Pepper Design Blog

Pinterest Challenge: Christmas Comes a Little Early This Year

I rolled up my sleeves and crossed one big holiday-related project off of my list this past week after a little motivation from Katie and Sherry’s seasonal Pinterest Challenge. Too early for Christmas? Maybe, but making this project happen (with all that I have stacked for the big holiday season) was high on my priority list for Liv this year and I’m SO happy to have it ready to go for the holidays! Liv totally digs it, too. Even if we have to box it up and rehang it in about a month.

I imagine turning this into an Advent calendar of sorts when Liv is old enough to open up one ornament each day to add to the tree (maybe even ornaments we’ve made together?), and the concept behind Advent. Maybe I’ll try a version this year to… to be determined.

I love me a good deadline to make a project that I would normally push off and off happen. It could be a visit from family, a dinner party or a challenge like this one! Previous Pinterest challenges have produced my ombre stool for Liv, painter’s tape wallpaper, DIY gold mercury glass, shimmery chevron napkins (a bit of a womp, womp – these guys didn’t wash so well, though they look awfully cool) and the capiz pendant/chandelier that hangs in our office.

The original inspiration for the felt Christmas tree came from this blogger, who redeveloped her version of a felt tree after being inspired by this blogger.

What a neat idea for a toddler? Liv is at that age where she loves to mimic and especially loves to replicate whatever I’m doing on her own – she likes to carry a purse when I have a purse, cook when I’m making dinner, pretend to drive when we get into the car, attempt to apply lipstick in the bathroom mirror…. and the best solution for her to recreate and to copy momma and dadda, without actually cooking or carrying around my purse, is to give her her own version. Hence why this felt tree is genius.

I hope that when it comes time to decorate the ‘big’ tree, she’ll be just as cheery at decorating her own version. And perhaps not try and undress or reorganize the real version in the living room?

A few of the ornaments I assembled in advance, like the poinsettia flowers and the striped pink and turquoise bulbs. A little stitch or glue holds these guys together so it’s easier for Liv to move the entire decoration. It’s wonderful that felt sticks to felt – no adhesives to attach the actual ornaments to the tree.

Others I left unglued so that she can play with and rearrange bows and packages and Christmas lights.

Creating this guy was fairly simple. I way over bought on yards of felt (1.5 of green for the tree, 1/4 each of the various colors) which left me with about $18 worth, this project was probably made with a fourth of that though so you can add this to the extremely budget-friendly category.

I opted for a modern, basic triangular shape for my little tree and chose the dining room (with a big open space on the wall while our fiddle leaf fig soaks up some sun closer to the window) as its home.

Various votive candle holders and glasses made for the perfect stencil to make my round ornaments, the rest were basically free hand.

One of the best tips I have for messy projects like this (aka lots of bits of felt everywhere) is to use the ol’ Rachel Ray scrap bucket rule. I love this! instead of leaving your scraps (of food on the prep table, in Rachel’s case) out, collect them all in a bowl for the trash or composting pile. In our case, a felt scrap bowl. As we cut out ornaments, we immediately pushed all of the extra bits and pieces from the table into the bowl leaving us with a cleaner workspace.

Which resulted in faster ornament making!

I’m imagining the felt board possibilities… We can keep rearranging and updating this tree through December, Liv has already stripped it down a few times to start again. What next? An ocean scene? or maybe a play kitchen out of felt?

And as of tomorrow, back to Halloween. Can’t wait to show you Liv’s homemade costume and my plans for our annual Halloween dinner party. PS I owe you all updates on our recent travel adventures, painting of the house, new deck (new side yard!) and so much more. Forgive me, I’m so behind.

Happy Pinterest pinning! If you participated in the challenge, I’d love to see your project!

Gold ‘Dipped’ Pumpkins & Our Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

It feels a little funny to leave home in the middle of a hot summer and come back right in the thick of fall, Halloween, cool weather and changing leaves (well, that last one is almost true. We have only two trees on our street here in San Diego that go from green to red but I marvel at them all season long…) This past weekend we made our annual trip to our favorite pumpkin patch (complete with pumpkin spice lattes before hand and a delicious chili potluck after) and the reality of the season has finally hit! More on that below…

While at the pumpkin patch I picked up a handful of pumpkins to decorate the house with too, and thought I’d share my faux ‘dipped’ versions today.

I’m not sure where the idea came from but while brainstorming fall & Halloween decorations I thought it might be fun to bring a few organic, neutral details into our house (that I wouldn’t mind leaving up for a few months) while also filling it with plenty of oranges and reds and traditional colors.

Gold has been a favorite accent color of mine, from shiny knob handles to burnished vintage vases to classic jewelry – and that became a starting point. Creating some sort of dipped decor out of white and green pumpkins seemed like a neat way to try it out.

I’ll have to mix some spooky Halloween decor in there soon, too.

These pumpkins really don’t looked as if they were ‘dipped’ in paint in the traditional sense, but I actually love the contrast of the lines and attempted to give it a slightly crooked, mis-aligned feel on purpose. A little more organic.

My original thought was that maybe I’d actually try to dip the pumpkins and considered buying a quart of gold paint, filling a round bowl large enough for my pumpkins and literally ‘dipping’ them, but then realized that spray paint might be a bit more efficient in application, cheaper and less wasteful.

I love the result!

Just a little bling for the room, and a fun alternative to decorating pumpkins in the usual way. Soon Liv will be old enough to really help!

The process was simple. I first wrapped the pumpkins with painters tape (choosing the wider version since spray paint can get a little crazy and I wanted to avoid paint getting on the top half of my pumpkins. The alternative would be to tape on some type of barrier like cellophane or paper to cover the top completely), pressing down on just the lower half of the tape (since the edges are round to prevent creases in the tape) and aligning it at a bit of an angle.

Then spray away! Be sure to keep your can of spray paint at least 10-12″ from the actual pumpkin to avoid dripping.

And here they are again in the dining room:

Looks great with the turquoise buffet!

Decorating the pumpkins has been a lot of fun, but visiting the pumpkin patch to find them is a great family tradition, too! Years back a friend found the perfect pumpkin patch for our annual trip just about 25 minutes east of us here in San Diego.

Summer’s Past offers huge, crawling gardens to roam, a snap pea ‘maze’, animals for petting, a coffee bar for warm beverages (although the weather in October is always about 75), a cute little shop full of lavender soaps and such, little ‘vignettes’ around the property that are perfect for holiday photos, jump houses for the kids and a great big open pumpkin patch. We’ve even aligned our visit with their little harvest festival in the past for even more goodies.

Liv romantically walking the gardens with her potential future hubby, Gavin.

Why won’t it move!?

Here’s our group shot this year!

And a sneak back on previous years… the quantity of children continues to climb!

2010

2011

2012

Liv picked out a few pumpkins, enjoyed a little cart ride and played in the jump house for most of the morning. We managed a family photo as well.

Sort of. Liv’s not paying attention, but what can you do…

I look forward to this event with amazing anticipation every fall! This one sort of snuck up on me but I already can’t wait to go back. And now it’s time to really get decorating for Halloween! We’re also throwing a little dinner and trick or treating around the neighborhood party again this year. Yay for fall!

Travel Adventures in Ireland: an Irish Dance to Start Your Day…

Hope this brings a smile to your day!