My Autumn Home Tour: 2014

So many bloggers are showing off their pretty homes adorned with the colors and textures of Autumn. Taking a look in another crafter's home is so inspiring. In that light I hope you'll be inspired by something I've done with our home for this most lovely of seasons.

Please come in, take a look at my vision of autumn and the season of gratitude.

The living room fireplace and mantel:

The mantel:

 Fall chipboard screen lined with vellum and illuminated with flameless candles (behind the screen).

Crafted with Silhouette Cameo, design file # 46939 by Megan Hardy Designs.

Happy Thanksgiving placard, Silhouette Design ID#65238 by Echo Park.

 Detail:

Autumn Shelf Art: various Silhouette files and stash paper and fibers.

Rafia wreath with cascading leafs and felt pennant bunting,

hanging indoors on the Summer Deck French Door.

Detail:

Autumnal centerpiece, with potpourri and holiday baubles atop the piano.

  

Reflections of autumn in the piano top.

 

Textured everlasting sunflowers.

Thank you for joining me here.

I wish you and yours a blessed Thanksgiving.

Kaye

The Great Turkey Invasion of 2014

It is officially Thanksgiving Week at our House:
The Turkeys Have Arrived!

In a Thanksgiving world full of chalkboard pumpkins, burlap napkin rings, and spiced pumpkin latte served from the bespoke beverage bar, the least urbane thing one could chose to adorn the banquet hall must most certainly be the honeycomb turkey. Long considered the silly (okay, tacky) table decoration of tasteless drug store shoppers, few bloggers and stylists are willing to let this crinkly-tissue bird of Thanksgiving past roost upon the table.

Call me tasteless. Call me tacky.

I love my honeycomb turkeys and I'm not ashamed to shout it to the world!

If my memory is correct these honeycomb turkeys are the first thing I ever purchased online from, of course, eBay! My flock of six beautiful birds has held a place of pride on my Thanksgiving table now for 18 years. I love pulling them from the storage bin, unfolding the tissue as the sound of crisp crinkling paper heralds their arrival and the advent of my most favorite holiday ever: Thanksgiving!

 The paper tabs that once secured the birds in open stance have long been broken, so I secure their full bloom with paperclips hidden in the folds. Look fast, they are only here for a week or maybe two. That makes their appearance ever so much sweeter.

Nostalgia at its finest: the Honeycomb Turkey.

It's hard to imagine why these honeycomb tissue birds are sadly extinct.

 

The Details: Autumnal Pumpkin Pennant Pillow

Last week I showed you my Fun and Festive Autumnal throw pillow cover on this post:

 Pillow Cover.

 Here is another look at the 16x16-inch pillow cover:

The Details:
The felt applique is attached to a homemade denim pillow cover with an envelope closure in the back. I didn't even add buttons for the closure, just your basic envelope closure. I keep a modest inventory of felt on hand for those felt craft emergencies. Actually, I believe one can never have too much felt! I love the texture and how it lends itself to so many crafts be it sewing, gluing, cutting, and/or pinning.

My felt comes from Commonwealth Felt, a division of National Nonwovens. The felt is superior quality, made in the U.S.A., customer service is terrific and shipping is crazy fast.

Check them out online:

www.commonwealthfelt.com

It may seem fastidious, but I developed an organizational system for my felt so I can easily create a color palette for a project, reorder a beloved color, and keep track of my inventory. Check out the 4x6" file cards with the product label and fabric swatch:

 On some swatches I've matched DMC embroidery thread to the felt, this also lends ease in planning a project.  On this particular project I used 12 different colors, some came from the scrap pile and with this system I was able to identify the felt type, color name, and product number. This would be most useful if additional material was needed to complete a project.

The pumpkin is done in FiestaFelt (100% acrylic) named "Orange" (I know - obviously right?!), with Loden Green FiestaFelt for the vine and Copper Canyon FiestaFelt for the stem. The background is Mellow Yellow in a 35%-Wool-65%-Rayon blend. I love this color and texture.

I used the same colors on all my autumnal felt adornments used throughout the kitchen-dining-living rooms to lend a cohesive theme throughout.

