Autumn Candles

I think candles are so pretty, but I don't usually use them or decorate with them...so I decided to give it a try. I wanted more than just a candle sitting out on my table or shelf though, so I tweaked an idea I found in my "Simply Handmade" book. I bought three candles in a pretty autumn orange/brown and put them in my candlestick holders. I found an oval dish we received for our wedding that was the perfect size, put the candles in that and then filled the bowl around the candles with autumn candy (melocreme pumpkins, autumn colored M&M's, candy corn M&M's, regular candy corn and carmel candy corn). I love the way it looks...now if we can just stay out of the candy. 

(10/6/11  We couldn't stay out of the candy. The candy has been replaced with popcorn kernels and that looks really cool too). 

Autumn Necktie Garland

I got this idea from the book "Simply Handmade". I LOVE this book by the way, so many great ideas. 

I love how the garland turned out. It was so much fun picking the fabrics to go in the garland. The only part I didn't like...sewing on the pearl beads. So time consuming. 

Using a men's tie as a template, I cut out a bunch of shapes and sewed them all together to form the garland, then added the pearl bead to each point. Picking the fabric was a lot of fun. 

More Fall Decorations Done!

Slowly I'm getting my fall decorations made in between work, attempting to keep the house clean, helping Cameron collect plants for his Plant Taxonomy course, and general life. Last night I finished another small project that I've been working on. Check it out:

Looking at this photo makes me smile. I love this mirror, even though it's cracked in the corner. In fact, I love it because it is cracked. It was going in the trash at a furniture store because they couldn't sell it cracked so we brought it home and we love it.

Autumn Nature Decorations

I sat down yesterday to start making us some fall decorations since all we had was 6 small ears of dried corn. I finished the first 2 decorations on my list and I love how they turned out. I made a yucca ball and an acorn shell topiary. Check em' out!

To make these I bought two 4" styrofoam balls and painted them brown. While they were drying I went outside and gathered the empty acorn tops from the trees (since they were all that was left...those birds and deer cleaned out that tree of acorns) and picked the dried yucca pods off the poles. Then I just hot-glued the items to the styrofoam. The yucca one was originally supposed to be a topiary, but it was too heavy. I like the look of it just sitting there though. Now I have a few autumn decorations that match the land we live in. I love em. Can't wait to keep creating !

Framed Pressed Flowers

While reorganizing Cameron's study room, I decided I wanted to frame some plants to put on the wall. Cameron loves biology, especially plants and I felt that would make his study more personal to him and it would dress up the walls. I originally planned on framing dried leaves I had collected for him on my road trip last fall, but then I decided on the dried flowers. Now, dried flowers aren't normally seen as manly, but these flowers have special meaning to him. Cameron served a 2 year mission when he was 19 up in Seattle, WA and while he was there he would pick flowers and put them in his huge book that he carried around. These flowers remind him of Seattle and of his time there. I knew they would make him feel happy, so I framed them instead of the leaves. I got the 5x7 frames for $ .96 at WalMart, cut thick white paper for the background, and arranged the flowers before putting the glass back on. 

Extra Decor for Cameron's Study

To help make Cameron's study more manly, but to help add color and personality, I added a few small items during my revamp. 

The first was this sketch I did for Cameron when we were first married of the old windmill by his parents home. It's sitting on a multicolored slab of rock we found here by our current home. 

I also added a dry erase board with two little magnets. Cameron's often needing to keep track of small papers and notes so this gives him a place to do that. The magnets that came with the board had a shopping cart and a file folder on them, and I wanted something more manly. So I peeled the glass marble off the top, glued on small circles of naturey paper, then glued the magnet back on. 

The magnet on the left is a forest road, and the magnet on the right is rain in a puddle. 

Then so his cork boards weren't empty and to add color I tacked up a few of the dried leaves I picked up for him last year. 

The touches are simple, but they really helped to add character to the room. 

