Trick or Bee!

My office holds a pumpkin decorating contest each year. Last year I was the winner with my pumpkin I decorated like a cat complete with felt ears, pipe cleaner whiskers, a painted face, and even a feather boa tail. (I can't find a photo or I would share!)

This year I decided to once again paint my pumpkin instead of carving it. I decided my plump little pumpkin would become a nice, happy bumblebee. Wanna meet him? Say hello to Baxter the Bee.

I haven't found a good glue that sticks to pumpkins well. I tried a hot glue gun and his legs all fell off. Same with an ultra craft bond glue that's supposed to stick to everything. I ended up hot gluing his head on like crazy and using a combination of glue and thumbtacks to hold on his legs and wings. The legs, antenna, and wings are pipe cleaners. The head is a foam ball that I painted black. I made the wings using plastic wrap and used a black marker to draw the lines on the wings. I cut out his eyes from white cardstock and used large blue brads stuck through the paper for eyeballs. His nose is a red brad from my scrapbooking stash. I drew on the mouth with a white gel pen and added some flowers to his front leg to carry.

I painted the stem of the pumpkin black to be his stinger. I thought he turned out pretty cute.

Happy Halloween from Baxter the Bee!

Fab Fireplaces

It's getting colder outside. Time to grab a nice book and a cup of hot cocoa and curl up in front of the fire. I just love fireplaces. They provide a perfect focal point for a room and a mantel for displaying beautiful accessories. I just love having a fireplace in our home. Hubby says it wastes too much heat, isn't efficient, a stove would be better, blah, blah, blah. I don't care, I want every home I live in to be graced with a fireplace. It may not be a good way to heat a home, but it provides a wonderful architectual detail to a home year round.

Here a few gorgeous fireplace photos I wanted to share. I love the tile around this one, such a fun use of color to contrast against the white walls. The collection of blue vases is also very fun and pretty.

DIY Network

I loooove the tile around this one and the crafstman style details of the wood mantle and surround.

DIY Network

This one is a very simple fireplace, but I love the large and bold artwork above it and the build in shelves. The colors of the accessories on the shelves tie in with the other accent colors of the room.

Coastal Living

The remaining photos show some gorgeous mantels and stonework. There are some neat ideas of what to display on your mantel too.

Cottage Living

My Home Ideas

My Home Ideas

My Home Ideas

My Home Ideas

I have more fireplace photos to share later. I'm always looking for beautiful room photos that have fireplaces.

More Monograms

I posted the other day about the makeover of the wall plaque I found at Goodwill. Part of that makeover involved using my Cricut to cut out our initials to place behind the star openings. (If you don't know what a Cricut is or how it works, I will be writing a post about it soon and how wonderful it is!) The first letters I cut out though were a little bit too big to fit inside the stars though. I cut out new smaller letters, but I had those larger letters cut out already and they needed to be used somewhere. I decided to stick them on the corkboards I decorated a few weeks ago.

Here's my "S" stuck on my corkboard. (Which I still haven't actually used yet for it's intended purpose, but I will stick photos and messages up there someday!)

Here's how both of ours look. Hubby has the "B" on his. He is starting to feel a little too "labeled" with all the monograms everywhere. But he puts up with it.

 If you are wondering about the weird metal guy hanging on the right over his desk, it's a little metal man with parachute hanging from the ceiling. Hubby made it when he used to be a machinist. It's a little more on the "shabby" side than "chic" but it's all about compromise.

Delighted by Yoplait Delights

Yummm. I found a new favorite snack food. If you haven't tried these yet, you must. They are Just. That. Good. I'm talking about the new Yoplait Delights Parfaits. They come in 4 delicious flavors such as Triple Berry Creme or Lemon Torte. All for 100 calories. These don't even really taste like yogurt. More like a blend of sweet pudding and fruit with cream. You can even print off coupons for $1.25 or $1 off a 4 pack. Our Wal-Mart has them for $2 so you can get four in a package for only a $1. I hope they come out with more flavors soon.  Print coupons here and here and here. Enjoy!

Decorative Star Plaque Makeover

I picked up this star wall plaque thing at Goodwill awhile back. It had serious potential so I coughed up the $7 for it. I think I've mentioned several times that our Goodwill is a little pricey. It did have a Target sticker on the back though so I'm sure it orignally was much more.

I took the hooks off and sprayed them with Rustoleum Metallic paint in black. This paint isn't a real dark black, it's almost a dark brownish-black. I also used it on the mirror in my bathroom makeover and it looks like a mix of oil-rubbed bronze and black. I sprayed the wood plaque itself with Rustoleum Heirloom White. (If anyone knows of a spray paint that is slightly more white than Heirloom White without being bright white, please let me know. The Heirloom White is almost a little too cream for me.) It now looks like this:

I cut some scrapbook paper to stick to the back behind the star openings. I then used my Cricut to cut out our initials to stick in the middle of the stars. The "S" is for me, the "B" is for my hubby and the "L" is for our last name.

