Colors of Fall

This last week it was such a wonderful treat here in Oregon...there was NO rain...it was clear and crisp. Jilian and I went for a walk around the neighborhood in search of fall things. The colors were amazing!

Oh, how I love Halloween!

Just for fun I'm linking up to:

Fall is here...

Although I am sad to see the Summer go (WAY TOO FAST!) this cooler weather has gotten me feeling warm, cozy and crafty! This weekend I made a new wreath for our front door. I just love how it turned out!


To make this wreath you need the following:

*One 10" foam wreath
*Brown felt (about 3 sheets of 9" x 12")
*Glue gun
*Glue Dots
*Fall colored card stock and coordinating pattern paper (I used Jillibean Soup's new Fall line)
*Small and large buttons that coordinate with paper (my large buttons are from Stampin' Up)
*Ribbon that also coordinates with paper
*Scallop Punch (my favorite is from Stampin' Up)
*Scissors
*Stapler

To assemble the wreath do the following:

Cut approximately 7 strips of felt, 1.5" x 12" and wrap the foam wreath. Place a thin line of hot glue at the end of the felt to hold it in place. After the first piece of felt, add the next where the first left off and so on until the whole wreath is covered. Set the wreath aside.

To make the "flowers" cut three pieces of pattern paper, 3" x 9". Score each piece every inch or so (you can skip the scoring but it makes it much easier to fold the paper). Next fold each piece like an accordion. Staple in the center of the folded piece. Using your scissors cut off the ends of the folded paper, at an angle (see picture), now each end will be pointy, not straight. Next fan out the folded paper and use glue dots to hold in place.

Using a scallop punch, punch out three scallop circles from the pattern paper and glue a button in the center, using a glue dot. Next hot glue the scallops to the center of each of the paper "flowers".

Cut out six leaves, any leaf shape you like. I folded and or scored some of the paper before cutting out the leaves for added textured. Add a couple small buttons to the leaves.

Take your leaves and finished paper "flowers" and decide where you would like them on your wreath. Once you have decided, hot glue them to the wreath.

Lastly, take a piece of ribbon, loop it through the wreath at the top and hang where ever you like.

Enjoy! Let me know if you have any questions.

Just a couple more pictures of the finished wreath...



HAPPY Fall! :-)

Just for fun I'll be sharing at:

Apple Pie Kit

A friend of ours gave us some apples, a big bag of tart green apples, perfect for apple pie. I used some in baked oatmeal but there were too many to eat all at once. I decided to try out a trick another friend told me about, apple pie kits to go in the freezer. I prepared the apples as I normally would for an apple pie but instead of baking them right away I put the pie filling into freezer bags. I now have two apple pie kits in my freezer, ready to go. I just have to thaw, put into a crust and bake.


I'm lazy and don't peel my apples when I bake a pie! I slice and core them. This time I decided to chop the apples into smaller pieces.


I don't use a recipe when making pies, I just do everything to taste. In this case add enough sugar and cinnamon to sweeten the apples and a little flour to thicken the juices.


Place each bowl full (about 2.5 to 3.5 apples) into a freezer bag until you are ready to use. Thaw, place in pie crust and bake.

Happy Fall!

I'm still in shock that Summer is over! We had a very, very short Summer here in Oregon. Typically we have at least two months of beautiful, warm weather, even hitting three digits but not this year. A very mild, cool Summer. Needless to say I am a little sad to say goodbye to the sun! But I sure do LOVE the Fall! It is a beautiful time of year and the festivities are lots of fun. Surprisingly I managed to getting some Fall decorating done today (in between requests from Jilian, of course!). I thought I would share what I did. Still need to get the front door/porch area done. I always struggle with that!

Happy Fall! Enjoy!

Apple Picking

Grace has been talking about going apple picking so when she didn't have school last Friday, I found an apple orchard and we went a-picking! It was A LOT of fun! It was great to be outside, enjoy the Fall smells and colors and play with my girls. The best part of it was we were the only ones in the whole orchard (other than the sweet farmer that would check on us from time to time, he even took Grace for a ride on his 4-wheeler and let her cut a pumpkin from the vine). I highly recommend you visit Beilke Family Farm, it is only $8 for a 5 gallon bucket of apples.













After apple picking we drove around a little (we were in a part of Oregon we had never seen) and came across a cute country store stocked with lots of vegetables AND freshly made DONUTS. We skipped the vegetables and took home a bag of fresh pumpkin donuts, YUM!

Fir Point Farms

Yesterday Jilian and I went on our first MOPPETS outing to Fir Point Farms. We enjoyed visiting with our friends, playing in the hay maze, pumpkin patch and eating yummy fresh made donuts!