Showing posts with label fall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fall. Show all posts

Sunday, November 6, 2011

A Month of Sundays

Sundays are for being lazy around our house. We usually cook some breakfast and the only chore that gets done is laundry.  I’m also usually running around with my camera snapping pictures either for the blog or just for fun.  So I’m not sure why, but one Sunday I stepped out on the back stoop just off the laundry room and snapped a quick picture of the trees over to the right.  In the summer I took a few of these photos because I thought it was interesting that when standing on the stoop I could see into about 3 other people’s backyards!  No, I’m not a creeper, I just think it’s crazy how close together our houses are. 
Once the leaves started to change I took a picture every Sunday, just to see how things were changing and it’s pretty neat to see the colors change over time.
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The leaves are still very green but just the tips of the branches are starting to turn yellow and orange.
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A week later and not much change except maybe a touch more orange.
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Seriously just one week later!  So much more orange everywhere!  Gloomy, but still beautiful.
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Another week and even more bold and beautiful!  It all changed so quickly.

So neat! Now most of the leaves have fallen off the trees because of some rainy and windy days, but it’s still beautiful in my neighborhood.  There are three gingko trees right around my house and they are always the last trees to turn, but in my opinion, are worth the wait!  If you’ve never seen a gingko tree in late fall you need to, because they are so gorgeous.  I’ll be taking some pictures of those this week, since the tips of their branches are becoming yellow.  Hope everyone had a great weekend!
Thanks for stoppin’ by!

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

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.
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  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.   
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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!
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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. 
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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!
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Then, I used some old newspaper to cover everything else so I wouldn’t get anything on the rest of the pot.  Fancy, huh?
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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.
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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.
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And here they are!
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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!

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

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:
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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.
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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. 
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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!