6 Fun Fall DIY Home Decor Ideas to Try Right Now!

Hi and welcome to Canterbury Cottage. Today's crafts felt more like science experiments than DIY projects. I used some materials and tried some techniques for the very first time. Some of them were a little messy but they were all a lot of fun and I honestly didn't know how they would turn out. So let's get started and I hope you'll let me know which projects you think were a success and which ones were a flop. For my first experiment I wanted to see if I could make a cheap ceramic lamp look like aged terracotta. So I spray painted the ceramic portion of a thrift store lamp with a couple coats of a rustic orange spray paint that I had on hand. Then I mixed up equal parts garden lime and water in a disposable container. I stirred it up until the granules were mostly dissolved and then I brushed it on the lamp like paint. I applied three separate coats letting the lime mixture dry completely between each coat. When the lime was completely dry I lightly sanded it with a very fine 220 grit sandpaper. I went back over a few spots with some more lime where I felt I had sanded off too much. When these spots were dry I went over the entire lamp dabbing on white wax to seal the lime and to give it a whiter appearance. Recently a round metal lantern caught my eye at a local store and I wondered if I couldn't replicate it using cardboard. I started by slicing off a five inch piece from a cardboard concrete form tube. I marked five inches in around the tube and then I began cutting the slice using a handsaw just to get started. Once I had a small slit I inserted the blade of my jigsaw and used that saw to cut around the tube. Then I smoothed out the cut edge using my orbital sander. I purchased a small round cardboard box with a lid from Dollar Tree. I turned the base of the cardboard box upside down and using wood glue adhered it to the cardboard ring. Then using a combination of wood glue and hot glue I attached the small lid to the top of the cardboard ring. Then I found a metal biscuit cutter in my stash and used super glue to attach it to the top of the cardboard box lid. I also added some hot glue around the biscuit cutter just to make sure that it stayed put. To add both reinforcement and texture I decided to cover the entire cardboard lantern with pieces of brown craft paper. I adhered the craft paper by applying Mod Podge both to the cardboard lantern and to the pieces of torn craft paper. Once the paper was adhered to the cardboard I went over the top of it with another coat of Mod Podge. Then I made a mixture of ivory chalk paint and baking soda at about a 50-50 ratio. My mixture was about as thick as cake batter. This will add texture to the lantern and conceal the fact that it's made from cardboard. I painted this all over the lantern, let it dry, and then applied a second coat. Once the ivory paint was dry I lightly dry brushed some gray paint over the lantern. To accomplish this after you dip your brush in the paint wipe most of it off on a paper towel before brushing your object. I had a metal candle base in my stash that I decided to use so I drilled a hole in the base of the lantern, applied some hot glue, and then inserted that candle base. But you could just use the lid off of an old jar. To make a custom candle ring I took a long faux flower and twisted the stem into a large circle to fit around the candle base. Then I just used florist wire to attach some additional flowers and leaves to the circle created by the stem. When I was done adding flowers I wrapped florist tape over the wire. For the next experiment I'm going to try reviving old stained candles by covering them with a piece of napkin. Separate the plies of your napkin until you just have the top printed layer. Cut this piece to fit around the candle of your choice. Turn your iron to a medium low heat setting. Then roll your napkin covered candle over the sole plate of your iron. Be careful not to let your fingers or the candle itself come in direct contact with the iron's sole plate. Trim off any extra napkin at the top and bottom of the candle and then run that edge over the sole plate to seal the edges. When I went to repeat the experiment on a couple of old pillar candles that I had, I discovered that the blue and white napkins I had intended to use did not have one continuous pattern. So I had to piece together two of the sections of napkin that I wanted to use. Because the seam created by the overlapping pieces of a napkin is noticeable. I'll just I mixed water and plaster of paris in a disposable bowl. I continued to add plaster of paris until I reached a cake or pancake batter consistency. I collected up some fake leaves from my floral stash and began dipping them into the plaster mixture and laying them on an old cardboard box to dry. Red dye actually started running off one of the leaves when I dipped it into the plaster. When the plaster had dried on the leaves, I tried dipping some of them in the plaster mixture a second time, which only caused the original plaster to start breaking off. So instead I grabbed the leftover paint baking soda mixture and began brushing that over the leaves and filling in any cracks or spots where you could see the fake leaf through the plaster. When the plaster was dry, I tied the leaves to a long piece of twine but then decided that I wanted to add some beads and a small tree branch slice in between each leaf. So I untied them and tied them again to a new piece of twine, making sure to space the leaves out evenly along the piece of twine. I'm calling this experiment a failure because even though it turned out pretty cute, the plaster cracks and thrift store plastic pumpkin look like a pricey vintage rusty metal pumpkin. My pumpkin had screw holes, which I filled with some caulk. When the caulk was dry, I lightly sanded it smooth. Then I painted the pumpkin with two coats of the primer from the Rust Finish Metal Effects kit, which is listed in my Amazon store. I painted over the facial features and the stem with some regular black chalk paint. Once the orange primer was dry, I applied two coats of the iron paint over the primer. When the second coat of the iron paint was dry, I sprayed the pumpkin with the rust activator. I let it dry for about five minutes and then I sprayed it a second time. The paint will continue that I saw on Pinterest and was just so curious to try it out for myself. I cut the handles off of a plastic pumpkin pail and covered the holes with a couple pieces of duct tape. Then I used a Dollar Tree strainer to remove some of the rocks from a bag of Kwikset Concrete. If you want a more rustic look, then just skip this step and leave all of the rocks in the mix. I added water to the concrete mix and began stirring it up. This time I wanted a consistency a little thicker than a cake batter, more like a brownie batter. I sprayed the inside of my plastic pumpkin with a good amount of non-stick spray and then I poured in my concrete mix. I hadn't made quite enough, so I quickly stirred up a small second batch. I added some rocks to a disposable cup that would fit inside the opening at the top of the pumpkin and then I sprayed the outside of the cup with a good amount of the non-stick spray. I used an old rag to clean up the spillage around the edge of the cup. I let the concrete dry for 24 hours and then I used a utility knife to cut a slit in the cup and pulled it out of the concrete. It actually came out much easier than I expected. To remove the plastic pumpkin from the concrete, I made sure that I ran my utility knife only along the ridges in the pumpkin and around the base of the pumpkin so that any marks that I made would not be noticeable in the concrete. Once again, the plastic easily popped off the concrete. I used an old rag to wipe down the concrete pumpkin and a little sandpaper to sand out the knife marks in the ridges of the concrete. Due to the large hole in the top of the pumpkin, there are so projects you thought was a success or a flop. And more importantly, I hope I've inspired you to conduct some of your own experiments this week. Until next Monday, bye-bye for now. If you enjoyed today's video, here's another one I think you might like.