Great autumn scents are the gateway to starting autumn. Cinnamon, cloves, fall leaves, pumpkin, warm vanilla are all wonderful scents.
Bath and Body Works makes all the great scents for autumn.
Autumn is scent notes are Gala Apple, Juicy Fig, Eucalyptus Leaf with Essential Oils.
Autumn Woods scent notes are Dark Walnut, English Lavender, White Amber with Essential Oils
I am using older wallflower plugs for autumn but I did buy a new plug for halloween. It is a cute little haunted house. I love how the witch shows up on the wall above the wall.
But of course I have to light a candle or two.
This Spiced Cider candle came from Michaels. The chalkboard drawing on the label is co cute. The scent, not that awesome. I guess I am use to Bath and Body works who really brings the scents out in full force.
I love fun little socks. I have wide and big feet so I cannot find beautiful shoes, so thank goodness I dont have a shoe buying addition.
But I can find fun socks. I love finding those bundles at TJ Maxx or Sams Club of themed bundles of socks
What I love about these socks (besides the cute pumpkin design) is that they remind me of the “cat paws” would buy us girls every Christmas for our stockings. My sister Jan and I fondly remember those stocking stuffers.
These socks were part of a set of 8 socks. It was hard to decide which one to model.
One of the autumn bucket list items was getting some cute slippers.
When I was at Wal-mart I found these great slippers. They have Mama Bear, Daddy Bear and Baby Bear. I know there is a set of Aunt Bear but they were not selling those slippers.
But since I am “mama” to my little doggos, I think Mama Bear slippers are just perfect.
I am starting to think Mums are a rare species of flower. For the 3rd year in a row I struggled to find mums.
One day I was walking into Aldi and saw a man pushing a cart out with a basket full of fully bloomed mums. I thought “jackpot”, Sadly he must of bought the store out. None to be found. Oh how frustrating.
I went to Wal-mart, I checked out grocery stores, looked at Smart and Final and no mums to be found. The clerk at Wal-mart said they were all gone. Ok, it was early September…. What the heck
Finally I saw an Aldi ad for mums. Since my local Aldi is so skimpy I drove to the Simi Valley store. Yes, they had mums but NONE of there were blooming. I went ahead and figured I would buy them and let them bloom.
So they finally bloomed. I try to do the porch different every year. This year I have the big wooden sign from Aldi sitting on a haystack. I also have some black iron lanterns with candles that turn on at night. I also found this cute “pumpkin picking” bucket at Michaels that I added mini ghords and pumpkins with some twinkle lights.
I hung my wreath on my door as always.
Since 2020 is the year of Covid I did not go out to get new garden flags. I had to recycle flags from previous years.
First up was the Halloween ones.
For Halloween this year I just added the flags and left the porch basically as is, except a few lighted up pumpkins.
I was not sure what to expect with Covid but our Mayor agreed to let Halloween happen. I was concerned because it was Saturday and I usually have close to 100 kids. Being Saturday I was expecting more. I even bought extra candy.
However, only 8, yes EIGHT kids came. I have a ton of left over candy and no desire to comsume it. Which is good I guess. But one of the kids complimented my front porch. WIN!
Right after Halloween, I added the Autumn Garden Flags up.
Decorating the front entrance beckons Autumn to come on in. Even if it is blazing hot. I hope the mums survive.
October is my Mothers birthday month. She was born on October 25, 1931. I always remember her birthday because it was ONE month and ONE day more than mine.
She would have been 89 this month.
I miss her. Wish I asked her a lot more questions. But when I did, she usually said “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember” I often wonder about her youth and before she started her family.
Did she think she was cool. Was she full of confidence, or timid. Did she have big dreams. I know she liked working but never really sure if she did it to get away from us kids. LOL
One day I will see her again, maybe I will see the young, happy, beautiful woman in the pictures above.
It is time to get in the mood for Autumn. I love Autumn and it never seems to come soon enough. Here it is October and we still have a heat wave. So to make it seem more Fall like (you know, cool breezes, leaves, pumpkins and hot soup) I do a bucket list of fall activities to get the season started
This year it will be tough as we are still battling Covid–19 and there is not a lot of activities including Trick or Treaters this year. I feel bad for the kiddos out there. I hope their parents do something awesome to make up for a disappointing year. I should probably have candy on hand just in case. Officially it has been cancelled according to Los Angeles County, however there will be a few who break all the rules for candy.
Of course every year I have to watch the Hallmark movies and them make some annual yummies. However I reserve the right to add things on as they become available.
I love the clean and simple look that Cathy Z does with her cards. Not to mention that I always have to buy her dies (and stamps). She is one of my favs!
Using the glitter paste on the ink panel really makes this card shine.
But my favorite is the simple paper one. I love this paper from Honey Bee Stamps. I have been lovely looking at the print and just could not bear to cut into it. But this paper is perfect for this card.
I must make more of these cards. I am sure my friends would appreciate one of these carrds for thier special moments.
Jennifer McGuire always does videos with great techniques. I think it would be awesome if she would do a book, or a card series of techniques so people can reference to a technique so they can try a new idea or if someone needs some inspiration. Sort of like those card series you use to get in the mail, either recipes, or gardening, or crocheting and you kept them in a clear acylic box. I loved those when I was young/
Enough of me trying to convince Jennifer McGuire to do a book or card series. I have discovered that I do not have a single stamp of a solid images. I was about to give up on doing this card when I found my Concord and 9th strawberry stamp and die set.
If I have reinkers for my distress ink, it is a mystery to me where they are. I ended up using distress daubers. My baby wipes were dried out. The inks are not there, I tried to get the baby wipes to work with water. Lets just say it did not go well.
So I also used the daubers directly on the stamps. Which did allow the white space for the seeds to show. I also used the make shift ink pad to the water color paper and just cut out the strawberry shape. I actually like how these came out. I really like the green card.
I decided to focus on more solid stamps. I really need to expand my stamps from cute animals and word dies. LOL.
Anyone who knows me, knows I am abnormally attracted to fruits and vegetables in my stamps. I have this farm, animals, fruits and veggie thing. I think it might be my DNA. I come from a long line of farmers.
Who doesnt love a rainbow. I certainly do. When I was looking for some rainbow dies I found I have three of them. I guess a girl cannot have too many rainbows.
I did not want to copy the instructors vision but wanted a different look. I found the My Favorite Things skylines while looking for the rainbows and thought hmmmm this might look interesting.
I like how these came out.
The Paris skyline had a rainbow without any glitter. Just the plain colors.
The New York card I covered the rainbow with Brutus Monroe Fairy Dust embossing powder.
Again I used those wonderful Simon Says Stamp word strips. I really like those. Please make more SSS. I want them all.
