Tag Archives: fall

A Jumble of Thoughts and Goings-On…Brought to you by Hurricane Sandy

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It’s a very quiet day around here today.  At work, most of our clients and colleagues are based in NYC, so many of them are quite understandably spending the day preparing for Hurricane Sandy and not concentrating on sending me stuff to do.  Nice change of pace for the day, but it can get a bit boring.  However, I am definitely thinking about all of my many family, friends, and colleagues who are dealing with this Frankenstorm.  Please stay safe, all you North-easterners!  Having been through the Florida hurricane-palooza of 2004 (Charlie/Frances/Ivan/Jeanne), I know it can be scary!

We were not planning on dressing up for Halloween this year, which would have been kind of sad.  But a friend of ours put together a last-minute party about a week in advance, so we had to scramble to figure out costumes!  We decided to do the reverse of what we did 5 years ago.  In 2007, I was an angel and Tadd was a devil.  This year, I got to be the devil!  And Tadd was an angel (although let’s be honest, he’s no angel…ha!).  I reused his pitchfork and the red cape from my Little Red Riding Hood costume from last year and found a $5 set of horns, bow tie, and tail.

Here we are in 2007:

And here we were last Saturday (sorry about the poor quality…as you can see from my friend’s reflection behind us, it was taken with a phone in dim lighting):

Tadd and I went on a date night to one of our favorite Park Avenue dinner spots last night, but beforehand I was able to convince him to take me to JoAnn Fabrics!  I spent way more than I should have, but I got all kinds of stuff to make a few Christmas presents, and what I hope will be a Thanksgiving wreath.  So stay tuned!

I did get started on a new sewing project last night, but something in my sewing machine malfunctioned and it just was not working correctly.  Tadd is going to try to fix it tonight.  I hope so, because I was almost finished with what I was working on.  It was frustrating to be so close to finishing without being able to finish.

And in the spirit of Halloween, I will leave you with this:  At work, one of the executives’ wives is an amazing baker.  Their family had a Halloween party over the weekend and the leftovers were brought to our company breakroom for us to share.  Incredible!  There is a brownie graveyard, a haunted castle cake, a huge cauldron of candy, adorable cupcakes, etc.  I know I shouldn’t have, but I took one of the cupcakes and a chocolate oreo kitty.  How cute are these?  That little knife in the “bloody” cupcake is actually a tiny cookie!

Halloween Marshmallow Truffles

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When they mentioned we were having a Halloween potluck at work, I decided to try something new, marshmallow truffles.  The concept is fairly simple: dip marshmallows in chocolate and then into any number of toppings.

I used small wooden skewers to make dipping and serving a bit easier.  I also found some Halloween-themed sprinkles at Target, that I thought made my truffles look pretty festive.  You could also use chopped nuts, crumbled cookies, graham cracker crumbs, coconut, whatever you want!

Each tub of dipping chocolate covered about a dozen marshmallows.  I think if I were to do it again, I would just buy a big bag of chocolate morsels or bar chocolate.  I thought I was going to get more mileage out of the tubs (this was my first time using them).

I ended up not using the orange sugar on the left…It just kind of melted into the dark chocolate and looked terrible.  You definitely want toppings that are not too small and not too big.  The other three types of sprinkles worked great.

This is exactly the type of recipe (if you even really want to call it a recipe) that I love.  Few ingredients, simple, and lots of ways to customize it.  My only issue is that it was quite messy and I felt like I got chocolate everywhere.  But that’s pretty much always going to be the case when you deal with melted chocolate.

What treats are you whipping up for Halloween?

Home Stories A2Z

shabby creek cottage

A little more fall & Halloween decor…

Posted by sunshineandsometea in Crafts & Decor and tagged with , , , ,

I realized that in my prior posts about this year’s fall decorating (here and here), I missed a few items I wanted to share.

This was one of my JoAnn’s finds from several weeks ago.  I could not pass it up!  Especially since I have a kitty named Stella.  I love all of the Victorian-inspired Halloween decor that seems to have been all the rage the past couple of seasons!

