Sweet November: an Autumn Journal

I love the idea of a field journal and a messy-layered art journal combined. A place to collect things and take notes, with layers of papers to paint & sew, and room for special photos. Designing your own Autumn inspired journal, is as easy as rummaging around your craft space and finding a new use from old-ish things!

Since my love of old books often inspires me to use them as new mini-scrapbooks, I headed to our local thrift store to look for a fall-colored vintage hard bound book. Hard-bound books make perfect minis- the size is great and you can use the inside pages as part of your book!

Let's go into your craft room or work space and look for things you can use. Here's my favorites list; envelopes, small favor bags, flash-cards, postcards,bingo cards, flash cards, extra or left-over chipboard album pages, shipping tags, transparencies, file folders cut to size and the inside book pages sewn together.







I've decided, for this post, to focus on some ideas for Autumn journaling prompts, rather that just the construction of your own book... because really, the journal is super easy to put together and doesn't require any in-depth directions. (As long as you have a good hole-punch, anything can be turned into a page & ready to use in a mini.)




Journaling Prompts
Journaling is always easier when you have an idea of what you'd like to write about! Keep these journaling ideas in mind to help create little Autumn stories throughout your book.

- a favorite Fall memory
- What are you thankful for this season?
- favorite Fall colors
- favorite Fall smells (cinnamon, pumpkin, wood burning in a fire place)
- What is your ideal Autumn afternoon?
- What is your favorite Fall event?
- Fall recipes (I used a mailing envelope to collect recipes written on little index cards)



Autumn Quotes
I love including a few quotes throughout my book! These are some of my favorite Autumn quotes:

Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower. - Albert Camus

Autumn... the year's last loveliest smile. - William C. Bryant

Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn. - Elizabeth Lawence




This might be my favorite page. I made a list of fall-inspired words and then imagined colors that would best match each word. It's a fun project page to work on, especially if your creativity needs to boost for the day.



Fall word list:
crisp - cranberry - apple - acorn - harvest - cinnamon - cider - frost - berries
leaves - rain - nest - pumpkin - orchard - oak - persimmon - forest - maple
pinecone - branches - pear - squash - sunflower - cedar



Hopefully the Autumn season will inspire you to create an art journal for all of your special Fall memories! If you have an extra journal prompt, please feel free to share!! I always love hearing new ideas!

**a very special thankyou to Jessica
for providing all of the Fall photos for my book!!**

Sweet November photo group

Just doing a quick drive post tonight!! Jessica has started a Sweet November flickr group. Everyone is invited to share their inspiring November photos. From recipes and decor to crafts and nature photos... if it's pretty and inspires you, feel free to add your photos to our group!!



Wednesday is Day 3 of Sweet November! Join Jessica tomorrow on her blog, Scrumdillydilly, for some colorful crafty fun!!

Sweet November, Autumn Recipe

Welcome to Sweet November, Day 2

When we have overnight company, I love serving individual breakfast foods in small cups and tiny saucers. It reminds me of something you might have at a bed & breakfast. I combined 2 of my favorite breakfast items, yogurt and granola, to create a fall inspired yogurt-parfait. Hope you enjoy it!!

Pumpkin Spice Granola Parfait

Ingredients
1/4 cup wheat bran
4 cups rolled oats
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup raisins
1 Tbls. pumpkin pie spice
1/4 cup apple sauce
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 Tbls. vegetable oil

*vanilla yogurt
*ginger snap cookies, crumbled


Directions

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees
2. mix together, in a large bowl, rolled oats, brown sugar, wheat germ, sliced almonds, and pumpkin pie spice.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the maple syrup, vanilla, apple sauce and vegetable oil. Pour over the oat mixture, and mix until coated evenly.
4. Pour an even layer onto 2 prepared baking sheets, and bake in the oven for 1hr + 15min. stirring about every 20 minutes.
5. Remove from oven and stir in the raisins.



**NOTE** the granola will harden as it cools and not while baking in the oven. Trust me, you won't want to over cook the granola!! :)

Wait until the granola has cooled completely. Spoon yogurt into cups and add a small amount of the Pumpkin Spice granola on top. Finish the parfaits by adding a sprinkle of crumbled ginger snap cookies to the top.



