Fall

It is that time of year for us here in Utah.  The time when we begin decorating for fall.  The time of year when it is brisk in the morning and warm in the day.  

One thing I do love about Utah is the seasons.  

I have an inexpensive way to get your fall decor started.  It is a maple leaf wreath, say that 10 times fast. lol

We do not have a lot of maple trees here and if we do they are small, because we live in a desert and they grow really slow.  

So I found these great tissue paper leaves at the dollar store, they look so real.  They come in a 10 pack (they also had oak leaves).

I had a grape vine wreath in the garage.  So that was free yay!

 I bought 10 packs of leaves, so I had 100 leaves total.  

I stuck the stems through the grape vine and bent them down on the back, easy peasy.  I think it took me 30 minutes to complete the whole thing.

Once the leaves were placed, I just primped them and bent them till they looked right.

I love how it turned out and it has already brought fall into the house!!!

I am linking up to 

French Country Cottage

The Charm of Home

At The Picket Fence

Stuff and Nonsense

Common Ground

Romantic Home

2805

Laurie Anna's

Funky Junk Interiors

Southern Hospitality

Giveaway

This is an amazing giveaway!

My Memories 

wants to giveaway a FREE copy of their digital scrapbooking software

I received a copy of the digital scrapbooking software and had

 a blast with it! 

It is amazing, you can create albums, page templates, calendars, etc.

Your creativity is the limit!

I've started working on a album from our Blaze Game in Utah.

I love scrap-booking, but with all of the supplies and room you need, I think digital is the way to go.  I can't wait to keep working with this wonderful software to start creating all of my scrapbooks!

  They have a lot of free tutorials and directions, 

but it really is easy to use.

They have a My Memories store with products and freebies that you can download right into the software.

Get ready.........................Yayyyy!

One reader will win a free copy of the #1 rated 

My Memories Suite 2.0 Software

You have 4 chances to win......................

 Visit My Memories and leave a thought telling me what your favorite digital paper pack is!

 Become a subscriber of my blog

Become a follower of My Memories Blog

Follow My Memories on Facebook

 

Please leave a separate thought for each entry!!

****************************************************************
 

Not only are they giving away a free copy of their software, they are offering a promo code that provides:

$10 off their software  

$10 off for the Mymemories.com store

 

That is an amazing $20 value

Click HERE

to use promo code

STMMMS24157

 

I will choose the winner of the giveaway a week from today, Sunday, September 25th !

Around The House Tip

As the maid (that's what I like to call myself) to 5 people and 4 animals I am always looking for ways to simplify my life.  

One thing I have noticed since being married and having children is that they are MESSY.  They leave a little, or sometimes a big, trail around the house where they have been.  Usually consisting of toys, books, electronic devices, etc.  

I used to pick these items up one by one and take them to their appropriate locations alllll daaaay long.  So to simplify I started using a basket and collecting things that did not belong once a day.  We would then put the items where they were supposed to be.  This worked well for a long time, when the kids were sharing rooms and our house was small.  

Now we have a toy/playroom and basement bedrooms. It just takes too long to collect, sort, find homes and so forth.  

That's when I started using one basket by the stairs for toys that go in the toy/playroom, this works well because all the toys go in one room now. Yay!!!  But for items that go to specific kids rooms, that was a challenge.  I felt like I was calling or yelling, they would say, for them to come and get their stuff all the time.

Finally, rethinking the situation, I came up with an answer that works great for us..........I have them take their clean and folded laundry to their rooms once a week to be put away.  They each have their own baskets in the laundry room, so now when I find an item that needs to go to their room I put it in their laundry basket.  Then when they put their clothes away they can put the items away too. AWESOME right?!?!?

This has also solved another problem we have, kids losing things.  They now know  if they can not find something (probably because they left it laying around where it is not supposed to be) to look in their laundry basket, because that is where I put it when I found it laying around where it was not supposed to be!!!! Urrr

Anyway it works great all around, and a lot less urrrrs from me. :}

Giveaway

You should head over to Dustylu Interiors for a chance to win, duhn, du, duhn:

2 months of this wonderful magazine!

Bench

I have wanted a bench for my dining room for a long time.  It has been difficult to find one that is big enough, I have a 10 foot long dining table.

I finally found one at the salvage yard that was perfect, well the perfect length, but needed a lot of work.

Some odd person nailed linoleum on the top...............................with a thousand nails by the way.  The backing of the linoleum was stuck to the bench and I had to scape it all off, which took forever.

but.....................

I think it turned out great.

I stripped the top and used an ebony wax.  I like Briwax the best. 

I sanded it all over, leaving the paint on the bottom, then coating it with Tung Oil.

I love how it looks in the dining room with our bowling lane table.

I am linking up to 

Miss Mustard's Feature Friday

The Charm of Home

Common Ground

Stuff and Nonsense

Jennifer Rizzo

My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall (or leaning on the wall)

So first I have to tell you, I love finding old frames and giving them a "new" life as you saw me do here.  Just in case you were questioning, I mean an "old look" life.

If you have been reading this blog you know that I love old things, especially things that are falling apart or are in need of some TLC.

Anyway I had this frame and I wanted to put a mirror in it, but I did not want an ordinary mirror.  I wanted it to look like this mirror I saw online:

Not the frame, but the cut mirrors with the rosettes.

I had to fix up my frame a little, it was dirty and needed some mending.

I bought a package of mirror tile from here, then I antiqued them like in this post.  

This time I painted the back of the mirrors with black craft paint.

I scrubbed the frame and put a coat of tung oil on it.  I wanted it to be shiny for easy cleaning, but not to look new.  

I glued the mirrors on a board I had in my garage, I used Liquid Nails for mirrors.  I put it in the frame and Voila!  

I tried to find the rosettes everywhere.  I must have went into every hardware, craft and glass store in my city.  They only had the plastic or metal kind and I wanted glass.  I finally turned to Ebay and found exactly what I wanted.......... 

The rosettes are typically installed with screws into cut corners on the mirror, but I super glued mine on and added a tiny tack in the middle. 

Here she is in all of here glory....

I am linking up to these sites:

The Shabby Creek Cottage

Fire Flies and Jelly Beans

Beyond the Picket Fence

Some What Simple