Autumn at the Dallas Arboretum

Are you ready for some eye candy?  Friday I had a fun work meeting.  The location was the Dallas Arboretum (poor me).    While there I got a behind the scenes tour  and a look at the incredible Autumn display and the new Children's Adventure Garden!  I have been to the Arboretum many times but never during the fall so this was a special treat for me.

The Autumn display has more than 50,000 pumpkins, gourds and squash!  It runs through November 27.  You can visit the Dallas Arboretum website for more information. 

Here are a few pictures I took with my phone (they don't do the place justice, but you'll get the idea).

Isn't that incredible!  I'll share pictures of the Children's Adventure Garden in the next few days.  Hope you are having a great Monday!

Fun Mail

As I mentioned I am participating in several sewing swaps.  Yesterday I came home to a wonderful package from Marysville Tennessee.

This is what I got....

It's a set of four coasters, an acorn stamp, a little canvas bag that was stamped, a hand woven fabric bowl and some buttons.  I love the fabrics Lora used.  I am looking forward to buying an African Violet to put in the woven fabric bowl and using the coasters.  Thank you Lora! 

Autumn Backyard

Our lawn is looking a little better now that the temperatures have stopped being in the 100's for a few weeks. We are getting ready for our annual Halloween Party in a few days, here's a quick snapshot of our backyard.
Hope you are having a great autumn day!

Fall Gardening

Our yard is in deep recovery mode from the summer heat and drought. I am focusing on keeping what I have left alive and adding a few containers for color. Trying to use what I learned at the Green Seminar on Fall Gardening I attended last week.
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Planted all these pots myself.... Coleus in the back, orange celosia and red zinnias.. (probably too much for one pot)... we'll see in a few weeks how crowded this gets.

This is another coleus variety, I love the colors in this plant, the green and purple are so bright!

And last but not least, a Yellow chrysanthemum.

I really wanted to plant more but we are in a drought and are under Stage 2 water restrictions for our area. I don't want to go overboard with a bunch of plants that I should not be watering especially if we evolve to stage 3 water restrictions. Thanks for stopping by!

Halloween Witch Dish Towel #2

Here's another witch towel I embroidered. The first one is posted here. These are so fun and easy to do, I have enjoyed making every single one!
Linking to Made by You Mondays at Skip to My Lou.

Backyard Evolution Continues...

As I have mentioned before, our back yard is a work in progress. The latest thing we added was some wood posts and hanging baskets. I saw something similar in a magazine and decided to adapt it to our back yard.

We started with two 4x4x12 foot cedar posts. My husband dug a 2 foot hole into the ground and set the posts in 140 lbs. of concrete. We used bricks to hold the posts in place while the concrete set.

After the posts were set in the concrete, we stained them with the same stain we used on the fence. I then purchased some wrought iron hooks to hang plants from. Troy drilled holes and hung the hooks. Next was the hunt for hanging baskets. I went to several nurseries looking for premade baskets but did not like any because they were in those plastic pots with plastic hangers- yuk! For a couple of weeks, we just had a lonely pumpkin chime hanging on one of the hooks.

So I had to go the long route to get the hanging baskets. I purchased empty wrought iron baskets with coco fiber liners and a bunch of plants and put the baskets together myself. I kept reminding myself about what I learned at a container garden seminar... gotta have three types of plant in a container: tall plant to "thrill", another plant to "fill" and a third plant to "spill". Because the pots were only 12 inches, I went with good ole marigolds to "thrill" and and pansies in different colors to "spill".

The baskets have been hanging ten days and seem to be thriving in our beautiful autumn weather. I hope this inspires you to dig a hole, plant a post, drill in some hooks and hang a beautiful basket, thanks for stopping by.

Linking to:

Metamorphisis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch

Mother & Daughter Halloween Party

During my single days I used to host a Halloween Party for girlfriends. After I got married and had a baby it was difficult to continue the tradition. After much thought and consideration (plus some encouragement from my friend Virginia) we decided to bring the tradition back with a twist by making make it a Mother Daughter Party. Here are some of the highlights!

The backyard was somewhat decorated already. The morning of the party we added tables and chairs to the back yard. Here's what it looked like before everyone arrived


Here's what it looked like as everyone was arriving. Needless to say the weather was picture perfect and everyone enjoyed the back yard. I found out 35 people very comfortable fit in our back yard.
Here's a picture of a grandma witch and aunt witch.

Here's a picture of more cute mothers and daughters.

Some of my girlfriends brought treats to share... My friend Jennifer made these super cute monster squares, the cake part was pumpkin and chocolate chips, they were really yummy.

These are some of the treats on the kitchen bar. I forgot to take a picture of the food table!

Here is the picture of the super gorgeous cake my friend & co host Virginia purchased. It was giant, we could have fed another 35 people. She ordered it from The Cake Stand in historical downtown McKinney, it was incredibley delicious.

Here's a cute picture of a few of the girls having a good time on the swing set!

