Giving Thanks

It may be a little while before I post again because there will be a lot going on these next few weeks! This whole week coming up will be completely devoted to family and we're going where -- gasp -- there is NO Internet access! Whatever will I do?!

Our puppy's uncle will be house- and puppy-sitting while we are in Kentucky at my husband's grandparent's home. I'm looking forward to a lot of goofing off with family and eating some yummy food! Seriously, his family is full of such wonderful cooks!

The week after that is finals week for me-- the last finals week of my college career! I really have to put the pedal to the metal and finish my senior year right! So that's going to involve five or six big tests and projects coming up. Though I should devote all of my time to that, I probably will set aside some special time to decorate for Christmas and show you what I have going on! I can't wait!

What are you thankful for this year? I don't spend enough time thanking God for the special things I have going on in my life. This year, I'm thankful for...

• my wonderful husband, Josh

• my incredibly supportive family

• my puppy-love, Millie

• our wonderful home we've lived in for a year now
• a lot of financial assistance to get through college
• the beautiful wedding and honeymoon we had that I'll never forget

• moving in next to neighbors who have become my best friends
  

• the power God gives me to keep going when things get tough

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Spend time with your family (and if there's anything I've learned in life, it's that "family" does not have to be related to you.) Eat yummy food, and be thankful for the blessings you have!

A Fall Wreath and a Feature

In case you all didn't already know: I'm important. Okay, I'll wait for you to stop laughing... Still waiting...

I say that halfway in jest because Funky Junk Interiors featured my post about Plate Wall Art! Thanks Donna!

And now, with little time to spare before we bid our beloved fall decorations farewell, I present to you my first fall wreath! I bought it on Wal-Mart clearance (go check your aisle, there's some cool stuff) for $15.


I took it home and cut off some of the berries and things that didn't survive the wreath flying off the top of my car and across the parking lot while I opened the car door. Take a moment to picture me scurrying across a parking lot after a renegade airborne wreath.

Done? Okay, let's move on. :o)

And then I added a few flowers I had at the house, some peacock feathers (because they go with everything), and painted the plastic pumpkins and gourds with a light metallic, just to take the hard plastic look away. I was going to add bows and such, but I thought enough was going on already.

Ta-daah!

Yummy Fall Food

I made my first ever fall-themed meal this past weekend (with the much needed help of my sister.) I had to do something to take my mind off of the Chocolate Covered Raisin Incident of 2009. (Our pup is fine now, just to let you know.) The next night my husband and I had the leftovers for dinner and it was still delicious!


The extent of my fall decor is that fall colored bow with the hurricane and candle. But say hello to Pork Chops with Sweet Potato Chutney and Gingered Pumpkin Soup!

I found the recipes on Better Homes and Gardens' website. Mmmm, it was good! I preferred my soup a bit sweeter than the recipe made it, but adding more brown sugar was an easy fix. You can't go wrong with brown sugar! And I got a little fancy with my pumpkin seed garnish. **insert giggle here**


Try the recipes out if you'd like. If someone as special needs as I am when it comes to cooking can do it fairly easily, I promise you can too. (Ask my sister or husband about watching me cook. It's painful. I have a stab wound scar on my index finger to prove it.)

Pork Chops with Sweet Potato Chutney
Gingered Pumpkin Soup

A Success at Last

As I told you earlier, the bat project I set out to do was kind of a catastrophe. (See my bright idea here, and my subsequent epic fail here.) But I worked out a Plan B and ta-dah! The bats aren't going anywhere!


All I did was make a big stitch with black thread in the middle of the bats, sewing the duck tape to the bat. And just so I didn't have to knot the thread on each bat, I just taped the ends of the thread together. Yay!



I also got a few yard of gauze to hang up in the entryway. It was really easy to rip holes in and tatter. I'd love to have more next year to drape over bushes and trees.


Oh, the gauze was also fun to play in. :o) Am I cute, or am I cute? You like it.

Today, I added my last Halloween touch for the year, the scaredy-cat:


Hmm... a mosaic would really add some "oomph" to the front porch. All in good time...


It's not a lot, but pretty good and budget-friendly for our first Halloween here. Only a few days till Halloween! What are YOU going to dress up as?

I linked this post of to A Soft Place to Land's DIY day and at Posh Pieces. Check it out!

