Counting Down to...

..."Ahhhh-tumn!!

I am always ecstatic when I see the autumn and Halloween magazines begin popping up. It makes me feel like there IS an end in sight! Can't wait to pour a glass of wine and sit down and go through these beauties!

And, as if that isn't all the encouragement I need, I had lunch yesterday with a large group of ladies that I have known and taught with for many, many years-some as long as we have been living in Ocala. We get together in restaurants 2-3 times a year and one of the women always has us at a Christmas open house. As we were leaving-with still way too much catching up left undone-I had the brilliant idea that we should add a Halloween open house this year. And yep, you got it right, because most of these women are "friends" of mine on Facebook or have been to my house before, I was nominated as the hostess for this event. I am so excited. Everyone knows I love to decorate for this holiday but I also love to entertain.

My first thought was to hit the PB and Grandin Road catalog and order my few treasures for the year. And then, I will be hitting Pinterest.

I already ordered this pillow cover from PB. I wanted it last year but it sold out quickly so I didn't want to wait on it this year. I love the checkerboard pattern, the crow and the date...couldn't be more perfect!

These two beauties are from Grandin Road. I truly had to cut down my initial order from this catalog....I love so much of their stuff but I went with two things that are pretty different from anything else I already have...and everyone knows what a hard task that is as I have soooo much.

I think the two things with the crows will probably end up in the living room with my Edgar Allan Poe stuff. I am reserving judgement on the clock until I see how big it actually is. It can be activated in some way so I want it somewhere that that can happen as well.

Oh, I see changes in the forecast! I am so excited. I told you, I like a good project and this one should keep me busy for awhile. Stay tuned.

In My Glory

And why wouldn't I be? This is what is currently sitting at one end of my dining room table!

I pulled these supplies from my stash so that I can complete another Halloween gift that I had intended to do last year. This is truly just a drop in the bucket of the Halloween craft supplies that I have but here is my justification-if I want to start Halloween crafting in July (and I DO!), it is almost impossible to buy supplies. They are starting to come in, but isn't it just so much easier to go to my craft closet and have more than everything I could ever need right there? That's my story and I'm sticking to it...although I will admit to not ever being able to pass up anything orange and black and especially if it has a vintage feel as well. I am hooked.

One side note to going through supplies every now and then. When I bought one of the Halloween paper packs several years ago, I fell in love with 3 sheets of  Halloween patterned toile in three different colors. My goal had been to frame them in three identical black frames and hang them in the guest bath. I just never somehow got around to it so that is definitely on this year's to-do list as well.

So this was the start of my "letter press" craft knock off. I found the cork letters at Michaels and cut a 1X2 into small blocks.

I painted the blocks black and the letters in copper, silver and gold.

I glued the blocks together using wood glue and then glued on the letters.

After the glue was dry, I distressed the letters with a black ink pad and drilled small holes into the middle block and inserted a Tim Holtz picture holder pin.

Then, I downloaded and printed some vintage Halloween greetings, cut them out and matted them with orange and black. I still wasn't happy with them so I found some jack-o-lantern buttons, snipped off the shanks and glued them onto the pins.

Something was still missing so I got out my trusty label maker and printed up some labels. I am getting happier with these with each tweak that I make but still not altogether satisfied. I think since my letters don't have the vintage look that the whole letter press thing is lost in the translation. And then, there really is no reason for the blocks to be small-a simple strip of 1X2 would have been just as good but there was no way to really know that until all was said and done. Sure would have saved a lot of work. In any case, one more thing is off the list. Hope to get the next one done tomorrow. We shall see. Stay tuned.

Heading Out Again

We are packing our bags once again and heading to daughter #2's house overnight. Going to run some errands and enjoy a visit with the whole family. Yesterday, she and her two girls were here. They took us to lunch and then we enjoyed a trip back in time-a rousing Yahtzee tournament.

We will be home tomorrow in time to greet daughter #1 as she and her youngest pull into town for the night-she and her sister are once again off to Atlanta on Thursday while her youngest spends more time with her cousins, her dog spends more time with us and her oldest is in Puerto Rico on a church mission trip.

