Dressing up the coffee table!

I love Fall!  My home is looking so pretty and dressed up with all the colors and smells.  It feels so good to be here.  Makes me want to pretty it up all the time.  I do get such joy from decorating.

 The quality of these pictures isn't the best.  My camera broke and I'm waiting to save up a little more money so I can buy a new one and still remain debt free.  I hate to buy it on credit this close to Christmas.  I had to use my Iphone camera once again so the pictures aren't clear at all.  I wish you could see the vibrant colors in my decorating.  They are so very pretty.

It all started one day when I was in Ross.  I was looking through their shelves and happened to see this table runner.  I hesitated at first because we have a four year old and she puts her dirty hands on everything but I decided to give it a go anyway.  I have since sat her down and told her not to lay things on the coffee table and she had done really well so far.  What I liked about this runner was the color of the leaves.  They were all gold and rust and orange, just the colors I like to decorate with.

 I love a little bit of black when I am decorating!  I think it draws attention to a display! Using this tray as a base,  I layered my flower arrangement together with  candle holders from Southern Living at Home.  I have used these so many times. They look wonderful in so many different ways.   I wrapped mini orange beads around them and added candles and a couple of leaves.  I have thought many times of spray painting these candle holders black but haven't brought myself to do it yet. I think it made a really pretty display.  The colors are so bright and pretty.  A mix of burgundy, orange and gold.  I love it!

 I've had this little crow forever.  He is laying on his back tying his shoes.  I like the look of a little whimsey in decorating too.  Plus he's a good conversation piece and all the children love to play with the candy corn candle.

 I needed something else to balance this arrangement out so I added my large wrought iron candle holder.  (I hope there's no law on how many candles you can use in one arrangement!)  The candle came from Hobby Lobby.  It's battery run and the colors are perfect!

 I have tried adding all kinds of things to this candle holder - beads, flowers, leaves, etc. Nothing looks good so I decided to leave it plain.  I also put some mini pumpkins inside it but they didn't look good.  I think it will work for now until I find the perfect thing to enhance it.

I have plenty of other decorations that I will focus on later.  Who knows, I may even change all this around before I am through.  My decorations stay up for almost three months - until Christmas- so I like to change them around a lot. 

Decorating our Mantle for Fall

I love fall so much that I just had to go ahead and start decorating!

This year I decided to use a lot of what I already had around the house and to pick from my large box of fall decorating things.  I did have to buy a few things, however.

After rearranging for nearly an hour, I finally decided on this little vignette. It seemed to be more pleasing to the eye than anything else I tried.

I found the little sign that says 'Fall' at Hobby Lobby.  I got to use my 40% off coupon on it which made it affordable.  The candle holder on the right came from there too.  Fortunately, it was already 50% off when I bought it.  I added a little burlap bow to it.  The lantern is battery run and it came from Ross.  (Love me some Ross!)  I made the flower arrangement and already had the obelisk and the garland from last year.

Our house is perfect to decorate for fall because it is decorated already in Tuscan colors. The walls are old world gold and the furniture has brown tones in it so it takes real well to the earthy colors of fall. The golds, oranges and greens and browns are some of my favorite colors. They bring me comfort and feel homey and lovely. I just love them!

I always start decorating with our mantle and then sort of go around the room filling each table or surface with as much fall as I can. I think the house just looks more beautiful when it is decorated. It seems that once September hits, it isn't long at all till Christmas. I love this time of year. Our temperatures were 105 here in Texas yesterday so I can hardly wait for the cool of autumn to come. Pumpkins are not even in grocery stores yet.

I'll add more pictures as I do more decorating.

Making a decorative moss covered ball

 After searching the internet for moss covered balls, I decided the price was too much and that I could make them myself.  I had been thinking about it for a few days before I began.
  I had some materials on hand for a while (I knew being a hoarder was a good idea!) that I wanted to use.   I got everything together and put down a garbage bag because I knew it would be a messy project.  It went so easy that I plan on making others.  I simply tore off some of the moss, added glue to the styrofoam ball and placed the moss against it. 

 My glue gun is dual temp so I started with the cool setting but nothing was sticking so I switched to the hot and it worked great.  The foam didn't even melt.  I just went around the ball sticking down moss all around it till it was covered.

 It didn't look too pretty until I took my scissors and trimmed it close.  Now it was ready for display!





I must have moved it twenty times before I decided to put it on my kitchen shelves.  I think it will stay there.  I am proud of my handiwork, even though its a bit crude,  and plan to pick up more styrofoam balls when I get to Walmart.

We're still here!