All in all the party was a huge success, could those little girls look any happier? We definitely will have another party next year! Thanks for stopping by. I hope you have a wonderful Halloween!

Phase II Fall Decorating

Once mid October comes around, I start putting out the Halloween decoratings. I am especially fond of cute witches. With a Mother & Daughter Halloween Party around the corner here's some snapshots...

Move over birdies, the bird bath is going to be a pedestal for a pumpkin.

Garden Witch keeping Croton company...

I hung my garden flags on the fence...

Another Croton in the front porch.

I love fun wood signs...

I'll keep adding pictures, thanks for stopping by.

Phase I Fall Decorating

I decorate for Fall in phases. Phase I starts right after September 16 (Mexican Independence Day)and is just the regular fall stuff..

Here are pictures of a few things....

New plants by the front door... Celosias and Marigolds. Never had Celosias before so we'll see how they do. I could not resist the bright orange color. Thought the frog was cute at Ross and just had to have it. My favorite Aunt on my Mom's side of the family always likes frog things so it's a cute reminder of her. The other pot... Owls on this side. The big one was from my MIL, thought he needed company so got the little one, reminds me of my Aunt Bettye who collects owls...

Fall leaf wreath for the door...

This guy has been hanging out on my porch for the last ten or so autumns, need to figure out what his name is... I've had him longer than I have known my husband!

First new mum...

Have been wanting a monogram door mat for a long time but it's hard to find a good legible F. Finally saw this one at Kirklands and had to have it!

Then I saw Fall Monogram F Flag and of course had to have it too...

Still have some spring and summer zinnias that look good so stuck the pumpkin in the middle of them...

Front flower bed...

Ok Autumn temperatures, Hurry Up and Get HERE!

Mister Turkey

Here's a the swap I made for my upline's group meeting tonight.

Punches Used: Wide Oval, Scallopped Oval, Large Oval, Small Oval, 1" cirlce, Scallopped Circle.

Card stock colors: Chocolate Chip, Ruby Red, More Mustal, Pumpkin Pie.

Original idea was from Rebecca Williams, posted here. Thanks for stopping by....

Owls & Matching Kitchen Linens

My MIL has collected owls for a long time and last month sometime I was at Target and saw these cute fall themed kitchen towels and pot holders. I immediately thought of her and picked them up to send in a care package from Micaela.

Then a few weeks ago I was checking out Dawn's blog and saw this cute owl card made out of punches! Ta-Da! I knew what I had to do.

Here's the card I came up with to send with the kitchen linens. I tried to match the colors and patterns, notice the Aida Cloth background on the Old Olive circle (just like the towel) and I added an additional circle punch on the owl's belly to match the pot holder.
I generated the sentiment on the computer and did layers on the inside. This was a really fun card to make. I am not sure who came up with the owl originaly but I applaud them for having a brain that puts random shapes together to make totally cute things. Dawn has a video tutorial on how to make the owl, you can access it by clicking HERE.

This Friday was my in-law's 49th Wedding Anniversary, I hope they enjoy receiving the card & tiny gift. Thanks for stopping by.

Creative Pumpkin Ideas

I love subscribing to the Better Homes & Gardens "100 days of Holidays" email newsletter. Their emails are loaded with terrific decorating ideas and recipes. One of their recent emails was on decorating pumpkins. I love the idea of painting pumpkins because several years ago I cut myself carving a pumpkin. Here's one of my favorites. You can check out a slide show by clicking here.

Pumpkin Patch

This past weekend we took Micaela to one of the local pumpkin patches we've been visiting the last four Octobers. Micaela was six months old the first time we went. I have about 30 favorite shots but this is probably one of my favorites. We've been taking a picture of her in this pot every year. This year she looked at us kinda funny when we told her to get in (obvious smirk on her face) I am not sure if she'll fit next year. And, I have to tell a story about the sweater she is wearing, I actually bought that when she was six months old and I've been holding on to it for the last 3 years! I am so glad that this year was THE year she finally fit into it!

It's Autumn...

I love this time of the year. Here are two of the cards my ladies made this week at Stamp Club.

This is a simple card I made using one of my all time favorite stamp from the "All Holidays" Stamp Set. I stamped in Chocolate Chip craft ink and embossed with clear powder. The background on the Chocolate Chip is the Paisley background stamp (choc chip classic ink). I used an ancient Paper Shapers punch to punch out a maple leaf in the corner (I've probably had that punch for 12+ years, I can remember using is as far back as 1997! The ribbon (which I love) is from JoAnn's. The More Mustard circle is designer paper from the Juntos collection in the Spanish Stampin' Up! catalaog. I used the Nestabilities dies for the scalloped and plain circles.

Second card is also simple. I stamped the "Stitched" background on the Really Rust card stock and the sentiment from the Best Yet stamp set in Chocolate Chip craft ink and embossed with clear embossing powder. The scallopped and plain circles are also done with the Nestabilities dies. The leaft was done using a Cuttlebug die and matching embossing folder-- I just love that leaf!

Thanks for visiting!