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Archive for the ‘Fall Decorating’ Category

‘Tis The Season

Posted in Clothes for Fall, Fall Decorating, Fall Fun, Orange is my favorite color on November 2, 2011| 2 Comments »

It is not quite time to be jolly but it is another most wonderful time of the year – fall! It is in full swing with the cooler temps, leaves changing colors and best of all, OSU is #3 in the BCS!! You knew I had to throw that in there, right? 🙂

I love Fall for many reasons but really love it for the fact that orange is everywhere in homes and so many people, other than just OSU fans, are sporting it constantly!

This orange pedestal table is awesome! Love the lacquer paint – what a bold statement in the kitchen!

One of my favorites, an orange blazer from J. Crew. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous!

I am obsessed with monograms and love this white with orange trim pillow. Perfect for any room in the house!

These teardrop earrings are stunning. I love the shape, color and pearl accent!

This chair makes me want to have a library with a roaring fire. I would have a book in hand and comfy blanket across my legs – love it!

What about you – are you loving orange right now? Come on now, don’t be shy you non-OSU fans 🙂 All photos with credits pinned on my Pinterest board.

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Crafty Pumpkins

Posted in Fall Decorating, Outdoor Living Space, Paint, Spray Paint on October 17, 2011|

Before I start, thanks for the sweet emails and comments from the last post. I was very overwhelmed by news I had received from several friends and needed to put the breaks on doing too much. I put a lot of pressure on myself to be a part of as much as possible and with the blog especially, try to live up to someone else’s standards. I took a big breath and remembered this blog is purely fun for me. I’m not paid to do it and I can’t worry about how much I’m posting, what I’m posting and how many followers I’m gaining/losing. Thanks to each of you for reading and leaving sweet notes – this used to be something that only my parents read!

On to the topic at hand – I finally painted some pumpkins!! I really think this year has been the most fun fall I’ve had post-college. (You really can’t beat the fall season in Stillwater – Homecoming and Freshman Follies were big deals in my life and I loved it all so much!) I love how my pumpkins turned out, especially my two OSU pumpkins outside.

I printed out an image of our logo but ended up just winging it and free-handing the letters. I used black on the letters, orange surrounding it and a silver border that was so much easier to paint with the back of a paintbrush! This took about 20 minutes total and I love how it looks!

I was stumped for what I wanted to do for pumpkin #2 so I went with the easy saying of Go Pokes! This was a total freehand as well and only took about 10 minutes. I used acrylic paint I had on hand from previous projects and it worked out perfectly. A coat of glossy clear spray paint was applied after I painted to protect the pumpkins from the weather and hopefully get them to last a little longer than expected.

Inside, I tried to do our monogram. I’m not completely satisfied with how it turned out but I’m going with it for now! I spray painted the pumpkin with copper paint and then free-handed our initials in white. I used a pen to draw it out first and even with four coats of white, you could see the pen underneath. I used a black Sharpie to outline the letters and draw an inside line to hopefully detract from the pen showing through. And yes – this is absolutely why there is only one picture of this little vignette – hah!

See ya later, alligators! I’ve got several projects on the brain so I’ll be back when I’m ready to showcase one of them.

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Fall Outdoor Fun

Posted in Fall Decorating, Fall Fun, New House, Outdoor Living Space on October 5, 2011| 4 Comments »

I am thoroughly enjoying fall this year! Last year at this time we were running around like crazy, trying to finish painting our kitchen cabinets before our housewarming party. This year, I get to experience and enjoy fall in the most laid-back, fun way possible! We never did a lot at our old house so this year has been a blast with lots and lots of pumpkins, mums and pansies.

This is the garden cart in our backyard and I am so happy with the way it looks! The hay bale, pumpkins, gourds and mums get me more excited than objects like this should – hah!

This display makes me even more happy that we made the decision to remove the ugly, overgrown evergreen that used to be in this spot and instead have an area to accessorize outside! The garden cart that Conner’s mom got us works perfectly and is a great prop for the fall decor.

