FREE Sugar Skull Embellishment Printable!

Wow! Can this really be the last of the sugar skull printable series?

Throughout October, we've been publishing sugar skull coloring sheet printables. We've introduced Rose and Daisy and Hibiscus and Zinnia and Frida. These printables are perfect for your Day of the Dead decor!

Each coloring sheet came with a skull and several embellishments. Today, we're offering a FREE extra embellishment printable sheet.

All of the skulls and embellishments are coordinated, so you can mix and match embellishments to customize your sugar skulls.

Get your FREE printable coloring sheet of sugar skull embellishments by clicking HERE.

For another (not so) spooky project, try this lace applique owl!

If you enjoyed this tutorial, please subscribe to House Revivals in the sidebar, so you won't miss the fun projects we have scheduled. Find us on Facebook, too, so you can catch all the "in between" stuff, and see what I'm working on daily on Instagram. Feel free to link today's post to your favorite social media sites.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Amanda

Fabulous Free Stuff for Your Home (REALLY)!

Continuing with our Fabulous Free Stuff posts, I've found a few more things on my local Craigslist that would be totally worth grabbing for your home. We all want to have beautiful and functional homes, but furnishing and decorating a home is expensive. Here are some fun ideas for using free stuff to transform your home.

The desk shown below is huge and solid and made by Hooker, but most importantly -- it's FREE! Personally, I think it's beautiful as it is, but if were painted in a chippy farmhouse finish it would look amazing.

Check out those TWO huge framed mirrors! Someone put these items in their driveway for folks to take for free.

A similarly sized mirror from Restoration Hardware would cost over one thousand dollars!

Leaning against the wall in your entry or bedroom, a gorgeous standing mirror would be functional and have great visual impact.

Never underestimate the power of paint! The FREE bed shown above looks a little dated and tired, but a couple of coats of light blue paint, like on the Maine Cottage bed below,  will make you think you're sleeping at the beach.

I'm not usually a fan of free sofas, because they are often dirty or broken, but every now and then, you find a sofa that is clean and in perfect condition. This sofa is a nice neutral color, so it will work in just about any decor.

I love trays!  They are great for corralling books and remote controls and newspapers, etc. Use them on coffee tables or ottomans, hang them on the wall, or keep toiletries organized with them.

The inlaid bone tray shown below is gorgeous, but it's also $598 from Serena and Lily. The red tray, show above, is free. A stencil and some craft paint applied to the free tray could yield the same effect as the Serena and Lily tray, and you would still be able to pay the rent afterward.

Authentic mid century furniture is usually very well made, from good quality woods. Can you believe someone was giving this piece away?

Mid century shelf and desk units are all the rage right now. West Elm makes a retro version that sells for over a thousand dollars.

This old teacher's desk has already been given a set a sturdy industrial wheels.

A good cleaning and some paint is all it needs to be converted into a beautiful and functional kitchen island, like this one from This Old House.

The wing chair below is tired and looking a little ragged, but the lines are amazing.

Betty, over at Oh Everything Handmade, shares how she transformed a dated, but classic, wing chair into a modern farmhouse focal point.

Good dressers are some of the most functional storage pieces you can own. Vintage dressers are almost always better made than newer ones. Check for signs of a quality piece by looking for dovetailed drawers and dust panels between the drawers. The piece should not "wobble" at all, and the drawers should close nicely (unless you are handy, and comfortable making repairs). Avoid anything made from particle board. The waterfall style dresser below has great lines, and lovely hardware.

Use your dresser to create a welcoming entry, or at the end of a hallway, to create a moment of beauty in your home. I use dressers to store everything from vintage silverware to extra sheets. The dresser below was found online for free, and given a quick coat of paint. After some light distressing, it was ready to display a painting found at a German flea market, a woven ball my father-in-law picked up when he was in Vietnam, a carved Polish trinket box, a Polish pottery bowl, and a carved box from Thailand. Dressers are a great way to display family mementos.

This wood filing cabinet only needs a coat of chippy farmhouse paint to give you extra storage in a bathroom or kitchen (they're not just for files, anymore). Use one next to a pedestal sink to store extra toiletries.

I hope this post inspires you to look a little more closely at the "free" stuff being offered up online. Most of this stuff is headed for the landfill, if no one claims it, so it's great it we can divert it by giving it a new lease on life.

You may also enjoy this painted bed makeover post. 