Then on Thursday and Friday the three youngest will either be here or with their cousins as well...never a dull moment around here.

I guess I tell you all of this so I have an excuse for not showing you all of my progress on my Halloween gifts...could be because I haven't made any! Yet! But, I DID finally get this done:

Now I can breathe easy...I am ready once again for Valentine's Day-haha. I got my bracelet restrung and the new crystals on the earrings-I had to actually work with headpins cutting them down to size and twisting in the loop-harder than you would think to get it centered and actually round...and bonus, I have the slightly larger heart crystal to put on a chain and wear as a necklace if I want...score! Don't know why silly little things like this make me happy but they do. And, I can FINALLY cross something off of my to-do list. More to come. Stay tuned.

You Know the Old Saying...

..."times flies when you're having fun!" And that is what we have been doing. Lots and lots of fun but really just every day life and not really the stuff blogs are made of!

We have been up and out every day this week. Some of it was taking advantage of end-of-year sales-we got some really nice patio chairs at a total steal and, come to think of it, that almost would have been a blog if I had seen any humor in it at the time. Just think 4 large chairs and the trunk of one small sedan-albeit a fairly good sized trunk-and, a looonnng way home! I just love the sales on things you would buy any way with lots of add on coupons and cash back certificates and rebates. As I tell my hubby, they are almost paying us to take it off their hands.

And then, we got a lovely invitation to dinner at daughter #3's house. It was delicious and it gave us time to hear all about their vacation adventures. This was not just any old dinner either-we had a lovely banner on the wall and beautiful, hand-made place cards-a really classy affair I'm just saying!

Thought I would go ahead and squeeze in our last tour room as next week promises to be another busy week as well. We have company coming on Monday, we will be gone Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday we will be keeping our three youngest grandchildren so I thought maybe I should come up with some back-to-school ideas to keep them busy.

So, on we go.

I can't believe how much I am loving finding one thing, putting it in place and just changing it as the seasons go. Maybe I am getting old and tired. Somehow, the easier seems better these days. Maybe I have just found things that speak to me. In any case, I love my Southern Living olive jar simply filled with sunflowers sitting on my Europe to You olive board and the on two April Cornell place mats that I found in Mt. Dora years and years ago before I had ever even heard of April Cornell. I loved the colors and they are two-sided-not to mention, they were on a close-out sale I couldn't pass up. I seem to go to them a lot these days. Glad I gave in to the urge to buy them.

So really kept it simple in here. We use the dining room a lot this time of the year and wanted to have some surfaces open without having to move a dozen things.

And here is a sneak peek to the rest of my weekend if my back will tolerate sitting on a hard chair. I am trying to make up some of my left-over from last year Halloween ideas so when I start seeing new ones coming my way, I will still have time to do them. Most of these things are using supplies I already bought and just never got to.

I know most people think it is rushing the season, but if you love Halloween as much as my family and I do, you have to strike while the iron is hot. Daughter #1 sent me a link to this year's Grandin Road catalog the other day. SIGH!!! I already have 4 things in my cart from just the preview. I am hoping to go back and look a little more closely when I have time to see if I can "knock-off" any of them like I did last year with the skeleton wreath and wooden sign We shall see. Stay tuned.

Getting Smart in my Old Age

I don't know if I am really getting smarter-in fact, that is HIGHLY doubtful-but I am most definitely getting more comfortable with the computer and more savvy if you will. You have to remember that I am a bit of a dinosaur. Almost all of today's technology was non-existent as I was growing up so I never learned how to do any of this. As things came into existence, I learned JUST what I needed to to do what I wanted. I guess I never really learned the basics of these things. I always swore that I would take some beginners courses but life just got in the way and I never did.

Fast forward to my blog. This is something I would never have done myself but when my oldest grand daughter created it for me as a Christmas gift after seeing how much I enjoyed other blogs, I felt compelled to at least learn the basics of navigating the site...and so I did.

Over the years, there have been many changes including the initial blog site being disbanded and having to move to a completely different server. I was terrified yet, somehow, I got through the move. I CAN read after all and it really wasn't all that difficult...just scary. I was afraid I would lose all of my previous blogs and since I don't scrapbook any more, this has kind of become my way of journaling our life.

