Autumn Pomanders

By now, you must know that I will stick nearly anything into a Styrofoam ball. I mean, why not!? For very little money and a three inch Styrofoam ball, pretty things could happen.
I have shown you how to do flower balls before....I used red carnations, check it out HERE, but since we are going into Fall, I thought I'd show you how to do it with fall flowers.
All of these flower balls are on a three inch ball, they just appear bigger, because the flowers are bigger. The bigger the flower, the bigger the finished product and vice versa, you get the picture.

I have my favorites, so I'll show you how I did one of them. I used hydrangea, big sunflowers, little sunflowers, spider mums and cosmos. My favorite ended up being the spider mums. When selecting your artificial flowers, they can be anything, just make sure the heads pop off and it stays together.
As well as flowers, you'll need paint, a 3" Styrofoam ball and a glue pan or gun and a paint brush.

Paint your Styrofoam ball with paint, I chose burnt umber, but any color will do, you can even match the flowers, I just had burnt umber out at the time. You are painting the ball just so white foam isn't peeking out from underneath the petals, (so I wouldn't pick a crazy color like blue either) This doesn't have to be full coverage, just get a good coat on and let it dry.

Pop all of the heads off of the flowers, I used approx. 20 heads of this medium size flower. Get more than you think you'll need, I'm amazed at just how many it takes. Start with the first flower, dap some glue on and press into foam.

Next, repeat on the opposite side of the ball, sort of in a north, south , east, west fashion....

Then start filling in all over the ball....

.....Until it is nice and full. Isn't it just happy looking?

Here's the cosmos ball (this one turned out really cute too)

The spider mum (with a few brown eyed susans thrown in)

The hydrangea one was the most painstaking, I will not be doing a second one of those, but these bigger flowers went very fast.

They could be a wonderful centerpiece, bowl filler, or could even be hung! I think it would be great to get even bigger foam balls and do ginormous ones for an autumn wedding or Thanksgiving! That would be fun!

At any rate, they have high impact and low cost. My kind of project. Have fun!

Fall Frenzy

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Why I'm Not A Foodie Blog

On this lovely, chilly Thanksgiving Day, I would like to announce that I am a nightmare in the kitchen, I can't cook. I have to come to terms with myself that I am not a foodie. Cooking and sewing. Those are my two white elephants. When I say I don't cook I mean I don't do it like my mother and grandmother did, huge meals, from scratch, planned weeks in advance, grocery shopping monthly, meals that taste so unbelievably good that you dream about their signature dishes for years. I can still remember how my grandma's Lemon Cake tasted to this day. Me? I get lost in the grocery store, and I swear they move stuff around weekly just to add to my frustration. But with the holidays here, I often get inspired by some recipe that I read about and I bookmark it so I can try to make it. Suzie at Avoiding Laundry had just that kind of recipe. It sounded easy and simple, had easy to follow along steps and most of the ingredients were pre made. Simple right?

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Here is Suzie's recipe:

1 (18 ounce) package of pre-made cookie dough

1 (28 ounce) can pumpkin pie filling

3 tablespoons powdered sugar or whipped cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Slice cookie dough into 12-18 slices. Spray muffin tins with non-stick spray and place dough in tins, making sure some of the dough goes up the sides. Fill each cup with pumpkin pie filling. Bake 20-25 minutes. Remove and let cool. Sprinkle with powdered sugar or whipped cream.

Here is how mine turned out. Ridiculous. I see what I did wrong, now. Why did I feel like I had a blindfold on during the process?

I think I used the wrong size pan, too much dough and filling. As you can see I didn't even have enough dough to fill the 12th cup. Pathetic.

The good thing is, they taste good, which is a bonus, but you always want the presentation to be good too right? I mean, I wanted to start photographing food, like Mari does, she is awesome at cooking and photography....

Oh well, maybe when Christmas rolls around I will try again.

Maybe.

Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

I know that Thanksgiving isn't being served on a ping pong table, and Snoopy is not serving, but I couldn't help but think about this classic Peanuts Thanksgiving show, especially after I found my new-old camp blanket. Brown and yellow, unusual yes, but it is so 1973!

I found this great blanket while thrifting this past weekend (I have a thing for camp blankets, see another example here), and since the weather is still tolerable, outside I went. It is not my usual color pallet, but I knew I had yellow and brown plates, and with a few other elements, maybe I could pull together a great table. Doesn't it look like the colors of Charlie Brown's shirt?

I decided to keep the table pretty simple, pine cones and a twiggy candle centerpiece

Using a wooden charger, two glass vases, that fit into one another, gathered twigs, acorns, and a little ribbon make up this centerpiece. Kind of modern meets rustic.

I cut each twig to the height of the vase, and put them in between the two vases, the candle goes on the inside of the second vase

I used acorns around the outside and tied some yellow ribbon around the vase. It was looking a little plain, so I stuck some wispy twigs around the top too.

Wicker chargers, yellow dinner plates, and brown salad plates make up the place settings.

I struggled a little finding napkins in my stash that would go with the camp blanket, but ended up going with some brown and cream napkins with a great trellis pattern

My everyday flatware and glassware keep it casual.

Huge NC pine cones on each place setting and down the middle of the table

I have to show you the cute little felt owl napkin holder that Justin's Grandmother made for me, I love his ruffle eyes!

I love pine cones!

When the sun started going down, I snapped a few pictures of the centerpiece lit, it's getting dark soooo soon now! Daylight savings time is going to hamper my photo shoots!! :)

{I forgot to mention, I put the candle in a bed of rice to catch the wax}

Thanks for stopping by!I hope you're inspired!

Pardon the flipping back and forth between Christmas Projects and Thanksgiving! I think I'll get one more Thanksgiving table scape out {maybe} and then onto Christmas!

Joining Susan at Between Naps On The Porch

Thanksgiving Tablescape

Hi everyone! Thanks for coming by~I thought it would be fun to do another outdoor autumn tablescape before the weather turns too cool. Although I hope to do one winter tablescape on my new old table this holiday season, I'll just have to bundle up! Today, however, was a beautiful 75 degree day, a little overcast, but that is the perfect ingredients for pictures. So I hope you get some ideas to use for your Thanksgiving gathering.

I've had this leaf and acorn dinnerware for years now, you might remember seeing it last year, it's a beautiful green and I love using it this time of year. The mug handles make fun napkin holders. Wouldn't it be great to serve soup in the mugs? Or of course just to have after dinner coffee.

Mary Carol Collection wicker chargers, I love these, if you don't have them, you should! :)

I have always loved the tradition on the cornucopia, this one looks great with the chargers, and I filled it with glittered pumpkins, gourds, berries and leaves. I don't know if you can tell, but I put the cornucopia on a serving tray first, just to add another layer and makes it easy to move if you need to.

The silverware in jars make it easy to grab your own set, especially if you serve buffet style like my mom always did.

Cue silverware photo shoot! :)

For a tablecloth, I just used burlap yardage, and a runner that matches the napkins

Some of my favorite glassware

Thanks so much for stopping by I hope you're inspired!

Links you might like:

Check out last years tablescape with the same dishes here.

Want to see even more photos of this tablescape? Click here.

Joining Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Tablescape Thursday