More Halloween Fun

I've started my mantle for Halloween. I've had a little extra time on my hands the past couple of days and figured I might as well do something productive.

Here's what I've got so far.
I used two black feather boas for the "garland" across the mantle. I made the topiary that is up there and tied a black ribbon around it. The skeleton man is something I picked up from Kirkland's a while back and the candles are the same one I use for fall and Thanksgiving. I love reusing items from season to season. Lets me spend that money else where.




Here's a close up of the topiary.


This is the spider web I created out of the vinyl I had from an earlier project. Its the vinyl that you can buy to use with the Cricket machine. I bought this a while back to cut out some letters for a phrase I put up in my sewing room. I had extra and that this would been kind of cute. I found the spider at Hobby Lobby for $.99.

I have a couple of projects that I'm still working on to complete the mantle but I'm happy with it so far.

Halloween Decorations

Sorry for the break is posting. I haven't really been feeling very inspired lately but now I'm back. I'm getting ready to pull out the Halloween decorations and I wanted to share this idea with you all.

I have these lamp shades that collapse down on themselves. They have an inside layer that pulls up and clips to the top of the shade. This provides the perfect place to place items like these


I found these foam spiders at Hobby Lobby. They have a little foam adhesive dot on the other side so they will stick where I want them. It's not so sticky that it will leave any kind of residue behind when I take them down.

Here's a picture of what they look like when they are in place with the light shining through the shade.



Kinda creepy, huh?

Fall Decorations!!!!

I'm so excited.
The weather is perfect.
Football season is starting up.
The fall decorations are up.

I know that technically fall doesn't officially start for a couple more weeks, but its really hard to know get into the fall mood. In case you haven't heard, I LOVE fall. It's my absolute favorite season.

I've had my decorations up for a few days. I couldn't help myself. It makes me feel better when my husband tells me he's already ready to put up the Christmas tree. Christmas is his favorite time of the year and he loves the trees we put up. (Did you notice the plural. There's no help for me, I know.)

Anyway, I thought I'd share what decorations I have up so far.

This is in my entryway. I have this ledge and I change it out for every season. I really like this feature in the house. We loved the entryway as soon as we walked into the house.


This is a picture of the area as you walk into the living room. I'm not totally happy with this yet. I'm trying to find something to put in the apothecary jar. I had these cinnamon sticks and the candle and thought , "What the heck, I'll give it a try." Not so sure about it now but we'll see how it goes.


Here's my mantle. I'm still trying to find all of my decorations and I know I have another garland to go with this one. I just can't find it. It's up in the attic but I'm just now sure which tub it is in. I'm not particularly excited about having to go through all the tubs. I need to learn some organization skills.


Here's my centerpiece for the table. We have an eat in kitchen with a small dining table. We never eat at the table unless we have friends over. Even then, it depends on the friends and what we are having for dinner. We are pretty casual people and we like to sit comfortably.

I still have tons of things I want to do to decorate for fall. I'm excited about the new projects and I'll be sure to share.

New Curtains Inspired by Fall

I made new curtains for the windows in our living room. I wanted something that would work well for fall. I found this fabric at Wal-Mart. Most of the stores around here have already gone through a remodel to get rid of the fabric section. There's a couple that still have fabrics. I wish we had more options for fabric stores around here. Our only choices are really only Hobby Lobby and the single Hancock's fabrics.


I really liked the colors. They work well for fall with the oranges and browns but they also work with my home accents. I use a lot of oranges and greens pretty much year around in my decorating so I think they will be perfect. I had white sheers up over these windows.



Here's a picture with the sheers up. And here's a pictures with the new curtains.

I like them. They may not be perfect but I think they look just fine. And for my first attempt that making curtains I think I did pretty good. Of course, I did learn an important lesson in the process. Always measure twice. Silly me I cut the fabric panels too short the first time around. I had to figure out something so I went and got the green to put at the top. Oh well, I still like them. And now I know, measure twice.

I'm participating in "Celebrating the Holidays party" hosted by It's So Very Cheri. Check it out.

Furniture Arrangement Troubles

Daniel and I decided to rearrange the furniture in both our living room and bedroom this weekend. We started with the living room. We don't have a lot of options on how we can arrange the furniture with the way our living room is set up. We have a gas fireplace in the corner and while it has a cubby for our television above the fireplace, we don't use it. We prefer to use a tv stand. This complicates things though because we only have one cable outlet on the walls. The other cable outlet is up in the cubby.

Here's a picture of the fireplace.



I purchased a large mirror to cover the space above the fireplace. I enjoy this better than having the tv up there. This allows me to be able to fully decorate the mantle. Like I've said before I decorate to the seasons. I finally broke down and decorated for fall a little earlier than usual. I'm not quite satisfied with the way the mantle is decorated now but I'm waiting for the fall decorating items to go on sale at Hobby Lobby. There are several things I just absolutely love there.


Anyway, back to my furniture story. So we decided to move the furniture around. The fireplace in the position it is makes this difficult as well as the fact that we only have one cable outlet. That really limits us on where we can place the TV stand. In addition to this we have a sectional sofa that takes up quite a bit of space. I really liked this sofa when we purchased it but now I'm wishing we had just went with a sofa and a couple of chairs. Daniel had a recliner he got from his parents and we have that in the living room as well.


This is the way we have it arranged currently. This is the new way. It was turned so the sofa faced the window and the recliner sit next to the window. Now its basically opposite. I'm not sure about this arrangement, but Daniel likes it. It will take some time getting used to. We aren't quite finished moving things around but for today I think we have had a enough.

I really love our house but when we decide that we will need to move into a larger home, I definitely will have a list of things that I want to be different.

Ribbon covered lamp shade

Kim over at Twice Remembered is hosting Make Your Monday and I thought I would get in on the fun.



I bought this lamp at Wal-mart for $3. Actually I purchased two of them. They didn't have a lamp shade but I loved the simplicity of them. I have to admit they sat in my closet for the longest time before I decided what to do with them.

When I started getting my craft room together I knew this lamp would be perfect. I purchased a plain shade at Home Depot for $5. I bought the ribbon 50% off at Hobby Lobby. Not too bad for a total of $11.

I wrapped the ribbon around the shade and made sure that the edges overlapped. I'm really please with how it turned out.

Weekend in Review

This weekend has been a fairly relaxing one. The weather is AMAZING. Usually this time of year is miserable with temperatures in the high 90s or low 100s and humidities around 100%. This whole week has been nice. This weekend I think we only had highs in the 80s and the lows have been in the 50s.

Daniel and I went out to the lake for a cookout with his company on Saturday. It was great fun. Today, we went to church and Sunday school. It was great. Afterwards we came home and simply relaxed.

I didn't really get much done though but sometimes you just need to sit and do nothing and rest.

Tomorrow, I plan on making up for not getting things done today. I'm starting my Halloween crafts tomorrow so they will be ready when October rolls around. I'll be sure to post on them. I'm looking forward to doing some crafts. I've not been able to the past week or so (stinking allergies).

So until tomorrow.