On Cameron's Shelves: Decorating with Old Books and Skulls

I knew when I was revamping Cameron's study room that I still wanted it to be his room. I wanted it to have his things and to reflect who he is. I wanted the room to be manly but organized and "pretty" (in a manly way of course). I decided to pull together a few key items to help decorate. Low key pictures (one of us of course, but we're being western outlaws, so it's not too lovey dovey, and then the other one is a post card his mom gave him), skulls, and old books. That sounds like a weird combination, but I think it works well and it looks great. And more important, Cameron loves these items and he loves to have them displayed. 

Cameron wants to have a skull collection. So far he has 3 skulls, and a tin full of javelina teeth (you can often find our little car pulled over on the side of the road while Cameron extracts the teeth from roadkill). 

Cameron also really loves books. Especially old books. One of the Astronomy books is dated 1911, and the other does not have a date. The tall brown book is "The Works of Lord Byron; Vol. II" dated 1819. This book is almost 200 years old! And it was printed in London during Byron's life. The cover is in kinda rough shape, but we still think it's beautiful. 

 Look at that leatherwork on the spine!

Revamping Cameron's Study

When we moved into our house, we designated a room as Cameron's study room. It had all our sciencey stuff, and his project stuff, and a folding card table as his desk. The space was not very well organized, it was crowded, and Cameron hated working at the card table. So the room rarely got used because it wasn't very usable. It is long and skinny, making it a little hard to make the space work. I decided to surprise Cameron and to make his study usable. Here's how it looked before (I don't have panorama software, so you get the broken panorama). 

Click to enlarge

View from the door, looking straight in. 

View from the door looking to the back corner. 

The awkward shelf arrangement. 

Shelves and couches/chairs crowding the space, leaving big blank walls. You can also kinda get a feel for how cramped it was in this picture. 

 Stuff piled on the back table, and the closet space poorly organized. 

And here's how it turned out:

Book shelves stacked to provide more floor room and to take up blank wall. The small couch moved off the wall, and replaced with a desk ($10 from Walmart...it's not what we want in there ideally, but for now it works great and the price was right). The bookshelf is close enough for him to reach sitting at the desk, with the shelf for school stuff being at the right height. We had an extra lamp that was just sitting in the house taking up space, so I put it behind the angled bookshelves to provide "accent" lighting and an addition source of light when Cameron needs it. 

The small couch (a hide-a-bed, so it's worth keeping for when we have guests, even though it's less than beautiful-I need to make a slip cover for it) was moved to the front corner, clearing up a lot of room. 

This angle looks so much better with the curtains open, but that is a fear that has stuck with me since my childhood. I can't hardly stand windows at night. They creep me out. 

 Cameron's desk space has a lamp, 2 cork boards, a pencil holder with drawers for push pins, paper clips, and large paper clamps. The blue organizer to the left of the desk has extra loose leaf paper, his maps, compartments for his small findings (acorns, bottle-caps, bolts, etc.) and an empty drawer for him to use for whatever he needs/wants. To the right of the desk is a Parson's table with a picture I drew for him a few years ago of the old windmill by his parents' house. It's sitting on a slab of rock he picked up around our current house. We have a cool old brass kaleidoscopic that will go on that table when it is repaired. Above the table on the wall is a skinny dry erase board and a canvas bag with pockets and hooks for paper work and other odds and ends. On the wall above the desk I framed the pressed/dried flowers Cameron had saved from his church mission to Seattle. 

We're both excited with how the room turned out. Cameron's excited to start studying in there now that the space is usable and easy to concentrate in. 

His and Hers Aprons || Wedding Gift

These are the aprons I made for my friends wedding. I had a lot of fun with these. They don't match per se, but I felt they fit the personalities of the two of them. Mal needed vintagey with some pink, and Mitch needed manly....without pink. My husband and I went through all our cookbooks and recipes, pulled out our favorites and put together a personalized cookbook for the bride and groom. We put tips, tricks and our running commentary on the recipes, scaled them down for 2 people, and printed it off. We sure enjoyed putting this all together. 

Manly Apron

My friend Mallory got married and, as you can see in yesterday's post, I decided to make them aprons and a cookbook. While Mallory's apron was vintage and very feminine, I wanted Mitch's to be manly. I had made Cameron an apron like this one and decided that this is what Mitch needed too. I bought the pre-made apron and just stitched the wording onto it.