Autumn Decor 2012

October is here & fall is in full swing. We had a beautiful September with lots of warm weather. Things are starting to feel cooler. The wind has picked up the last couple of days, resulting in a lot of fallen leaves... I've been seeing some trees that are already empty. That kind of makes me sad. Fall goes by so fast here in Saskatchewan.

I finally finished my fall decor last week. Since we don't have a mantle, I settle for doing some vignettes around our living room & kitchen.

Let's start in the living room, shall we?

I grouped a bunch of pumpkins together on a felt placemat from the dollar store.

I put some glittered pumpkins in my small lantern with some fake fall leaves.

The whole vignette.

In my large lantern, I placed a battery operated candle that runs on a timer. That way, it goes on automatically in the evening for a few hours.

I also covered some books in brown paper since their colours didn't jive with the whole fall theme I wanted.

I also have my happy fall wreath in the living room which I posted about last week.

In the kitchen, I simply put some fall-looking flowers in with the vignette I have up on time of my cabinets.

What have you done to decorate for fall?

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Fall Festival Festivities

  

  This past weekend, I shared a booth with a friend of mine, MJ, at our church's Fall festival. Today I thought I'd give you a peek at what I was selling. This was my portion of our table...

Clockwise from top left: Felt pinwheels decorating gift bags, felt pinwheels on gift boxes, I had them displayed in a small vintage suitcase, tissue paper flowers decorating gift bags, The whole shebang, a large tissue paper flower gift topper graced a brown paper wrapped box, place cards for Thanksgiving, a cache of handmade cards, & more pinwheel fun.

 Whew! It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun making all of this loot for this year's Fall Festival.

Stay tuned for some tutorials on how to make some of these goodies!!

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Chai Loaf with Cinnamon Glaze {My Favourite Fall Treat, Revisited}

Last fall, I shared with you my favourite fall treat - Chai Loaf. That's all well & good except for the fact that my blogging photography was pretty poor when I first started out. (Last year's photo - epic fail. Not pin-worthy. At. All.) Not that I'm so amazing now, but I like to think my photography skills have improved somewhat. 

So today, I'm revisiting my favourite fall recipe with new & improved photos. :)

Chai Loaf

Prep time: 15 min. Total time: 3 hrs. 55 min (includes cooling time)

Makes 1 loaf or 4 mini loaves (as pictured above)

Bread

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup butter or marg, softened

2 eggs

1/2 cup prepared tea (I like to use Pumpkin Chai from David's Tea)

1/3 cup milk

2 tsp. vanilla

2 cups flour

2 tsp. baking powder

3/4 tsp. ground cardamom

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp. ground cloves

Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

1/4 tsp. vanilla

3-5 tsp. milk

additional ground cinnamon

1) Heat oven to 350 F. Grease loaf pan with cooking spray.

2) In large bowl, beat sugar & butter with electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy. Beat in eggs, tea, milk, & vanilla on low speed until ingredients are well combined (will appear curdled) . Stir in remaining bread ingredients just until moistened. Spread in pan.

3) Bake 50-60 minutes for a full loaf (35 minutes for mini loaves) or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean & slightly golden (do not underbake). Cool 10 minutes in pan on wire rack. Loosen sides of loaf from pan; remove from pan to wire rack. Cool 30 minutes.

4) In small bowl, stir powdered sugar, vanilla, & 3 tsp. of the milk, adding more milk by the teaspoonfuls, until spreadable. Spread glaze over bread. Sprinkle with additional cinnamon. Cool completely, about 2 hours, before slicing. Wrap tightly & store at room temperature up to 4 days, or refrigerate up to 10 days.

Note: I've had some feedback on some people having their loaf come out flat. You'll get the best results with a glass meat loaf type pan. If you're using a metal bread making type pan, you may end up with a loaf that isn't rounded at the top.

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As well as:

The Weekend Potluck

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Thrifty Makeovers {Earring Tray & Basket}

  In the last couple weeks, I've shared with you some of my recent thifty finds. Some were good as-is & some needed a bit of refreshing.

Remember what this tray used to look like? With a couple of coats of spray paint (Krylon - Global Blue), it's now a pretty display for my earrings.