 

Just like last year, I have my fun Black Cat Cafe plate on display in the kitchen!  Now that I have my very own REAL black cat, all of these black cat Halloween decorations delight me even more.  So fun!

 

I placed a few little Halloween touches in our powder room.  And yes, I even temporarily relocated the Target Dollar Spot owl in here, just for the season.

 

I recently  moved this very tiny corner shelf unit to our stairwell to give it some pizzazz.  Eventually this piece will get a makeover with a new coat of paint, but for now I have decorated it with a hodgepodge of some of our smallest fall/Halloween items.

 

A handful of our neighbors have full light displays and outdoor graveyards going on!  I have seen skeletons and giant spiders and pumpkin carriage lights and all kinds of fun stuff.  Sooo cute and creative.  I am jealous, and maybe one day my love of Halloween decor will expand to my yard.  But for now, this will do!  Seeing all the fun items displayed all around the house makes me smile.  I love this time of year!

Fall in the Northeast

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I am back from my trip to Albany, NY for my cousin’s wedding.  Despite some cloudy skies and a little bit of rain, the weather was beautiful, and we really enjoyed the autumnal atmosphere and cooler temperatures.  We had one day to go sightseeing before we let the wedding madness take over, so we made the most of it with a drive from Albany to Cooperstown and back, making a few stops along the way.  The leaves were just starting to turn, so our drive was quite scenic, and we took a ton of pics.

I know this fall tradition stuff can sometimes border on cliche for a lot of you in other parts of the US, but for us Central Floridians, this is pure novelty and so much fun!  As a matter of fact, believe it or not,  Tadd (who was born and has lived his entire life in Florida) had his very first EVER apple cider doughnut on this trip!

A Halloween Non-Mantel 2012 (and more!)

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I can now officially wish everyone HAPPY FALL!

This is always the time of year when I regret not having a fireplace & mantel.  I make do with my entry table, which is where I tend to do my seasonal decorating.  This is what I came up with for Halloween this year…

My favorite parts are the little potted tree in the woven container (both tree & container from Ikea), topped with pinecone and pumpkin filler, placed next to a pair of rustic wooden ravens (filler and ravens from Hobby Lobby)!

I suppose you could say that my wall of shelves in the living room is a good mantel substitute too.  This is where I am displaying most of my Boney Bunch collection.

Linking up with…

Halloween Mantels

			

	
	



				
					


	

		
Fall Table Runner


				

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I recently found some really cute fall fabric at JoAnn’s and decided I wanted to make a really simple reversible table runner for my kitchen table. I got a yard of each fabric, eyeballed the size that I wanted, sewed them together with some light batting to give it some weight, and then top-stitched with a decorative stitch. Simple, but really cute!


This was my first time using one of the decorative stitches, and I have to say, they are fun! But also take a ton of thread. This entire project took almost my whole spool of beige thread.






And here’s the finished product. Excuse the battered scratching post in the background! Maybe I should have staged a little better…






And here you can see the other side, which is a really pretty orange print.




Linking up to the It’s Fall Y’all link party at The Lettered Cottage and Transformation Thursdays at The Shabby Creek Cottage!




shabby creek cottage

			

	
	



				
					


	

		
Buy all the things!


				

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I had promised myself that I would pull out all my fall & Halloween decor last night, but I got something in the mail that I had been waiting for, so that derailed me for the evening.  However, I have now re-promised myself that TONIGHT will be the night!  Tadd and I stopped by JoAnn Fabrics on the way home from work yesterday and it was Halloween-palooza!  They have some freakishly adorable Halloween stuff.  I wasn’t as keen on their fall stuff this year, but they had one aisle where I seriously wanted to BUY ALL THE THINGS!




I bought a few items, but will probably go back for more.  And I need to stop by Dollar Tree.  Even though I REALLY don’t need anymore Halloween decor.  I think I have a problem.  I started shopping for this season hoping for more fall stuff and less Halloween, but for some reason I am always drawn to the Halloween stuff.  Go figure…


I didn’t buy any of this stuff, but I wanted to!








