These Are a Few of My Favorite Fall Things...

I admit it...I am a junkie for fall! I looove the changing colors of the leaves; the beautiful orange, red and gold colors that unfold almost overnight! I LOVE decorating for fall...incorporating beautiful yellow mums and pansies into my flower gardens and porches, as well as tucking in a few pumpkins here and there. With that being said, I thought I'd share with you a few of my favorite fall things that I've been privy to so far this month...

First off, here's a pic of my front porch all "cuted out" for fall:

The next series of pics has to do with this sweet little apple tree that is growing in my backyard:

I harvested 24 apples off of it this year:

Aren't they so pretty?? They taste as good as they look too...all crunchy and juicy...apple perfection!

I whipped up a couple of pies using some of the apples from my tree, and they turned out absolutely SCRUMPTIOUS! (Click HERE for my apple pie recipe.) I even shared some of my bountiful apple harvest with my sweet friend Robbi R., who is BY FAR the BEST cook that I know! I tucked the apples that I gave her into a cute red pail that I placed a rub-on letter "R" on the front of. I folded a square of burlap inside the pail to cushion the apples, then added a sweet blue gingham bow to the handle:

Now Robbi can make a pie for her sweet hubs, Dave!

I also made a batch of apple butter...but I cheated and used store-bought applesauce to make it. (Nothing wrong with simplifying and cutting a few corners, gals!! The end result is UBER-DELISH!!! Click HERE for the apple butter recipe that I use...it was given to me by Robbi about 20 years ago, and gets rave reviews!)

Lastly, my friend and co-worker Christi W. had a cute little orange pail that she asked me to turn into a fall floral arrangement, so here's what I came up with:

I simply added a strip of burlap and lace ribbon around the outside of the pail, then glued on a button that I tied up with a pretty black gingham bow. Inside the pail I placed florists foam, then added yellow sunflowers, fall leaves, ivy, fall-colored silk hydrangeas, berries, and a rust-colored butterfly. I really love how it turned out, and I'm taking it to work tomorrow to give to her.

On a final note, my father-in-law's back surgery last Thursday went great and he is back at home to rest and recuperate! Thank you so very much for keeping him in your thoughts and prayers...much appreciated! :)

Thanks so much for dropping by today to share my fall obsessions! Wishing you a WONDERFUL week ahead!

Quote Sunday

Silly Saturday

Hee! Hee! Enjoy the weekend!

Quick & Easy Dry Erase Board...

Good morning, folks! Just a quick little post today to show you a simple dry-erase board that I made for my friend Megan F.'s daughter, Hailee, who recently started college at UCO in Edmond, OK.

These dry-erase boards are super easy to make, and can be customized to fit any decor. Hailee collects elephants, so I incorporated a couple of cute paper elephants in the lower right corner of her dry-erase board:

To make one of these, simply purchase a frame that you like. Remove the backing and glue paper or fabric to the cardboard backing. Embellish as desired...as you can see I added the elephants, a "Live, Laugh & Love" quote and ribbon to cover the seam of the two papers that I used inside the frame. Clean the glass really good, and place your decorated cardboard piece back into the frame. Attach a piece of Velcro to the side of the frame, and another piece of Velcro to a dry-erase marker. (I also added a cute piece of pink ric-rac to the top of the dry-erase marker.) To create an eraser for the marker, I simply glued a large black pom-pom to the cap of the marker...now Hailee can write notes on the glass and erase them with a simple swipe of the pom-pom cap! :)

In closing, I'd like to ask for prayers for my sweet, 84 year old father-in-law, Logan, who is having back surgery this Thursday. Please pray for a successful surgery and a speedy recovery for him! Thanks so much! :)

Have a WONDERFUL week!

Quote Sunday

Silly Saturday

Hope you are having a "grate" weekend - LOL!! ;)

Good Read: The Antelope in the Living Room

Are you looking for a quick, light-hearted book to read? If so, I HIGHLY recommend The Antelope in the Living Room by Melanie Shankle:

My wonderful SIL Sandy got me this book for my birthday and it is one of the funniest books that I've ever read! You'll love Melanie's stories of being married to an outdoorsy/hunting guy, their life together and the funny predicaments that they get into. This is a great book to keep in your purse or in your car to read while you're waiting to pick up the kiddos at school or while waiting in a doctor's office, etc.