It would seem KeepHer Kitty approves as she enjoys the

Autumnal Pumpkin Pennant Pillow in her favorite chair!

Autumnal Pillow Cover

This is a quick and easy throw pillow cover to compliment my autumnal decor. I carried on the felt pennant bunting theme with two streamers waving above the freshly harvested pumpkin. I blanket-stitched the 12x12-inch golden felt background to a pillow slip made of denim.  The small touches like this fall inspired throw pillow add cohesiveness as seasonal decor mixes with everyday furnishings.

And it just makes me happy. Who can argue against that?

Throwback Thursday: KeepHer's First Pumpkin

KHK: October 2007

At just over a year old in October 2007 KeepHerKitty was still infinitely curious about everything. Sadly, that interest has waned in favor of longer naps and the pursuit of feline human manipulation. (Yes, I'm her servant girl! And she is an Oscar winning manipulator. Cat people will understand this.)

Here she inspects her very first Halloween Pumpkin, to her it must have seemed to be just a big round catbird seat. Seven years later her calico markings are as sharp as ever and her white fur sparkles.

 

 

 

Tomorrow we shall decorate her 2014 Halloween pumpkin! 

This is the gourd in waiting.

 

 

  Last year we glittered her mini-pumpkin.

She was disappointed it was too small to be used for a roost.

 I'm going to suggest to her  we decorate with clever Silhouette cuts adhered with school glue for this year's original object d'art.

I'm concerned she may not let me get away with something simple.

Watch for the update tomorrow!

See more of our Halloween 2013 Here.

Happy Halloween-Eve Everyone!

Baking: Pumpkin Choco Cake Cookies

Better than the bakery!

I do not bake sweets very often, not since I had weight loss surgery in 1999 and  learned the fundamental facts of weight management  require a conservative intake of sweets. It seems cruel irony that I am actually a gifted baker, a baker who happens to have a metabolic disorder that leads to weight gain when I don't carefully manage my dietary intake. Sigh.

But now and again I get out the big pottery bowl and wooden stir spoons to make a special treat for the folks at my table. My husband is smitten with the ever-so-popular bakery pumpkin cake cookies. In our area a box of eight cookies goes for $5.99 or .75 cents a cookie. That adds up if you have many cookie monsters dipping into the cookie jar!

After exhaustive, and truly tantilizing research on the World Wide Web, followed by some trial and error, I've managed to duplicate those tasty bakery treats for a fraction of the cost. In addition, I've lowered the fat and downsized the cookie to a more health-appropriate portion. Economically these better-than-the-bakery treats cost just .30/per cookie! What's not to love?

Here's the recipe for my Pumpkin-Choco Cake Cookies! Take it, modify it, make it your own and enjoy a nice soft cookie with some piping hot coffee! Makes 3 dozen cookies.

Ingredients:
1 (15.25-ounce) yellow cake mix
1 (15.25-ounce) spice cake mix
1 Tablespoon pumpkin pie spice

1/4 cup butter, softened (or light cooking oil such as canola oil)
1 (29-ounce) can pure pumpkin puree
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 package semi-sweet mini chocolate morsels

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F and place rack in middle position.

 

In a large mixing bowl whisk together the yellow and spice cake mixes (dry) and the pumpkin pie spice. Set aside. In a smaller bowl melt butter, add pumpkin puree and eggs, whisk until blended. Add pumpkin mixture to dry mixture and stir gently until well blended. Do not over-mix. Add semi-sweet chocolate morsels, adjusting amount to taste. (I use 1/2 package). The consistency of the cookie mix will be somewhere between batter and cookie dough, more like muffin batter.

On a parchment lined baking sheet drop cookie dough-batter by the tablespoon 2-inches apart. Bake in preheated oven 12 to 14 minutes removing when cookies are baked, before bottom is overly browned. Allow to rest on tray 1-2 minutes, then remove cookies to a wire baking rack to cool. If you like place a small dollop of ready-to-use vanilla icing on each cookie and spread thinly as it melts. Serve warm. I'm not sure how long these cookies stay fresh in the cookie jar, at our house they are never around long enough for them to turn stale!  

