Fall is HERE!

Fall is here!  Woohoo!  

I'm super excited, because it is my favorite. 

I love the cool air and seeing the leaves change every year! Here is the first picture I took this year of this particular tree I was obsessed with last Fall.  Its colors are just so vibrant. This picture is from the first day of Fall, and even was featured by NewsOK's instagram! (I'm a just a little happy about that!)

Trust me, this tree will just keep getting better.  But sometimes I wonder how.

Some other glimpses of Fall...

Oh, and just in case you didn't know, I love squirrels.

When I was a kid, my grandparents had a lot of squirrels in their yard because they had four giant pecan trees.  I, being an only child, had to come up with creative ways to entertain myself, so I often watched the squirrels or chased them around the ginormous tree trunks.

I liked squirrels so much my grandpa even recorded on a blank VHS tape (#true90skid) what now must be the most boring video about how old people kept squirrels out of their bird feeders, and I watched it because it showed the squirrels cleverly maneuvering their way around mostly unsuccessful traps.  

Well, in honor of my squirrel love, this handsome guy graces my living room! 

 I think he's just perfect for Fall, but Tyler thinks it is creepy. What do you think? Do you have a favorite tree to go to in the Fall?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Happy Thanksgiving to you all!  

If you're one of my American readers, you can happily get back to your lovely Thanksgiving Day!  International readers, I'll fill you in about how our Thanksgiving will be going!  

Today we are making cheese balls and heading up to my Aunt's house for Thanksgiving lunch...which often starts between 10:00 am and 11:30 depending on if my 99 year old Great Grandpa is there (he likes his lunch reaaallly early haha).  

This will be the first time Tyler is attending a major holiday with my extended family, so that's exciting!

Believe it or not, we've already had one Thanksgiving this week at church!  And it already snowed here!

I had a lot of fun drawing this sign for the Thanksgiving party we had (where we also played Christmas music and I saw someone wearing a Santa Hat).  We might have been celebrating all the holidays rolled together as one this time of year, but I don't think that makes us any less thankful!  

Can you tell our church is held in a middle school? lol

I also used our church congregation as test dummies for the cheese balls I am also bringing today in preparation for my (most likely) pickier family!  It was a success at church, so I'm sure it will be fine today!  We made a Bacon Jalapeno Cheese Ball and a Pineapple Pecan Cheese Ball.  Yum.  Cheese Balls are one of my favorite things.

So after we are done today, we'll likely drive up to where Tyler's parents live and spend some time with them for the holiday.  I'm not sure yet what's in store for that (as I'm sure you know I scheduled this post earlier this week).

Thanks for reading, and even if you live somewhere where Thanksgiving isn't celebrated, I wish you a happy time to be Thankful for family, friends, and life!

Red Rock Canyon State Park (Oklahoma)

Last weekend, my husband and some of his guy friends from church went camping at Red Rock Canyon State Park - not far west from Oklahoma City. You may remember that I stayed home for the night, but the next day I drove over to see the guys and take them some food.  

Funny side story, they didn't "forget" food per se, they just didn't use any of their smart phones to check and see if there was a walmart nearby.  They assumed there was a walmart, and there wasn't a walmart...so they didn't have food the next morning.  Well, I wasn't of much help for them, because I'm a night owl and I stayed up late and thus slept in.  It isn't like they were starving to death - they had cars.  Plus, what was to keep them from killing a bear and eating it raw...besides that Oklahoma doesn't really have a lot of bears.

Anyway, the next day after I slept in and took my sweet time getting ready I headed out to buy them some more food and go for a visit.  After I got there, Tyler and I went up a small trail.  It wasn't much, but I think what was the most beautiful about the trail were the various plants.  They were almost like your typical pasture plants, but seemed much more beautiful and with a lot more variety.  I'm almost sure they took care to make sure these plants grew here.

I took some pictures that I thought were just gorgeous.  I used my super awesome professional camera, the iPhone 4s.  (But seriously, I was impressed with the photos since they were actually coming from this device!) If you follow me on Instagram, well...sorry.  This will be your second time to see most of these photos.  I just couldn't help myself.  I did tell you I was impressed, so you can't blame me for posting them twice.

Enjoy!

Cedar Berries - I used to play with these when I was a kid.  My friends and I would pick them, put them in bowls and pretend we'd made dinner.  Oh, and don't they just remind you of winter and Christmas??

This little plant is just gorgeous!

Are these wild grapes??

This path looks really inviting.

Why are winding roads and beautiful trees so perfect?

The trail was absolutely gorgeous!  I was surprised by the diversity in the plants!

Not so gorgeous was Mr. Cranky Park Ranger who made us leave before dinner (because we weren't planning to stay the night, just cook one last campfire dinner)...right after we got our campfire going.  Our assumptions are that he could tell we were city people and that maybe he had some sort of prejudice against that?  We aren't sure, but he wouldn't let the guys pick up brush for the campfire every time he saw them doing it, but didn't seem to have a problem with anyone else in the camp.  (He told them the protocol was to purchase wood at the gas station...who purchases wood when there is brush laying on the ground??)  Then he proceeded to not allow us to cook our dinner and leave without paying to camp for the next night.  