*Other ideas for add-ins to granola: pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, sweetened flaked coconut, oat bran, flax seeds, wheat germ or dried cranberries. Because there are so many variations you can create by just using a basic granola recipe, you're sure to find one that fits your taste perfectly!

Sweet November, Welcome to Autumn

Hello there. Thanks for dropping by! This week will be something completely new for me! Jessica from Scrumdillydilly and I wanted to share a few crafty posts about our favorite season, and at the end of the week, Saturday, we will both be hosting a giveaway. Join me tomorrow night here and fall into something pretty with us!!

Something tells me that this will be a very Sweet November!

What is it about Autumn that makes it so irresistible? Is it the cool crisp air that renews our creative souls and awakens the dreamer in all of us? The golden leaves that lightly dance from the branches of an old oak tree? Or maybe it's the sense of nostalgia, memories from our childhood of magical Fall traditions?

For me, it's a little bit of everything. Although I never jumped into a pile of maple leaves or rode on a hay-wagon as a child, I did,however, visit my fair share of pumpkin patches and trips up to Apple Hill. My grandparents always made the Autumn season special for us girls. I suppose, I see Fall as a new beginning, a season that let's everything start over as something new and exciting again.

Want to hear my favorite song? If you close your eyes, you can almost envision walking along a Maple lined path. The wind rustling threw the trees limbs, and leaves scattered along the ground like confetti.

There's a small part of me, that... experiences some disappointment with living in an area that lacks clearly defined seasons, but as I looked around my home here in the high desert, I started to realize that I had prepared for the season in small, less obvious ways. (I haven't carved out any family traditions yet, but those are sure to come later on when the kids are a little older... and able to travel.) I did gather a small pile of tablecloths and blankets to take on crisp afternoon picnics in the park. My home smells like cinnamon, thanks to a pot of apple cider with cinnamon sticks and crab-apples that simmers on the stove. There's a vintage wire basket full of miniature white pumpkins sitting on the counter of my kitchen. I guess Autumn really is all around us, even here in the desert.

I also made 2 color combinations for this season!! I always decorate my home with the traditional warm Fall colors, but over the years, I've really enjoyed mixing in a few whimsical colors like limes and frosty pink. It keeps my traditional home new and bright!

sunflower - burnt pumpkin - olive green - walnut

frost pink - cranberry - cream - citron

So how do you welcome Autumn? Do you have fun Fall traditions that you participate in every year? Or maybe you're more like me and just appreciate the new season with friends and family. However we welcome Autumn, it's truly a season worth celebrating!!

Halloween- Part 2 & the Sushi costume

cute costumes everywhere!

A whole family of buzzy little bees... who were a bit busy to stay still for these photos. :) Today consisted of neighbors coming and going from the house, and preparations for tomorrows big night. fun. fun.

and I'm so totally in love with having a little dog to dress up, and she really likes her costume too. more fun.

The long awaited photos of the Sushi Costume!!! A California roll in the front & a Spicy Tuna roll in the back. Poor little Shavonne today, she wasn't feeling terribly well, so we took some quick photos and I sent her home to rest. Hopefully she'll be ready for tomorrow, Alaina has their whole trick-or-treating route already mapped out!!

I made the costume with 2 pieces of poster board, and 2 circles cut from thicker cardboard. I glued the 2 poster boards together, and sewed the circles just inside of the poster boards. The crab piece is a white towel with red felt sewn along the edge. Actually, all of the pieces are made from felt. (Love felt- easy to work with & inexpensive!!) The rice is packing peanuts, and the little sesame seeds are felt stuffed with batting.

The headband is probably my favorite part of the costume!! I decided to use 2 colors of pink tulle for the ginger. For the wasabi, I sewed a small circle of raw lime-green silk and filled it with batting. By leaving the edges out, it made this cute little puff of wasabi. I suppose I could have used the sushi grass from a tray of sushi.... but I just cut and sewed the grass from felt instead. I emptied a packet of soy sauce, and then everything got sewn onto fabric, and later glued to a head band. It sounds complex, but I think I only spend an hour or two making it. :)

and to think.. this is how her costume started!!

a couple more photos from around the home. I'm still rearranging things and finding new stuff!

I have a super-duper big day tomorrow, off to bed for some beauty rest and then up early to carve pumpkins!! good-night!