Cake cookies are a good choice for occasional bakers who don't keep a well-stocked baking pantry (ingredients like flour, sugar, leavening agents, etc.) I'd love to hear how you use mixes as an ingredient to your homemade treats! This recipe could be adapted, quite successfully, to use applesauce in place of the pumpkin puree. I just may have to try it with a jar of my Slow Cooker Caramel Applesauce.

Today Inspired: Reflections of Gratitude

The orchard in autumn. I have a pair of these vintage wine jugs, one sitting on each post of the orchard gate, reflecting the changing seasons.

Autumn Decor: Wall Wreath & Centerpiece

Confession: I'm not the most thrifty crafter and generally I buy new materials for each new project. I don't know if it is a lack of vision for repurposing or a fear of loss that comes from disassembling something old to make something new. But I wish to become more resourceful in my crafting, using what I have in newly imagined ways. That thinking is not only on trend, it is economical of wallet and resources.

So I was particularly proud of myself in making these two autumnal arrangements using last year's decorating materials in a new way.

The centerpiece is made of leaf stems pulled from a grapevine wreath and faux grapes from a bowl arrangement that no longer suited my taste. I added the raffia, bell pods, faux fruit, and yellow meadow larks from my new supplies this year. The tin tray is left-over from summer. It was a bubble gum pink, quite unsuitable to fall colors. I used Rust-Oleum Hammered spray paint in copper to give it a new look. The burlap liners are from an authentic coffee bean bag that I used for a western theme party several years ago. I like the fringed edges that lend rustic appeal to the arrangement.

This wall wreath is a take on the popular empty frame embellished for the season. Using the same Rust-Oleum spray paint I colored the frame copper. Then I affixed faux silk leaves to strands of raffia, tied together and fastened to the top of the frame. I added the burlap bow secured with floral wire and a short strand of the felt bunting I've used throughout my fall decorations. This hangs on the wall opposite the dining table so to compliment the centerpiece. 

This repurposing: It may become my new great thing! What do you think?

Autumn Roses in Burnt Orange Silk

This is a quick craft, an hour or less from start to finish.  I used faux "silk" roses from the dollar $tore to cover an 8-inch Styrofoam ball, except for the bottom that I pushed flat against the table to allow it to rest evenly without a vase or structural support.  I used wire cutters to trim the stems to about 1.5-inches.  Then poked a lead hole in the Styrofoam with a bamboo skewer,  applied Elemer's school glue to the hole and inserted the bloom. Simple as that. I placed it on the top shelf of my crystal curio where it is illuminated and reflected in the back mirror.  A complimentary felt bunting trims the opening,  as seen in the reflection. 

And the autumnal decorating continues.  How Fun!

Celebrating Autumn: Leaves, bunting, and wool

Fall decorating is therapy as Mother Earth tucks in for a long winter sleep.

 

 

Oh how I love autumnal color.

The rich russet, yellow, and gold of the season compliments muted moss green and woodsy brown punctuating the iconic change of seasons. At our high altitude (7000 ft. above sea level) the autumn is fleeting, just a week and maybe two, of gold tinged leaves before the wind blows them asunder obliging winter's threatening arrival. How sad the bare trees of autumn make me feel.

Above is an image I captured last week in the Bridger National Forest where the quakin' aspen trees intermingle with the lodgepole and ponderosa pines. Fall comes early in these mountains and this view shall be blanketed in snow before the next full moon. For now the forest prepares for rest, for winter's long sleep. What better way to nod off than painted in spectacular color, a triumph of a season well lived.

The fall spectacle that  nature gives freely only to take so heartlessly is breathtaking and too short lived. Like so many home decor crafters I try in a small way to halt the fleeting season, to stall it, and savor it for just another day with my indoor displays. Silky faux leaves, mini-pumpkins and gourds, twigs and wreaths and branches entwined all serve the season well when arranged in artful displays festooning the autumnal home. Candles (flame or flameless) lend a warming glow. Woolen fibers in plaid and felt evoke a cuddle-me-softly comfort for which the season yearns. Warm embers in the fireplace and tea in the kettle invite lingering, conversation, quiet reflection, and pause. Perhaps autumn is Nature's call for time out: I am listening respectfully.

