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Teri’s Fall Feature Friday

I love fall. I love the colors of fall, I love the smells of fall, I love the weather of fall. I also like to decorate for fall. I wanted to share a couple of my new fall decorations I made this year.

These harvest blocks are one of the crafts we did last week at craft day. Please excuse the atrocious Mod Podge job. I didn’t realize how badly it had bubbled until I tried to take pictures. The little pumpkin I picked up on the Michael’s clearance for some insane amount like 39¢. I think it looks cute on my letters.

The floral arrangement I made using fall stuff that I got on clearance at Michael’s for 80% off. What a steal. I got everything pictured at Michael’s, except for the ribbon, and including the ribbon I paid about $18! Can you believe it! It turned out better than I had hoped. I LOVE it!!! I needed something large and decorative like that. It’s quite big, it measures about 15” wide by 26” tall. I love the little owl, he was a definite prize! It needed something around the raw edge of the pumpkin that I had cut off, and I wanted moss, but I didn’t have any, so I found this fall ribbon I had purchased at Hobby Lobby I think, and created this ruffly trim by hot gluing it down in segments. I think it added just the right touch. I hope you agree (if not, oh well, I love it).

Last but not least is my new fall wreath. I didn’t make this one, I couldn’t have made it for what I bought it for I don’t think. I purchased it last week at Michael’s. It was on clearance at 80% off and then I had a coupon for and extra 15% of a premade floral. Making the grand total just under $5. I would never have thought of this grey blue as a fall color, but I really think it works here. Plus I love the owl ribbon. Who could resist the touch of bling? This isn’t my front door, I couldn’t get a decent picture of it on my front door, so pretend the door is white okay?

This post is also linked to Frugalicious Friday at Finding Fabulous and Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest

Tardy Guest Day Thursday: Christmas Centerpieces

Okay, so yesterday just escaped me, and I didn’t get the post done. Hopefully that means that you will get 2 posts today!!! We’ll see if it gets done. We promised early in the week we would share the projects we did last week at craft day, so here’s your first peek.

We made easy Christmas centerpieces. They were fun because each one turned out differently. To save a few pennies (because let’s face it, who doesn’t love that), we used tins from the dollar store for our bases, a coupon at Michael’s for our floral foam and instead of filling the whole thing with picks, we used garland that we cut pieces off of as a base and then used the picks (which were on sale for 50% off) as fillers. Here’s how they turned out. This is only part of them, we will edit the others in as we get pictures of them.

Teri's

Micki's:

Here's our "guests", some of the others that were created at craft day.

Edited: We are participating in Frugalicious Friday at Finding Fabulous and Frugal Friday on The Shabby Nest and Modern Country's Holiday Treat Party

Also participating in Somewhat Simple's Strut Your Stuff Party

What’s Cookin’ Wednesday: Janet’s Creamy Vege Soup

Okay, I’ll admit, I don’t really like veges. I try, I really do, but I don’t really like them. This vege soup is soooooooooooooo good though. It has yummy veges and cheese, what’s not to like? Okay, so maybe not the best way to get the veges in, but give a girl some credit for trying. Without further adieu, here is my friend Janet’s Creamy Vegetable Soup

3/4 cup flour

3/4 cup butter

1 quart half and half

8 slices American cheese (Kraft is the best, it gives the soup the best flavor)

1 tsp salt and pepper

1 tsp sugar

1/2 onion diced finely

2 cups sliced carrots

2 cups sliced celery

3 cups diced red potatoes

3 chicken bouillon cubes

Place all vegetable in large saucepan with water just barely above the vegetables. Bring to a boil and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Add the bouillon cubes while simmering veges. In a separate pan, combine flour and melted butter to make a roux. Slowly add the half and half until well blended. Add the cheese slices, salt, pepper and sugar and stir until cheese melts and all it well combined. Add cheese mixture to vegetables when they are soft. Serves 6-8.

Edited: I got so excited about making this soup when I posted the recipe last night, that I couldn't even wait to make it for dinner, so I made it for lunch. I even took a pretty picture of it. Here are some changes I made:

decreased celery to 1 1/2 cups

increased flour to 1 cup

used fingerling potatoes (so occasionally we got a yummy purple potato)

added 2 cups of sliced mushrooms to the veges while cooking

added 4 oz. cream cheese at the same time I added the American cheese

Let us know if you try it and what you think.

Oops, I got so excited about making the soup, that I published it instead of setting it to post tomorrow. Enjoy a few hours early!!!

Tadpole Tuesday: Christmas Decor

Last Saturday, my daughter and I went to a project day at our church. It’s called a Super Saturday, where they offer projects and you sign up ahead of time and go there and complete them. Anywho, I had signed up for a couple of projects, and my daughter was in need of some 1:1 mommy time, so I brought her with me. She completed one of my projects all by herself pretty much! One of the projects I hadn’t signed up for was a Christmas Centerpiece. The idea behind it was that you use what you can find in nature, thus making it free. I didn’t sign up because I didn’t know about it. When we got there the cute lady doing the project said to my daughter, “I don’t have anyone doing my project, why don’t you come over, I have a lot of extras”. Hers turned out so cute, I had to make one too!!! They are supposed to have candles in them, but mine are packed away with the Christmas stuff, so just pretend okay? I’ve showed a top view so you can see where we drilled down with a paddle bit to create a “well” for the candle. She had already baked the foliate and dipped it in a glycerin mix to preserve it, so all we had to do was use a little hot glue and voile! We finished it off by brushing the tips with white paint to make it look snowy.

Front view of my daughter’s creation

Back view of my daughter’s creation

my centerpiece, you can see where the candle will go

We are also participating in Modern Country's Holiday Treat Party and Somwhat Simple's Strut Your Stuff Party

Mystery Monday: Craft Day Thursday

This was our first bi-annual craft day at my mother in laws. She is so wonderful and hosted me, my sister in laws and my friends for a day of fun and food. The best part was that last minute Teri got to come down. I was so happy to see her and we had so much fun. We spent time crafting and if we weren't crafting we were buying stuff for more crafts!! We made so many fun projects and gabbed and ate. It was a blast!! We learned a lot about what would make it easier for next time and I think everyone had as much fun as I did. We made 6 crafts in all. Here are some peeks.....more to come of our crafts. :) That's the Mystery part....what crafts did we make? lol

The prep work......(mostly by my mother in law)






Our friends......
















Our delicious food prepared by my wonderful mother in law (it was so yummy!!) (Sorry there's no picture of it when it had just been set out, but we were ravenous).




Us......(don't mine the all day craftathon after driving 6 1/2 hours hair :)) Micki is on the left and Teri on the right.
There was even dancing that happened, and we were gonna share, but we are not technologically smart enough to edit it, and it's too long to upload.

A Question

We promise we have some fun pictures and a post to share about our fun marathon craft, but we have been a little crazy (like driving 6 1/2 hours to craft for a day and drive 6 1/2 hours home again). We promise we will be back by Monday (hopefully).

Now the question.....does anyone use bloggled. I use it to back up my family blog and to hopefully one day have it printed into a book. They recently switched from a free system to a small fee. I have renewed my subscription and paid the dang fee. I tried to log into it tonight and Internet Explorer popped up an error message that said the site's Security Certificate had expired. It said not to trust the sight, so I closed the window as it advised. Help!!! I don't want my info on a non trustable site, but I also want to be able to back up my blog and print it into a book. If anyone can help this technologically challenged girl I know my bloggy friends can. Help, suggestions and advise deeply appreciated. (as a side note, I did check the date and time on my computer to make sure that wasn't the problem. Help!!!