Fall favorites round-up

My favorite season is fall, hands down. The weather is cooler, the fall foliage is beautiful and football is on all weekend long. There are pumpkins, apples, and holidays involving delicious foods :)

That being said, I thought I'd put together a list of my fall favorites. These are all taken from websites and blogs that aren't mine, but I have given credit where credit is due. Enjoy!!

Fall decor and crafts:

1. 23 Free Fall Printables and Inspiring Vignettes, from Ella Claire Inspired

So many fun ideas here- can't wait to try them. I especially love the cutting board with the pumpkins. 

2. 10 Free Fall Printables from On Sutton Place

I love F. Scott Fitzgerald- he gave us The Great Gatsby...and this lovely quote. When I buy some colored ink, I'm so printing this. 

3. This vision of loveliness from Autumn Tumblr Picks: Bold and Beautiful Blog

Fall recipes: 

1. Homemade Starbucks Caramel Apple Cider, from My Frugal Adventures

2. Pumpkin Banana Bread, from Real House Moms

3. Creamy Chicken Tortilla Soup from Cooking Classy

And other things: 

Super cute fall outfits like these two: 

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Some fall children's books (we have a few of these) from Buggy and Buddy 

I hope you enjoyed this fall round-up! Stay tuned for more fall recipes and fall fun soon!

Linking to Stonegable, Worthing Court, Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Confessions of a Plate Addict, and French Country Cottage!

Fall home tour update

I posted our fall home tour a few weeks ago but I've added a few more things since making that post.

Fall pillows:
I swapped out the springish bird pillows for some gold quatrefoil pillows. I left the tweed pillows and burlap pillows right where they are...they are perfect for fall.

Fall mums:
I repurposed this Christmas planter a few weeks ago and turned it into this white planter.  I'm not into purple mums; I'd much rather keep it traditional with red, yellow and orange. And of course, after I took this, I realized that Michael's keys were lying on the table. Oops! 

"Art prints"
I found these gorgeous fall pictures in the latest issue of Country Living. I trimmed them down, matted them and popped them into frames. They look good on our shelves.

We will soon be showing off what we've done outdoors to welcome fall. Our front porch always presents a challenge, because it's too small and there isn't room to do much. It's also ugly and in need of being replaced, but we can't do it right now. Until we can, we just make do with what we have :)

Thanks for reading! Come back and see us often! 

DIY Friday follow-up: The ironstone planter that isn't.

Remember last week's post where I showed you this flower vase and talked about how I'd found it in a thrift store?

Well, two coats of primer, two coats of white spray paint, and one orange mum later, here is what I ended up with:

You'll have to excuse the crappy picture quality, as I was taking it with my cell phone. Also, I know the mum is a little big for the pot, but I do really like this planter painted white. I think I'll be using it a lot in the coming seasons. It's currently brightening up my entry way, and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. 

What do you think? I think I want to go buy more mums and plant some of them outside now.

Linking to Stonegable, Worthing Court, Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Confessions of a Plate Addict, and French Country Cottage!

DIY Fridays: Making over thrift store goodies

I guess by now you must have figured out that I like thrift stores and antique stores. There are two local stores that I like to drop into at least once a month.

One month, when I went to the thrift store, I hit pay dirt. I came away with several vintage mason jars and a Christmas planter that I really didn't like the pattern, but I really liked the shape. It was only $4 and I felt like it could probably be spray painted.

Another thing I noticed is that the planter originated from Teleflora, so someone probably received some Christmas flowers in it at some point. There was also no hole on the bottom for drainage. A ceramic drill bit solved that problem. 

Tomorrow I will show you what I did with this "planter." I'm really loving the look of it now and I bet you will too. 

Linking to Stonegable, Worthing Court, Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Confessions of a Plate Addict, and French Country Cottage!

Thursday: Fall Home Tour (Indoors Only)

We are almost finished with the outside fall decorating of our home, but for now, I hope you enjoy our indoor fall home tour.

This is a fall wreath I made two years ago. I am currently making two new wreaths for our French doors in the back. 

Just behind our front door, we have our burlap art and clip frames. I swapped out our usual photographs to display some super cute fall art that I downloaded from On Sutton Place. 

Here is the sofa table in our entry way:

A bowl of pine cones on our end table. 

This is our kitchen: 

The candle trio is from Yankee Candle, the cutting board from a local antiques mall, and the jar and sunflowers are a DIY creation. 