I have freshened my traditional autumnal decor this year with festive felt buntings in rich colors of warm wool. The raffia wreath on the summer deck door is strung with two pennant swags and tied with lavender and natural raffia. This is the first year I've used lavender in my autumnal color palette and I think it a fresh and complimentary addition. Above, the 4-inch embroidery hoops are stretched with mustard color wool felt, tied with lavender raffia and trimmed with wool pennants. They shall be hung from burlap ribbons adorning the antique hutch in the dining room.

And so the autumnal decorating has begun!

It's Apple Harvest Season!

At left, honey crisp apples in my orchard in fall 2013. They were caught in an early season snow late September last year which is not entirely unexpected in our climate. Still they were delicious and beautiful.

Apples are an excellent selection for weight loss surgery patients because they rank medium on the glycemic index therefore impacting our blood sugar only slightly. In addition apples are fat-free and a good source of dietary fiber, pectin, potassium, and Vitamins A and C. Apples are a healthy choice at any time of year, at any time of day.

"An apple a day" may keep more than the doctor away. In fact, apples may keep a whole host of illnesses away, from heart disease and asthma to cancer. New research has shown a wide range of apple health benefits. Apple pie hasn't been declared a health food just yet, but nutrition researchers around the world are discovering there is more to the apple than meets the eye. Long known to be a great source of fiber, apples are now poised to take their place among such super foods as garlic, broccoli and red wine, thanks to a growing body of research documenting potential health benefits provided by other apple nutrients.

Find and Apple Orchard Near You

To learn more about apples go to All About Apples. There you will find a national orchard listing with many links to orchards in your area that host festivals and pick your own events.

United States Orchards Directory

Paper Crafting: Autumnal Shadow Box

Paper Crafting using my favorite: Silhouette Cameo Starter Kit Bundle

I think I'm hooked on making shadow box collages. This is my latest creation for autumnal display in the kitchen. KeepHer loves her catnaps best when she finds that perfect spot of sunshine, and here she is with her own little calico rug. The foil cardstock adds opulent elegance and lends the rich feel of autumn.  I browsed my Silhouette library and the online store to get a general idea of the cuts and layout and scribbled a rough draft. From there I let it evolve as I made the cuts and played with the paper. The swirl in the upper box is the cut from the cat's body - it was a lucky scrap that fit just right in the upper section. I still need to perfect my skill in making the box itself and look forward to the practice.

Happy Autumn Everyone!

I highly recommend Lori Whitlock's files and website tutorials. She is a talented designer and an inspired instructor. This is the description on the SVG file for the 3D three-spot shadow box in the Silhouette Online Store:

File ID#30613:  11.3x5.8 shadow box 3 equal openings by Lori Whitlock

"Are you ready for a simply adorable 3D project?? With this file you can create a 3D shadow box. This project will take 3.5 sheets of 12x12 cardstock and the final shadow box measures 11.3x5.8. This project CAN be scaled down to fit 8.5x11 cardstock. Embellish the shadow box as desired. Look for more of Lori's 3d Shadow Boxes in her portfolio. You will want to watch one of Lori's Shadow Box Tutorial that you can find at www.loriwhitlock.com (click on her YouTube channel). Enjoy!"

Materials:

• Black cardstock 12x12-inch
• Colored cardstock from the scrap file
• Foil Cardstock by DCWV 6x6 Stack
• Martha Stewart All Purpose Glue
• Wool yarn in calico

Tools:

• Silhouette Cameo Electronic Cutting Machine
Silhouette Cameo Starter Kit Bundle
• Silhouette Cameo cutting mat, blade, scraper, pick-up tool, and spatula
• bone folder

SVG Files purchased from the Silhouette Online Store:

• Life is Good: Design ID#45061  by Sophie Gallo
• Sleeping Cat: Design ID#64503 by Rivka Wilkins
• Love the Fall: Design ID#49550 by Echo Park
• Sunshine: Design ID#18853 by Echo Park
• 3D Apples: A Snapdragon Snippet Design
• Miscellaneous cuts including leaves, 3D flowers, butterflies