And this basket was a bit worn out & dirty. With a bit of clean up & some spray paint (same colour as the tray), it now sits in my closet, holding my scarves & small purses.

Another successful thrifty challenge!

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Sheet Music Fall Wreath

Funny story: I actually made the base for this wreath back in June with absolutely no intention of using it for fall. I simply wanted to make a sheet music wreath. After I rolled the sheet music & glued it all together, I wasn't super pleased with the middle area. It looked unfinished. So, I set it aside, waiting for an idea to spruce up the centre.

There it sat, in my craft room, all summer. Only this weekend did I get inspired with an idea. It was easy too!

I cut a circle out of corrugated cardboard & hot glued it on.

Then, I hot glued on the clothes pins. 

And this is my favourite part: I clipped in the paper leaves (from Dollar Tree) & the letters which I cut out with my Cricut. The great thing is, after fall, I can switch out the leaves & "Happy Fall" for something more seasonal or something totally different!

It now has a proud home on my living room. I really like how it looks with the plum walls.

Yay! I'm excited that I was able to come up with a solution for something I wasn't sure would pan out.

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Thanksgiving Card

Here in Canada, we're only a couple of weeks away from Thanksgiving. Mmmm. This time of year is filled with wonderful memories of the past as well as opportunities to make new memories with friends & family. In preparation for Thanksgiving, I've made a couple of Thank You cards in autumnal colours & themes. Here's the first. I'll share the other design with you next Monday.

Products used:

Cardstock - Michael's

Patterned Paper - Bo Bunny (polka dot), Close To My Heart (plaid)

Stamps - Bo Bunny (swirl), Making Memories (gratitude)

Stamp Ink - Stampin' Up!

Chipboard acorn - Basic Grey

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Summer Days Layout {Echo Park}

  Have I told you how much I enjoy scrapbooking with collections? It makes things so much easier & faster! It's almost fool proof. Everything goes together... it just takes out the guess work. Faster is not always better, but when you have hundreds of vacation photos that you want to scrapbook, faster is pretty much always better. :)

These photos are of my sis-in-law & my kiddos on King Triton's Carousel in California Adventure.

Products used:

• Cardstock - Colorbok (purple), Bazill Basics (white), & Bo Bunny (green polka dot)
• All other products - Echo Park, Summer Days collection

One more layout added to our vacation scrapbook. :)

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Thrifty Thursday {More Vintage Finds}

  As of late, I have not been thifting regularly - just every once in a while. But after my last trip thrifting, I discovered that the western style shirt I had bought for my daughter's cowgirl costume for halloween was HUGE on her. There was nothing for it - I had to take it back. Most thrift stores only do exchanges (fine by me), so off I went to find a western shirt that would actually fit her. I found one that's perfect & figured while I was there, it would be efficient of me to check out the housewares section. *wink, wink*

  I walked out, not only with the properly sized western shirt, but also with two new treasures.

I have been looking for a medium sized globe for awhile now - and one that's reasonably priced as well. This vintage metal one is just perfect! I also really like the world landmarks on the colourful base. My husband was trying to figure out the age of the globe just by looking at some of the countries that no longer exist. We couldn't nail it down, but it's in the vintage range for sure. Anyone know any tips as to how to date a globe? I might have to google that one.

After purchasing the two turquoise vintage Pyrex bowls in the background last February, I've also been watching for some matching or co-ordinating ones. I found this white one with the turquoise motifs that fits in just right with the larger ones I already had.

Score!

Have you been thrifting lately? What have you scored?

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Felt Pinwheels {Gift Wrap Idea}

I've got a small little craft to share with you today, but one that I think is so sweet! I've had a piece of brown felt kicking around in my craft supplies for a few years now. The time had come to use it or get rid of it. I had recently made some paper pinwheels out of maps & thought I'd give it a shot with felt. I think they turned out so cute!

They are quite easy! Here's what I did:

1. I started with the same template I used for my map pinwheels
2. Cut them out
3. Attach the ends with a button

This time I used them as a decoration (I almost said a garnish! ;)) on a brown paper package. 

Wouldn't they look cute in a bunch of different colours? I'm going to be making more now!

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