Who doesn’t love a good visual pun? And these gaudy big faux-diamond napkin rings are just too much fun.

This set of four metal-and-glass napkin rings is £6.95 at the DotComGiftShop.com.

For a wedding? Seriously?

Most of the crystal or rhinestone rings designed as napkin holders are intended for tabletop decor at an engagement party, rehearsal dinner or  wedding reception — can you imagine? — so you’ll most often find the napkin rings listed under Wedding Supplies, most places.

I’m not sure I’d go there, myself — unless the wedding theme is something like My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding (let’s not go there either, please: a little respect for the travellers?) — but fake diamonds splashing the table decor for a bachelorette party dinner? Absolutely!

I did spot similar “diamond” napkin rings a while back at Bed Bath & Beyond about 4 or 5 years ago, but their version was just a little too, er, understated and scaled-down to carry the same note of whimsy — but there’s a surprising selection from various merchants on Amazon.com. No idea what kind of quality you’ll get with any of these, of course, but we can assume that we’re not talking Shrek-sized jewellery for real…

Trying to make the fake look real is never a winner, which is one good reason to play bold (as shown here) or just fold your napkins. Faux works best when it’s frankly over the top!

If you hate the look of a bare concrete floor, no matter how practical it might be, here’s an idea — why not stencil the concrete to look like a luxurious carpet?

Perhaps not as comfy as a fine oriental rug, but certainly more durable, is this concrete “carpet” created by faux finisher Kim Longo. Inspired by an aged tile look she saw in villas and palazzos in Italy, Longo has used templates and trowels to create unique patterns in concrete surfaces.

Planning out the design and colour palette for a stencilled concrete faux carpet comes first, of course, as with any project.

After that, The Concrete Network (www.concretenetwork.com) lays out the basic how-to on stencilling concrete:

1. Scrub the concrete surface
2. Apply two coats of primer.
3. Measure off the area to be stencilled (Longo chose the Barcelona stencil from Modello).
4. Tape off an extra width all the way around to create a border, if desired.
5. Mark a centre line and place your stencil, sticking it down firmly.
6. Carefully lay your colours into the cut-out areas in the stencil.

   You might choose to stain the concrete substrate, or trowel on a coloured cement product like Skimstone — it might be tempting to use paint for an quick and easy fix, but paint on concrete is simply not durable and will inevitably flake off with time and foot traffic.

7. Remove the stencil and finish with two or three coats of sealer.

“What began as a blank concrete canvas had been transformed into an inviting room where my youngest does his homework and reads in the afternoon with his dogs and that becomes a spot to relax at night with the ocean breezes,” Longo says.

I don’t think I’m going to pour this much DIY creativity into my concrete basement floor — which is the only flat interior concrete surface in this old farmhouse — but what about stencilled concrete for jazzing up a patio, a 3-season sun room, or even the standard mid-century concrete front step?

Very uptown!

Have you seen Anna Whitford’s collection of decorative flowers? These are six-inch sculptural faux flowers — Dahlia and Gerbera, something reminiscent of a Zinnia, big fat luscious flowers to lift the spirits.

The decorative floral ties are designed to be versatile and can be used again and again… Each design is hand crafted from high quality suede, faux suede or metallic leather with complimenting three satin ribbon ties. There are a variety of delicious and dazzling colours to choose from to match your gift, interior or fashion accessory.

Those attached satin ribbons let you easily decorate a gift package or tie back a curtain, or embellish a throw pillow, or a lamp base, or a vase… Create a unique table setting or centerpiece, or accent a fireplace mantel arrangement…

One other thing I should have added to the long list of Thanksgiving weekend fun — arts and crafts with autumn leaves!

Kelly (aged 11, my next-door neighbour’s granddaughter, visiting from out of town) came over on Thanksgiving Sunday afternoon — as she often does, when spending the weekend at her Grammie’s house.

(And by the way, that’s a pleasure for which I am indeed very thankful.)

We walked with dogs down to the bottom of the hill, collecting great armloads of colourful maple leaves on the way, then came home and folded them into a bouquet of faux roses.

Kelly took this bouquet home to her grandmother.

We went out the next day to get some even better leaves — bright red maple leaves, from down by the brook where this summer’s drought hadn’t robbed the trees of the stronger hues — so she could make more flowers to take to her art teacher when school went back in.

I also printed out the pictures from the maple leaf roses tutorial I’d found, and put the pages into an old binder that was lying around. Kelly is going to decorate the cover of the binder and put her name on it. We’ll use this binder to compile a How-To Book of all the activities we do together on her visits, and I like to think that she’ll share it with friends… and maybe, some day in the far future, with children of her own.

