FALL NESTING / TOP 10 FALL LOVES / IKE

The Inspired Room's Fall Nesting tour has inspired the photos below. There's already over 150 links to different posts on Fall decorating!!! How fun is that! I usually don't put out pumpkins till the end of September (in this Texas heat, they can deteriorate before the end of the season), but I bought a bag of those little "mini" pumpkins today to start decorating inside......


Fresh flowers in shades of orange. We bought the Shirley Temple pitchers years ago. I love to use them for little vases. Notice the one on the left in lighter-colored glass with a lighter imprint of Ms. Temple. It's an original from the 1930's. The one on the right is a reproduction. It's made of darker blue glass with a very bright imprint of her. Someone said the originals were given away as a freebie for buying Bisquick biscuit mix. I didn't realize Bisquick has been around that long, but their website does indeed say that it hit the market in 1931! Sorry, I couldn't seem to get a photo without our new giant faucet (which I love) being in the way.

Raindrops on window from the rain we got today from Hurricane Ike.

Speaking of Fall... I’ve really missed everyone in Blogland for the past couple of weeks because I almost broke my arm when I fell (OK, that's a different kind of "Fall"), playing soccer at a family reunion over the Labor Day holiday weekend! I went to the ER, where they took x-rays & fortunately, it was just a severe contusion. They put it in a sling for a few days. This past week, the swelling in my fingers went down & I was finally able to type again! Yeah! I can’t wait to get “caught up” on reading everyone’s posts, not to mention doing some posting of my own!

The Top 10 Things I love about Fall:

1) Fall foods---cozy, comfort food. I will be posting my favorite Fall recipes, which I hope you’ll enjoy!

2) Doing some Fall Decorating.

3) Driving around looking at the yards & porches decorated for Fall & taking photos. (I love going down Harbin Street in Waxahachie. Another area that goes all out for Fall decorating is the area around SMU in Dallas where all the adorable cottage houses are.) If I can find all my old Fall yard photos, I’ll scan them in & share with you! (I need to put them all in a photo album anyway.)

4) The gorgeous colors of the season.

5) Pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins (for decorating and eating). I use canned for eating, but I love picking out pumpkins to decorate with.

6) Scarecrows. (One year my Mom and I got together & made some really cool ones. I used Don’s old flannel shirt, a pair of my old jeans, and pillows for stuffing. We painted the faces. I decorated him with a straw hat, a large silk sunflower, some chili peppers, a black crow on his arm. He was so cute. On Halloween night, he got stolen. Now, I just get those cheap scarecrows from Walmart (and I bring them in on Halloween night), but unless it rains a lot, I can usually save them for the next year. I can usually get 2-3 years out of them. A couple of years ago, I was out in the yard, when a woman was out for a walk with her little girl and said they always have to walk by our house because her little girl loves to see our scarecrows! That compliment made me feel so good to know I made that little girl happy, and that sweet memory still gives me the energy to put out some Fall decorations every year. Sometimes I don’t get any put out indoors, but I always try to at least decorate outside!

7) Fall leaves, acorns, dried grapevines, wreaths, gourds, haystacks, & cornstalks.

8) The annual State Fair of Texas in Dallas. This year: Sept. 26 – Oct. 19, 2008. State Fair “musts” for me are: Big Tex; the quilts, collectibles, photography, & handmade items in the Creative Arts building; the auto show; the Midway; the science museum; & the famous corny dogs (you knew there had to be food in here somewhere). One of my favorite things was always the fashion show (the models sang & danced), but they no longer have it.

9) Vineyard Fair (originally Sale Street Fair) in Dallas. Even though it no longer exists, every year at this time many happy memories come to mind of this arts fair which used to be held every October in Dallas. They blocked off some streets near McKinney Ave. in Dallas (if memory serves, Routh Street was one of them). Artists displayed their goods for sale down the middle of the streets. There were paintings, handmade jewelry, crafts, etc. These streets were lined with antique shops, gift shops, and restaurants, so we browsed the artists’ booths but also had so much fun going through all the shops! There were a few really cute houses interspersed among the businesses, and the homeowners took this opportunity to have yard sales in front of their homes at this time. They always had some awesome antiques and vintage collectibles for sale. On Routh Street, the Sample House & Candle Shop always had their yard decorated so cute for Fall with pumpkins and scarecrows and they sold hotdogs and drinks in their yard (I don’t think they have a location there anymore). They were housed in a darling old house and each room had different types of gift items for sale, for instance one room was nothing but gift wraps (papers, ribbons, bows, gift bags, etc.). I always loved to see how the house itself was decorated inside. I remember one time, they used old vintage canes at the tops of the windows to hang their curtains from. I always got lots of cool decorating ideas. One year, one of the antique shops along Vineyard Fair was going out of business and had everything on sale (a really good sale!). We ended up getting a gorgeous antique bedroom suite there (bed, dresser, armoire). We still have it. The armoire houses our stereo in the den, the dresser is in our master bedroom and the bed is in the guest bedroom! We have such great memories of Vineyard Fair. I’m not sure that we ever heard why they stopped having it. Maybe it got hard to block off the streets for the weekend!

10) Thanksgiving – one of my favorite holidays. You know it would be one that involves food, right? Seriously, it’s a great time to count our blessings and give thanks.



Hurricane Ike
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My heart goes out to all who are experiencing loss, injury or damage due to Hurricane Ike. Thankfully, we only had high winds and rain today (north of Corsicana, TX).

The worst we had at our house was an overturned large fern on a stand near our front door. The wind must have really been swirling around in that corner.



Here’s the stand that fell over – the fern was on top. I was about to plant something in the bottom but there wasn’t anything in there at the time, so I guess it was top-heavy.



It fell onto an urn with various little plants in it, right onto the delicate begonias. Oh, well, no big deal. We feel very blessed. Our neighbor across the street had a small tree break off at the trunk. We ran some errands in town in the afternoon and didn’t see any damage, but the wind was really blowing.


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