Indian Summer

Autumn is my favorite season.
I love the cooler temperatures, the changing leaves and the football. Usually I can't wait to pull out my Fall decorations and put them up.
This year, though, I'm reluctant to let go of Summer. Luckily, Mother Nature agrees with me. It's been close to 90 every day this week! We are definitely having an Indian Summer.

While I'm wasn't really feeling my fall decor yet, I felt like the Summer stuff was a bit out dated. So I came up with an Indian Summer theme. My Summer decor this year was yellow and turquoise. I decided to keep the yellow and replace the blue with red. Instant change.
You've seen the faux-sew pillows.

Sunflowers are EVERYWHERE right now, so I thought they'd work well on my porch, too. I used the super-fake looking artificial ones. Normally I hate silk flowers, but these are so fake they don't even look like they are trying, and that makes me like them more. (for today)
I also added a brown bottle (de-labeled and scrubbed) with 3 sunflowers stuck inside it.

The rest of the sunflower bush got hot-glued onto a foam wreath, which I then stuck in the middle of a fall wreath that I've ripped most of the good stuff out of. I like the way it looks, simple, but beefy :)

My favorite part is the "Indian Summer" sign that I made - because I wanted the theme to be abundantly clear. I used a scrap piece of beadboard and a scrap piece of hardboard.
Spray painted the beadboard red and covered the hardboard in yellow patterned scrapbook paper. Then I had lettered the words on using a sharpie. Hot glued the whole thing together, drilled a couple of holes and strung a ribbon through and the whole thing was done (even with paint drying!) in about an hour.

I like the porch. It's summery and autumny all at once.

Tomorrow is October 1, though, and I'm planning to put up the Halloween decorations then. When they come down, my Fall will go up. This Indian Summer look is fleeting, but it was a fun change to make.

Now...if the weather will just hold out a couple more weeks, maybe I can get one more outside project in.
Don't you think this window would look fab with shutters on it?
 

 Me, too!

Happy Superbowl!

I've always loved football.
Although for a time, I guess it was more football players that I really loved.
Or maybe the football uniform. mmmm

Anyway, I've always loved football in some form.
My husband is from Denver and is a faithful Bronco's fan.  For the first few years of our marriage I was a tag-along Bronco's fan. But as I watched more and more games and learned something about the game, I actually began to form my own opinions about the players and the teams.
In 2006 The Saints hired Sean Payton as their head coach.
They also took Reggie Bush in the draft.  Oh...how I love Reggie.
Not only is he adorable, but he's a really great guy, too.  Check out his Wiki page and read about his charity.  Or don't - I guess he's my celebrity crush, not yours.
Anyway, The Saints also picked up Drew Brees from the Chargers in 2006.
By 2007 I was a Saints fan.

This year, they made it to the Superbowl.
(it's taking a lot of effort here for me to refrain from telling you why they are the best team in the NFL.)

I decided to make a sign for my front porch to show my support.

I kept my eyes peeled at the thrift store this week, looking for something that I could use as the base for my sign. I didn't want to spend the $8 that I usually pay at the wood store for a pretty board with routed egdes.
I found this.

I took the towel bar part off and puttied the holes.

Then I sanded it down and painted it with flat black spray paint.

When it was dry I used a fleur de lis stencil on one side.  Then I hand wrote "Go Saints!" with pencil, then went over it with gold paint. At the end I added another fleur with a foam stamp.
I lightly distressed the edges, drilled holes in the top two corners, and strung some wire through.

Then I hung it on the porch.

Now I'm almost ready for the Superbowl...
I just need to cook up some bacon-wrapped-cream-cheese-stuffed-jalepenos.
mmmmmm.

Go Saints!

Autumn Sign

Once I finally had all the decorations set up on my new porch bench I realized it needed something else…

So I spent about 20 minutes and made this gorgeous sign.

First I grabbed a piece of leftover MDF that I had in the garage (it was from the porch bench!) and I spray painted it with the gold that I had out from gilding my pumpkins. I also gave a couple of dried yellow leaves that I had from last year a shot of gold paint – they were a bit faded after a year of hanging out inside the cover of my heaviest cookbook.
While it dried I found a font I liked and printed out the word “autumn” in 350 point type. Then I cut it out. By the time I was done (with several interruptions from the little ones!) the spray paint was dry.

I used a glue stick to glue the letters to the wood, and cut a piece of blue tape in half (lengthwise) to give the word a top and bottom border.  Then I sprayed it down again with what “espresso” spray paint I had left.

At this point I decided I wanted the sign to have a bit more “movement” to it, so I took a dry paint brush and gave it some swirls, letting the gold underneath show through.

When the brown was dry I peeled the letters and the tape off – glue stick comes undone SO easy :)
I gave the edges a light sanding to let more gold show through, then I used my copper craft paint to add some additional swirls and paint the top and sides of the sign.
Last step was mod-podging the leaves on!

Very fast, fun and easy project that cost me absolutely nothing! And it definitely added the punch that my bench needed :)