No, we haven't died and nothing is wrong. Life happened and got in the way of blogging. I plan to jump right back in blogging soon. I have some great things to post! Thanks for being concerned.

Christmas Decorating 2011

Our Christmas tree in our living room. It's pretty full and has multicolor lights this year.

Our three year old's room - this is the top of her chest.
She fell in love with the teddy bear on the rocking horse and the gingerbread man
in the cloche. They are both from Dollar Tree last year but she loves them a lot.
We decided to do a pink, turquoise and lime green theme in her room this year.
We embellished her piggy bank with a large flower.

It's a pastel Christmas for McKayla, our 3 year old.
I found these 4 ft. trees on sale at Big Lots and bought her one. Most of the
decorations came from Target, Wal-mart and Hobby Lobby.

This is the first year I have used deco mesh. It was much easier than I thought
it would be to work with.

Her tree is full of glittered rubber duckies, trees, candy, cupcakes, etc.

Her tree skirt is her zebra and pink pettiskirt.

This is our living room where I have an assortment
of different Christmas pillows.

Our iron bakers rack holds all things Santa. I don't usually do a lot of Santa
but with a 3 year old around, you've got to feature him somewhere.
She loves this!

On our coffee table, I put my lantern and embellished it with ribbon and Christmas balls.
The ornaments are glass but she hardly touches them anymore.

I bought this glass and brass vase many years ago.
I love to fix it up with green and gold at Christmas.

My leopard chair with its red pillow with another leopard bow.

I downloaded several printables from Pinterest about Jesus

This is our beautiful creche' - I love to display it at Christmas

This is just a little of what I have done to our house. It would be hard to show it all because there would be too many pictures. It's funny that I have so many decorations to display. We only put out the Christmas things for about 6 weeks. I always hate to take it down. I'm drawn to glitter and sparkle and glitz! The house always looks so dull after I remove it all. Besides that, the mood at Christmas is almost magical! It just seems like everyone is so much nicer.

Thankful for Fall

The weather here in Texas has been so hot that we could hardly go outside without sweltering. I'm so glad to see cooler temps here now. It's still in the 90's most days but this week we've been blessed with a 'cold front' which means mid 80's! The day after Labor Day, I usually take out my fall decorations and get busy 'fluffing' my home. I am a stay-at-home wife and mother so I try to come up with ways to bless our home and family. We only have one car so I am home most days with our 3 year old. I love to fix up our home and keep it clean for my family. I also love to cook and try new recipes.

The picture above shows a printable that I found on Pinterest. I printed it off and popped it into that frame and surrounded it with other items that I had. The clear glass container is filled with green split peas, red kidney beans and yellow popcorn. (Picture also found on Pinterest!) I just put a candle into the middle of it and tied some green beads around the top. The two tiered stand is from Southern Living and holds some reproduction Spode plates from T. J Maxx. All the pumpkins came from Dollar Tree.

This printable also came from Pinterest. I found the three glass candles at Ross for only $3. and simply put them in one of my plates with some Dollar Tree leaves and acorns and pumpkins around.


This is from my kitchen. The "P" initial is hanging on my backboard with a command strip. The beautiful white pitcher came from Target many years ago and is filled with some flowers from Hobby Lobby that I bought last year. The plaid ribbon is around a real pumpkin and the small plastic pumpkin rests inside a glass cloche tied with a green ribbon.


This is my mantle in our living room. I doubled up a garland and draped it across the mantle.

This is the bottom of the fireplace with a wreath I have hanging on the screen. It's hard to see in this pic but it is tied with a ribbon in ombre colors. So beautiful.
This little green tin star I found the other day at the Dollar Spot at Target and bought it having no idea what I would do with it. I just tied a ribbon around it and added a flower pic! Easy!
My daughter gave me this turkey platter with leaves on it several years ago. We usually use it for turkey but this year I embellished it with berries, leaves and candles.

There are many more decorations but most of them are the same as last year. These are just a few that I changed this year. I never fail to get excited when the Fall season comes around. I have already started to stock my pantry with soups and foods that we call 'comfort' around here. Can't wait for the first really cool day with fall breezes.

McKayla's Little Kitchen

Just wanted to show y'all this darling little kitchen my husband made for our great-granddaughter. He started with an old television cabinet. Took off the doors and sanded it all down. After that, he added a coat of primer. He put a back on it made of MDF and used this also on the refrigerator doors. The cabinet already had wheels on it so it is easy to roll around wherever we want it. He also added two refrigerator shelves, the microwave oven, a faucet, & stainless steel bowl for a sink. We used a picture frame for the window with an insert of a picture we got off the internet. We mounted the picture on sticky foam and inserted it into the frame. I made the curtains and tied them back with green ribbon. We painted the entire thing in bright colors and added cabinet knobs that we also painted. Let me tell you, our little two year old loved it! Of course, we also added pots and pans and several other kitchen items for her to play with. Forgot to mention that my husband designed the template for the microwave and stove burners and had them put on a decal. He purchased some stove knobs at Wal-mart and secured them from underneath. So easy! This was the perfect gift for her!

THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving, to me, means giving thanks to our Heavenly Father for all His many blessings. It's one of the few holidays that isn't commercialized to death. It just comes natural to thank Him. He gives to us, we say 'thanks'. No one is trying to browbeat us to buy-buy-buy! It only requires the simplicity of a bowed head or knee to say "Thank you, Jesus". There's no fakeness or going into debt or stress here - just family and friends gathering together to eat and say our blessings. It's opening up our hearts to God and to one another. It's realizing that we are blessed regardless of our circumstances. It's admitting there is a God and He's kept us going all this time. It's knowing we need Him desperately in our lives and seeing how large a part He is willing to play if we'll just let Him.

Whether we are praying aloud or just whispering a prayer in our hearts , it's just knowing that He has waited patiently for years to get to know us, and all the while He was still blessing us.

In everything give thanks, for God is good

I'm a believer in holding true to tradition. Despite all the hard work, cleaning, cooking and tiredness. I still love it when the family gathers in our home for Thanksgiving dinner. We have a lot of memories to pull from and we all like to sit around the living room, after the meal, and recall them. We laugh a lot down our memory lane! As is typical in most families, the men gather round the tv while the women are in the kitchen. The kids are in and out and all over the house while someone is trying to steal a piece of turkey as they pass through the kitchen!

Our menu doesn't very much from year to year. We all have our favorites and we pretty much stick to that same menu: turkey, cornbread dressing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, broccoli-rice casserole, pumpkin pie, chocolate sheet cake, and plenty of other dishes thrown in. What matters most is celebrating our abundance with the people we love. There's nothing like a holiday meal to bring the family together and believe me, our dinner is worthy of the season!

We don't serve alcohol in our home. It just doesn't seem right to be praising and thanking Jesus for all our blessings with alcohol on our breaths. Never seems to bother anyone!

Jesus is the reason for the season!

I don't think anyone ever leaves our home hungry or not thanking the Lord for all our blessings, which are many. Our stomachs may be full but so are our hearts - full of love for one another and for God, from whom all our blessings flow.

Decorating McKayla's room

Chandy from Home Depot

Most of you know that we are great-grandparents who are raising our little great-granddaughter, McKayla. We have had her with us since she was born. If anyone had ever told me I'd be raising a toddler in my 60's I'd have laughed but it's wonderful! Keeps us young and we love her so very much. I highly recommend it!

The wooden letters above are all painted a different color, just to keep it interesting and to break away from everything in there being the same colors!
I put them up with those 3M strips.


When McKayla turned 26 months, I had hernia surgery and couldn't lift her, so we thought it was a good time to put her in a toddler bed. She loved it from the very first night!

Found this material at Hobby Lobby and made her pillows for her rocker.

Making those little fabric roses was easier than I thought!

I decorated the inside of her chest. Wanted to add a lamp but since she rearranges it daily, I thought that might not be a good idea right now.

Caught a view of her in the mirror of her dresser.

Found this little sign "Heaven's Gift" at Dollar Tree and hung it on the outside of her door.

My husband painted her room in a brown, pink and white. It reminds me of strawberry, chocolate and vanilla. I wanted something very different so I had him paint a very wide stripe of pink all the way around the room. Very soothing. I ordered her bedding from E-Bay. The colors are just right for her room. Even came with a dust ruffle and top sheet! Her little toddler bed was ordered online from Walmart. It needed assembly but was easy! Just the right size for her. I worried at first about her falling out but the guard rails keep her in it. We did have to put up a gate at her door at night though to keep her from wandering all over the house!

Her paper doll clothes line. These little clothes are so cute! They have buttons, bows, pearls and ribbon on them. The metal "M" came from Hobby Lobby.

Top of her chest. I decorated her pink teddy bear with a tiara and tutu.

Made her flowers from a Martha Stewart kit. They will soon be moved to another corner.

Her little dresser and stool. I plan to put the tv chords behind the posts. We had to hang her tv on the wall because she was getting up in the middle of the night and turning it on!

Her room is actually not finished yet. I still have to make some drapes for her windows and put more things on her wall. I like it though and wanted to share it with Kelly's Korner for the "Show us your life - Kids Rooms and Nurseries".