Anyhow, over time I guess I just kind of picked up how things work and when Blogger threw me another curve the other day by changing the layout of my blog, I panicked once again. Then, I took a breath and worked my way through it. Since I don't know how all of you receive my blog-some might be through email-I am pretty sure you don't all see the full lay-out. I am feeling pretty proud of myself that I figured out how to download these sunflowers and get them where I wanted them so my theme would be carried out hence filling in the "white space" that I was left with after the latest overhaul. Just in case you haven't seen the whole thing, this is what it looks like now...at least until I put up autumn!

Of course, I had to ask my grand daughter how I could "get a picture" of this page because every time I tried the way I thought would work, I ended up downloading "administrative" jargon. So now, I know about screen shots and the like...who knew??! Stay tuned...no telling what trouble I will get into next.

"Whew"!!

Boy, I feel like I am saying that a lot lately! Just when you think you have your day all planned, a daughter and grand daughter swoop in and before you know it, you are off on a totally different adventure-doesn't this happen to everyone?

Hubby and I had our Friday all planned. We were just waiting for daughter #2 and grand daughter #1 to come by and pick up Hattie-our old, black Lab grand dog that we had been keeping for 3 weeks while the "young'uns" took their road trip. The last leg of the journey was to be an Imagine Dragon concert in Tampa on Friday night and since Hannah had to work on Thurs. night, she was on her way down to join the gang once again...yes, we have complicated stories in this group!

In any case, we visited for a few minutes and them got Hattie and her accoutrements loaded and were literally waving good-bye when they circled back around our drive and yelled "why don't you come with us?" And, so we did. We literally threw things in our suitcase and were out the door in no time. No time to let reason enter the picture! We kept our inclusion a surprise and couldn't wait to get there and spring it on everyone.

When we got in St. Pete, hubby, Hattie and I knocked on the door and when my daughter saw us through the window, she started yelling "don't open the door!"-haha. Then our grand daughters all saw us and were so excited. It made the jump out of our comfort zone so worth the trip. We had a lovely, peaceful visit catching up on all of the latest work on her home renovation and the girls had the best time ever at the concert!!

We headed to a favorite, local restaurant for dinner and must always take a picture with our favorite greeter!

After a whirlwind visit with lots of talking and eating, we are home and trying to back back to some kind of a schedule again so I thought I would start by taking you through the kitchen.

I still love this rusty thing. I found it at one of our decor boutiques downtown one day when they were having a big sale. It was on the counter by their register and was full of beautiful jewelry. I don't really know if it was for sale or just a display piece but when I asked the young girl behind the register if it was, she said "sure, why not"? And now, it resides with me. I love to move it around and see what things I can find to fill it for each theme.

You knew those orange mercury glass jars wouldn't go very far, didn't you?

I just realized that except for the sunflower candle and the ones peeking through the window from the dining room that there is nary a sunflower in sight. I guess the kitchen area just lends itself more to the citrus/Mediterranean theme. I like that I can still find a way to use a lot of my Southern Living things and beautiful things that my grand daughters have made for me over the years that fir into this theme.

Lots more to catch up on this coming week and more house to show you. Stay tuned.

Missing the Twinkle

There are not many times in the years that I don't have some form of holiday lights strung up on my mantle and over mirrors and hutches throughout the house. In fact, this late summer decor and spring may be the only two times in the year that the house is "dark". Every time I walk into a room, I feel as if something is just quite not right...and then I realize I am missing the lights. I have seriously considered just getting some white garden lights to hang but so far I have resisted. After all, it will only be a short while and my beautiful mercury glass pumpkin lights will reappear and I will be good. So keeping in mind that the family room just doesn't "twinkle" as it usually does, come see what I have done so far.

I love that I can use all of my "citrus" colored urns during this season...I DO love my olive jars and urns. There is just something about their earthiness that speaks to me! My hubby asked me where they were all going to go as he helped me carry them into the house...guess I showed him! They are EVERYWHERE!!

The family room is very, very simple mostly predominated by citrus colors (no actual fruit) and sunflowers. Definitely a change for me but in this really sweltering time of the year, cleaner seems cooler...at least that is what I am trying to tell myself!!

