Call me a party-pooper, Scrooge or cold.  But, I’m sorry, I really don’t like blatant holiday decor. That being said, I have 2 kiddos that I don’t want to deprive of holiday fun.  So with Halloween right around the corner, we worked together on spookifying our living room…for FREE.

NON-SCARY LIVING ROOM

I asked my boys to tell me a few things they thought were scary.  I got spiders, BOO! and bats out of them.  So, I sketched out a picture of each onto a scrap piece of poster board we already had on hand and them cut them out.  {I also drew the boys their own things to cut out while I worked on mine…a good distraction!}

I used a small, folded-over piece on tape on each cut-out and stuck them to the insides of our living room lampshades.

LIGHTS OFF

The shapes aren’t noticeable with the lights off, but when you switch them on they cast nice shadows on the shades.

LIGHTS ON

My boys think this is just about the coolest project we’ve done.  And they don’t seem to mind that our scary lampshade spiders only have 6 legs.  {For the life of me, I can’t draw a non-freakish looking 8-legged spider.  Plus, 6 legs were plenty to cut…my hands were starting to cramp.}  I’ve found the living room lamps on during daylight hours just about every day since the spooky silhouettes made an appearance.  Oh well, it’s gotta cost less than powering one of those outdoor blow-up jack-o’-lanterns.

The DIY wall art in our entryway made from a Lowe’s drop cloth is finished.

It’s not perfect.  But nothing in this house is and that’s just fine with me.

It’s funny how a lot of homeowners are trying to update their homes by adding modernities while I’m trying to “debuilder” mine by adding things that look older than they really are.

I’m so glad I decided to hang the custom fabric art with twine and grommets.  It’s different.  It doesn’t look too polished.  It has wrinkles and seams that run throughout.  {Although I did stitch a small PVC pipe into the bottom to straighten it a little.}

And the words say it all.  That little boy {and the other 2 boys in my house} make me smile every day.  “You make me happy when skies are gray” is a phrase from Everett’s nightly bedtime song that I sing to him.  After we read a book and turn out the lights he says, “sing song for me.”  How could I resist?