I also bought some fall fabric, which I am HOPING to turn into something pretty.  My idea is simple, but since I am still fairly new to sewing, I sometimes worry that constructing something very simple on my own (without a tutorial) will still conclude in failure.  But I don’t know until I try, so I suppose we will see.


I bought about $54 worth of stuff, but only paid $18 out of pocket, thanks to my favorite shopping combo: sales + coupon + giftcard (I still had $10.78 left on one card from my birthday).  Tadd was impressed with how much stuff we got for so little.


All that rambling to tell you that hopefully I will be able to share my new purchases, and some of my old items in new ways starting tomorrow!  Bring on the fall decor!

			

	
	



				
					


	

		
Jacoby’s Halloween Doppleganger


				

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When I got home from my trip, there was a package waiting for me from Yankee Candle.  I had seen this black cat tea light holder in the 2012 Halloween catalog and absolutely fell in love.  But it wasn’t in stock when I attended the Boney Bunch preview back at the beginning of August, and when I tried to order it online, it said it was out of stock.  A few weeks later, I checked the website again and it was available, so I snatched it up (along with a small jar candle in the Pumpkin Pie scent so I could use my $10 off $25 coupon…it’s my FAVORITE of all the pumpkiny Yankee Candle fragrances).


When I opened the candleholder, I was absolutely delighted with how much it reminded me of my Jacoby-kitty.  Don’t they look like they could be twins?




So happy with this purchase!  And even though I haven’t pulled out the rest of my Halloween & fall decor yet, this one is already on display.  I just adore it.  And so does Jacoby!

			

	
	



				
					


	

		
Looking forward to fall.


				

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I can’t believe it’s the last day of July!  I am happy though, because that puts us another month closer to my favorite season, fall!  Florida summers can be brutal.  High temps in the mid nineties, crazy humidity, and violent thunderstorms almost every day.  They are also way too long…Our summer weather patterns sometimes start in April and can last well into October.  It can be really tough to do anything (comfortably) outdoors during this time frame, which can be quite limiting.


So, to make these last several weeks of summer a teensy bit more bearable, I am thinking about some my favorite things about fall!


Top 5 fall-related things I am looking forward to (in no particular order):


    

  1. Yankee Candle Boney Bunch Preview!  This event is THIS coming Saturday morning, August 4th.  I was good and skipped this last year during my No Spend August Challenge.  But this year, I will be going back and I am psyched!  I always love Yankee Candle’s fall and Halloween items, and the sneak peek pics I have seen so far show that this year is no exception.  There is even rumor of a Boney Bunch kitty character in this year’s collection!

    My Boney Bunch haul from 2010.
    2. 

  2. Long & Scott’s Corn Maze. My friends and I conquered the maze last year.  It wasn’t a very fall-like day (hot!), but we had fun working together to solve the 6-acre maze.  Hopefully this year we can go on a day with crisper temperatures.  
    3. 

  3. Epcot International Food & Wine Festival. Disney events like this one make me feel really lucky to live in Central Florida.  This is always one of the highlights of my fall season every year.  It’s not a cheap day (each tasting item costs an average of $4-5), but there is something really fun and enjoyable about getting to stroll around World Showcase, trying different food and beverage items from all around the world.
    4. 

  4. Fall crafting. Fall tends to be the time that I really get into crafting.  For some reason, it sparks my creative side.  I actually hope to get started on this very soon!  Last year I made a cute “SPOOKY” sign, a Halloween-ified vase, and got together with my girlfriends to make candy corn wreaths.  This year, I am planning on some fall sewing projects.
    

    5. 

  5. Halloween!  I love all holidays, especially Halloween.  Tadd and I are starting to toss around costume ideas for this year already.  Last year we dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf!
    6. 


			

	
	



				
					


	

		
On this beautiful Thanksgiving Day.


				

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Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds.


-Theodore Roosevelt




Thankful for good friends and family, and for my 3 sweet kitties, but most of all, thankful for my husband, who supports me through life’s ups and downs, puts my needs ahead of his own on a regular basis, and who loves me for me, unconditionally. I am a lucky girl with lots to be thankful for.


Happy Thanksgiving!