Dining room: 

Our "mantle" in the dining room, decorated very similarly to last year: 

A simple tablescape using milk glass and gourds: 

Daughters' playroom 

These prints are all free downloads from the Internet. One of them I talked about on Monday, and the others are from Etsy. I wanted some fall art in the playroom that would appear playful and cute :)

I really love the deer fawn. 

The squirrel and wellies are super cute, too, 

Home office/studio: 

This room will be getting a huge makeover in the next few months- we are changing its purpose entirely. But for now, here is how we decorated it for fall. 

We've had the "B" ceramic pumpkin since before we got married. I love it! 

The two small pumpkins are from Dollar Tree. There are also some seagrass pears in a chicken wire basket. 

Our hall bath: 

We'll show you the outdoor tour next week: Thanks for visiting, and I hope you enjoyed our tour!

Linking to Stonegable, Worthing Court, Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Confessions of a Plate Addict, and French Country Cottage!

DIY Friday...On a Monday :)

Happy Monday to you! I hope you had a wonderful weekend. We did- our daughter spent some time with her grandparents and we spent the weekend getting some things done around the house. We also went to a city south of us to do a little shopping, and then we spent the rest of the weekend with family. It was a low-key weekend, but a good one.

Do you remember this post, where I teased you guys with some pretty fall crafts? And then I asked you to guess which one I would end up making?

Well, let me confess- I made all of them, except one. But I did put in an order for my dad to make the long wood box for me sometime :)

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Here is the Wellies printable in my daughters' playroom. I thought this picture was very cute for a mudroom or kids' area. The two cute animal watercolors came from Etsy.

Here is the Mason jar with sunflowers in not one but TWO places in my house :) One is in my kitchen, and the other in our hall bath.

...and here are some glass vases with fall filler- one with a large pinecone I picked from my neighbor's yard, some smaller pine cones, and some "fake-orns" (get it? haha). I need to get the rest of the stickers off the bottom of those candle sticks- I'm going to soak them in a bit.

I'm sorry you had to wait a few days for this post, but I really felt I should write something for 9-11 instead. There will be some more really fun fall craft posts in the near future.

Linking to Stonegable, Worthing Court, Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Confessions of a Plate Addict, and French Country Cottage!

Fall home tour coming soon!

Today, I was supposed to be sharing our fall home tour, but we aren't quite ready yet. So, instead, I'm going to wait until we are done and I'm going to share my fall favorites right now. Mind you, these things are NOT my favorite things about the season itself, but rather some of my favorite links pertaining to fall.

I love fall for a number of reasons- the beautiful colors, football, soup for dinner, warm drinks, warm sweaters, pumpkins and cooler temperatures.

Here are five DIY fall projects that I am currently coveting. I'll be making one of them. Which one do you think it will be? Guess you'll have to wait til tomorrow to find out :)

Wishing for Fall!

I really want it to be fall. Fall has always been my favorite season for a variety of reasons- cooler temperatures, hot drinks, beautiful leaves, and some of my favorite holidays. Fall is also a time of "preparing." We clean out flower beds in anticipation for spring each fall. We have the house washed. We do outdoor projects that it is just too hot to do during the summer, such as paint the shutters. Plus, this fall, we will be welcoming our sweet second baby girl.

Spring: Decorating a spring table

I have already posted my spring house tour, but I recently got bored with my dining room tablescape and decided to take a different approach. But first, let me preface this post by saying that I am still shopping for new dining room furniture. We have been here almost two years now and I still have not bought a table and china cabinet. We just can't seem to agree on one we want.

I didn't want to do anything too elaborate, since we have to clear off the table to eat here. I chose to use the water carafe I bought last week at the thrift store as a vase for a pretty yellow, green and orange floral arrangement. These same colors are in the spring dishes. I didn't have any spring-colored napkins, and for some reason, I cannot find my white ones. I used these textured placemats to add some, well, texture.

I had some pretty green polka dot fabric left over from a baby blanket I once made for my daughter. I cut the fabric into 24"X24" pieces, folded them over, and sewed them into some super cute napkins. They look so cute with the dishes. I have to confess, though- the ends are folded under, because I haven't finished sewing the edges :)

Mason jars with battery operated votives complete the look.

I love this simple, cute spring tablescape. What do you think?

Spring decorating

I love spring time. I love how everything comes back to life after a bare, bleak winter. I love seeing all the new baby animals and watching the trees and flowers begin to bloom. 

Since I can't live outside, I like to bring as much of that brightness and liveliness into my home by decorating for spring. Last year, I decorated more with the holidays, but this year, I wanted something that would last through St. Patrick's Day and Easter, and carry us on into summer.