More Fall Decorating

Happy Friday! Tomorrow is October 1st and begins 31 days to green living. Will you be joining me? I am so excited about providing this series; I have been working hard on my posts, I hope they will help you.   I wish a greener and healthier life for all of you. :)

One last post on my fall decorating...here are some of the last touches to decorate for my favorite season!

Also, I have just updated the categories at the top of the page with past posts to find relevant info for a topic you are interested in.

Have a great weekend!

Fall Mantel 2011

Have you started decorating for fall? I just started last week and wanted to begin the tour with our fall mantel. I have a few other fall decorating touches I will share with you in another post.

I am loving the contrast of the rich fall colors with the sparkle of the mercury glass vases candlesticks(whew, I clearly was tired). I usually have a wreath hanging over my mirror, but somehow-it seemed too much with the garland this year. It took me a few days to adjust to the “sparseness”, but I think I am kinda liking that…for now.

and what I love the most about my fall mantel is in the evening…the warmth of the glow the little faceted lights give off

What do you think?  Do you change it up from year to year?

Also linked up to:

Hooked on Houses Fall Decorating Party

31 days to green living

I am so excited to share that I will be joining the Nester’s 31 days of change!

 

I am so passionate about making green choices part of everyday living that I want to help you do the same. They don’t have to be complicated, just little changes can make a HUGE difference. One of the main reasons why I became a Shaklee distributor was to help people become greener and healthier everyday with their amazing products!

So, everyday in October I will be posting a tip on how to live green. Even if you are able to incorporate just a few of these tips, you, your family and the planet will be so much better for it!

I so excited for you to join me everyday in October! Please grab a button for your blog so other bloggers can go green too!

Carpet Picnic

I thought I would be brave and give Reed a carpet picnic for his afternoon snack while he watched “Little Einsteins”. He really did great, considering there was hummus and he is only 2 yrs old… Now that he is a little older, I have been trying to make the ordinary sometimes extraordinary for him to keep it fun(instead of sitting at the table). I think kids so appreciate these kind of things-they remind you to enjoy the simple pleasures in life. I laid out a towel on the floor and then put his snack on a tray in case of any spilling.

He really does eat a VERY healthy diet. His need to eat mostly whole foods due to food allergies has really changed how this whole household eats and we are so much better for it!

This snack consisted of coconut milk(that’s his dairy substitute), cucumbers, pretzels and hummus. He even went for the cucumbers first!

What kind of fun little things do you do for your kids?

Another “what do I have in my fridge” salad

I made up another salad using just what I had on hand the other night. I wasn’t planning on posting about it until I plated it up and thought, gosh, that looks really good. Another reason I love off-white dishes. Your food really makes a statement, plus you’ll never tire of off-white if you are like me and always changing what colors you are loving.

So for this salad I used:
Bibb lettuce (This is my favorite!  I have been finding 2 huge heads of it at Costco for $3.19-it’s not organic, but it’s grown inside via hydroponic methods so no need for pesticides)
Chickpeas
Orange Pepper (actually from our garden-it has taken a long time for the peppers to turn colors)
Tomatoes (from our garden)
Green Onions
English Cucumber (I can’t go back to any other kind)
Homemade Croutons (I cut up some bread slices we had, tossed them in some Roasted Garlic Grapeseed Oil from Wildtree, salt and pepper and browned them in a skillet for about 8-10 min and then put them in a 300 degree oven to crisp them up for 10-12 min). They were d-lish if I do say so myself.
French Vinaigrette-
2 Tbsp Dijon
2 Tbsp Champagne Vinegar
6 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Pinch or so of Salt & Pepper, to taste

I was remarking to Jeff while we were eating this salad how proud I am of us for really changing our eating habits and eating so healthy (we are finally eating more like we have been feeding Reed all along). He said, “well, when healthy food tastes this good, it’s easy to eat this way.”. Awwwww…

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Lovin’ my corn

This is probably the last of the summer corn at the farmer’s market-Reed sure is enjoying it!

