Okio B Designs: September 2015

Rainy, humid and miserable in New York, but I'm still glad it's officially autumn.

Jeanine

What do you do when you're having a really bad day? You do something that makes you happy. And for me, that means putting out some Halloween touches.

I call it Halloween-therapy.

The boys were at school. The hubby was at work. The house was quiet. I got to lose myself for a little while as I was dressing up our corner hutch.

I try to change things up from how I did them last year. Some pieces remain in place - like the vintage Underwood typewriter.

Some pieces, I've had for years.

I also created this simple banner that I have hanging in our dining room. I still need to add some ravens to each end.

I definitely felt much better once I had everything in its place.

Jeanine

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So this is the stool I picked up from the thrift store last week now...

It's so petite and I was really excited to give it a fresh look. I first gave it a few coats of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Paris Grey. I wanted to try the wax paper transfer method, but it was an epic fail.

I'm not sure what I did wrong, but I could not get the ink to transfer on to the wood. So I had to scrap that plan, repaint the top of the stool and figure out my next step.

I decided to give the Mod Podge method another go. I haven't always been successful with that method either. It's always been hit or miss. This time I think it worked out well. After sanding down the top and the image, I'm happy with my vintage-looking, petite French stool!

Jeanine

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Autumn officially starts in two days, but it's in full swing in our house.

I created a sweet vignette over the weekend using the old desk in our dining room. The printable is from Pinterest - in case you are interested in printing one out too. I hit my local thrift store on Friday where I scored the wood pumpkins and...

...this cute little stool and black candle holder.

I also whipped up some Halloween tags using Scrabble tiles and stamps. I also made a raven one. Then I realized I didn't have any stamps that even remotely look like a raven. So that one is still a work in progress.

Jeanine

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Much like my blog, I woefully neglected my Etsy shop this summer. Now that my boys are back at school, I have a bit more time to devote to both.

I whipped up some cute silhouette tags earlier this week.

I really adore making tags. It's how I started my crafting endeavors years ago.

Don't kill me, but yes, I've started making Christmas items. It may be too early in the blog world, but in the Etsy world, you've got to be a few months ahead.

I really love how these Santa postcards came out.

Best of all, I had everything I needed already on hand. And it felt good to get the creative juices flowing again.

Jeanine

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I bought these paper mache houses last year for Christmas. They were a little larger than I had expected, but I still decided to make them work by painting them black and adding tea lights for the holiday season.

This year, I decided to give them a Halloween makeover. I bought black and orange glitter, and kept the black paint. I wasn't sure which glitter to use at first. I really like Pottery Barn's version of Halloween houses - which use black glitter. Still I was drawn to the orange.

So I did the first two in orange. I'm not a huge fan of glitter - mainly because of the mess it leaves behind. So this was an outside job in between rain storms this weekend.

I see a few spots that I missed, so I'll try and fill them in today. The last house, which is also the largest, will get the black glitter just to break up all of the orange.

Wish me luck!

Jeanine

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According to my calculations, there are 53 days until Halloween. Yay!

I don't know about you, but I'm feeling a little rushed this year. Looking back at some old blog posts, I usually have a ton of Halloween items made by now. Eek!

So last night, I broke out some glass ornaments that were sitting in my craft room since last year, and decided to turn them into Halloween ornaments. For this one, I used some faux moss, a creepy skull image (from the Graphics Fairy) and black & orange tea-stained seam binding.

For this one I used an image I bought on Etsy last year. I spray painted some faux reeds black and added them to the bottom. Topped this one off with some purple & black tea-stained seam binding.

I have one more in the works.

Jeanine

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Hope your holiday weekend is off to a great start! I've been relaxing after a long work week, which didn't leave any time for real crafting.

I did manage to arrange a basket o' pumpkins for my porch. The basket is a garage sale find that I painted Paris Grey (Annie Sloan Chalk Paint).

I also framed some autumn printables I found on Pinterest. After that, I decided to reward myself with a little retail therapy.

Found this cute Ouija cheese plate and Halloween-inspired candles at Marshall's this morning.

I hit Target yesterday with my boys and that's where I scored this adorable pumpkin pillow. There were only two left! So you better hurry to your local Target before they are gone, if you want one!

I also picked up two Chevron pumpkins from their DollarSpot.

And this pretty landed earlier in the week from Pottery Barn. It's patiently waiting for its debut for Halloween. I'd like to get another one, but I only shop PB when I have a coupon these days. Hopefully, they'll send me another coupon code before they sell out.

Jeanine