Cozying up the home just in time for Fall

Once September comes around, I begin to wonder how fast the year has gone by. 

Everything is slightly starting to change. The shorter evenings. The colder mornings. The different colors. Being from California I had never realized how a season change can be so noticeable. Or maybe it's my slowly drifting point in life from adolescence to adulthood. Regardless it is both beautiful and a bit overwhelming all at the same time. 

One of my best memories of childhood is decorating for the Holiday Season. My sisters and I would joke that mother's house was a boutique for Holiday decorations. She has the best knick-knacks and decorating ideas. Now that I am in my own (rather large) house, I've made it a point to make details important. Hubby enjoys coming home to a well groomed house and frankly so do I. So I've decided that decorating for the Fall Season will be my hobby for the next month or so. Not to mention it's almost inevitable to get into the decorating mood when all the stores are filled with wonderful decor items. And to make things worse, my obsession with Pinterest has me constantly searching for ideas and crafts. 

~~Follow my Fall Season Board on Pinterest~~

Rather than giving myself a headache trying to decorate all at once - in less than an hour - which is my usual style, I plan on taking it day by day. I've realized that crafting, organizing, decorating, etc. is much easier for me if I am calm and patiently wait for the perfect idea to come knockin' at the door. 

To begin, I've decorated my large buffet table. I have yet to repaint it, which I do plan on doing.. some day, however I think it works once nicely decorated with beautiful Fall Colors. Here's more on my buffet table.

My entryway, has also been nicely tackled with Fall Decor. Again extreme bargaining at its finest. 

The front door is also adorned with your typical Fall Wreath. I did however make this one myself - the cost was about $20, all supplies purchased at my local Michael's Store. Don't forget those coupons! 

Fall gardening is also a must. I absolutely love the colors of fall flowers, especially Mums. Not to mention how easy it is to keep these little beauties alive! 

Whatever may inspire you, I say go for it. There's a limitless amount of things that one can do to make our homes beautiful. 

Share some fall ideas with me! Follow my Fall Board on Pinterest and I'll follow your Fall Board back! 

Preparing your Garden for Fall

I must admit that I am a newbie at Gardening. But I think that I did a pretty good job for an amateur. It's not that I don't like gardening, but I've never really had the chance to build my own. Mother's garden is so beautiful, that I would really like mine to start to look that way too. 

Now that summer has passed, I have decided to liven up my garden with some fall favorites. MUMS. Everyone loves them, I hope, well at least I do. 

Living in Military housing I unfortunately do not have a huge amount of space to garden. I've turned to container gardening, which seems to be all the craze on Pinterest anyway. 

~~ Follow my Gardening Board on Pinterest! ~~

With a mixture of Pinterest-inspired and Creative Thinking, I came up with a couple containers myself. 

First Up: re-vamped old grille

Hubby had purchased this grille about 2 years ago (so it really wasn't that old) but it had quickly started to become wobbly and dirty. When he got his new grille he asked if he should just throw it away, selling it or giving it away would be a waste. It was on its way to the garbage, when I saw THIS BEAUTY on Pinterest and I was ecstatic. I painted it green and I immediately fell in love <3 

My first use of it was during the summer.

These little flowers have since passed on and now it is standing mighty and proud with beautiful yellow mums! 

I even added a couple solar lights to make it stand out at night. This little guy is still located off my porch, but I plan on moving it once I begin my porch decorations with pumpkins and such! 

When I decided to plant the Mums - the soil had been dried up and the roots remained from my summer flowers. I dug up as many of the dried roots and leaves and threw them away. The soil had bulged up so I took my hose and completely dampened the soil. I added fresh "potting mix" soil and began planting the mums. I planted them about 3 1/2"  away from the edge of my container so that the roots would still have room to spread. Once I had finished I again added water. One mistake I did throughout the summer was that I left the holes at the bottom of the grille completely open. That caused too much water drainage, which is why I think my flowers died so quickly. I closed the vent completely this time around and found that the water will still drain but not as much as before. Well there you have it, my beautiful mums.

Second-Up: scrap wood garden container

This was another project that had been sitting in the garage for days. Honey had come across some scrap wood that someone was giving away. He had no use for it, but I jokingly once told him he should make me a flower bed. And he finally did. It came out wonderful, the perfect size to sit right on my porch. It took him about 40 minutes to do. All it took was 4 pieces of scrap wood for the side, 3 for the bottom, and some screws. Luckily the bottom wood had a couple holes here and there which worked out perfectly for water drainage (otherwise I would have had him screw small holes).

For these guys I used "potting mix" soil as well. I left about 3" from the sides of the container for roots and about 1" from the top edge.

 Mother told me to pick the flowers with as many closed buds as possible, so that they would bloom at home. I in the past had picked those that were already in full bloom so that they would look pretty as soon as I planted them at home - again a rookie mistake. Live and learn, right? 

I'm pretty happy with my garden at the moment. Pretty subtle, but once pumpkin season rolls around I think they will complement each other nicely. 

Love my mason jars turned solar lights? Here ya go! 

Want to know what else I'm up to for Fall?

Visit my Holiday Crafts page.