Busting Out the Fall

It's that magical time of year. The nights are getting crisper, pumpkin spice flavored things are everywhere, and the fall decorations have been busted out. And I love it all.

I started decorating for this favorite season of mine last weekend. My mantel and entry table are all fall-ified. I thought I'd share them here, via this "Fantel" link-up party on one of my most favorite blogs.

For the mantel, I decided to use some of the candlestick holders I've accumulated on my thrifting adventures. I added some fall branches and a bushel of fake wheat, filled my apothecary jar with a fall mix, left my mirror and "There's No Place Like Home" etsy print, and...voila, my mantel is ready for fall. I like how it glows :)

To fall-ify my entry table (the one I recently transformed), I hung the feather and cattail (at least I think it's cattail) wreath I made last year. I added some pumpkin shaped mercury glass candle holders, a pot 'o branches with a spooky sign, and a glass pumpkin filled with a mix of black and orange pretties.

I'm looking forward to finishing up the fallification of our house this weekend, which includes the planting of mums. And for me, that can be a dangerous activity. Let's just say, I can go a little overboard. I mean, how many mums is enough? It's an awfully tough judgement call.

Happy Fall!

Saturday Night in the Den

It's late on Saturday night. The Mr. is in Columbia, likely passed out from tailgating and football excitment, and I am here at home, working on the den. It was kind of the forgotten space in our house. But I'm working on turning it into a stylish workspace for us (OK, mostly me - it involves a fair amount of pink). I can't wait to share the finished product with you. But until then, Quincy would like to extend an exhausted "hello" among paper scraps and scotch tape. Poor buddy, stuck with mom and her madness ;)

My First Client

A little while back, my friend, Erin, asked if I would keep my eyes open for a side table for her little guy's nursery. They needed something relatively small, preferably with some shelving or storage. I was pretty excited to have my first "client" project to tackle. And the fact that it was for Luca, one of my favorite new cuties, made it even better.

The day after Erin charged me with the task, I spotted this sweet little table at Goodwill...for $8. It looked like the perfect fit for a nursery. I sent Erin a photo of it, and she approved.

I love the curves - so cute!

And here's the table after sanding + priming + painting + more sanding. Doesn't it look cute in little Luca's nursery? Of course, its cuteness pales in comparison to Luca's cuteness. But that's OK. And he may not look overly impressed, but I just know Luca is excited to have a snazzy little table for his necessities - i.e. Truman bobble-head, his current favorite reads, wipe warmer, a pic of his peeps, and butt paste. Some of which are not pictured, but I'd be willing to bet they took their places on the table after his mom snapped this shot.

Shopping for and transforming my first piece for someone other than me was super fun. Hopefully I'll get to do it again soon. Maybe I should offer this little guy a referral fee...he already has his fair share of buddies, and even more on the way. Yep, I think I may be onto something.

Perfect Weekend

We had a pretty fantastic Labor Day weekend. Highlights included hanging out with some friends and family, hiking a great new trail on a gorgeous day, and this...

Some antipasto, wine, and Pandora on the deck, at sunset.

With my boys.

As far as I'm concerned, that's domestic bliss :)

Party Food - Take 2

You know how you sometimes have leftover dips and dishes from hosting a party, and eating them again the next day, in the same way, just doesn't sound so great? Well, if you get a little creative, you can find some new tasty ways to use up some of those leftovers.

We had our parents over to watch the Mizzou/Illinois game on Saturday. Granted, watching a college football game with your parents may not constitute a "party", but it does call for some yummy apps. So I made a party favorite, spinach artichoke dip, and served it with tortilla chips. We had some left over, and I decided to break it out for breakfast the next day. But I left the chips in the pantry this time around.


By adding a few dollops of the left over spinach artichoke dip, I took this regular omelet from "nothing to write home about", to "a party in your mouth" ;) It made for a pretty tasty breakfast for the Mr. and me.



Ahh...I love putting leftovers to good use. So much more satisfying than dumping them into the trash - don't you think?

Lamp Revamped

It's amazing what some cute fabric and a little spray adhesive can do. In this case, to an over-sized $7 lamp I found at a church rummage sale. The natural colored shade it came with wasn't really all that bad. But I wanted to add some color and pattern. Plus, I needed to tweak it a little to fit in with the color scheme for the "basement beautification" project that is currently underway at the Janisse house.

Here is the lamp shade before, hanging out with the spray adhesive and the fabric I purchased from this site...

To get the perfect fit for the shade, I traced the circumference of the lampshade onto the fabric and used that as my guide for cutting. I traced about 1/2 inch outside the edges of the shade, to allow enough extra fabric for folding over.

Once I had my fabric cut, I was ready to spray the shade with adhesive and apply the fabric. I started at the existing seam on the lampshade, and worked my way around, smoothing as I went to get a wrinkle-free result. After that, I trimmed around the top and bottom, leaving just enough to fold over and cover the existing trim inside the shade with a little more spray adhesive.

Here is my revamped lamp sitting pretty in the basement, on a table which will be getting a revamping of its own.

We had the builder finish our basement when we had our house built two years ago, but we haven't been using it much at all. We just had our extra furniture and old TV sitting around down there. But that's a-changin'. All it took was some inspiration to get us going a few weeks ago. For my husband, that came in the form of a new, big, "football worthy" TV. Hey, whatever it takes. I'm just excited to have another space to decorate! More "basement beautification" projects to come.