They're Back!

Guess what? My ovens are back!! Woo hoo! I honestly didn't think I would miss them that much. I think it has something to do with the fact that its Fall and I love Fall and I love to bake this time of year. It's kind of hard to do without an oven!

The first thing I made the night they were re-installed were baked pork chops, scalloped potatoes and carrots.

The second thing I am making is this: Pumpkin Bread

• 1 (15 ounce) can of pumpkin puree
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2/3 cup water
• 3 cups white sugar
• 3½ cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1½ teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon ground cloves
• ¼ teaspoon ground ginger Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour three loaf pans. In a large bowl, mix together the pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a seperate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry ingredientsi into the pumpkin mixture until blended. Pour into the prepared pans. Bake an for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

This is delicious and it makes enough to share with friends, family neighbors or co-workers. They'll all love you for it!

Happy Fall Y'all!

Second Frame - In Progress

I started the second (red) frame thinking that I wanted the same color scheme as the first one, but I didn't want it to be exactly the same so I decided to use blue bandana print paper instead of the denim and I used the black cardstock on the inside, instead of the outside as a border. I measured everything and cut it all out and then used spray adhesive to adhere everything. Then, I decided instead of brads, I was going to use eyelets. Just like the ones that I had used when putting the sign-in book together.

I wanted these to be exact, so I measured every inch and made a mark.

Then I gathered enough eyelets for each side of the "frame".

Just in case you don't know how to set an eyelet, it's very easy.

You position the eyelet where you want it to be (use a cushioned mat or magazine or something underneath so that you don't mess up your table), and then you use a small crafting/scrapbooking hammer to punch it through the paper.

Then you use an eyelet setter, to open up the back of the eyelet, which secures it in place. This is a close up of the setter. You can get the hammer and the setter at any store that sells scrapbooking supplies. They are pretty inexpensive.

You just put the point of the eyelet setter in the middle of the eyelet back and then tap the setter with the hammer a time or two. It will open the back of the eyelet, and it will look like the above picture.

I went all the way down one side, tapping all of them into place and then turning it over to secure all of them. I repeated this step for each side of the paper, until I had gone completely around it.

This is what it looked like once I got them all set. Then, I decided to take some of the Real Leather Craft Lace that I used on the nursery letters, to "thread" through the eyelets.

And this is once I got it completely threaded and tied off in the back.

I placed it in the frame, just to see if I liked where it was going, and I did. Now, I have to finish (or start for that matter) what's going in the middle and I'll post again to show you how it turned out. I'm pretty pleased with how it's coming together though.

Wordless Wednesday

Tell Me About It Tuesday - My Favorite Halloween Candy

Of course - Halloween is right around the corner and everyone knows that means Halloween candy! I even heard on the radio this morning - talks about which percent of parents will rifle through their children's Halloween loot.

It was 90 by the way - 90 percent of parents will dig into their children's Halloween candy. Honestly - I thought it would be more!

Anyhow - I love when Halloween candy comes out, because I can finally get those little peanut butter kisses that I love so much. They are very cheap at anywhere from $1-$2 per bag.

They are little mild molasses flavored taffy pockets with peanut butter centers. They are wrapped in black and orange wax paper and they are simply delcious!

I had to stop by the dollar store last week and picked up 2 bags of these things while I was there. They are so hard to resist! I wound up splitting up the bags into little goody/candy bags and only left myself with about 10 of these. It's safer that way!

What's your favorite Halloween candy?

Frame One is Finished

A couple of weeks ago, I started with some recycled picture frames and started transforming them into something "new".

I have this idea, in my head, of what I want Bridgett's baby shower to look like. I'm hoping, if we can find everything that I want to get - we can make it look like that. I want to have the table tops covered with brown butcher paper and have some bandanas as toppers. I'm planning on using a card table for the sign in table. It will be a relatively small table, but I don't want it to look "empty" so we'll have a flower arrangement, the guest book that I made and I wanted to display a few pictures. I started with the three recycled frames and decided to spray paint two of them red and the third (middle sized frame) black. I thought that it would be nice to display an ultrasound picture in the smallest frame, so that's what I started with:

This is an ultrasound picture of Clayton at 20 weeks. It's the day they found out he was a boy! I cut it out and used a piece of denim style scrapbook paper as a mat.

