The Hardest Easiest Fall Wreath Ever

Well, I’ve been at it again. It’s been a while. Almost two years – if you’ve been with me that long, you remember the hardest, easiest Christmas DIY wreath ever:

I had moved on from THEDWE (short for the hardest, easiest DIY wreath EVER, if you didn’t know). I had finally put it out of my mind. The ornaments popping off. The hot glue madness. The wire hangers that would. not. bend.

And I lived to tell the story.

Little did I know that I’d be dealing with yet another…this time for fall.

It started innocently enough – with this pin:

(source)

Isn’t it lovely? I thought so.

I got a grapevine wreath (half off!) to try it out – and then decided at the last minute that I wanted to fill a whole foam wreath with those felty goodies.

Big mistake. HUGE.

Warning! Warning!

Danger Will Robinson!!

I know that now.

I used a foam circle I already had – I took the rose petals off this old Valentine wreath:

And then wrapped it with some scrap fabric I had:

This was just because the foam wreath was pink, and pink isn’t exactly the fall look I was going for.

I got some felt from Joann’s in some fallish colors – orange and green -- then started my felt flowers. At first I traced circles onto the felt using jars and such, but then about half way into I skipped that and just started freehanding it.

After cutting the circles, you just cut them into a “swirl,” then wrap them into little flowers:

I didn’t realize they really look nothing like my inspiration till just now. Awesome.

Mine are much looser, not as tightly rolled. I like the tight roll a lot, so someday (years from now) when I’m up for attempting this again, I’ll try it that way.

I got a little tricky with mine, by cutting some of my circles with pinking shears. It gave them a little texture which I loved. Here’s how I did them:

The are SUPER easy. You start with the inside of the swirl, then just wrap it around itself and then hot glue the “tail” to the outside of the flower. I used one tiny dab of hot glue on each one, that’s it! They held up great for the most part.

There are two different versions – if you start from the inside, you get the wider, looser flowers like mine. If you start from the outside, you get tighter rosettes:

And I just answered my own question – I bet the one on the right is what’s used in the inspiration pic above. Duh.

Anyway, I used the bigger version so they would take up more space on the wreath – you can see how much bigger they end up being.

Thank the heavens I decided to do that, cause I would have TOTALLY lost my mind if the flowers were smaller.

Cause for two days, this is all I did:

I exaggerate. Just a smidge. I did bathe, eat and play with my child.

But my goodness…it was a lot of stinkin’ crafting. I mean, I love to craft, but really.

The flowers themselves take about a minute to do each – not bad at all. The more you do it the faster they go.

It’s the volume of them that made it take forever. GAH.

Which is my fault, cause I kept going and going – I don’t like wimpy wreaths.

As I made the flowers, I just hot glued them on here and there, and filled in where needed:

Towards the end, I had a ton of scraps, so I cut up tiny circles and made smaller ones to go inside the bigger ones for some contrast:

(That color is weird on that pic, sorry about that.)

And finally, after eleventy billion hours, I had a fallish wreath:

I’m actually quite smitten with it, even with all the glue gun burns. ;)

It’s different and FUN which is just we need fun around this water-ridden house lately:

I have plans to make another fall wreath (hold me?), so we’ll see which one ends up on the front door. This one could go up on the mantel, on the back door, we’ll have to see.

I love it! And it only cost $5 in felt to make it – I used 16 sheets of felt total.

I think the time I put into it makes up for the thrifty factor. Whatever. I just keep telling myself five dollars. Five dollars…five dollars…

The porch hasn’t gotten it’s fall treatment just yet, but this is a great start! I hope to find a pretty fat ribbon to hang it from, maybe a bit lower (if this one stays on the door). For now it’s just hanging with what I had on hand:

Felt and yarn wreaths are sooo in this fall! If you try this one, maybe try it on a smaller scale, or just a few as an accent on a wreath, or just know it will take you a few months days to complete.

:)

So there. you. go – THEDWE -- the fall version…hope another two years passes before the next one. Have you made a fall wreath yet? Was it easier than mine? Wait, don’t tell me, I don’t think I could take it. It’s still too soon…

Comfort Foods

Can someone check my temperature? For real – I have been a cooking fool over the past week. Like, using my crock pot more than I have in the past year.

In a week.

And this, the week we have no kitchen. Well, we have one, but it’s kinda half of one – I have to walk across the house to get to the fridge in the garage. Which makes cooking way more exercise than usual.

Maybe I’m burning off the calories of this good stuff?? Maybe not.

And really, is crock pot cooking really cooking? When I do next to nothing and it does it all, I feel like I’m cheating when I say I’ve been cooking.

All I know is I’ve been making yummy meals and I’m loving it. Imagine how much I’ll love it when I have my island and garbage can and refrigerator back? It’s going to get spectacular!! ;)

I’m sharing some of our favorites from the past week or so and some changes, if any, that I made to them. (I’m just sharing the original poster’s pics and I’ll recap each recipes here.)