I shopped around the house for some accessories to hang on the hooks. The flower picture on the left is the one I picked up our trip to Galena, IL. The star ornament in the middle I bought in Colorado. The white bucket on the right is from our wedding. I had them hanging on the pews with flowers inside. I changed out the flowers and ribbon to something more neutral. I will probably end up hanging picture frames or plates from the hooks eventually, but this arrangement works for now.

Here's how it looks in the overall decor of my kitchen. I'm still unsure about the curtains. I can still return them to Target. I'm just not sure if I like them or if I should use shorter valances or long drapes instead. The blinds have to stay unfortunately. I plan to eventually stain and paint the table and chairs so that the table top is a dark wood and the legs and chairs are white.This photo is a bit dark, I'm always trying to take photos at night with bad lighting!

Linking up to all the fun DIY and transformation parties:

Fall Foliage Tour

This past week or so the leaves finally started to change into brillant shades of yellow and red. The hubby and I decided to take a drive this past weekend and enjoy some of the beautiful fall scenery. We drove down to visit several state parks in southern Missouri. Our first stop was Elephant Rocks State Park. The park gets it's name from the huge granite boulders that are strewn about. They are indeed "elephant sized" rocks. We walked along the trails amid the changing leaves.

The park contains the ruins of an 1890s engine house. The railroad used to connect here when granite was quarried here. The walls of the engine house remain along with a section of abandoned railroad track.

Some of the elephant rocks. These huge granite boulders are all over the park.

The old granite quarry, now filled up as a lake.

After our hike through the giant rocks, we headed on to Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park. This park suffered great destruction a few years ago when the wall of a large water resevoir was breached. A 20-ft wall of water was sent down through the park.They have rebuilt and cleaned up most of the park, but some trails are still closed and construction continues to rebuild the upper resevoir. The resevoir is used to generate power.

The final state park we visited on our fall colors drive was Taum Sauk State Park. We didn't do any hiking at this park. We simply drove around and stopped at the overlook located by the highest point in the state.

It really starts to feel like fall when the leaves are bursting with color. I love driving along the country backroads to see all the various shades and signs of autumn Are the leaves changing where you live yet or have they already turned? I hope you enjoyed this little tour through the changing colors of the Midwest.

Sweet Slumber

I haven't posted any room idea photos in awhile. I used to post them at least once a week when I started my blog. I'm trying to come up with a better way to get all my photos onto Blogger easily, but for now it's easier to leave my room idea galleries linked to my old Wordpress blog. Since I've been doing several projects to make my bedroom more of a cozy retreat, I thought I'd share a few lovely bedrooms to give you some ideas and inspiration for your own spaces.

All images from BHG.com except the first one. I don't remember which site I found that one on, but its gorgeous.

I love the colors in this one because it's similar to my room. It also looks like a small room with some creative storage and display ideas.

Loooove the ceiling, can I have one of these please? The curtains seem a little odd to me though. Maybe it's just me.

While I'm not sold on the disco ball looking light fixture(although it is definatley unique!) I do love the colors in this room and how they painted the backs of the shelves a darker color. It really makes the accessoires pop.

This room's not really my style, but the colors are very soothing and I love how they added fabric on the headboard.

This one is also not my style, but I do love the colors used and how they layered all the bedding and pillows together. There are a lot of patterns in this room, but they all work together because of the consistant color scheme and the mix of bold patterns along with those that have less impact

Simply Gourd-geous!

My dining room table was feeling a little blah. I had added a couple wee little pumpkins that I picked up at Wal-Mart for 50 cents each to make it a little more fall festivey. But it needed some more oomph. So I did some some shopping around the house for various candles and accessories.

Here's what it looks like now:

Awww that's better. Much more cozy. I grabbed a mismatch of candles from around the house. I used the two white goblets I bought at Goodwill for $1 each to hold some various leaves and fall decor accessories I already had. I pulled some silk flowers off of the stems and arranged them around the lantern. I also stuck in a couple cute little gourds that my mom gave me.

It feels much warmer and more fall like.

I had a whole bag of the mini gourds so I stuck some in the bottom of this glass bowl that I had leftover from our wedding centerpieces. I placed a candle in the middle and voila, more easy fall decor.

Linking up to Transformation Thursday at the Shabby Chic Cottage.

And Tablescape Thursday on "Between Naps on the Porch".