Fall Tea Party

For Young Womens last week, I was unexpectedly in charge of the Laurel activity. I talked with the class president and we both came up with a really cute, last minute activity: a fall tea party!

For a craft, Maddie (the laurel president) found a great idea: we bought white teacups and decorated them with permanent marker, they turned out really cute. 

Menu:

Orange and Spice Tea

Bengal Spice Tea (you HAVE to try this)

Herbal Peach Tea

Hot Chocolate

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins 

The girls with their finished cups! Except... you can't really see them, but I promise they were cute. 

I think this fall tea party thing may have to become a new tradition

I love saving money

A few weeks ago, me and Abby  went to Pottery Barn to check out the adorable holiday things that were there. We found one thing that we fell in love with:

See that cute poinsettia pillow?? With the bells? So cute, right? It was also $30... which is a bit out of our budget for a small pillow. So, we decided to make our own.

We bought linen fabric, wool felt, and embroidery thread from Joann's to create our works of art.

 Cutting out and sewing flowers together (I look a little tired in this picture...) 

 Ta da!!! Abby with her finished pillow

 And my finished pillow! 

For someone who hasn't sewed in several years, I don't think it's too shabby. 

All together, our materials ended up costing us about $32.00 for both pillows. That's $16 a pillow! But wait, it gets better. We had enough left over fabric to do 2 more pillows, which means each one only cost about $8! Take THAT Pottery Barn! 

And now I have a holiday decoration that I made myself (with a lot of help from Abby, of course). 

P.S. Rumor has it that Studio 5 also had homemade pillows like this, I just want to let you all know that I'm sure  it was our idea first

Martha Stewart

One day I was sitting here on this white chair I painted a while ago and decided to check out marthastewart.com, as I so often do during my free time.

There I was just browsing pictures when I suddenly came across this picture for a suit and tie combo:

hmmm... this suit and tie sure looks familiar.... it looks an awful lot like a picture I posted for father's day a few weeks ago...

I think Martha must've seen my blog and probably copied this idea. Yup. Pretty sure that's what happened (or my dad gets his styling tips from Martha). My dad is a pretty stylish and crafty guy, after all.

First Halloween Craft

I have a test in two days, a test that I haven't even begun to study for. I really REALLY want to make some chex nutty-buddies, even though I've already eaten two brownies (no, I'm not pregnant, thank you for asking.). To help with my boredom and to stay away from more sweets, I will post a blog.



Since I said in my "fall to-do list" that I was going to do make some Halloween Decorations, I thought I should post some that I do. I finished these blocks just last night and I'm fairly pleased with the results. The only thing I am not pleased with is the letters. Normally for holiday blocks I use rub-on or stick-on letters, but I couldn't find any I liked so I went with a stencil to paint the letters on... and I will avoid doing it again at ALL costs.


I had to redo the "H" in "Happy" three times. I had to keep putting new paper on and then redoing it. It just came out gloopy each time. And that "a" in happy? oh goodness. those squiggle marks were so NOT on purpose. I would've fixed it but I was out of that orange paper. all well... the squiggles aren't so bad I suppose. :) There were some others (as I'm sure you can see) that needed fixing as well but I only fixed the worse ones because I just wanted to be done.

despite the silly stenciled letters, I still like them. And now, I think I'll go study.