First up – a truly scrumptious recipe I found on Pinterest from Bubble Crumb:

Crock Pot Chick and Dumplings

It is SOOOOO good! Whooeee, I’m so thrilled to find this. I am a chicken and dumplings NUT. Have you had them at Cracker Barrel? (I almost wrote Crate and Barrel. You can how much I think about cooking – never.)

Anyway – yummo! This does not disappoint.

Here’s the deets:

4-6 boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 tablespoons butter
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 can chicken broth
1 onion diced (I used half of one)
1 tablespoon dried parsley
4 grands flaky refrigerator biscuits (I used five)

Put the chicken, butter, cream of chicken, chicken broth, parsley and onions in the crock pot and cook on high for four to six hours. Mine only needed five, and probably didn’t even need that much.

As the chicken cooks and gets tender, break it up with a spoon or fork, whatever.

Get your biscuits and cut them into nine pieces. I kind of rolled them into balls to ensure they stayed whole but it’s not necessary. Stir into chicken mixture and cook for another hour.

(The recipe says to cook for 30 minutes and my biscuits were not done at that point. One hour did the trick.)

I noticed as it cooked that it was a tiny bit thick, and the recipe said to add chicken broth if necessary. I was out of that, so I used chicken soup and it worked great. ;) I just put a bit in to make it a little creamier.

It was AWESOME. (!!!)

Next up, one of the many great recipes from Tracie’s place that I shared last weekend. This one is crock pot mac and cheese:

Crock Pot Easy Mac and Cheese

The goodies:

1/2 pound elbow macaroni
4 cups shredded Cheddar cheese, divided
1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk
1 1/2 cups milk
1 egg
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
Dash of Worcestershire sauce

Very important before you do anything – spray the crock pot well with cooking spray. This cheesy goodness will stick otherwise. I sprayed but not well enough. :)

Mix the egg, fresh milk, evaporated milk, and Worcestershire together in a large bowl. Mix in the uncooked macaroni and three cups of shredded cheese. Pour into the crock pot and sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.

Cook on low for five to six hours. Do not stir or remove lid while cooking.

That whole not stirring thing was so hard for me. Not sure why. I always feel the need to stir.

I cooked ours on high for five hours and it only needed four, if that. It was a bit overdone. I also used a bit too much cheese (I know, is there such a thing?) – I used thicker shredded cheese, and I think the finely shredded would have worked better. It was just major CHEESE and combined with being cooked a bit too long, it wasn’t as good as I know it could be.

But, it was still GOOD. :) I know it would be GREAT with those little changes. I plan on giving it another go this weekend. ;)

And I saved the best for last…hold on peeps. This is fan-freaking-tastic. I also found this on on Pinterest and it’s from Chef Mommy:

Crock Pot Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

Ohhh…I’m drooling just thinking about it. SO. GOOD.

This one takes a teeny bit more work, but it’s so worth it.

4 cups chicken broth
2 cups water
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 package of Rice-a-Roni long grain and wild rice
1/2 tsp salt (plus more to taste)
1/2 tsp pepper
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup butter
2 cups half and half
1 cup grated carrots
1 cup diced celery (we’re not bit celery people so I used one small can of mushrooms – SO GOOD)

Mix the broth, water, carrots, mushrooms, chicken and rice (and the seasoning packet) in the slow cooker.

Cook on low for six to eight hours or on high for four hours. I did the high version and it turned out great.

Once chicken gets tender (couple hours in), break it up into pieces while cooking.

At the end of the cooking time, get a small bowl and mix the salt, pepper and flour. In medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Stir in flour mixture by tablespoon to form a roux.

I had no idea what a roux was, but found out it’s a mixture used as thickener for stews, soups and gravy:

 
(source)

Then, while still on the heat (I’m guessing here – that’s what I did), whisk in the half and half, a little at a time, into the roux until mixed completely and smooth.

Stir this yummy mixture into the soup in the crock pot then let it cook on low for 15 more minutes.

Then die and go to heaven cause it tastes that good.

Oh my goodness. I think I need to go eat some leftovers.

Mine was a bit thick – almost like gravy, not soupy like the photo. But that’s how we like it. :) You could add a bit more broth if you like it thinner. (Wait to see how it cooks up first.)

So there you go – my very favorite comfort foods from the past week! I really don’t know what is wrong with me – we’ve had cool weather the past couple of days, but the chicken and dumplings I made on a 95 degree day.

I guess I’m just craving comfort. ;) If you are too, you can’t go wrong with any of these!

Any yummy, easy fall recipes you make all season? I’d love to hear about them -- I need to plan out the dinners for the rest of the week. Stop laughing, I’m FOR REAL.

