Brandon and I took advantage of a recent storm and did some foraging around the neighborhood. We found a fallen maple trunk that we grabbed for our future pizza oven or fire pit use.

We also found these huge pine cones from a neighbor’s tree. I had scoped them out as I was driving home from the store, so we brought a bag to pick up the good ones.

After letting them dry out for a bit — and un-critter themselves — I set up my spray painting station on the patio and got my most favorite metallic gold spray paint from Rust-oleum. I can’t get enough of this stuff.

After spraying on the first coat, I posted this photo to Instagram and Pinterest and it’s brought me more traffic than anything else I’ve ever posted. Ever. And not just American traffic. I’ve had blog viewers from Bulgaria, Australia, Finland, Ireland and the UK, among many others. Thank you, Pinterest!

I used a fun basket that I had purchased from the Goodwill ($1.99) and spray painted it a deep red, Rust-oleum Regal Red, to be specific. It took a few coats and turned out really great. Perfect for the gilded pine cones.

I sprayed the pine cones a few more times and placed them in the new red basket. I think it turned out pretty well. What do you think?

And a shot of our cozy living room, decked out for the holidays.

One of my favorite holiday traditions is speed tree shopping at Home Depot or Lowe’s. (Or Costco once.) Over the weekend we made the trek to Issaquah (about 10 minutes away), went out for a romantic lunch and spent 3.5 seconds picking out our seven foot tall Noble Fir Christmas tree at Lowe’s.  It’s a real beauty.

Once we got the tree home, it was time to bust out the five boxes of Christmas decor from the garage. A few hours later, the tree was trimmed and the halls were decked.

Here are some inexpensive DIY Christmas garland ideas. I’ve been scouring Pinterest for additional DIY decoration ideas and I’ll post those this Friday for my “Gone Pinning” feature.

I stopped by IKEA on Black Friday, after I was done with my morning shopping, (Why? Because I’m a crazy person, apparently), and found their holiday goodies.

Much to my delight, I discovered that they had these festive holiday Snofint glasses on special, for $0.49 each. No sense not having a full half set, so I bought six. Of course Brandon was pleased. (One of his least favorite impulse buys of mine is frivolous glassware.)

After I washed the glasses, I added some decorative sand and a candle and voila! quick, easy and festive. I’ve got four on the dining room table and the other two are adding some holiday cheer in the bathrooms.

I also found these amazing Snofint coasters, that come in packs of 10 and cost $0.99. They were such a deal that I bought four packages.

Here are the coasters:

With a large needle and some white embroidery floss, I set about making my garlands. Here they are. What do you think? I love them and am looking forward to putting them up, year after year.

I also made this garland last weekend with some felt balls. It’s another one of my favorites.

The house is shaping up quite nicely! Have you put your decorations up yet?

You know IKEA hacks, right? They typically involve taking a generic, common product and customizing it. I took my own advice and did a last minute, DIY “hack” over the weekend, but not with a table or dresser from IKEA. Instead, I hacked one of those cheap orange pumpkin candy holders from Target.

My pumpkin hack was quick and dirty and I learned quite a bit as I went. I took my pumpkin straight from the store to my spray-painting station– a cardboard box on the back patio. Why was this wrong? I didn’t prep the pumpkin properly, so the paint didn’t really stick and there were a few places where the paint actually peeled straight off. I should have either wiped the surface off with rubbing alcohol or sprayed a coat of primer on, or both. Alas, hindsight is 20-20. And the pumpkin will be just fine for this year. Maybe I’ll hack it again next year, doing something completely different!

Once the pumpkin was painted with a few light coats of Rustoleum’s metallic black spray paint, I took a gold paint pen and filled in the “carved” portions of the pumpkin: the eyes, nose and mouth. While I was spraying the pumpkin, I used my metallic gold spray paint and sprayed “stretchy spiders” (that’s what Target calls them…) Once those were dry, I used hot glue to adhere them to the pumpkin. Another lesson here: it only partially worked: two spiders stayed adhered, two didn’t. I’ll be applying super glue to the difficult ones shortly. Hopefully they will cooperate.

Finally, I snipped off the boring black plastic handle and replaced it with a sheer gold ribbon that I found in the basement. I had just the right amount, which means that it really was meant to be.

So, what do you think of the Great Plastic Pumpkin Hack of 2013?

Finished product!

Oooh! Scary! Gold spiders in search of treats!

Of course you want to know what’s inside, right? We’ve got: Junior Mints, Whoppers, Snickers, Reese’s Pieces, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Hersey’s milk chocolate and cookies ‘n cream bars, and Twix bars. All of our favorite things! Thankfully Megan’s Island sees very few trick-or-treaters, so most of that deliciousness will be kept for us.

Nom. Nom. Nom. Think we’ll be able to save some candy for Thursday? Me neither.

Total cost for the great pumpkin hack?

• Plastic pumpkin: $1 (Target)
• Plastic spiders (4-pack): $1 (Target)
• Spray paint of your choice: ~$4/can (I always use Rustoleum)
• Paint pen: Varying costs, depending on what you get
• 12″ of Ribbon
• Hot glue (and then crazy glue)

Total for me: $2 and ~ 10 minutes of hands-on time.