FREE SHAKLEE MEMBERSHIP WITH THE PURCHASE OF VITALIZER

Pictures for the powder room…finally

We have lived in this home for over five years and I had yet to find art of some type of decoration for the powder room. A few years ago we put in wainscot five feet high so that limited me even more. I just wasn’t finding anything inspiring to hang in there. While being on Emily A. Clark’s blog a while back, she did a post about using botanicals as art out of a book you could purchase on Amazon. You can read more about that post HERE.  I was so excited because I had always read that people would find great old botanical books at flea markets but I never had such luck. Needless to say, I hopped right on to Amazon and ordered the book. I found so many great illustrations-it was hard to narrow it down to three of them(they might just be showing up in more than just my powder room). I picked up some RIBBA frames in satin nickel from Ikea. Their mats were 8x10 and I needed a larger, irregular sized opening for the illustrations, so I took the frames and the pictures to Hobby Lobby and had new mats cut for just $3.95 each. 
To make them more special, I covered the mats in fabric. I actually found 18x21 quilter’s fabric squares at JoAnn’s or you can just buy whatever yardage you need.
Here is how they look all finished. I think the fabric just adds so much to the finished picture don’t you think?

















Here are the steps I used:
Lay down the mat on the fabric and mark with a pencil & ruler an inch and a half wider than the mat itself on both the inside and outside. I drew a line between the marks because I can’t cut a straight line to save my life!

After you cut out the fabric, just start wrapping it over the mat like you would a present. I used scotch tape to hold secure the fabric in place since the glue was not holding fast enough. I have read that spray adhesive also works, too. To wrap the inside fabric onto the mat, you need to first cut a miter on the 4 inside corners (sorry, I thought I had taken a picture of that step). Continue wrapping all sides and put in frame, then your picture, frame back, hang and viola!

I linked up to:

fingerprintsonthefridge Featured Fridays

shabbynest Frugal Fridays

Another hostess gift idea from the garden

We were invited to a birthday/end of summer party by our neighbors down the street on Sunday. I love buying a beautiful bowl and filling it with in the case, “end of summer” bounty to give as a hostess gift. When I saw this bowl at Home Goods the other day, I thought it was a beautiful bowl to be used as a fruit bowl or decorative items.
I love the mix of clean lined with a little rustic so I tied the sculptural bowl up with some kitchen twine.


What do you think? How do you share your garden bounty?

Reed has a BIG BOY bed

Many months ago, we purchased a toddler car bed for Reed so we would be ready if he climbed out of his crib. He never really showed much interest-maybe a handful of times would try to get his leg over the rails, but then just left it alone. I had been dragging my feet on putting him in a big boy bed for fear that he would be up and out of it overnight and the good night’s sleep I have been finally getting would come to a halt. Jeff finally convinced me that we should do it over Labor Day weekend. I washed all his new bedding on Thursday as we planned on switching his crib out Friday evening. Well, low and behold Friday when Reed went down for his nap, he sure did climb out of his crib and not so gently. He thankfully was not hurt bad; more scared I think than anything. Seriously though, the day we planned on switching him to a toddler bed. Well, I guess he was ready.
Here are a couple of pictures I quick took after the bed was wiped down (I used Basic H all-purpose cleaner)put together and Reed climbed into for the first time. (yes, I have since changed his comforter to be facing the correct direction…my mind these days, I don’t know).
He was/is very excited about his car bed, and thank goodness since I almost didn’t agree to this plastic furniture thing, but if it makes my sweet little boy happy….well okay then…(plus I think Jeff would of loved something like that when he was little). He thinks the front of it is a slide. Everything goes down that slide: him, stuffed animals, cars, toys, etc.


Once I get the room completed, I will post pictures of his “new” room. There are a few tweaks that I would like to make still.