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Everything Southern & So Cotton Pickin Cute

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Fall It Up Y'all

I've fallin' in love with my new pitch fork.
Now I know I'm no florist but most of us DIY'ers aren't.  A florist might know a better way but, hey it's my blog, my project and my way.  After digging through the shed and finding this old rusty pitch fork, I headed up to the attic and dug around and found the most pitiful, forlorn flowers I could find and drug them down. Now if we stopped right there and created the arrangement that would have been a simple project in itself.

But no, I went the hard route because I just can't throw anything away.  The flowers I found in my attic were a little worse for wear but I found a way to refresh them.
They were dirty, grimmie and just smushed up in general.
The secret trick is to hold them over a pot of boiling water for about a minute. Yep the steam relaxes the silk so that you can get them back in shape.  As a side note the steam also cleaned them.  The dirty water proved it and they looked so dang much better.
Excuse the photo being sideways.  I have to stop taking pictures that need to be flipped because this shows up correctly in photobucket but not here and frankly I'm sick of fighting with it.
*Another tip - when holding the flowers over the steam bend the stem so you don't have to have your hand in the steam.
See don't they look so much better.  Just pop them off the stem and lay them out on paper towels so they can dry out.  Shape them up a little with your fingers.  Of course I couldn't just do the few I needed, I had to freshen my whole box full of flowers.  This is what took me so long.
See all my pretty fresh flower heads.  Yes, I put them back on their legs, once I was done.  Then I gathered my pitch fork and set my sights on crafting some fall prettiness.
And this is what you get when you're done.
Even poor little old shaggy Mattie liked it.
She's happy to be outside but she is almost 13 years old, that's 91 years our time, and she poops out on me quick.
I'm pretty pickin' happy with the finished product.  Especially since I didn't spend one shiny penny.  That's right nada and all because I cleaned up my old stinky flowers.  Hey even the wicker settee was free.  Thank you to my neighbors down the road!!  Gotta love FREE....

But I wasn't done.  I had to run out to the shed to hang this...
I love fall and all it's blazin' glory.
Un-hun, that's rain you see at the top of the picture.  See how much I love y'all.  I'll do anything to get the shot and finish a blog post.

I'll be back tomorrow to show off my new-to-me settee tomorrow.

Fall it up y'all...

Nothing is too hard for God.
                                               ~Jeremiah 32:17b

4 comments:

  1. I love them! All three of them! No wait, all four of them..lol b/c Mattie is a cutie too! I hadn't heard of the steam revive trick on the stain florals, good one ;) thanks for sharing that tip. I have two revive tips for you on the fake florals, pics, etc. When you buy them new, spray them with hairspray. It will prevent as much fading in color from the sun, resist mold spores from rain that leaves spots & it keeps there shape and they will hold up better longer & not flop! Also, you can spray paint the petals if they get dull in color. I never throw away my old florals, I always re-use them in some way. I got an old wicker settee once that someone was tossing out. It looks pretty rough though & was falling to pieces. Here's another tip for those once they fall apart & shed there wicker strands, you can pull all that off, and you have a perfect frame to re-cover with twine string of fabric torn strips. A long procedure to re-winding through it yes, but it really looks nice once done. I ended up selling mine that I recovered & made $40 on it. Can't wait to see what you have in mind for the wicker settee. Don't keep us in suspense long ;) Great #DIY post Tracy. Thanks!

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    1. Thank you Julie. You are my biggest fan! And Mattie's too. She always makes me think of when we first met. I've never heard of using hairspray but it makes complete sense. I'll have to try that one now. It seems people throw away the most perfectly good items, much to my happiness. My old neighbor offered me a wicker rocker a few years back and both she & her daughter wanted it after I painted it. lol. Then another neighbor threw away an antique wicker rocker because the rocker arm wouldn't stay on. It was an easy fix & looked great after I made a couple of cushions and painted it. Another "I wish I wouldn't have thrown it away" comment. Wrapping them with twine is a great idea. I have a post coming up with a few failures to balance it all out. haha.

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  2. Love it all girl! Hugs and blessings, Cindy

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    1. Aww - thanks CIndy. Hugs and blessings right back to you Sweetie!

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