Quick and Easy Fireplace Facelift

As I was working out on Tuesday, I decided to paint the gold part of the fireplace.  I can’t stand gold and I thought painting that little part would give the fireplace a little facelift.

Here it is before. 

A close up. 

I took the wood handles off. 

Cleaned the gold part with degreaser – look how much soot came off!  We’ve never used the fireplace, so don’t know where that came from.

I let it dry then taped if off and put newspaper up. 

Since this is a fireplace, and it is supposed to get hot – I used High Heat paint that we found at my dad’s house when we were cleaning it up. 

Gave it a thin coat, let it dry for 20 minutes which I did other things around the house and gave it another coat.  The paint covers very well, so one coat would have been good, but I decided to give it two. 

Repeated the process for the bottom.  I could have done them at the same time, but that would have been too easy! 

Lookin’ good!

There you have it – I think it looks great!  Makes it look updated and it was a FREE update! 

I love before and after pictures, so here you have it – side by side. 

What do you think?

Happy 4th of July!

Last year, I wrote about why I am proud (and thankful) to be an American. This, year I am still very thankful to be an American and excited to celebrate with some amazing food and fireworks. 

Every year I want to decorate the house, but I never end up doing it because of this or that or the other.  Our mantel is patriotic, but it always is. 

I would love to do more - so, I found a few projects and ideas that I would love to do from pinterest. 

A few projects I would love to make:

Source: autumnplacearts.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Source: sweetsomethingdesign.blogspot.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Source: naptimecrafting.blogspot.com via Sarah on Pinterest

I love this place setting:

Source: hostessblog.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Some yummy looking and patriotic food:

Source: ablissfulnest.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Source: blog.al.com via Leah on Pinterest

Source: thekitchn.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Hope you all have a great 4th of July!  Enjoy your day!

Halloween Mantel

I saw this idea in Country Living last year and I fell in LOVE. 

Source: manolohome.com via Sarah on Pinterest

I wanted to do it to our front door but I never got around to doing it.  So, I was planning on doing it this year.  Paula found some bats on sale at Joanne's and bought them for me so I didn't have to make them. Then I saw this . . .

Source: kimmccrary.blogspot.com via Sarah on Pinterest

when I joined pintrest two weeks ago and again I fell in LOVE!  Stacey made it for me (I helped a little) and it was just too beautiful to put on the door.  I didn't want anyone to ruin it - or touch it.  It was so pretty that I wanted to look at it all the time. 

As you saw from the Family Room tour, we have a beautiful fireplace.  It pretty much stays the same all year, but I decided to "dress" it for Halloween.  Here is our naked mantel: 

I put up the amazing wreath - tutorial is here.  Just to warn you it takes like 4 hours with two people - so, be prepared.

And got the bats . . . Here is the template for making bats if you would like it. 

Here they are . . .

Fold one wing towards the body.

Fold the other wing in too.

See how it looks like it is flying now?

Put some duct tape on the back

And put it on the wall (or the fireplace in my case).

I started the bats at the bottom - I wanted it to look like they were coming out of the fireplace.

I tried to duct tape the bats on the felt wreath but that doesn't work.  So, I hot glued a safety pin on the back of two bats.

Just put a dab of hot glue on the back of your bat.

And put the safety pin in the hot glue.

Let dry and attach to the wreath. 

I knew I wanted the bats to go up toward the wreath and stop at the top edge, so I made a rough path.

Then I just had to fill it in with more bats.

When bats fly they fly in a line, then it becomes and group, then they all kind of disappear.  It is pretty amazing to watch them!  I wanted the bat path to look kind of real.  So, I put them in a line, then a group, then fizzled them out to a line then they disappeared. 

I LOVE it!!

What do you think?  Are you going to decorate for Halloween?