so the effort to DIY a pretty wreath or arrangement is definitely worth it!

How TO DRY Hydrangea

I have used two methods for drying hydrangea stems. The first is air drying in bunches and the second is drying in a vase with some water. Either way, you should cut the hydrangea stem with about 8-12 inches of stem and remove the leaves.

For air drying, tie the branches singly or in small bunches and hang them upside down in a dry place, like an attic. For my wreath, I just got a bunch of my dried flowers out of the attic, and they were ready to go.

Another option is to put the flowers in a vase with water halfway up the stems. Simply let the water evaporate and the flowers will be dry. This will take about two weeks or so.

Making the Wreath: Step By Step

Supplies Used For Project:

Grapevine Wreath Base

Dried Flowers

Wire

Pink, Purple, Copper, and Green Spray Paint

Many of my flowers were dried from last year and mainly looked golden brown, so I decided to spray paint some of them to get the color tones I wanted. This was very easy. I just spread the flowers out on some cardboard and gave them a fine mist of paint (outdoors for ventilation) to give them some subtle color. I used pink, purple, copper, and green.

You will need a grapevine wreath base for this project. Once your flowers are dry, start at one position on the circle and begin filling in with flowers. The stems of hydrangeas are pretty tough, and if you have long enough stems, you can just weave them through the vine. That’s how I attached a lot of the flowers. They can be secured with florist wire where needed. Just gently wrap some wire around the stem being careful not to break the flower, and use the wire to help hold the flower in place. I had a few flowers that broke off the stems, so I just affixed them with a glue gun. That’s another method that works, too.

Hold your wreath up to see if the fullness is pretty equal all around, and add more flowers where needed. With the materials being natural, it’s never going to be perfect, but that’s what makes your own creation unique.

Twist a loop of wire on the back of the wreath to form a hanger.

That’s all there is to it! What a beautiful and rewarding project! I can’t wait to get everything together for my Fall front door display this year, and see how everything comes together!

HAVE A BEAUTIFUL day, and try something creative! 🙂

DIY Crafts · Home Decor

DIY Fall Folk Art Vase Fun and Easy Project

September 4, 2020September 5, 2020 deb@bluewillowlane1 Comment

Time to get ready for fall festivities! Whether you plan to cook a meal at your home or are looking to have something to drop off at grandma’s, this is a fun DIY project. When finished, the vase has a hand-painted look because of the combination of paint and decoupage. Kids can help with the acrylic paint and decoupage steps.

Supplies:

Glass cylinder vase

Metallic spray paint

Seasonal napkins

Modge Podge

Acrylic Craft Paint, various colors

Acrylic craft paint, metallic to match spray paint

Step 1- Make sure the glass vase is clean and dry

Step 2- Spray paint the vase according to instructions on the paint can. Only do this outdoors or in a well-ventilated area.

Step 3- Choose a seasonal napkin. I always have a bunch of fun napkins around because I just like to change up the table for the season. I chose a Spode woodland turkey napkin because it went with the look I was going for, but you could use anything. Make sure you are only working with one layer. Carefully affix the napkin where you would like it placed using modge podge or polyurethane.

Step 4- Paint a decorative folk-art inspired border around the top. I did a simple vine and bud design in colors that coordinated with the napkin illustration. Once I had the basic design, I went back and added a little gray to places to make it look slightly shaded.

Step 5- add highlights with metallic paint. I added some small gold highlights here and there on the turkey design napkins. I also painted some blue over top of parts of the decoupage to add to the folk art hand-painted look.

Step 6- coat with polyurethane. I coated the whole thing with spray-on clear poly (outdoors) to give it all a unified texture.

The great thing about this project is it doesn’t need to look perfect! I wanted a folk art look, so I’m happy with the primitive style painting. If the decoupage isn’t perfect, it’s also getting some paint and poly.

This was an easy, fun project.