Strange, and not very nice Mr. Park Ranger.  Not nice at all.

"Give Thanks" Free Printable and Decoration

Today, I'm showing you the beginning of what I'm hoping will be a year long project I've been working on to celebrate each holiday in one decoration.

I came across an old 5x7 frame that I sanded down.  I wanted to have some seasonal decoration in our home, but I didn't want to have to change the piece that was on the wall every time.  That's when I decided to make a new drawing to fit in the same frame for each holiday or season.  I started with Christmas (which you'll finally get to see here in a few weeks), and last week I finished Thanksgiving.  

I have been using Bristol Vellum - I like that it is smooth to work with, but is a very sturdy paper.  

Using pencil first, I tested out the fonts I wanted to use and wrote them with a calligraphy pen.  I colored in the "thanks" with orange colored pencil.

The difficult part was figuring out how to make the foliage frame the font and still look whimsical.

After drawing everything out with pencil, I outlined with a fine point sharpie, and colored in with colored pencil.

And here's my "Give Thanks" sign in the frame!  Now, all that's left is to figure out where to hang my frame!

So from my hands to yours (literally), I decided to scan and edit my accidental coffee stain off the paper so you can hang this up in your home!  This printable is set to print as a 5x7.

Download Printable HERE!

This will be my first printable, so let me know if you have any suggestions for making the downloading experience better!  Please be aware that because this was originally hand drawn, the pixilation and imperfections will be more than a computer generated printable.

A Tree Obsession, No Trick or Treaters, and a Mini Recap

 So lately I've been busy.

So busy, in fact, that I haven't kept up with "scheduled" posts...actually, you saw my last scheduled post (before Christmas posts start) this past Tuesday.  This post isn't anything special, but just a little glimpse into our lives lately!

First of all, is my obsession with this tree in my apartment complex.  

 I literally have taken pictures of the tree nearly every time I walk to check the mail.  Sometimes I make special trips outside to take its picture (I can see it from my window, so I see how the leaves change every day).  

 I am so obsessed with this tree, that I make my husband take pictures by the tree when I force him to walk with me to the mailbox.

And then I force him to take a picture of me with the tree.

 And then the next day, when I walk by the tree again on the way to the mail box...or make a special trip...I take some more pictures.

It is seriously the most gorgeous tree I've seen this season...and it lives within 50 feet of my front door.

Some of the red leaves are so vibrant that they're a mixture between red, purple, and black.  I'm not sure I've ever had a tree I was obsessed with more.  It makes my instagram feed at least once a week.  It has been really amazing to see the process of the changing colors.  The tree was beautiful since it started to change colors, but I'm amazed every new day when I look out the window about how much prettier it is.  I'll probably go through a little stint of depression when all the leaves fall off. haha

 Yesterday was Halloween.  It was also the weekly TV night that we have with our friend every Thursday.  First we watched all of LOST, and now we're at the end of season 3 of Breaking Bad.  [NO SPOILERS!!!]  Please! :)  

But since it was Halloween, and since we live in an apartment complex, I made this cute little sign to encourage the complex kids to trick or treat at our door, but unfortunately no one came. Well...some kids almost got to our door, then their parents made them leave before we could open it.  :(  

Well, since we had no trick or treaters, we ate the butterfingers ourselves.

In other Fall festivities this week, I picked up these cute little gourds and pumpkin at the grocery store.  And we picked up some leaves from around the complex today.

Another cool thing was I saw these pumpkins made by the freshman Interior Design class this year for one of their projects.  (Seriously, why didn't the professors let us do a pumpkin contest when I was a freshman interior design student??!! That's way more fun than doing the same elements of design project two semesters in a row...)
Anyway, some of them were just too cute, so I snapped a few quick pictures!  These pumpkins were not created by me, nor do I know who created them (besides that they are an interior design student at OU).
I'm just posting for your enjoyment!

My favorite was the tree one!

How was your Halloween?  Any trick or treaters?  How are the trees in your area?

Decorative Pumpkin Painted on Scrap Wood

It all started with a small piece of scrap wood.  The beginning of Fall.  This little project only took a few minutes, but will look great leaning against a pot of mums, or in any autumn themed space!

First, I stained the wood.  Always stain the wood!  :)

Here we go, nice and stained!

I let the stain "dry" for a few minutes (okay, I'm impatient) and used a creamy white to color block a pumpkin shape.  

I then used brown to make a stem and shade in some grooves.  I went in with another layer of cream to highlight the top of the pumpkin, as well as highlight the top of the stem.

And there you have it!  A new Fall decoration that only took you 10 minutes...assuming you didn't wait the allotted time for the stain to dry.  ;)