Yes, taking my temperature. And then reheating some leftovers. Hollllla…

September Before and After: A New Light

Well HEY! Hope you had a great weekend! We did a lot of bumming around and being productive – a little of both extremes. :)

Tonight’s before and after is brought to you by the continued science fair that is our kitchen. I showed you the mess the water damage has created, and last Friday, the madness continued.

We had noticed a few weeks ago that the framing around our back door was rotting away. We thought it would be a quick fix, and our handyman did too. That is until he started removing trim and found massive amounts of water damage – separate from the mess in the rest of the kitchen:

That’s a hole in our kitchen floor. For a brief moment in time we had a fabulous source of natural light in the basement. ;) I try to look at the bright side.

I told him to just tear out the floors cause they were going anyway -- thank GOODNESS we discovered this before replacing the floors!! (And no, there’s still no movement on that – hopefully this week.)

The folks who built our deck made it too high – so for six years the water has been flowing into the door frame every time it rained. That eventually ate away at the trim, the subfloor and the threshold.

Anyhoo, our awesome handyman worked from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. and got it fixed up and did a few little changes that will keep this from happening again. LOVE HIM.

So…there’s been a little change I’ve been wanting to make to the kitchen for a while now, and this weekend I decided to do it. Because I needed to do something to the space that would make me feel in control again.

Or maybe I just wanted a pretty new light. Who knows. ;)

Recently something has been bugging me about light over the kitchen table:

I love it! But it felt too light…I don’t know, just not substantial enough. Once I realized what it was that was buggin’ me, I couldn’t get it out of my head. I just wanted something that was a bit more dramatic to fill that “space” in the room.

Enter the Portfolio light from Lowes:

I think it was $140? It was LUUURVE at first sight. I think I gasped just a bit when I saw it in the store, cause I knew it would look so good over our table.

I installed it the other night (with very little daylight to spare – I forget the sun sets so much earlier already!) and I couldn’t be happier with it:

It adds a little contemporary flare to the space:

I love it combined with our antique claw foot table. :)

I think what I love most is that it sends all of the light down to the table – it is SO much brighter under there now:

And of course I have it on a dimmer switch so it looks fab down low or up high. I love it!!

I thought about spraying it black for about two hot seconds, but I think we have enough black going on. (And at night it looks black anyway.) I’m working on some ways to bring some more color into this side of the kitchen, but for now, I love how this has changed it up a bit:

And look how calm our kitchen looks from this side (although you can see where I covered the torn out flooring by the door with the rug).

This side tells the real story of the past week:

This is what happens when your pile spot (your island) is in the office. ;)

So here’s my before and after for this month –- the previous chandelier on the left, the new pendant on the right:

Typically your fixture should hang about 28 to 32 inches above your table and I always end up cutting my wires too short when I install. ALWAYS.  This one hangs 32 above the table, which I’m now happy about because any lower would have been directly in the eye line (for me anyway). As it is we can see under it well.

I found an old photo of the light after I installed it last year and it’s fun to see the changes since then:

Including the addition of a cute (rascally) dog. ;) And the removal of a floor. Gah.

So let’s see your projects! Link them UP!

I’d appreciate it GREATLY if you could link back to this post or at least my blog in your post. You can use this button if you’d like:

Showing Off Tracie

Well hello!! I’m back this weekend to show off another fabulous DIY blogger – I know you’ll love her – it’s been waaaay too long since I showed someone off, so I’m excited to brag on another great blogger!

Tracie with Cleverly Inspired always has something fun up her sleeve – whether it be crafty goodness, DIY fun or some YUMMY recipes:

I love her header! Too cute! :)

One of her latest projects was transforming her bathroom vanity – here’s the before:

Of course, there’s the go-to project – painting the cabinets. But then she did the unexpected! (And I love that!)

She used an old window shutter as the new countertop:

Isn’t that lovely? (And yes, you can use wood near a sink – you just need to poly and caulk the heck out of it!)

You can see more about that project here.

We all know spray paint is the bee’s knees, and Tracie proved that once again with this $2 sconce:

She sprayed it a beautiful blue, then added some pretty little crystal gems to glam it up a bit:

Double thump to the chest for the spray paint!! I love how this turned out!

I’m totally, completely jealous of how pretty her garage is! She transformed it from this:

To this:

All with just some paint and fabric! And that cart is a changing table – brillz. ;) I so need a spray paint station like that.

You can see more about that project here.

One of my very favorites is her foyer redo – it was pretty to start with:

But with some paint, trim and a new light, it’s stunning now!:

SWOON!! Love it! What a great first impression!