If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to House Revivals in the sidebar, so you won't miss the fun projects we have planned. Find us on Facebook, too, so you can catch all the "in between" stuff, and see what I'm working on throughout week on Instagram. Feel free to link today's project to your favorite social media sites.

For another FREE template, click here.
Thanks so much for stopping by!
Amanda

Free Hibiscus Sugar Skull Printable!

It's time! As promised, we are providing FREE printable templates throughout the month of October for these fun coloring page sugar skull templates.

Last week, we shared Rose and Daisy.

This week, we are sharing Mister Hibiscus. He's the green fellow in the picture below.

As with the previous printable pages, the hibiscus sugar skull printable also comes with lots of extra flowers and medallions for embellishing your skulls. 

To create your sugar skulls, go to the link below and print your sugar skull coloring sheet. Color your page as using the media you prefer and cut out the skull and extra embellishments.

Assemble as desired. I like to mix and match my embellishments. You can glue your sugar skulls onto cord or yarn, to create a bunting, or use them in card making or however your prefer. Enjoy!

Get your free Hibiscus Sugar Skull printable here!

You may also like this post on how to make a woven star from vintage book pages.

If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to House Revivals in the sidebar, so you won't miss the fun projects we have planned. Find us on Facebook, too, so you can catch all the "in between" stuff, and see what I'm working on throughout week on Instagram. Feel free to link today's project to your favorite social media sites.

For another FREE template, click here.
Thanks so much for stopping by!
Amanda

Free Rose Sugar Skull Printable Template!

You guys!  For the rest of October, I will be offering FREE printable coloring sheet templates for these amazing sugar skulls!

Today, we have a link for a printable for the gold colored skull, seen below. Keep checking in, because I will continue posting several more templates all month long!

More Ways to Furnish Your Home For FREE!

When my husband and I were starting out, we were young and impoverished students. Our first sofa was found, free, from the want ads. My mom helped me re-upholster it from mismatched remnants we found at a local fabric store. It looked amazing.

After reupholstering that sofa, I was hooked on DIY projects. I sewed curtains, painted dressers, made Christmas ornaments, and so on -- stretching our limited dollars while creating a home for our growing family.

Furnish Your Home With Free Stuff -- Beautifully!

The holidays are right around the corner, and many of us are thinking about sprucing up our homes, in preparation. With tight budgets, the task can feel a bit daunting, but it doesn't have to be. You don't need a lot of money to create a beautiful home. In fact, sometimes you don't need any money!

This morning, a quick scroll items being offered up for FREE on Craigslist turned up scores of awesome stuff.

This Abbot Kinney Welding Shop is a Piece of Authentic Venice

We've been spending a lot of time in Los Angeles, lately. For a couple of years, we need to travel between Venice and Seattle for my husband's job. We have fallen in love with Venice.

Venice is amazing. Venice is crazy. Venice has heart. Venice has crime. Venice has very high end homes, and Venice has homeless encampments. Lots of movies and TV shows are filmed in Venice. In fact, I can see The Today Show filming down by the graffiti wall as I type. When we first came here, I made my husband spend an afternoon with Linda Blair and me, watching Roller Boogie. The two star film was shot in Venice, and it's fun to locate the old Venice landmarks and to see how things have changed. You can see the exterior of our apartment in some of the scenes. You can still find roller skaters on the Venice Boardwalk, though roller skating has been eclipsed by skate boarding, with the addition of a new skate park.

Cassette Tape Shelf to Gorgeous Tray!

When I brought an old cassette storage shelf home from the Goodwill Outlet, I think my husband thought I'd lost my mind. What in the world did we need that for?

Well, I love trays, and I was pretty sure this little shelf could be transformed into a unique and useful decor piece.

Make These Impossible Paper Spheres {FREE Printable}!

While doing some random internet research, a few weeks ago, I found some gorgeous paper spheres at the lovely blog Hattifant.  The editor of Hattifant also found the form while searching the internet, and suspects it is of Scandinavian origin. I was immediately intrigued by the form, and decided to play around with some paper and figure out how to draft my own templates.

After some trial and error, I figured out the math to make these little paper spheres, first making them from vintage book pages. I shared them on my Instagram account, at the time, but I couldn't get the concept out of my mind. I decided to transfer the measurements into CAD, so that I could print out very accurate templates, and experiment with coloring designs.

Why Should I Swatch My Art Media?

Do you swatch out your inks, pencils, crayons, and paints? For years, I didn't bother. It wasn't a big deal, because I only used two brands of marker and one brand of colored pencil. I used them so often, I didn't need to swatch them.