It looked a little plain, so I searched around until I found some black cardstock.

I cut it down until it was about half an inch larger than the denim paper, all the way around.

And then I used my spray adhesive and glued it down.

It still needed a little something so I found some metal brads and went to work!

In hindsight, I probably should have measured around the oval and made the spacing between brads more precise, but I didn't - so they are a little uneven.

I went all the way around the oval with large brads and then I punched little holes (with my xacto knife) for smaller brads.

This is what the back looked like, once I got all of the brads in place and secured.

Once I got all of the brads on, I wanted to add a little jute to give it some more texture. I just added a small amount of hot glue around the border of the denim paper and pressed the jute down, until it made a frame.

This is the "picture" completely done.

I made sure I cleaned the glass of the frame really well and then I stuck it in the "new" red frame.

And this is the first of the three - all done. I think it will tie in well with the baby shower colors and look good on the sign-in table. They also match the theme of Clayton's nursery if she and can be used in his room. I bought little "plate" stands that look like black rope at Hobby Lobby to display them on.

I'll be finishing up the second red frame sometime this week. Check back soon! Happy Crafting!

Wordless Wednesday

Tell Me About It Tuesday - My Pet

I had been begging D for a dog for a long time (like 2½ years) before he FINALLY gave in and agreed to get one. We did lots and lots of research on which type of dog would be best for our family and what kind would cause the least amount of havoc to his allergies and we finally settled on a miniature schnauzer. I asked for one for Christmas, and then D and I started the search. We looked all over Texas, at Schanuzer rescues, at the pound and many places online before we finally found what we were looking for - baby minis. We actually put a deposit down on her when she was still in the womb. We had first pick of the litter and although we were originally looking for a male, settled for a female once the litter was born and all three puppies were female. He told us that we could get a refund or use that deposit towards another puppy but sometimes things happen for a reason, so we decided to go with a female. The breeder was north of Dallas, so we didn't want to drive up to pick her out, so he sent us 3 pictures (one of each puppy), at about a month old and said that we could pick whichever one we liked. We picked puppy "C" which happened to be the first born and biggest of the litter.

This is the picture that we chose from. How could you turn that face away? My heart just melted and I fell in love with her the moment that I saw her.

This is the day that I drove to Dallas and picked her up. She was eight weeks and 2 days old.

From the moment that Coco came into our lives, she has brought with her endless love and joy. D never had pets growing up, so he didn't realize how attached you can become.

She is just like our child - she is the center of our lives and definitely thinks she rules the roost. And most of the time - she does. So many people say that she won't get any attention when a two legged child comes along but I beg to differ. She is my first "child" and will be treated as such when we start having children. She might not get as much attention as she does now, but she will always be included and will always be showered with love and affection.

About a month ago, we were in Center and my mother-in-law was keeping the little girl that she babysits and it was getting ready to be her naptime. I picked her up and took her to the living room to rock her to sleep and Coco jumped up there with me. The little girl layed on one arm of the chair and Coco layed on the other and we all rocked together. She is so sweet and she adores children and she just wants to be included, so that's how things will be in the Fountain house. I have, never in my life met an animal with so much personality. She loves attention, to be hugged and kissed and loved on. She LOVES snuggling and being covered with blankets and she loves all the little clothes that I buy her. She will lift her litte legs up to help me get them on her and she will sometimes go and get her sweater and bring to you when she is chilly. She loves playing outside and chasing (and torturing) bugs. She eats pretty much anything that you give her other than mushrooms and strawberries. She tears up any toys that we bring her but will leave our stuff alone. She is so excited to see us when we get home that it makes any kind of day wonderful. She refuses to let you ignore her. She makes you pay attention to her. You can't help but love her!