She’s also a crafty chick (I’m working on some crafty goodness myself this weekend – it’s been way too long!). I love how she used copies of her mother’s recipes to create a super cute recipe box:

I just think that is lovely. :)

And speaking of recipes – here. you. go:

You can click on the photos to get to the recipes. And yes, I totally chose comfort foods on purpose. Tomorrow we’re down to 80 degrees here and that feels positively winter-like compared to this summer! I see that crock pot mac and cheese in our future…yummo!

I hope you’ll give Tracie a visit – I promise you’ll be hooked! And you’ll want to bake something. Trust me. :)

If you are interested in being highlighted, send an email to thriftydecorchick (at) gmail (dot) com and title it SHOW ME OFF! Send a me a few links to your favorite projects and maybe some photos as well. I’ve got a long list of great bloggers to highlight, but I’d love to add a few more!

The September Before and After Party will go up Monday evening – so get those posts ready! Until then, I hope you have are having a wonderful Labor Day weekend!

August in Review!

Well hello! Another month has come and gone and THANK GOD, it’s September!! Although Mother Nature got all sassy pants and our temps went from comfortable 80’s to 100 degrees every day for the next three days.

Har har…very funny Mo Nature. Hilarious.

The good news – next week we’ll be in the 70’s! Ah yes, temps fluctuating 30 degrees in a matter of days – that’s Indiana for you.

The end of another month means another month in review…because you can’t be missing a TDC project. Your life would fall to pieces. Believe you me.

We kicked off the month with 400 fantastic projects at the August Before and After Party. My friend Traci and I transformed the pleather parson’s chair in my office and I LOVE IT:

 

Did I mention the only sewing was hemming the bottom? And that could have been done with hemming tape. We were just being fancy schmancy with the machine. ;)

Next up I showed you how I start projects and leave them for weeks and months and half a year:

Our powder room has been torn up for about six months. I think. I’ve lost track, it’s been so long. I was happy to learn I am not alone!

I did complete something outside, and that was making a wood tabletop for our metal tables:

The metal tables are actually ottoman bases that came with our outdoor set. I think they’re much more practical used as a table, and I love the rustic look!

I shared the small transformations that made up much of the family room redo – and most of them involved spray paint. (Shocking.) My fun vintage lamp has gone through quite a few changes over the years:

Who knows what color it will be next! ;)

A few of us are back yet again with another series of blogland linky parties – this time with a FALL theme!:

Whoo!! I actually took a trip to Hob Lob today to gather supplies to make a couple fall wreaths. I had specific ideas when I walked in, but walked out with new thoughts running through my head so we’ll see how they turn out. ;)

We are SO excited about the upcoming Haven Conference next summer – tickets went on sale a couple of weeks ago and last I heard there are still some available:

I am SO excited to meet so many of you and put actual people with the faces on your blogs. :)

I got to hang with my blog friend Myra at Midland Antiques here in Indy a few weeks ago and I shared some of my finds with you here:

Ohhh…my lovely island. I miss it. Sniff.

I was tricky tricky and put my own spin on Pottery Barn pillows by making some with their napkins and placemats:

Many of their table linens match their pillow selection, so it’s such a thrifty solution! I picked up more for the family room too. ;)

Next, I shared the progress on our HUGE outdoor project:

It’s big and awesome and mostly done – the landscaping is waiting on the deck which has been waiting on the patio…it’s all very confusing. But so far we LOVE IT SO MUCH!!

I am ready for it all to be done, that is for sure! But it is going to be so fantastic and I can’t wait to show you.

My Dad and I completed a project for the deck that I couldn’t be more pleased with – the DIY Pottery Barn potting bench. (Say that three times fast.)

Dad took my inspiration and we created our own, for about $900 cheaper:

 

I’ve decided to just seal it and leave it as is – it’s just too lovely to mess with!

My big decluttering project for the month wasn’t even a room in our house – it’s my clutter nemesis and it’s THE CAR:

People – it’s been NINE days and it’s still clutter-free!! It’s definitely work to keep it that way, but so far so good!! I can’t believe it. :)

We ended the month on a wet note. What started with the fridge failing turned into this:

Hence the missing kitchen island.

We’ve ordered the new fridge, but it won’t be delivered for two weeks. And we’re still waiting to hear from the adjuster – I’m SO anxious to get this moving along. The blowers are gone, so that’s a step in the right direction – at least we can hear each other. ;)

But again, in the scheme of life, it’s just a bump – we’re so thankful it wasn’t worse!

And finally, I shared a few of the bloggy tools I use all the time:

I hope you found them helpful!

And there. you. go. – all of August wrapped up in one tidy post. Thanks for coming along for another month with me! (And August just happened to be the biggest traffic month ever at TDC – thanks to you!)

If you have any questions about a project from last month, please leave them in the comments!

I hope to share some big reveals coming up in the next few weeks! Crossing my fingers that one is a non plywood floor. ;)

Are you ready for September?!  I may have bought a caramel apple today to celebrate. :)