DIY Fall Felt Garland

I saw this idea on Elise's Instagram a long time ago.... like, at Christmas ;) She made a super cute Christmas garland out of felt and twine. Felt and twine. That's it. SO incredibly easy (and cheap!). I decided to make one out of Autumn colors (and yes, I have Christmas colors to make a Christmas one as well).

Basically, I bought a 1/4 yard of 6 different fall-looking colors of felt. I cut them into 1" strips (so, 1"x 9" each) and then tied them on jute twine. Just a simple tie, not knotted or anything. At first (like Elise said), it didn't look like much and I was honestly thinking "Oh my goodness, this looks horrible". But it really did come together and I love it! I made an 8-foot garland and had enough felt strips left to make another 5ish-foot garland. 

I love how it looks sitting on my buffet behind some other Autumn decorations :)

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Food: Pumpkin Crunch Cake

I love that at this time of year it's all about pumpkins ;) I came across this recipe for a Pumpkin Crunch Cake and was intrigued, so I made it one rainy weekend. It was absolutely amazing. The perfect amount of sweet and savory, and of course, pumpkin.

Pumpkin Crunch Cake - adapted slightly from ParentPretty.com

1 box yellow cake mix
1 can (16 oz.) pumpkin
1 can (12 oz.) evaporated milk
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
4 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup melted butter (Salted will give it a more savory taste, unsalted will keep it sweeter. I've used both and like each way!)

Whipped topping

1 cup heavy whipping cream

2 Tbsp. Sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9X13 pan.

Combine pumpkin, evaporated milk, eggs, sugar, pumpkin pie spice and salt in bowl. Pour into prepared pan. Sprinkle the dry yellow cake mix evenly over pumpkin mixture. Sprinkle chopped pecans and walnuts over the cake mix. Drizzle melted butter evenly over everything.

Bake for 55 minutes or until top is turning golden brown. While cake is baking, make whipped topping. Combine cream, sugar and vanilla in medium bowl and mix with a beater until stiff peaks form. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Cool cake completely, cut and serve with whipped topping. Refrigerate leftovers (if there are any ;)).

It's been awhile.

May 8, 2014 was the last time I blogged here. Almost 18 months ago! My goodness a lot has happened since then. We got a *surprise* that we were expecting a new little one -- I had a very, very, difficult pregnancy, but thankfully our sweet baby is here all safe and sound - she was born January 28, 2015 - Ruth Margaret (after my mama :)). We moved from our home of 7 years -- Wake Forest, North Carolina to southwestern Virginia in June of this year. We are settling into our new home and enjoying our new community.

My heart has been aching to get back into blogging and my shop.

Though I have not been present here, I have been maintaining my shop and updating it here and there. I'm super excited about a recent update - some fun Gratitude/Autumn journals, paper packs and ephemera packs.

DIY Mother's Day Gift: 10 Things I Love about You (from the archives)

Mother's Day is this weekend! A few years ago I shared this DIY "10 Things I Love about You" on my blog and it has been super popular (shared on Huffington Post, through Whole Foods Market, Babble, and many more places!). It's an easy and fun project that "kids" of all ages can do for mama - using a printable and finding bits and pieces of papers to put together. Go here to check out my booklet I made my mama as well as get the free printable :)

a custom journal

I recently created a custom journal for a customer who is planning her wedding. She wanted a large book to put in wedding planning mementos, notes, letters from her mama and future mama-in-law, and other bits of memories of her engagement time. She wanted a 50 page, 6"x8" journal, and for it to have a vintage-ey feel, and with her colors - mustard yellow, rose pink, olive green and pastel colors. I knew this would be a fun book to create :)

I combined vintage papers (cookbooks, dictionaries, books, ledger, etc) with new papers and Bazzill cardstock, some vellum confetti-filled pages, envelopes and overlays. I added embellishments like bunting, ribbon weaving and other die cuts to the pages, along with sewing a bunch of the pages. I added a quote from their wedding invite to the front, along with some punched circles and a heart. I then layered it over mustard-yellow polka dot paper and a vintage foreign text page and added in burlap for texture. Below are all of the page spreads (50 pages!) - so lots, and lots (and lots) of photos ;)

I am so, so happy with how it turned out! :) And now to go make myself one ;)