Mum’s the word

Ok, ok so the title’s a little corny but I had to!  Forgive me.  So in yesterday's post I mentioned that I had a mum-related project that I was working on.  It ended up taking me more than one day, but that’s ok.  So to me, fall is all about mums.  Literally, as soon as the word “fall” is uttered I’ll be the first girl down at the nursery snatching up some beautiful mums.  This year was no different, except that usually I end up paying a fortune a little too much for a nice, big, full mum and this time around I didn’t!  One of the girls I work with was selling them for her kid’s school and they were only $6 a piece!  It was a steal so I got three, 2 crimson and one orange.  They were HUGE when I got them and I was oh-so-happy.  Now, fast forward a few weeks and my mums are wilting…*sad face*…and I know why.  It’s because the little plastic pots they came in were waaaaaaaaay too small for them to flourish, and I knew I needed to do something about it.  Here’s one crimson one, all wilt-y.

  Lately, there’s been absolutely no “budge” in our budget, if you will.  That means no extra money for pots to repot my precious mums!  Pots are expensive, not to mention that I unfailingly have champagne taste on a Natty Lite budget, so I knew it was best to not even go looking and just figure something else out.  Enter: The Dollar Tree *angels singing, heavenly light shining down on local Dollar Tree*.  I scooped up 3 black buckets for 3 bucks, some cheap potting soil and hoped for the best.   
                                                                  
The hubs helped me drill some holes in the bottom, ya know, for drainage and what not. This took about 5 seconds.  He’s so cute, I love him!

Then I filled them up with potting soil and repotted my plants and gave them a good soak.  The “pots” are a little big, but the black color goes well with my Halloween décor and there’s plenty of room for growth. 
 
So of course after I finished I thought to myself, “Self, these pots need a little something extra.”  I thought about all sorts of things, like ribbon, some braided yarn, or something really Halloween-ish but none of those options seemed right.  And then it hit me, OUR LAST INITIAL! PERFECT!  So I printed out a huge L in a font I liked, laminated it and cut it out to make a stencil.  I taped the stencil to the pot with some painter’s tape to see if it fit and it did!
 
Then, I used some old newspaper to cover everything else so I wouldn’t get anything on the rest of the pot.  Fancy, huh?

I busted out my handy white spray paint, as seen in this post, and got busy.  Now, I kind of figured that my stencil wasn’t leak proof and that some paint would get under the stencil and I would need to do some tough ups.  And booooy, did I!  Here’s how it looked after the spray paint and removing the stencil.

It was a full on Monet.  From far away it was ok, but up close it was a big ol’ mess!  So I grabbed my giant Sharpie and cleaned things up a little bit.  Muuuuch better.

And here they are!

Disregard the gourds, they’re temporary until I can get my hands on some pumpkins from the farmers market.  The L turned out great and I love that it breaks up the 3 blank “pots”.  I still think I’ll add something else to the other 2, but we’ll see once I get some pumpkins and such up there.  Anyone else have any fun fall activities goin’ on?? I’d love to hear all about it!  It’s fall, ya’ll!!!
Thanks for stoppin’ by!

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My Fall Mantle

So, first of all, I would like to say that I am really enjoying trying to focus on the blog right now and post things as often as I can.  I feel like I’m really getting into the swing of things and I hope I can keep it up.  Also, please ignore the way the blog LOOKS right now.  It’s going through some changes and I can’t quite figure everything out just yet, so please just ignore the funky margins and awkward layout for the moment!  I say this as if there is anyone but my family and a few friends reading this, LOL!
Anyhoodle, on with the show!  So in yesterday's post I mentioned that today I wanted to share my fall mantle, yayy!  I love fall and everything about it, especially the decorations and coffee drinks.  Pumpkins, owls, mums, and rich colors are all so beautiful! Speaking of mums, tomorrow I will have a post about a little project I did today dealing with my beautiful mums!
So here’s my little fall inspired mantle:

Here’s a close up of the gourd, which my momma grew in her garden last summer!  I love the way the spots on it look, kind of like they’re tie-dyed.