Also, if you enjoy reading blogs, (and since you are reading my blog now, I am going to assume that you do - lol!), Melanie has a blog as well! You can check out her blog at: TheBigMamaBlog.com.

Have a fun and safe weekend! :)

Red Rover, Red Rover...

Happy Monday, friends! The weather here in OK was GORGEOUS this weekend! Cooler temps and sunny skies - I LOVE fall!! We even woke up to some light rain this morning - so nice!

I was really productive this weekend...along with cleaning our home from top to bottom, I got all of the laundry washed, dried, folded and put away; planted 8 mums; decorated for fall and even baked 2 pies using some of the apples that I picked off of the little apple tree growing in our back yard. Yummy!

The BIG excitement for the weekend, though, is the purchase of my new ride...a Land Rover!!

I had been in the market for another 4WD SUV, so when the hubs and I spotted this beauty, we decided to trade my Mustang in on it! I really love it and it will make a nice vehicle for me to drive for many, many years to come! :)

Thanks for dropping by today...have a FANTASTIC week!!!

Quote Sunday

Silly Saturday

HA! HA! HA! Have a fun and safe weekend, friends!

Feminine Birthday Cards...

Happy Friday, friends!!! Lately I've been working on my craft room to get it back in shape! If you're anything like me, when I am in a crafting mood I have a tendency to let my craft room get a little a lot messy! (To be truthful, it actually looks like a craft supply bomb has gone off in there...but I digress...)

Anyhoo, one of the areas that I've been concentrating on cleaning out is my paper scrap bin. It's reeeeally hard for me to throw away scraps of paper, so I just toss the smaller pieces into a bin to use on little future projects. Well, that bin has since avalanched on me, so I determined that it was high time to part with some of the smallest scraps. (I am sure that the other paper crafters out there feel my pain!!)

In the process of sorting out these scraps, I was sidetracked inspired, and decided to whip up some cards. (I posted pics of some of the masculine cards that I made a couple of weeks ago...you can click HERE to review that post.)   Today I thought that I would share with you a few pics of feminine birthday cards that I recently created from some of my scraps:

Thanks for dropping by today! Have a FANTASTIC Friday and a WONDERFUL weekend!

From Cardboard Oatmeal Container to Cute Cookie Gift Box...

Good morning and happy Monday! Today I am going to show you how to take an empty cardboard oatmeal container from this:

To this:

Let's get started! Here's what you'll need for this project:

• Empty cardboard oatmeal container
• Scraps of fabric
• Lace
• Fusible Tape
• Spray adhesive
• Clear drying Tacky Glue
• Button
• Stickers
• Needle and thread

Begin by pressing out any wrinkles from your fabric. Wrap the fabric around the canister, overlapping by about 1/2" and leaving it about 1" longer than the height of the canister:

Iron a strip of double stick fusible tape along the top edge of the cut fabric:

Fold the fabric over on the fusible web, and press in place to form the hem for the top of the canister:

Coat the wrong side of the fabric with spray adhesive, and carefully stick it to the outside of the canister. Overlap the center seam and fold the bottom edge under the lip on the base of the canister for a clean look:

To cover the seam, place a piece of decorative lace over down the center of the canister, holding it in place with clear drying Tacky Glue:

Once the lace has dried, you can add a flower or other embellishment to the front if you wish. The flower that I made came from the hem of a pair of capri pants that I had to shorten. I simply cut the original hem off of the pants and stitched along the seam, gathering the stitches to form a flower. I then glued a button to the middle of the flower and then glued the whole thing to the front of the canister:

Since the canister was being filled with some of my hubby's YUMMOLICIOUS cookies to give to a friend for her birthday, (click HERE for that recipe!), I added black letter stickers to the snap on lid:

Here's a photo of the completed canister:

This would be a GREAT way to present home-baked goodies to friends and neighbors during this holiday season! The fabric stores will be displaying some really cute holiday fabrics in the near future that you could use for this project!

Have a TERRIFIC week!!

Quote Sunday

Silly Saturday

The expressions on both the dog's face and the baby's face just cracks me up!! Hope you get a giggle out of this pun too!! Have a WONDERFUL weekend!