I had the two pots already and the hay, mums, pumpkins and gourds came from a variety of greenhouses, home stores and even grocery stores! The grocery store down the street from our house had the best prices on pumpkins, acorns and squash. I love the colors and textures they add to the display.

In our front yard, I am beside myself with our planted pansies! This is my first time to attempt this and I think I enjoyed doing it a little more than one should while planting an annual like this. I planted tulips in between the pansies and can’t wait to see what it looks like in the spring! Our poor Japanese Maple took a beating this hot, hot summer but the red leaves are coming back and she is looking like her old self again!

I put another hay bale on our front porch and layered more pumpkins and gourds all around it. Conner’s mom got me the two lanterns for Christmas last year and they are the perfect accessory with leaves from Dollar Tree and candles inside! My favorite pumpkin in this display is the double-decker on the top right. I think it is so cute!! The pumpkins at the pumpkin patch are expensive but they do have some really cool, original things like this and it was totally worth the splurge.

I totally missed the fall craft linky party, but I am definitely joining Sarah’s outdoor party! Maybe I’ll get to finish the crafts this weekend?? Yup, that’s what I always tell myself…

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Fall Mantel

Posted in Fall Decorating, Linky Parties, Mantel Ideas on September 29, 2011| 2 Comments »

Well, it is officially Fall, y’all and I am officially late to the party. Whoopsies! The Fall linky parties started this week but I was late to get my stuff down from the attic and shop around my house. I am so happy to say that I love my mantel and everything is officially from the attic and around my house…nothing new was purchased, yea!

This is how my mantel looks and I love it! I was trying to copy the cover of this month’s Pottery Barn magazine and incorporate the texture with white and silvers. Last year, I didn’t want to spend money on the gorgeous silver pumpkins from the stores so I spray painted $1 pumpkins from the Dollar Tree – works for me!

The glass containers and white candles were wrapped with burlap twine I got from Hobby Lobby and the other texturized candles were a clearance find at Pottery Barn last year.

The white pumpkins I got from Target several years ago and am still using, I love when that happens! The garland was a purchase from several years ago as well and is holding up quite well! It has the gorgeous colors of leaves in October, when the trees are really starting to turn and have three to four shades of color on each leaf, and cute little acorns scattered randomly throughtout the garland.

I used three elements for the mantel and love that it is full but not crazy chaotic: candles, pumpkins and a garland. It was very easy to put together and even better, will be very easy to take down and put away!

Here is one last look at this year’s fall mantel! Sorry for the light, our living room has large windows facing our backyard but by the time I come home it is already shaded so the ‘natural’ light is low. I still think it looks great and love how cozy it makes our living room feel.

I’ll show you the mantel with the side shelves soon – I have a plan for them and am working on updating them since my last Before & After post on this area!

The Lettered Cottage

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Dreaming of Fall

Posted in Fall Decorating, Fall Fun, Linky Parties on August 15, 2011|

We had some nasty storms come through Oklahoma last week and it broke my heart to see some of our bigger tree limbs and a small tree come down in the backyard. One of the reasons we love our part of the area is because they preserved the old, big trees while constructing homes and businesses! What got me excited though was the cooler temperatures and coziness several of the days had. It got me so pumped up and dreaming of fall!

I wanted to post this in case you have a blog and would like to participate but also as a reminder for myself – save these dates and link up to these parties! I love a good linky party, especially ones hosted by these four ladies (The Lettered Cottage, Southern Hospitality, Centsational Girl and Thrifty Decor Chick). They each have amazing blogs that I check constantly. I hope to get some amazing inspiration from Pinterest and put together our best fall house yet!

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The funny thing about fall

Posted in China, Dining Room, Fall Decorating, Fall Fun, Tablescapes on November 19, 2010| 2 Comments »

The funny thing about fall in Oklahoma is that it sneaks up on you pretty quickly and then doesn’t hang around for long. Out of any season, fall is my favorite! The leaves are so gorgeous, jeans and a t-shirt with a cardigan are the norm for everyday attire, college football is on all of the time and the smell in the air is fabulous. Because it moves in and out so quickly, I sometimes forget to appreciate it while it is here. Not this year! I’m trying to soak it all in and enjoy all of the moments in 2010.