I made the paper bunting myself with some old scrap book paper and everything else I already had on hand.  The mirror is one of my favorite things I own.  My parents bought it for me the weekend Nick and I moved into the house from the vintage store by my house.  It came from a barber shop in southern Indiana and it has so much awesome character, I just love it!  Also, I think the sconces add a little bit of charm to my setup here. 

Not sure why, but I never took a picture of the mantle from the front, so there it is again from the side!  haha!  So tomorrow I’ll be sharing my little mum project I worked on today, which I LOVE by the way.  Oh! I almost forgot! I’m getting some things ready for my etsy shop, so when it’s ready I’ll share the link on here.  I’m excited. 
*Side note:  decorating the mantle for fall makes me think of all the UH-MAY-ZING things I can do with it for Christmas!!!!  Now imagine me jumping around my living room, giddy about the prospects for Christmas decorating.  Anyway….
Thanks for stoppin’ by!

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DIY: Laundry Soap

So, thanks to Pinterest I have found so many new things to do and projects to try around the house!  It’s pretty exciting.  One of the more random things I came across was making your own laundry soap.  It’s so simple I had to try it.  According to everything I’ve read online and the calculations I’ve done, it costs about $0.02 per load using the homemade soap versus $0.25 per load with a store bought detergent….I’ll let that sink in…. OK, now that it’s understood that laundry soap is EXPENSIVE I’ll tell you how easy it is to make your own at home! 
I chose to make the powder version, however there are recipes out there for the liquid version.  I chose to make the powder because I’m lazy and it’s WAAAAYYYY easier than boiling and stirring and whatnot.  Maybe next time. 
I really would recommend going ahead and making two batches at a time, since the batches aren’t that big and detergent goes pretty quickly(especially in my house!). 
So the materials you will need are as follows:
-Washing Soda: this is a product made by Arm and Hammer that you’ve probably never even noticed before in the laundry aisle.  I found mine snuggled up next to the next ingredient…
-Borax: I used 20 Mule Team brand, but any kind will do.
-Bar Soap: the recipe i followed called for Fels Naptha, but I’ve read that any kind will do.  I’ve seen some recipes that call for Ivory or Zote, but I went with the F.N. since it was so conveniently located next to my other 2 ingredients.
Speaking of my ingredients, here they are now in a cute little group shot..

The first thing I did was grate my bar soap using a cheese grater, but a food processor would also work.  I’m warning you, if you decide to grate the whole bar by hand you may regret it.  I did…5 seconds in, but there was no turning back.  It’s best to grate it pretty fine, since you want everything to be powdery and fluffy(IT'S SO FLUFFFFFYYYYYY!!!!) in the end.  I ended up crumbling the soap a little more with my fingers, since I wanted it to be very fine. 
After you grate the whole bar of soap, add 1 cup of borax..


Then, add one cup of washing soda.

After everything is in your bowl or container, mix it all together.  Then mix it some more, and then mix it some more so it’s niiiiiice and powdery.

After I had everything combined very well, I found a container to store it in and a cute spoon to measure it out with.  I wanted my container to be somewhat airtight, because if any moisture got in it could cause clumping.  The hubs and I have become avid coffee drinkers, and have recently polished off a giant thing of Folgers which comes in those “airtight” plastic containers these days.  To get rid of the coffee smell I filled my container with warm water, some dish liquid and a generous splash of white vinegar and let it marinate like that for about an hour.  Can I just say that white vinegar is one of my favorite household cleaning products? I love that stuff!  It gets rid of all sorts of smells and stains, there are so many uses! 
So anyway, I really am not a fan of red and unfortunately that is the color of Folgers.  So I dressed up my little coffee container with some scrap book paper and super glue and wrote on it what it was and how much to use, just in case the hubs gets a wild hair and does some laundry!  (love ya, boo!) 
 
*Side note: I intend to find a very cute jar or container at the vintage store by my house but as of now I haven’t been able to find anything.
So far it cleans well and makes everything smell fresh.  To me, there’s no difference between this and store-bought laundry soap, aside from the price!  So, if you’re feeling frugal and sick of paying our the wazoo for laundry soap go ahead and make ya a batch or two and then let me know how it goes!
Thanks for stoppin’ by!

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