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.