Fall is coming!

As you may know, the first day of autumn is this Friday! I have been so excited this go-round. I usually wait until October 1st to get my fall and Halloween decorations out of storage but I just couldn't wait.. so Sunday was spent sorting through decorations rescued from my mom's abandoned attic, finding my own from last year, and a general lot of moving and lifting heavy boxes(straining my back in a major way)! But by the end of the day, I had my fall decor out and my more specifically Halloween-ish stuff at least where I could reach it in a couple of weeks. In doing so, I stumbled upon a quick little Sunday project for some attic rescues that would otherwise would be bound for the trash:

So.. What we have here is:

1. A wreath that my grandparents had undoubtedly made out of real straw and twine. There had originally been real dried fall leaves and "Happy Halloween ribbon wrapped around it that had taken a bad beating throughout the years! With a little doing.. those came off somewhat quickly.

2. Some fall garland that had also seen better days before storage.

3. Some fake daisies in fall colors I thought might could pass for cone flowers or another fall bloomer. 

Please forgive the crappy cell phone pictures, btw! So after experimenting with simply wrapping the garland around the wreath several different ways(I never meant for this to be too involved), I decided that was no good because there were just too many deformed places in the garland to hide and it was slightly too large to lay correctly on the small wreath. So I broke out the hot glue gun and some floral wire and began cutting individual leaves and berry sprigs away from the plastic garland. I placed the two biggest sets of leaves at the top and bottom securing them and the berry sprigs with the wire, and proceeded to hot glue the fall leaves in alternating directions on either side. After that, I deconstructed the daisies as best I could to get them to lay flat and glued them surrounding the larger leaves at the top and bottom. Then after stepping away, I realized that the flowers just didn't work! :( Even with their colors, they looked more spring time-ish and again.. slightly too big for the small form. Sometimes plans just have to change, right? So I had to pry the flowers up and patch up a few places with more leaves and settled with an orange satin ribbon to go on top and I ended up with something along these lines....

In addition to finally having my very own wreath for my very own door, I now have extra silk leaves for other decor ideas and I'm sure I'll find something to attach some daisies to eventually!! ;) Sweet and simple project kept me busy in the infamously boring Sunday afternoon hours. 

Other things that have kept me busy in the past few weeks have been putting together a baby shower gift basket for my bff Heather. I could have absolutely kicked myself for not at least getting cell phone pictures of the handmade gifts that went inside!!!!!! But on the bright side, they do feature in a photo collage  along with some other exciting handmade goodies from other crafty friends! My contributions were a crochet pillow with a felt octopus applique, a plate of "baby sushi", which was cloth diapers, wash cloths, socks, and a fishie soap dish for the sashimi effect ;) all rolled to look like sushi and wrapped with black ribbon to emulate nori. The idea came from here and I just thought it would be perfect for the cloth diapers!

And I've now heard that my other pregger friend, who is moving to Montana before her new baby girl gets here :(, is going to be able to have a baby shower here! :) So I've already got some ideas lined up for her!

Then, of course, comes Halloween!!!! And more especially... pumpkin carving party! I actually wish I hadn't had one last year because we really weren't prepared and were living in a half-empty house after the roomies moved out! But I was dead set on it and it didn't turn out terrible.. I just didn't couldn't do the planning and didn't have the best resources. But this year ought to change that if anyone is around and willing to come hang out with us! I have already started compiling a menu for the night, which will include chili (always a favorite) with cornbread ghosties, tortilla chips with salsa and guacamole (another hit), along with various spooky themed sweet treats. For the drinkings.. I would like to try a recipe I found for "sneak-up-on-you-faster-than-a-ghost" punch for the braver(and legal) guests, and perhaps even some pumpkin bubble tea along with the usual crowd pleaser sodas and what have you. 

So that's a snippet of what's rattling around the ole noggin! I'll leave you with that! ;)

~Destiny