Little Bits O' Fall

Just wanted to share a couple of pictures of the mantle, all dressed up for fall. The cake stand, pitcher, and trifle bowl were stuffed in a back cabinet in the kitchen. The fleur de lis, French books, coasters and stripey ribbon were in different places in the house. Most of my decorating comes from cannibalizing other arrangements in the house. Some people call it "shopping your house." I like the word cannibalizing. So that's what I call it.


In general, I'm not a fan of fake botanicals, but I have to make an exception for fall-colored leaves. I found these branches at Hobby Lobby (for half-off, of course), and I liked that they have sticks and acorns and little pinecones in them. I'm thinking that for Christmas I'll just pull the leaves and replace them with some red berries. And maybe I'll work in some sparkly, spangly sticks, too! Christmas is a great excuse to glitter-up the house.


And, if you're going to be making/decorating gift bags this Christmas, here's the easiest thing in the world to do to make a personalized bag. These are just plain kraft paper bags with scrapbooking paper cut out just smaller than the front, then inked around the edges and glued on. I cut green strips of paper and just stuck letter stickers on top. I used left-over letters, so I ran out of some of them. Instead of buying more letters (I'm totally cheap) I cut out the outline of where the letter used to be and stuck it on red paper, then cut it out. Insta-letters! (The J an S in Jason and the S and C in Jessica are done like this.) Before I glued the green name strips on the paper, I lightly traced where they would go, then stamped on the background paper so the stamped images would be peeking out from behind the strips. Super-easy, and I just used a few sheets of paper and left-over letter stickers.

Next up: we worked in Cam's room this weekend, so as soon as I get pictures up, I'll show off all the owls. Here's a sneak peek: