flea market magazine – Sweet Southern Grace

Today I’m hosting a Spring Blog Hop with five other bloggers. We can’t wait to share our spring DIY’s with y’all!

My mom gave me the cutest set of vintage bunny salt and pepper shakers! I believe they were my Mom-Maw’s. I think that the red colored top, stands out, to much for my decor taste, so I decided to paint the pepper shaker’s top to match the color of the salt shaker’s top.

I started out by painting the top white. I just used some left over SW paint in Eider White. I painted two coats.

Next I decided to add a light coat of wood filler that I had on hand from the hardware store.

Next, I decided to use a Semi Transparent Minwax Stain in Red Oak on the white paint, while it was still wet.

I thought the color needed more of a yellow tone instead of a brown tone, so I added Outrageously Orange craft paint.

I ended up sort of mixing the paint colors and stain together to make the color, while sanding in between coats for an aged look.

Here is the final result! I think I got pretty close to the color of the salt shaker’s top! Now my Vintage Bunny Salt and Pepper Shakers are ready to be apart of my spring decor!

Head on over and checkout the other sweet bloggers to see what they’ve come up with for their Spring DIY’s!

Terrie from Decorating & More with Tip

Gail from Purple Hues and Me

Denise from Hoots Hack

Tammy from Patina and Paint

Hannah from Baggott Farmhouse

I hope y’all have enjoyed our Spring DIY Hop! I can’t wait to check out all of the beautiful spring DIY’s!

This year with my collaboration with King of Christmas, I knew I would be going neutral with my Christmas decor, which meant I would need to do a complete 360 and either make or buy new Christmas stockings. I went and checked a few of my fav decor spots and they were a no go for stockings. You know when you get that picture in your head of what you want and you can’t find it anywhere? I was feeling a little defeated, until, I got the idea to make my own stockings from painters drop cloth canvases. Say what? It sounds funny, I know, but I knew I could probably make 6 stockings for under $10! I actually only spent $2.98 on the Drop cloth because it was on sale! I mean, my entire main living area of my home, has drop cloth ruffle curtains. I already had some left over drop cloths from when I made the curtains from our eat-in kitchen or i.e. playroom for our youngest daughter.

I knew I wanted fairly nice sized stockings. We have had some of our Pottery Barn Kids stockings for 17 years and they are a great size for Santa to fill! I decided to use one of those stockings for a pattern.

I basically just laid the PBK stocking on top of the canvas, that I double folded, then added about 1/2 an inch for seam allowance and cut out. I took both pieces of canvas and sewed right sides together, then turned inside out and decided on the size that I wanted the ruffles to be.

For the ruffles, I decided on the size, which was 6.5 inches in width by 20 inches in length with 1/2 inch seam allowance. I sewed down the raw edge then folded over, sewed down again and began the process of ruffling the canvas. If you have never ruffled before, its not hard, you just need set your machine to the loosest stitch and the widest stitch. Once you’ve run your stitch the whole length of your fabric, gently begin pulling the bottom (bobbin) thread.

Next, begin slowly pushing your bunched fabric towards the end of your fabric until you have the whole fabric ruffled.

Next, I made the stocking holder loop. I used a piece of 4×6 size of canvas.

First I folded down the fabric on one side to the middle and then did the same for the other side.

Next, fold over the entire piece in half.

Like this…

Then sew down the edges.

Next, I turned down the stocking and decided on the width of the cuff, then sewed the edge with a 1/2 allowance.

I decided to go ahead and attach the stocking holder, then sew on the ruffles.

Next on the agenda is sewing on the ruffle!

I also decided that I wanted to make stocking name tags! I knew we had some pine underlayment left from our faux shiplap wall we had just completed. I asked my husband to cut out 6 that were 5.75×2.75 plus drill a small hole at the top.

I decided to stain with one of my favorite colors of stain, Minwax Dark Walnut.

After lightly staining the front, back and sides of the name tags, I decided to use my Silhouette to add all of our names to each tag. I chose the font bromello then welded, printed on white vinyl then weeded (removed the negative space).

After finishing with the stocking name tags, I added twine for tying around the stockings. These cost me zero to make because I already had all of the supplies!

We are done! What do y’all think? I absolutely am loving my neutral, very budget friendly Christmas decor this year! It definitely took some time to grow on me since I’ve had traditional for the past 20 plus years but our entire family is enjoying it.

Please check out my friends to see what Christmas Crafts they have come up with for our monthly Creative Thursday’s! We have some pretty amazingly talented ladies, if I do say so myself!

Love, Shae