The Best of November

I don't think November is the easiest month to like - kind of dull, kind of cold, no celebrations (we've already had our Thanksgiving) etc.  So I'm setting myself a challenge to find ten things I am looking forward to enjoying in November.  At the end of September and October when I looked back at the lists I had made I realized I had in fact got to enjoy every item on them.

So here is my list of things to enjoy in November - interspersed with photos that I took this morning, a cool crisp fall day with a lovely frost.

 

1.  Frost (and possibly first snow fall) - I love how frost looks like icing sugar on everything.

2.  Jack Frost on the windows - I put this one separate in my list from the one above, because what I love are the shapes and designs that appear as if by magic when you are defrosting your car windows.

3.  Bum Heat - my car has a seat warmer (aka bum heat) and I have to say I loooove it on a cold winter morning.

4. Crisp, clear, sunny days - like today in fact.

5.  The last of the coloured leaves - most trees are already bare, but there are still a few yellow and brown leaves clinging to the trees and some coloured bushes.

6.  Christmas Shopping - we try and get our shopping done in November.  Hubby and I  make a table on the computer with ideas for stocking stuffers and gifts and then we highlight them when they are purchased.   We email the list back and forth to each other so that we can add ideas at home or work - whenever inspiration strikes.

7.  Homemade Christmas gifts - Every year I used to have the kids make homemade presents for their teachers and the grandparents, but those days are long gone.   I still want to make something homemade, though, and I have an idea that I would like to make in the next week or so.  I'll share it with you then.

8.  Prepare the advent calendar treats - When the kids were small we had an advent calendar with pockets that I would fill with chocolates, but now that they are older and some of them are living away from home I'm going to make up little presents to send out to them.

9.  Enjoy the Christmas frenzy in magazines, in stores, and across blogland.   It's not about feeling guilty for not doing more than I do or even necessarily looking for inspiration, but rather just to enjoy the creative styling that is available.

10.  Eating by candlelight.  Once the days grow longer and we are no longer in daylight savings time, it is dark by dinner time so we eat by candlelight most nights.  It kind of elevates an ordinary meal into something fancier.

What about you - anything you especially enjoy in November?

We Heart Fall

Thank you so much for all your kind words yesterday and today.  Going for a walk in the woods seemed like the perfect tonic, so Kate, William, and I went for a walk this afternoon to Hilton Falls.

Along the way I collected leaves and then we cleared a patch of dirt and made this -

As you can see in the photos below most of the leaves have already fallen, but there were plenty of colourful leaves lying around on the ground and some trees still held their leaves so we could find the lovely yellow, orange and red leaves we needed.

The inspiration for our leaf design was the photo below that I saw earlier today on Content in a Cottage blog.  If you haven't visited Content in a Cottage yet then you really should hop on over, as it is full of intriguing photographs and ideas just like this one.  Actually now that I look at the inspiration picture I see that it is a whole lot more organized than ours with all the leaves facing one direction.  Oh well, it was a really fun fall activity. 

from Content in a Cottage

Lots of people stopped and took pictures of our heart and even as we were walking away we could hear people talking about it.   The amazing thing was, that on the way back from the falls we looked for our leaf heart and someone had taken it - every last leaf!  Who would do that???  There was just a bare patch of dirt looking all forlorn and lacking in any leaf-love.

Along the way to Hilton Falls we saw some strange birch trees that looked like they were standing on stilts.  I think they started their lives growing over stumps which have since disintegrated.

 We also saw strange lumpy limestone rocks covered in moss.

And a man gave us some birdseed to hold in our hands so we could feed the chick-a-dees.

I bet you don't know why I'm wearing a yellow vest.  Well I'll let you in on the fall photography tip that Kate read in a magazine.  If it is an overcast day you should wear yellow in photographs and if it is a sunny day you should wear red.

There you go - two inspirational tips for fall fun - wear yellow/red to look good in fall photos and make yourself a rainbow leaf design.


Photo credit: the photo of the mossy rocks and the one of me were both taken my my daughter, Kate.  Thanks Kate!

Linked to The Colour of Fun link party at Colour me Happy.

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I was unable to reach the person who originally won the Anthropologie mug giveaway, so I have redrawn a name (please everyone - make sure you leave an email address when you enter giveaways, if it isn't on your blog).  

The new winner is Karena.  I'll have the mugs off to you just as soon as you let me know what letters you want and your mailing address.  Here's what she said on my giveaway:

"Hi Grace, I am a follower and I love the simple lettering. I would choose for two of my friend's holiday gifts!"

I think Karena is going to have two happy friends this Christmas!

Seeing Red this Fall

Razmataz is having a red photo challenge (you can read about it here) and fall leaves seemed the perfect thing to showcase. 

I was driving to one of my schools yesterday and was absolutely thrilled to see this row of brilliant red trees.  So thrilled in fact, that I had to turn the car around and snap a few photos.  Red fall leaves are my favourite (aren't they everyone's???), so to find a row of such beauties was amazing.  These trees are going to look stunning when they are mature.  I think the red was even more brilliant in contrast to the deep blue of the sky.

 

I also saw red leaves at the cottage over Thanksgiving weekend.  It is interesting, though, how the reds up at the cottage are more of an orangey-red.  Still gorgeous, mind you.

 

 

The maples sure outdo themselves at this time of year - it's quite a show!