And, check one off of the to-do list.

I am so glad I am a "shabby chic" kind of girl...so easy to paint and distress! You really CAN'T do anything wrong...and yes, after seeing these pictures I have already gone out to straighten that middle knob-I hate it when that happens-haha.

So that is my simple little post for today. Our weather has been really nice for the last day or two so I am getting in lots of pool time while I can but I will be back to my decorating and unfinished projects soon-stay tuned.

So Many Projects, So Little Time

I have posted before about how much I like to have projects waiting for me. I am not a fan of the mundane cooking, cleaning, gardening, etc. But, when I have a project that fits into one of those areas, I am a happy camper!

And so, today, at this moment, I am rather giddy....I have the projects! Now if I just had the time to complete them!

I bought my piece of 1X2 and had time to cut it into 2" pieces....and that is where it stands.

Got half of this desk painted, bought more paint and got the rest of the first coat on...and that is where it stands.

While I was in Lowes getting the wood, I did think ahead and grab three new knobs. The colonial ones just don't do it for me any more.

FINALLY found some crystal hearts that I can use to replace the one that fell off of one of my favorite Valentine earrings last February. I have been looking ever since. These aren't quite the same size, but if I replace both, it will be O.K.-figure I can use the larger one for a pendant. It is a rather odd story about how this loss happened. Hubby and I were in Lowes when I actually felt the heart drop off of the hoop of the earring. Then, I heard it hit the floor. I stopped immediately to get it, but it was NO WHERE to be found. We hunted in and under everything for over 30 minutes. It truly just vanished. I suppose someone walking by at the time may have unknowingly kicked it somewhere far, far away...but, in any case, I actually still look every time I am in that section of Lowes but so far, no luck...so, this should solve the problem. I bought the headpins that I need and this is where this project stands. Not to mention the Valentine bracelet that needs to be re-strung.

So you see, no lack of projects around here...just a lack of time in which to get them done. I will keep trying.

And then there is this beauty! I saw it in HL the other day and loved it right away. It is actually very well made and a whole lot easier than trying to do a real chalkboard in frame of one of my favorite graces. And so, with trusty 40%off coupon in hand, I snagged one. Well, in all honesty, I wasn't having to fight any one of for it...in fact, I might be the only person in HL buying a Thanksgiving sign in July but, I sure left with a smile on face like I had won a big old lottery. Now if I can just find a place to store it until I need it four months from now!!! Stay tuned.

Let the Sun In!!

For an old lady (haha), when I want something, I CAN MOVE!

And I reallllyyy wanted the sunflowers up in my house. I needed the sunflowers up in my house. I love the sunflowers up in my house!

I posted yesterday that I was going to start the new decor but usually it takes me 3-4 days. Except for the guest bath and the front porch and the sun room, I am done. Of course, I still have to pack most of the 4th stuff up and put it away but I am far enough along that I thought we could start the tour.

Keeping the entry a little sparse but I am already thinking of things to add when I see this picture so don't place any bets just yet.

I still totally love this arrangement that I bought many, many years ago at Julies at Provence. Since my theme for late summer decor is 1. sunflowers or 2. citrus colors or 3. Mediterranean-any or all of the above-this arrangement fits perfectly and since I stuck a few extra sunflowers into the peonies, hydrangeas, fruit, etc., it is even more perfect!

That is the living room so far. If sunflowers are here now, can autumn leaves and pumpkins be far behind?

Thought I would leave you with these beautiful faces. My oldest daughter had started a tradition of taking her two daughters and her two oldest nieces on the "great American road" trip. They sort of just head out with a "sort of" idea but no hard and fast rules. They google as they go and take detours to see all sorts of Americana. Last year they headed in one direction-this year in another. Trying to visit as many states as they can.

They arrange their trip so that they will be with daughter #3and her family at her in-laws place in Arkansas for a few days around the 4th. It sounds like a child's dream-cliff diving, water skiing, kayaking, lots of food, fun and fireworks.

Then, this year they decided they wanted to see Chicago and all places in between. I am having so much fun keeping up with them via Face Book...if I can't be there, it is the next best thing! Stay tuned.