I found this great craft idea last autumn, but just a few days too late to collect a bunch of autumn leaves while they were at their brilliant best colours. This year, it’s high on my to-do list! The big sugar maple out front is turning an incredible vibrant red just now…

In a superior step-by-step photographic tutorial, Natale shows how to make roses out of colorful autumn leaves — maple leaves, to be exact, perfect for us Canadians!

She gives a commentary, too, but the online translators can’t quite handle the task… Never mind, the photographs are enough to transcend any language barriers, speaking with the language of faux flowers!

Make a point to pick yourself some colourful maple leaves before they fall, so they’ll still be soft and pliable enough to fold up tightly. Or possibly it might help to treat them with just the tiniest bit of glycerine? Could try it both ways…

Just feel free to rake me up in a big sack and throw me on the compost pile, if I don’t get around to trying this fabulous autumn craft before the trees are bare!

I spotted these sleek chrome-and-snakeskin mirror frames while doing a bit of online window shopping at Wallis Designs — and that’s a brilliant place to pick up ideas for a mid-century or modern decor, by the way.

Now, for those of us not in the swanky Scottsdale neighbourhood (or income bracket), this look is still do-able.

The proper way, of course, would be to matt a chrome-framed mirror with faux snakeskin and bind the inner edge with bent aluminum chrome trim to match the frame. But that’s not going to happen.

I’m not exactly a real whiz at bending metal so that it’s nice and tidy… so I’d probably just fake the general effect.

It can be done quite handily with a pair of chrome picture frames in two different sizes, a mirror, and a piece of faux snakeskin fabric or printed vinyl. Snakeskin-printed paper would do nicely, too, if it’s a good quality and not too easy to rip.

You see where I’m going with this?

Fit the small and large frames:

The smaller frame is for the mirror (nice if you can buy a suitable chrome-framed mirror to start with, instead of having to take the extra step of fitting a mirror to the frame). The larger frame will surround the whole shebang.

Now, those picture frames are probably backed with cardboard (we’re talking WalMart frames here, DIY’ers!). So, slip the cardboard backing out of the large frame, lay the small frame down on top and center it, and trace lightly around with a pencil.

Cut out the rectangle you’ve just marked on the cardboard.

Now, take the comes-with-it cheap mat board for the larger frame and trim it to match the rectangle you’ve just cut in the backing, if necessary. A sharp Xacto knife will do the trick, because you may just need to shave back a tiny sliver…

The goal is that the smaller frame should sit down inside the hole, so it’s more or less flush with the larger frame when the mat is put back in.

(If your picture frame comes with glass, just set it aside for another project — you won’t be needing it here.)

Cover the mat board with faux snakeskin:

Now, take that large mat board and cover it with strips of your faux snakeskin. I’d fold the corners at a 45-degree angle to make a nice professional-looking mitre join at each corner. Or you could also cut a mat out of one big piece — if you look closely at the picture, you’ll see it’s done as if one piece, with the pattern continuing from top to bottom — your choice.

Fold the fabric or paper down smoothly over the edges of the mat and just use a tiny drop of glue here and there to tack it in place. That’s in case you want to tweak the fit as you put it all together.

Assemble the two pieces:

Set the mirror face-down on your worktop, and slide the snakeskin-covered mat (also face-down) onto it. Slide the large frame’s cardboard backing on in the same way. Set the mirror, with mat and backing on it, into the large frame and fasten it securely in place.

How far the small frame (the mirror) will protrude at the back will depend on the relative thickness of the frames, of course, which is why you’ve been working upside down.

If the backs of the frames come out flush, you can pat yourself on the back for the choice of frames. Either way, no big deal. Cover the back with heavy brown paper and stick down the edges with gummed brown paper strips, nice and neat.

Fasten on a wire for hanging — and I’d fasten it to the mirror part, because that’s the heaviest. Also, if the mirror sticks a bit more out the back than the main large frame, that way it will still hang quite nicely against the wall.

And there we go — a high-priced Modern style faux-snakeskin mirror on a DIY budget!

My sister was totally traumatized one night, when we were kids playing Hide and Seek, when she came face-to- beady-glass-eyes with Aunt Dalia’s old fox fur neck piece, hanging in a dark closet.

So this Vegan Fox definitely has Sis written all over it — especially as she’s now become the undisputed Queen of Knitting in our family!

This is a non-violent interpretation of a fascinating artifact from the ’30s: the fox stole, complete with beady eyes and dangling paws. Most of the final impression comes from the judicious yarn choices.