Halloween- Part 1

We're almost ready!! I have most of the house decorated as well as the outside. There are only a few things left... like a final costume fitting, Alaina & Chase and the little dog are going to be honey bees this year. I also have to take photos of our neighbor's costume tomorrow. Her sushi costume could not be any cuter!! There are still ghosts to hang from the trees and pumpkins to carve... almost finished!!

Here's a few photos from around the house... I'll be back tomorrow with those sushi photos every one's been waiting for. :) Happy almost Halloween!

Hopefully you're not like me and waited until the last possible second to finish preparing for Halloween! I'm going to be a very busy bee this weekend! :)

a perfect match

I have something exciting to share today! I'm teaming up with Jessica from Scrumdillydilly!!



Together we'll be having a little blog-hop party for an entire week. Come join us for a week of Autumn inspired posts and projects!

the first project

of October... actually it's from last month, but I just photographed it today! A very cute friend of mine sent me a large package of vintage handkerchief's this summer. (I'm not sure why I love something so much, that has most likely been used to wipe someone's nose.... but I do! I've been collecting them for years!!) Unfortunately, they have sat in the same place for the past few months, while I tried to think of some way to use them.



After my surgery, I really wanted to make something, but didn't have alot of energy. So, I thought maybe using one the handkerchiefs to create a messy-journal with a layered sewn cover would be something simple and yet still creative enough for me.
- and that's exactly how I made this journal!!

I started by layering different fabrics together and sewing them along the front cover. The actual cover for this book is a handkerchief folded in half. I gathered a bunch of papers, ledger, graph, atlas pages, music sheets, comic book pages, and score sheets and sewed them into place.





This whole book took me about 30 min. to put together. (and that's only because I wasn't walking around the house very fast to find all of the paper that I wanted to use.) The next time you're at a thrift or antique store, look for a pretty handkerchief to create a messy little art-journal!!

I'm ready,

to come back. I think I'm ready to be inspired again, ready to create and ready to dream.

*Thank you all so much for the well wishes!*

My surgery went well and the recovery is going well. My margins were clear, which is exactly what we wanted! I do need to go in for follow up treatments starting this month, but like I told Peter, it doesn't matter. I'm perfectly ready to do whatever I need to, in order to be healthy again. I'm just ready to be a normal healthy mommy again!

It's been 4 weeks today. I've had alot of breakdowns, which as I've been told, is most likely due to my 'sleeping ovaries'. The overall fatigue and hormonal fluxes kind of wear me out, but again it's normal given how big of a surgery this was. I've tried so many things to lift my spirits! I've listened to the Hawaiian music I loved so much while I lived over there. I had Peter rearrange some of the furniture for me. I tried making a few things...... and... nothing.

So last Saturday afternoon, while I sat on the couch resting, for the second or third time that day, the phone rang. I picked it up and I heard a familiar little voice on the other end.
"Hi Tara." our little next door neighbor
"Hi sweetie, what are you doing?"
"You know when you said I should be sushi for Halloween? Well, I'm wondering if you can help me make my costume?"
"Sure, give me an hour and come on over."

I got up, grabbed a piece of paper, and just like that, the ideas started flowing and I was excited to be making something again! I think that's one of the great things about kids. Nap times and hormone issues don't matter to them. Who knew that a sushi costume would be my saving grace!!



I can't wait to show everyone the finished costumed!! I've made all of the sesame seeds, the front part of the costume (imitation crab meat, cucumbers, avocado and rice) the seaweed is all glued and sewn into place, and I made a little headband with sushi grass, ginger and wasabi. I want to do one more 'fitting' before I finish the costume and then I'll be taking lots of photos!

just waiting...

That has certainly been the theme this summer! I'm waiting to go to the hospital this morning, just another 45 minutes and we'll be on our way. I just wanted to drop in and say that I wasn't able to catch up on emails. :( I was so proud of myself for finishing all of my actual deadlines last week, and but inbox is quite another story.

So, if you're waiting for an email from me, I hopefully will be getting back to you with the next 2 weeks. (I have some considerable amount of time to rest and not do to much after today. :))

Here goes nothing, wish me luck! The first set of path reports will be back before I wake up from the anesthesia, and I have my fingers crossed!

ps. If you haven't made an apt. for your annual gyne exam, and are over-due... what are you waiting for? *gentle hint followed by a small push to your phone* :)