Over time, however, I started using other types and brands of media, and things started to get confusing.

DIY Patchwork Rugs for Cheap!

We own some boat slips in our condo marina. Along with the slips, there is a condominium clubhouse in the adjacent building that is jointly owned by all the moorage owners.

It's basically just a giant concrete room. A few years ago, a sump pump that serviced the residential portion of the building malfunctioned and flooded the entire space. The carpets and portions of the gypsum board needed to be removed. It was ugly.

Make Your Own Pottery Barn Inspired Faux Coral

This tutorial originally appeared in House Revivals in the summer of 2012, and continues to be one of our most popular posts. Enjoy!

Are you still loving all the faux coral decor we've been seeing at places like Pottery Barn and Horchow?  I know I love it!

 Pottery Barn

By using faux coral, you can enjoy the casual beachy feeling of decorating with coral, without worrying about how the coral was harvested.  Sometimes that faux coral comes with a pretty steep price tag, so I've come up with a way to create beautiful faux coral using very inexpensive materials.

How to Decorate With Free Stuff From Craigslist

I love Craigslist. Especially the free stuff. I am forever amazed at what you can get, simply by going to get it!

I've seen good quality paint, gardening supplies, furniture, sports equipment, and toys. Recently, these were a few of the items I found listed on Craigslist one Saturday morning.

How to Weave a Pretty Seat

I popped into a Goodwill the other day and found the cutest little bench -- that is, it could have been cute. If it had a seat.

My husband has a running joke about my love affair with "broken chairs". We've moved broken chairs half-way across the country and back again.

How to Decorate When You're Broke

We've all been there. We want to freshen up our homes, but our home decor budget is non-existent. Here are some ideas that you can use to decorate your home when you're broke.

Ideas for Pretty Painted Beds

This post originally appeared on House Revivals in October of 2013.

In a couple of days I'm heading back to the beach house -- hopefully to paint some bedroom furniture! For inspiration I've been scouring catalogs, websites, and furniture stores. I don't know about you, but I love color. I have these conflicting voices in my head, saying "paint your bed a cheerful pretty color" and "paint your bed a safe color"....  Guess which voice is winning?

I know, I know, it's been two years since the major part of our remodel, and I am still working on finishes and furnishings......  

Decorate and Organize With Repurposed Trunks

This post first appeared on House Revivals in January of 2014.

I think I will never get tired of dusty old trunks and chests. They all have stories hidden away inside. As a kid, I loved looking at the old newspapers that had been used to line some old trunks that my mother had. I used to have a hump-backed trunk that was lined with lovely old wallpaper.  I used it to store vintage linens. Another trunk was used as a bedside table. We no longer have the hump-backed trunk -- it was a victim of a cross-country move years ago, but the other trunk still serves as storage. These days we use it to store Christmas ornaments.

That's the wonderful thing about trunks. They can live so many lives.  They start out going on grand adventures, and later retire to life as an end table or are tucked away in an attic, storing treasured items. 

How to Decorate With Vintage Lockers

My husband has several banks of old gym lockers in our garage. He bought them at a building supply salvage yard a few years ago to use for tool storage.  They're not working out.  His tools are all the wrong sizes and nothing is fitting quite right. He's offered them to me for the beach house!

At first, I really wanted the lockers for my beach house loft studio.........., but somehow the studio got bumped for an office/ secondary family room..... sigh...., and my studio stuff is still boxed up in an attic room.  (Edit: See how we turned that little storage attic into a colorful studio!)

Syd and Harper

Vintage lockers offer great storage, and they are eclectic and fun. I love these lockers, with the top doors removed!

Caught in Grace

How about a bank of lockers, re-purposed into a credenza?

Depto51

RED.... Enough said.

Seabold Vintage Market

These lockers are built in to a beach house bathroom.

House Beautiful

We have lots of guests, at our beach house. Many of our guests return over and over. It would be nice to offer them a bit of personal closet space. 

Home Life

Just for fun, I did a little online searching for lockers. This bank of green lockers is available at a local salvage store for $225!  I LOVE the proportions of these lockers.

Second Use

I scouted these awesome orange lockers on Craiglist!

Do you love the look of vintage lockers? Have you used them in your own decor? Should I use old lockers for storage in our bunk room?

If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to House Revivals in the sidebar, so you won't miss the fun projects we have planned. Find us on Facebook, too, so you can catch all the "in between" stuff, and see what I'm working on daily on Instagram. Feel free to link today's project to you favorite social media sites.

Thanks so much for stopping by!