Autumn-ized

Well, judging by the feel of the air (and the calendar) I would say that Fall is here!! Kyle and I spent the weekend doing minor house things, including decorating the house for the coming months.

Starting with the outside.....

This wreath was the product of several wreaths on Pinterest that inspired me.


I picked up a few things at Hobby Lobby, and sort of made it up as I went along.


As you might have guessed, the most time-consuming part was wrapping the styrofoam ring tightly with yarn. Talk about monotonous!


After that part was finished, I just arranged the silk leaves, pumpkin, and "Happy Harvest" as I wished and had a hot date with my glue gun.


I'm not in love with it, but it will do for now.

Inside, I brought out some decor I had from years past.


And this year, since we're in a house and might have more than 2 trick-or-treaters, the candy bowl is oh so important!


While I was grocery shopping on Friday, this "little" guy just jumped in my cart.


As luck would have it, I happen to like Reese's....a lot :) Kyle has been asking where our Halloween candy is....he should know better....if we had it, it would be gone (especially with over a month to go before Halloween). So a pumpkin Reese's is what he gets for now.

Also from last year, I had some random leaves. I pulled them out of the tote and thought, what on earth can I do with these? For some reason, the idea popped into my head to make them look like they were falling in this thing:


I was instantly in love with the way the light from behind shines through.

So I affixed them them some sticky tack.

Next up we have another Pinterest inspired piece. If you don't do Pinterest, you probably have one more hour in your day than I do, as I am constantly browsing this website. These three "pins" first caught my eye.



They made me want to fill some sort of glass container with decor that can be changed with the season. And did you see that last picture? Those balls are made from thumb tacks!!

I had to try.


All I needed was some styrofoam balls and thumb tacks, which are a dime a dozen (well, actually a dollar for 300 at the dollar store). The tutorial online said to spray paint them when finished, but I like them gold for now.

Each ball took me 30-45 minutes (one ball completed per each episode of Ellen watched on the DVR). I arranged the balls with some (fake) pears and wicker balls from Pier One, and I was set!


I wouldn't put it past myself to "thumb tack" decorate something else in the near future...a wreath? A Christmas tree? The sky (or the Dollar Store thumb tack inventory) is the limit. It was fun and gave me something mindless to do while watching TV :)

Last but not least, I had some pine cones (and a random acorn) from years ago that I knew needed a face lift. I like the look of pine cones as decoration, but I didn't like the way these were painted.


Blah. I've been reading on blogs and Pinterest (shocker) about the power of spray paint, so I decided it was worth a shot.

First I primed them with a primer had from the office chair project in order to make sure that the spray paint took evenly to the surface.


Then I went to town with the spray paint (and in turn had to crack the windows in the house over night, causing our indoor temp to drop to 60 degrees last night....BRRRRR)


Wasn't crazy about them just hanging out on the mantel, so I found a tall vase at Micheal's and I spiraled a fun Fall garland around them inside the vase.


And congratulations if you made it through this entire post, it was a doozy. In fact, I barely made it through. Happy Fall!

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things...

Pizza and tacos; such a wonderful combination. I've made taco pizza before, but for the first time I used actual bread dough (instead of a pre-made pizza crust). I found this bag of 3 whole wheat "loaves" in the freezer section.


All I had to do was thaw it in the fridge over night.


Next, I grabbed a pound of ground beef.


This grass fed variety our favorite kind. It's from a farm in Minnesota, but it's sold at the Super Targets here in Des Moines. It can be ordered online by clicking here!


While the beef was browning, I chopped up part of an onion....


....and added it to the ground beef, along with the taco seasoning and some water.

While letting the meat mixture simmer for a few minutes, I kneaded the dough into the best circle I could manage. This took some patience, as the dough kept wanting to shrink back into a ball instead of lay flat.


As a spur of the moment decision, I decided to add some refried beans to the pizza since I already had a can.

But only to may half, because Kyle doesn't like refried beans, or so he says :)


Next I sprinked the meat mixture over top.


And last but not least, the cheese! I used reduced fat shredded mexican cheese.


Then I popped it in the oven at 375 degrees for about 20ish minutes.


Meanwhile, I prepped some toppings.


We topped off our slices with some crumbles of Baked Doritos.

This dish will definitely make a re-occurance in our kitchen soon!

Shoe Solution

Kyle and I are both fairly neat and organized people. But I have to admit, we do have a problem with accumulating piles of shoes on the floor.


And while I have no problem with keeping those frequently worn work or work-out shoes easily accessible by the door, I prefer they at least be out of the way in some sort of organized fashion.

I began researching (online shopping) for a way to neatly house shoes. I decided to go with some sort of entryway bench. We do have a small entryway, but it's not wide enough to comfortably fit a bench. See?


Buuuut, I didn't let that get me down and I found another place that would work alright.

I searched and searched and searched online for entryway benches. Let me tell you there are A LOT out there in all price ranges. I came across this one on several websites:It was just the right size and made of wood that would match the other woods we have going on in the house. It also included the 3 baskets! Score!

I decided to order from Target.com, since we get a discount with with our Target card. It was originally $169.99. It was 15% off and free shipping. Plus we got 10% off with our AAA discount, and another 5% off for using our Target score, bringing it down to $135. Nice!!

It came in about 5 days and took me about 30 minutes to put together.


And now our shoes have a home :)

Laborous Labor Day

I decided to take full advantage of my 4 day weekend to get the master bedroom painted. Since I'm so in love with our new duvet from Pottery Barn and know it will be years upon years until I replace it, I decided to draw a color from the pattern.


I decided to go with the blueish, greening, greyish color that composes the background of the print since it would be calming and relaxing for a bedroom. Over the course of the past few weeks, I have been bringing home paint chips from various stores. I accumulated quite the collection.


Shockingly though, none of the paint chips was even close to matching. So I went back to Pottery Barn, bought a sham to match our duvet cover (to be returned later), took it to Lowes, and scanned the hundred of colors until I found this:

"Pine Needle" by Valspar. I picked it because it is too light, not too dark, not too green, and not too blue. And it looks pretty sharp up against the duvet cover. Do I think it looks like the color of pine needles? Not even close, but that's ok.

So the fun part was over, and it was time to get to work.

I had to bust out the ladder for this one, since this room has vaulted ceilings. I also had to get over my moderate fear of heights!!

Since nothing can ever just work out the way you want it to, I had to overcome one obstacle. The paint didn't get mixed up all the way at the store. After painting two walls, I noticed minor variations in color. I didn't think I could live with it, so I tried to stir the paint by hand as best I could, and repaint over what I had already done. This seemed to do the trick, but added frustration and time and the need for another gallon of paint, which I sent Kyle out to pick up.

I marched onward, and completed the rest of the room without needing to do a second coat (just some minor touch-ups to some parts that got missed with the roller). And I'm very pleased with the result (minus the obvious need for some serious wall decor above the headboard) .


Ahhhhh...tranquility....

Oh yeah, and we have blinds now..... The ability to sleep in past 6 am and change clothes outside of the closet returns :)

Behind the Scenes Sneak Peak