The design is by Marie-Christine Mahe, and the free knitting pattern is at Knitty.com.

Hat tip on this to not martha, who did her own variation on the pattern to make a faux-y fox stole for her mother (who is a storyteller; and how cool is that?).

Dig out a pair of those earrings you never wear anymore — the ones that were a total mistake X years ago — and give them a funky new life as fool-the-eye faux stones. The secret is papier mâché, and the method is quick and easy.

You might even get a bored pre-teen girl to put down her phone for this craft project!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• one pair of hook-type earrings you won’t want to wear again (or jewelry hardware from a craft store, if you want to make new earrings from scratch)



• old newspaper, paper towel or tissue paper
• plastic wrap
• a small paint brush
• old rags or a sponge
• 2 Tbsp white household glue, mixed with 2 Tbsp water to make a thin paste
• craft paints (in the rock-like natural colors of your choice)
• water-based clear sealer (preferably with a low-gloss or satin finish)

Step One: Papier Mâché

Cover your work table with newspaper or plastic, for easy clean-up, and wind a piece of plastic wrap around the earring hooks to protect them from paste and paint.

Rip a sheet of newspaper into small strips, as narrow as you can get them and no more than 4 inches long. Tear the paper rather than cutting it so the edges will be soft and uneven. Wet a strip of newspaper in the paste, then run it between your fingers to remove the excess paste. It should be thoroughly moistened but not dripping or soggy.

Wrap the pasted newspaper strip around the dangling pendant of one of those old earrings. Repeat with the other earring. Continue to work back and forth from one earring to the other as you add more strips of pasted paper, building up a form that looks like it could be a small rock. The two earrings don’t need to be absolutely identical in shape and size — no two rocks are exactly alike in nature — but you’ll want them to be fairly similar.

If the phone rings in the middle of your work, no worries! Just cover your saucer of paste with a piece of plastic wrap until you’re ready to get back to it. (If it starts to dry out, add a few drops of warm water.) And it won’t hurt if you let your project dry out a little between layers — that just means a quicker drying time at the end.

When you’ve got a couple of rock shapes you’re happy with, tear off small pieces of tissue paper or paper towel, just barely moisten them with paste, and smooth them on to your earring rocks as the final layer. This is just to soften any glaring lines left by the newspaper strips and add a bit of a finer texture, which helps to make the faux rocks look more realistic.

Gently remove the plastic wrap from the metal hooks, so it doesn’t get permanently glued on, and set the earrings aside to dry. I like to dry my papier mâché projects on an old wire cookie-cooling rack to let the air circulate freely around them. Don’t rush the drying time! A couple of days in a warm place is the minimum it’ll take to dry them all the way through to the center.

Step Two: Faux Finish

Here’s where we get really creative! A faux rock paint finish may look a bit challenging at first, but it’s hard to do it “wrong” — have you ever noticed what a wonderful variety of rocks and stones there are in nature? Gather up a few that attract you, perhaps, and bring them in to your work space for inspiration.

Acrylic craft paints are great because they’re inexpensive, they dry very quickly, and you can wash up with soap and water. Still, it’ll make life easier if you protect your work surface and wrap the earring hooks in plastic wrap again before you start painting.

Plan to use three different colors of paint, if possible. For some reason I can’t begin to explain, three is the magic number! Two colors just doesn’t look real, and four or more colors can look fussy. (To replicate my local dark-red stones, for example, I chose Americana paints in Lamp Black, Dark Chocolate, and Rookwood Red.)

I find it helpful to start with a base coat of your darkest color to quickly hide the newspaper print. Once the papier mâché rocks are all one solid color, somehow it’s much easier to imagine how they might best be finished.

Next, put a dot of your lightest, brightest color of paint onto the corner of a sponge or rag. Add it here and there over the dark base coat, wiping off or dabbing on just as the spirit moves you. Again, work back and forth between the two earrings so they’ll end up looking like the same kind of rocks.

Wiped with a rag, some paint will naturally collect in small hollows and rough areas on your faux rocks. This gives a far more natural effect than a smooth application would, so it works to your advantage!

Finally, add a tiny touch of the third (mid-range) color here and there, using the smallest paintbrush you have. Sometimes I use the tip of a toothpick or bamboo skewer for very fine lines, like the speckles or fine veins that you’ll often see in real rocks. When you’re happy with how your faux rock earrings turned out, apply a light coat of clear sealer to protect the paint finish.

Take the plastic wrap off the hooks, now, and try your earrings on. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the results — and if not, you can always paint over!