DIY Wall Hanging, a quick and easy project

Today I want to share with you a quick and easy project that I made for a Christmas gift. I can't believe we are in November already, it feels like we just had Christmas! The reality is we have only about 8 weeks left! I have 8 grandchildren that I need to buy presents for so I've had to put on my thinking cap. Their ages range from 21 down to 18 months.  I have a few members in my family that love homemade gifts especially my Ellie who is 18 because they know that a lot of love goes into making them. She has an all white bedroom and every time I visit she has  changed something. At the moment she has shells hanging on twine, so she loves decorating with natural elements.  I've been seeing blues used in autumn decor instead of the traditional autumn colours and I really love it. Maybe because blue is my favourite colour! So this is for Ellie, I hope she likes it!  OK let's start:

Supplies needed: 

. Hessian (burlap) cut to size

. A small branch

. Craft Paint

. Paintbrush

. Glue

.  Embroidery thread

. Pearls

. Twine 

Instructions:

Firstly cut your hessian to the size you require. Mine is 1 foot long x 8" wide. Next I painted my autumn leaves with blue craft paint.

The branch I used

Pearls and embroidery floss

Once I'd painted all the leaves I glued them onto the hessian. I used a waterproof glue which dries clear because I didn't want any glue to show where it wasn't meant to show. I am very messy!.  Then I applied my pearls to the hessian, again using the same glue. I already had these in my stash. They are flat bottomed and have glue already on them but I added mine as well to make sure they were well and truly stuck on!

After all the glue had dried I attached my branch to the hessian with embroidery floss in the same beautiful blue shade as my leaves.

 Once I'd sewn on all the embroidery floss I wrapped twine to each end, tied it and it was ready to hang

Here is the finished product! Quite rustic. What do you think? Do you think Ellie will like it? I'll have to wait and see, I'll let you know after Christmas.  
  

How to make a Wreath from a Rattan Basket

It's been a little while since I have posted here because it's  been raining for nearly two weeks in my small part of the world. I can hear you saying well what does that have to do with anything! Well I've suffered with depression and anxiety at times throughout my life. I have something called SADS which is seasonal affective disorder syndrome. It basically means that when winter comes with the shorter days and less light I tend to become lethargic or depressed. It's associated with the level of melatonin in my body, but I'll leave that for another post where I'll tell you about my journey with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Fibromyalgia and depression and anxiety. It's not easy to talk about myself personally but if it helps others on the same journey I will do so. Sharing always makes the load lighter. So let's begin.

I'm going to show you a wreath I made using a rattan cane basket that I bought for $2 at my local second hand shop. I love that place! And I love finding new uses for decor items as well.

These are the supplies I used for this project:

. Faux flowers

. Wire cutters

. Rattan basket

That's all! No long list of supplies to search for!

Here is the basket I started with:

Firstly I detatched the flowers from the bunch
  

I started to use tin cutters to cut through the stems but then found it easier to use pliers that I use in making jewellery. I found that these worked better.

These are more flowers that I snipped. As you can see these are the pliers I used to cut the stems.

Now comes the fun part! Attaching the flowers to the basket. Because of the weave of the basket I was able to stick the flowers through the gaps.

It was very fiddly but eventually I was able to attach all the flowers
to the basket. Some of the stem wire was sticking out at the back so I went round and carefully cut the excess wire and voila! Done!

Here in Australia we don't normally decorate for autumn with pumpkins so I found this gorgeous  ceramic one at a second hand (thrift) store for a few dollars. An ode to my American bloggers!   

Isn't it cute? I have so much blue in my home and this little guy fits in perfectly!
I've previously done a post on a wreath using autumn leaves and you can find it here.

I hope you like my version of an autumn wreath, I'd love to hear your comments, feedback is good. Have a great weekend friends.