speaking of little things

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With September starting tomorrow, and the cooler weather here in PA, I'm planning to start my fall decorating.

In case you didn't know, I have a passion for collectible, fall villages. I started collecting pieces from various lines like Department 56 and Lemax about 8 years ago. I now have enough to easily decorate probably 4 or more village scenes!

But living in a small house, I try to keep them confined to just two - one in our master bedroom and one in our dining room. There's something so quaint and serene in seeing the tiny little houses aglow on a blustery fall night.

I thought you might want a little video tour to get you excited about your own fall décor plans. Enjoy!

A fallish weekend

I don't know what the weather is like in your neck of the woods, but with temperatures today somewhere barely hovering in the 60's, and with the blustery, bone-chilling wind, it certainly felt more like an October day than an August one! 

Saturday we picked one of our garden pumpkins (above), and I sat for a spell on my backyard swing and leafed through Susan Branch's Autumn from the Heart of the Home.  Something in the air has changed, and with the kids back in school, summer has unofficially ended here.

I'm itching to dig out my autumn decor and make some tummy-warming comfort food.  But before I get too ahead of myself, someone told me that temps next weekend will be back up in the 80's. 

sigh...

What would I do if I didn't have a garden?

In this economy, when every penny counts and with all too frequent food scares, growing even a little of your own produce not only cuts costs on your grocery bill, but you can guarantee that it's organic and safe to eat.  Can you imagine what I'd pay for nearly daily harvests like this one?  The basket is laden with probably 5 lbs. of fresh garden tomatoes!  And at $3.99/ lb., I wonder what the pile of peppers would cost me?

If you currently don't have a veggie garden, do yourself and your family a big favor and start one...even if your space includes just a small patio, you can grow herbs and tomatoes in planters.

It's 100% organic, very inexpensive, and summer sun-ripened fresh!  It just doesn't get any better than that.

Gifts with meaning

I'm off to a birthday party this weekend for one of my son's friends.  Which always makes me stop to think of a way to make a gift a little more special, a little more heart-felt.  Anyone can go to the store and buy something...I like to look beyond the ordinary and find small ways to make the gifts I give to others a little more meaningful.

Here's one simple idea of a sweet and inexpensive gift idea.  Have a friend across the miles that enjoys gardening?  Sending some flower or veggie seeds (preferably seeds propagated from your own garden) makes for a very sweet, little "thinking-of-you", but want to make it just a little more special?  Make your own seed packets, using photos of the mature flower or veggies right on the front of the packet for your recipient! 

Here are some seed packets that I designed for a friend some time ago using photos of the flowers as the focal point of the packet:

...and this is what they looked like tucked into a cellophane bag and tied with a ribbon!

Ready for gift giving!

Very simple.  Very cute.

And your friend will think you're a genius :)

Repurposed curbside find

I love whimsical touches — so much in fact, that you'll find them nearly everywhere you look throughout my house - inside and out.  Like this old Radio Flyer Wagon that my husband spotted curbside in our neighborhood. It was old and rusty, and therefore, not really worth taking the time to repaint it (although we certainly could have gone that route).  Instead, each season I pot up some flowers and use the wagon as a decorative holder. It adds a colorful and cute touch parked by my garden pond.

 

The best part - it's not taking up space at a landfill :)

Autumn Approaching

It’s nearly September!  Can you believe it??

Each morning I’m awakened by the sound of the school buses driving through the neighborhood and each evening I’m welcomed home by the pots of mums on my front porch  :)  I went shopping yesterday for art supplies for my son and came home with boxes of Crayola crayons (just 25¢ a box right now at Walmart!) and pads of paper. It brought back such fond memories browsing through the aisles of school supplies! Just for the heck of it, I treated myself to an old-fashioned composition notebook :)

Don’t you just love this time of year?!?