Little Touches

This post gives you a glimpse into a number of the little decoration details I worked on and accumulated to make the day a little more fun, a little more pretty, and yes, a little more sparkly. I spent a lot of time on Etsy and Pinterest, getting ideas and ordering little things; with some I had a specific plan for, other things I thought "buy now, make it work later," especially since I was gathering all of the decoration down in Texas, and couldn't possibly envision exactly how everything would be used in the old PA farm. I warped some ideas I saw about the internets, and came up with some on my own as well. The farm is a big place to fill, and it has a lot of character on its own, so I didn't feel I had to fill every open space with something.  My aim, rather, was for there to be little some larger points of focus, and other little touches that some people would care about notice and others might not. I received many compliments on all of the little details I put into the decoration, and it really made me feel good that people appreciated and enjoyed the fruits of my frenzied wedding planning labor! I am usually one of those people who, if I want something done right I will just do it myself, but luckily I had my ladies and mom to help set up a couple days before the event, and they came up with some great ideas for where to place certain things, helped poof the tissue paper flowers, and overall made the daunting decorating process go very smoothly. The farm looked wonderful, I just couldn't get over it.

PS- I will try to source and give info on where I got everything at a later date. I don't have time to right now, but it may be a winter break project!

colorful striped and dotted straws

green/gold BHLDN dot strands donning the large support beams in the basement

random pom bouquet

DIY Doily Flowers, mostly made by Christy. Strung up alternating with heart coasters (BHLDN) with silver glittered clothespins, and custom burned clothespins.

tea lights in the walls of the basement for cocktail hour

custom napkins

tassels to spruce up the Caricature artists loft

 True story: this wax dripped on Kyle's coat a little bit. Whoops!
smile print from The Calm Gallery

I glitter spray painted these Xs and Os from Michael's

You are my Sunshine print from The Calm Gallery

stacked paper poofs to decorate the candy bar

print from The Calm Gallery

with custom clothespins

Our guest "stump" ready for signing

I stamped these little paper bags for the candy bar

drink menu and dinner menu

gold and silver spray pained animals, because they are fun

gift and guestbook table with random decor

chalkboard painted tree slices for signs; lots of mason jars and candles

spray painted letters

custom burlap flag banners

the program I made! 

and our cake topper

All photos by Jana Scott Photography.

- From the desk of Mrs. M

Sorry

I'm not sorry. Aside from this being an insane $69 and the teeny little hiccup of a fact that I have no children, neither in the works nor out of womb, I want this so bad for future kiddo. 

Ah well. When the time comes I'm sure I can make my own awkward cat sweatshirt. What is Pinterest for, after all? 

- From the desk of Mrs. M

The week in Photos

 put up skeleton out front, kitties, yum, Hux in Kyle's motorcycle vest

Halloween! 

I love their raspberry tea, Darwin, Huxley, oy this feels wrong- but I needed a pick-me-up

D bug watching on top of the fridge, chai and homework, napping on Kyle's jacket on his rucksack, late night IHOP dinner

tea time, holiday beer, salad, tree time

blackberry melomel, my first meatloaf attempt, napping kitties

Most of my pictures are food/drink or cats this week. Hrm.

- From the desk of Mrs. M

Long Live Fall

OK, I accept that the day after Halloween all the stores switch the displays of skeletons and pumpkins over to reindeer and wreaths, crank up the holiday tunes and bust out the red cups, and I'm not entirely opposed to it, but my thought is- if we all really love fall, shouldn't we try to enjoy it even longer, while it lasts? Sure our carved Halloween pumpkins are rotting away on the front porch and it would be so easy to switch out the pumpkin spice scented candles on our table with a warm sugar cookie or a snowflake covered pine. But I don't want to rush this season off to make room for even more unrealistic expectations of catching a bit of seasonally appropriate weather in central Texas.  I'm going to give fall a while to really set in, and once my candles burn down along with my will to resist the red and green (oh, I already feel it. and the red Starbucks holiday cup in my garbage can betrays my resolve), I'll know it's time to embrace the holidays. 

On a largely but not entirely unrelated note, Kyle and I drove out the honey farm to claim my prize- a honey nut butter sample pack! We also picked up a few little pumpkins (there it is), a bottle of wine, and a big hunk of beeswax. I sampled one of the butters; I'm not really sure in what manner one is supposed to eat it, but it was pretty good on a slice of bark bread (what Kyle calls my wheat/oat/bark bread).

- From the desk of Mrs. M

Our First Halloween

We didn't know what to expect out of Halloween down here, our first time handing out candy from our little house down in Texas. We had four bags of Reese's; you can see an elementary school a street over if you look out our front door, so we figured it would be a pretty highly kid populated area. We also didn't know when trick-or-treating started/finished (we guessed 6-8 or so; it seemed to be about 6:30-8:30). We kept count through the evening and got a total of about 83 kiddos. There were some pretty cute kids, some who didn't say trick-or-treat (to which Kyle prompted with a, "what do you say??"), some who didn't try to pretend to dress up at all, and some whose parents drove along in the car (really?!?). We were not super impressed with the get ups; the best worst were a group of four young teen boys, dressed mainly in black with fake guns of sorts hanging on their shoulders; their reply to our inquiring what they were was: "Uhh...child services?" Oy. I laughed a lot, though (you know, being a social work student), in a #funnybutnotatallfunny sort of way. And then I went out to leave for work this morning, to find candy wrappers strewn about our yard. In particular, wrappers from the candy we gave out. Are you for real, kids of central Texas? I hate to say it, but I gotta say it: kids these days.

(note: if you are new to the blog, I promise husband and I are not super old, uncool folks. That's right- we're only 24, and still mildly cool some of the time. The youths just bring out the old in us.)

- Mrs. M

All Hallows' Eve

via

Have a spooky day!

- Mrs. M

week in photos

I went to the doctor to find out why I keep getting terribly sick and they took blood for testing. Good: I'm not pregnant Bad: it may just be really bad migraines. dinner with Kyle on post. I won! backyard.

Hux saw a squirrel. dots and plaid. cheese, crackers, jalapeno jelly. new kitty friend (pretty sure this one isn't homeless, but it looks like he has ear mites).

brother and sister. tea on a cold morning with husband. kitties.

tasty nut clusters. VOTE. B&N. frozen yogurt!

 Hobbes is back (what we named him). wine that I spilled right after this picture. pancakes on Sunday.

heading out. Home Depot. playing with Miss D. 

pumpkin carving. Kyle's tasty dinner. neon yellow. Sushi with Sar! 

instagram @mrssmcp

- Mrs. M

The Cold

A nice cold front swooped in around Friday, and our house has been pretty chilly ever since, and I love it. Kyle and I had to bring out our big down comforter (we call it "the poof"), and I've even started wearing socks (on occasion). The cats are confused by the wind chill outside and Kyle wanted to turn on the heat Sunday morning when we could see our breath (I refused, though. It just seems wrong after so many months in the hot death of Texas summer). I get cold very easily and I complain about being cold, sure, but I really do love it. Must be my Canadian blood.

Also- the cats wanting to pile up on me at night is much more welcome when it's chilly. So there's that, too. :)

- Mrs. M