Linked to the  Red Photo Challenge at Razmataz

The Best of October

I'm trying something new this year to help me take the time to appreciate and enjoy the uniqueness of each month - I'm writing a list of the things I love and am looking forward to doing.   I just looked back at my September list (which you can see here) and I realized that I did in fact get to enjoy all those things, the best, of course, being that Kate finally came home from camp where she was working closing things up for winter.  So now that it is already October 8th (yikes how did the time fly so fast) I thought I'd better get going on my October list.  I put my thinking cap on and came up with a list of 10 things I'm looking forward to enjoying in October. 

1.  Beautiful red, orange, and gold leaves.  This is the month to do it as the leaves will all be gone in a big gust of wind before the end of October.

2.  Spending time at to the cottage with the family for thanksgiving weekend.  Perfection!

3.  Thanksgiving dinner - I love the smell of turkey cooking all day long and then finally sitting down around the table to eat a scrumptious dinner.

 4. Pumpkin desserts - pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumkin muffins etc etc etc.  I love them all and haven't had anything pumpkin yet this year.

5.  Walking through piles of fallen leaves.   I can't get enough of that rustley sound.
 
6.  Finding all different colours and shapes of mushrooms when we walk through the forest.  This has been a very good year for mushrooms and the forest is just full of them. 

7.  Eating squash.  We don't usually eat squash in the summer, which makes me enjoy it so much more in the fall.

8.  Crunchy new apples.  I love eating a fresh, crisp, juicy, cruncy, sweet apple (did that get your mouth watering too?)

9.  Warm cozy sweaters.  I'm really enjoying layering cardigans over shirts and adding scarves now that the weather is cooler.

10. Hallowe'en - not the scary side, but the aren't-those-costumes-cute-and-eating-lots-of-chocolate kind of Hallowe'en.

What about you?  What do you love about October?

I've Officially Decorated for Fall

It has taken awhile, but I have finally decorated our sideboard for fall.  I have a bit of a problem with fall decorations as the colours don't go terribly well with the pastels that we have in our dining room and living room.  I know some people's solution is to only use creamy white and gray pumpkins so it all coordinates, but my solution is to just shut my eyes to the clashing colours and dive right in.  At the beginning of September I assembled our dining room table centrepiece, but that's as far as I got in decorating for fall.  Yesterday we were having friends over for dinner, so I was inspired to get the sideboard decorated as well.

I put my thrift store cake stand in the middle and piled it with the leftovers from my recent wreath-making project.  My daughter thought it looked like I had made a campfire out of the chili peppers in the middle.  I'm sure that's what I did - every sideboard needs a chili pepper firepit.

I put out lots of acorn hats, chili peppers, dried apple slices, and corn husks.  I told William the peppers weren't edible so he won't eat up the display - I wonder how long he will fall for it?

I decided I would use natural objects along with white, black, and orange - not too original for a fall display really.  

We were given this candle holder many years ago and fortunately it is orange so I used it, along with the bird which gets to stay because I like it.  If it was up to hubby it would be outta there.

I love the little Japanese Lanterns that we grow in the garden.  I put some on our front-door wreath and in the middle of our table (which you can see here and here) and since we still have plenty more, I put some in an old canning jar.

The sideboard really needed a third orange object to make it look a little more aesthetically pleasing, so I put the ceramic pumpkin out as well.

I searched through the cupboards for a black dish and found this bowl I bought at a thrift store last year.

To add a bit more texture I added some raffia I had kicking around, some dried grasses my friend gave me, along with a driftwood twig.

There you have it - our fall sideboard arrangement - well for October anyway. I like to get rid of the orange decorations right after Hallowe'en, but I don't like to put out anything Christmasy until December, which leaves November as a holiday-less month (we're Canadian and have Thanksgiving in October).  Not to worry, though, I have something else up my sleeve for November - stay tuned.

Linked to Just Something I Whipped Up at The Girl Creative
Link Party at My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia

Autumn Wreath

Our front porch still has the flower containers, willow chair, and wooden bench on it that have been there all summer (you can see it here).  While it looks nice, I really am feeling the need for a little fall action out there.  A friend and I had been trying to find a free evening to get together and create some autumn-splendour wreaths.  The stars finally lined up last night and we got them done.  

We started off with a table full of grasses, seeds, weeds, acorns, dried corn husks, dried chilli peppers - and two naked grape vine wreaths.

My aunt showed me some gorgeous soft grass up near our cottage that I picked a few weeks ago for the wreaths.

Here's a photo of my mother cutting some for us.  Aren't I the helpful one - holding the camera and the bag.  Thanks Mom!

I love how soft this grass is.  My aunt cut some last year for her living room and it stayed looking perfect all winter.

Anyway, back to the wreath-making.  After a few hours of cutting, and glueing, and poking bits in here and there we both had fall wreaths for our front doors.  

Here is my friend proudly holding her finished wreath -

and a close-up of her gorgeous wreath.  I love the little bundles she tied with corn husks, chilli peppers, and the japanese lanterns.

This one is mine on our front door.  The orange and red are perfect contrasts with the blue paint on the door.

My friend sewed the chilli peppers together to make a bundle which I glued on at the bottom and I used some of the japanese lanterns from our backyard.

Ahhh, doesn't that look better.  Our front porch looking a little bit more like fall has arrived.  Pumpkins coming soon, but I really have to take this fall decorating business one step at a time.

I have a feeling the whole wreath will blow away in the first strong wind so I had to take a photo of it quickly to show you.   

Anyone else make a fall wreath?  I have to say it is one economical project, since we had one grapevine wreath and only had to buy the other one ($3) and the chilli peppers ($4).  Everything else came from the roadside.

Linked to Fall Open House at Hooked on Houses
and Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple 
and Show and Share Day at Just a Girl