Epic Fail

Let me just say: **sigh**

My bat project did not go as planned. And things rarely do around here. I got up today and carried all my supplies to the front yard. I taped all the bats and arranged them in an aesthetically pleasing fashion across the garage door. But today, as Winnie the Pooh would call it, is a very blustery day. The wind was whipping the bats' wings all around and I could faintly hear the felt and tape separating. This was not good. So on the bigger bats that I cut, I put some more tape on the wings to minimize the flapping. In a matter of minutes bats were flying off of my garage door and into the driveway or bushes. Ugh. So I threw a little fit and took the bats off the door and went inside to pout. It DID look like this:



But now it is blank again. I'm not sure what to do. The problem is that the garage door is so exposed to the elements. The project would do fabulously in an entry way that was somewhat enclosed, and ours is, but it's too small for something like this. Hmph. The gears are grinding and I'm trying to come up with a Plan B, but I don't know how much work the project is worth just one week before Halloween. :o(

I may be being a baby, but I was really discouraged with how this went. Do you ever feel like everything you attempt goes wrong? I have all these big plans for our home, but if everything I try ends up falling apart...

It's just felt bats, Olivia. Just felt bats.

Just Plain Batty!

Well, I have been working my tush off to get this Halloween project done so that I can at least enjoy it for a little over a week before Halloween bids us farewell. I am afraid though since it is raining today that I may not be able to put it up for display just yet. I'm so excited about it anyway that I just can't wait to show it to you!


I saw this picture on Country Living's website and loved it! Then I saw Karla do it for her home and was comforted that someone could actually pull this off-- it's not just magazine photo magic. So I decided to try my hand at it.


All you need is heavy, stiffened felt, and duct tape (if you are doing it outdoors like me). This project would have cost me about $8 if I had had duct tape beforehand. Most people have duct tape in their toolbox already; I however did not.


Country Living has a bat template available to print on their site so that you can use a photocopier to size it up or down. I'm lazy artistic so I just looked at it and drew three different sized bats freehand. They recommended using chalk to trace the template onto the felt. I don't have chalk so I planned on using my silver Sharpie. Well, it wouldn't be a day if I couldn't find something I needed, so naturally my Sharpie was MIA. I just used pencil and looked closely for the faint pencil lines.

After that, I just started cutting and didn't stop till I was out of felt! It was so easy, I'm pretty sure a child could do it.

So there is a swarm of bats folded in half with their wings popping up, just waiting to take flight! Hopefully the weather will calm down and my garage door will be dry long enough for me to introduce them to the neighborhood!

Halloween Door Decoration

I made an attempt at my own Halloween door decoration. I don't know if I like it though. **grumblegrumblegrumble** I've been in some kind of funk lately. Normally, I can't get enough of myself and the wondrous things I do, but lately I've felt yucky. Anyway, enough of my baggage! Here it is:

I took a Dollar Tree broom decoration and spray painted it glossy black. My finger hurt BAD afterward. :o(

Then I took my mix of Halloween decorations. Most of it was Dollar Tree, but the ribbon was from Hobby Lobby. By the way, only buy from Hobby Lobby when it's 50% off. It gets expensive! Most of this stuff was cheap looking orange and gross so I painted everything metallic since I was so in love with the guilded pumpkin look.

My hot glue gun is hiding in my disaster area of a room, so everything was either floral wired or craft glued on. This is the product:

Did you notice my little peacock feather? I guess I just can't make anything without one! I like how spindly and creepy it looked after I painted it silver.

I was hoping to accomplish a slightly spooky look. Not anything campy like googly-eyed spiders and jack-o-lanterns, but not anything really morbid or bloody either. How did I do?

That entry could seriously use some fake spiderwebbage. And the door is begging me to painted...

No-Carve Pumpkins!

I'm loving the gloomy, rainy fall weather we are having right now! The only downside to it is this:

Millie the Mud-Puddle-Loving Dog

But Lauren got me pumped up for fall! Though I will not be doing much seasonal decorating since we're pretty strapped, I can't wait to put some of these inspiration pics into action!

Since sharp knives + Olivia= a trip to the hospital, I bring you No-Carve Pumpkins!

Funny Argyle Pumpkins:

Black and White Pumpkins:

More traditional Halloween-colored pumpkins:

And my favorite... Gilded pumpkins!

How gorgeous is that entry!? I love that they are sparkly and metallic but not gaudy (at least no to me anyway.) They are also neutral to go with any color scheme and just seem like a beautiful, grown-up way to decorate for fall. I love all the shiny doodles that some of the pumpkins have. Imagine a garland of them intertwined with twinkle lights! **Sigh**

Here are some instructions I found on how to get that look:

Project Info, How to Guild a Pumpkin, and How to Guild Video. (The video is annoying, but informative.)

How do you decorate for fall? And no one better post a pumpkin butt picture!