Start with this tree – GORG!! The neon trees are my absolute favorite. The neon red, neon orange and neon yellow ones look so cool. I love walking through fallen leaves and hearing the crunch, but I get so sad when ones like this lose their pretty leaves. We live in an awesome part of town with tons of trees like this so I’m trying to soak it in and not take it for granted before the limbs are bare and the cold wind hurts my eyes.

A first for this year is a fun, fall table! Of course this time of year is perfect for an OSU grad. Orange is everywhere! Since we have a dining room for the first time and a dining room table, I love that I get to set it and do a proper ‘tablescape.’ I’ve had this out for a while but enjoy looking at it every day. (Yup, that’s my picture helper Carl in the bottom left)

We haven’t done much to this room so a fun table makes it all better and enjoyable! My godmother always has a table set for every season and I love that image when you go to her house. It looks welcoming, like she’s just ready for you to come and eat dinner with her! I decided to adopt this philosophy and will always have a table set, ready for you to come eat dinner with me!

I also love having a table set at all times so I can show off our china! I picked out this china when I was 11 years old. True story. I was with my mom in Dillard’s, getting a present for a wedding shower she was attending. I saw this pattern and instantly fell in love. Fast forward 14 years and Dillard’s still carries it! Vera Wang’s “Grosgrain.” LOVE. I am still working on getting all of the place settings and stemware but I have enough to set this table so I am one happy woman! In the future, I think I’ll play around with fun accent plates to mix in, but I am too excited to not show off any of our china for now.

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My Fall Mantel!

Posted in Fall Decorating, Fall Fun, Home Decor Ideas, Home Style, Natural Elements on November 16, 2010|

So way back when, I posted about Michelle’s fall mantel. I loved it and couldn’t wait to work on mine!

I started looking around the house for items, as well as the Dollar Tree and Pottery Barn (I had a gift card). This was my first attempt. It was fine and I liked what I had pictured in my head, but it was just kind of blah. (sorry for the photo quality…used my iPhone at night – not the best way to get a good picture) I knew I needed to spruce it up a little.

This was the candle holder I had originally. I think I got three for $2 each at Target way back when. I used these all over the old house and they were just sitting in my closet in the hallway where I keep my not-in-use decorating items.

I purchased some natural jute from Hobby Lobby and got out my trusty glue gun to tackle the mission: make the clear candle holder more warm and fall-ish.

In case I want to use these without the jute, I started with just a small dab of hot glue in the bottom corner of the holder. (again, sorry about the photo…its the common theme in this post with bad, night, iPhone photos) I wrapped it around and around until the whole thing was covered. It took about two minutes per candle holder – simple, easy and cheap! My three favorite things in a home project. It was exactly what I wanted.

This is my fall mantel now! I know, where’s the rest of the picture? You’ll just have to tune in tomorrow for the fireplace before and after. 🙂 The pumpkins were purchased from Dollar Tree for $1 each. I wanted something a little different so I spray painted two of them with silver paint. I loved the contrast it provided against the orange and yellow garland (free with a Pottery Barn gift card!). I’m still trying to decide if I need to spray paint the other two pumpkins. I think it might make the pumpkins stick out more. I love the warmth that the jute-wrapped candle holders provide. It was totally what I wanted!

Since I had more jute and was feeling crazy that night, I took a vase I purchased from Pier One back at our old house and started wrapping it. I needed something to go in the lower corner of our fireplace bookshelves and am currently over my red phase. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on something large though and didn’t want to store this in a closet so it was a great use of both items. This one was a lot trickier than the clear candle holders because of the massive curve in the vase. It required much more glue and much more jute.

I love the way it turned out though! The bottom and top are absolutely perfect and the middle has some movement and contrast because of the curve of the vase. (That’s what I going with people. In reality, I sit there and obsess over the fact that it doesn’t look as perfect at the top and bottom so I’m sticking with I really meant for it to look like that…) It works so great in the spot on the bookcase and the color/natural feel is perfect for our living room!

Tomorrow I will show you the complete fireplace before and after!

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