She's a good car rider and loves to go see her Pops and Nana. She curls up in my lap and I cover the both of us with a blanket and she will lay down the whole trip. She just wants to be included when we stop for lunch or dinner. :)

She's a good eater and she loves her mama's cooking!

She is so nosey!

She loves to snuggle, especially when it's cold outside!

She loves her toys and playing! See how she ripped all the stuffing out of the star?

She's a good helper!

She's a little lady and loves her little clothes!

She loves to be outside and she loves following her "dad" around.

She is such a sweet girl!

Can't wait to read all about your pets!

Life Got In My Way!

As things sometimes go - the weekend got very busy and I didn't have any time to work on the frames. I'm hoping that this weekend goes a lot differently and I will have something to share with you next Monday.

Until then, enjoy this beautiful weather we are having!

Recycling Old Pictures

These old pictures were going to get thrown away so I spoke up and said that I wanted them and that I would take them home!

I already had in mind what I could do with them!

I cut the backs off.

Took the cardboard "art" out.

Then used a pair of needle nose pliers to take all of the staples out.

And just in case you were wondering, it was the sorriest excuse for a pair of needle nose pliers, as told to me by D. He's become quite the little crafting helper, if I do say so.

Then I took the glass out and took the frame outside.

To spray paint!

Colonial Red, no less!

Come back Monday to see what I did with them after spray painting them!

My Fall Front Porch

A couple of years ago I bought this wrought iron stand thing at Canton and I had no idea what I was going to do with it at the time so I put it on my back porch. Then I decided that I wanted it in our room, with greenery so I left it there for over a year and was too cheap to buy greenery to put in it. When we moved, I put it in the sunroom and was still too cheap to put anything in it. Then, about a week ago I moved it to the front porch and decided that I would decorate it for Fall.

So, it sat like this for a couple of days.

Then I bought 2 wicker (I think) pumpkins from Target in the Dollar Spot for $2.50 each. D bought me some little real pumpkins, so I added a couple of them and it sat like that for a few days. On a sidenote, D bought me those little pumpkins because I asked for a couple of large pumpkins and he didn't want to spend money on them. He went to the grocery store and saw the little bags of pumpkins and picked those up instead because they were only $4. Then he put them back and then picked them up again and then put them back and ultimately, he bought them but he stood there for about 10 minutes debating before he finally decided to purchase $4 worth of pumpkins. He's so thoughtful, isn't he. Now might be a good time to announce that he didn't have any trouble buying himself a $6 magazine. I'm just saying!

I bought 2 of these little planters at the 99cent store a few days ago. They are hideous but I liked the fact that they had leaves on them and that they had little bases.

I spray painted them with a brown textured spray paint and although it looks pretty good in the picture, it did not in fact resemble this picture at all, in real life.

So then I decided to get out the metallic oil rubbed bronze spray paint and it looks so shimmery and almost black in the picture, but in person - it does not.

Then it sat like this for a few hours before I finally decided to go for it and break out the dollar store flowers I bought. All $12 worth of them!

I busted out my pink floral nippers (you can find these at any craft store that has a floral department for about $5)

And I went to town!

Then, I dug around in the garage until I found some pots that I could put in the second section.

I washed them off and made sure that they fit how I needed them to.

And then I got out more spray paint! This time, I tried the Hammered Oil Rubbed Bronze.

And the Colonial Red.

And I filled them with mulch and busted out the rest of the flowers.

Until I had this.

And then D told me that I needed something around the pots, because it looked "empty". He suggested that "moss stuff you put on your Easter wreath", so I got it out and put it all around the pots and then added the last two little pumpkins from the $4 bag-o-punkins.

And this is currently what the right side of my front porch looks like. I'm thinking about a rafia bow or something on the wrought iron stand. What do you think?

Happy Fall Y'all!