Thanksgiving/Fall Centerpiece ~ Updated

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When we last chatted about my 'Fall' Centerpiece, it was a bit more of a Fall centerpiece with Halloween flare. Not truly a Halloween centerpiece, but hints of Halloween. I got rid of the Halloween hints and made it simply a Fall centerpiece. It was just a matter of taking out the black feather boa and adding leaves in its place. I also added new wine bottles etched with Fall themed items rather than the Halloween.

Of course I did all of this for you all. My oldest daughter, Snowflake, was not OK with this concept because I did it before Halloween. I had only planned to take the pictures and put it back to Halloween so I could get this post for you today. She was quite anxious to make sure I got it back to the Halloween Fall centerpiece...so no worries, today is Halloween and we still have our Halloween Fall centerpiece....until tomorrow! Whew, 10 year old crisis averted. :-)

Above is the changed Fall centerpiece. I showed you how I made the Swirly Wirly ~ Spiral Rosette Yarn Wrapped Pumpkin that is the start of the show, but before we get too far, let me show you the original centerpiece.

Hurricane Coming to Town

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Hi to all my friends, family and loyal followers!

Normally today, I would be posting about my training for the last week. Instead I am taking today (I'm writing this on Monday 10/29) to spend with my family.

We live in an area that will get hit by Hurricane Sandy. We are not in the direct hit line, but just out from that a little bit. We anticipate 50 to 60 mph winds with some gusts up from there. I expect we will lose power.

I decided that rather than sit here today to get Tuesday and Wednesday's posts ready for you should I lose power, I am going to have some fun with my family while we wait and such. I'm sure you understand.

My sweet family - We don't look like this waiting for a Hurricane ;-)

We are going to get our fill of electronics first, then when we lose power move on to board games, puppet

Bathroom Towel Rack {DIY}

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Today, I've got a DIY bathroom towel rack with hooks for you. It wasn't too hard to put together and I am hoping that it will be indestructible as my children use it! :-)

Looks pretty, doesn't it?

This towel rack came out of necessity. My girls had totally destroyed their towel bar. It was a double towel rod so there would be enough room for both of their towels. Apparently they are really hard on such things as you can see. It had gotten ripped out of the wall and before it was ripped out of the wall it was falling apart. We needed to come up with a solution. I didn't want to just put up another double towel rod because I didn't want to have to replace it as well. In addition, when we have guests, they use this bathroom. There is never enough towel room for my daughters and guests. I needed to figure something out that would be indestructible, maximize my towel hanging space and look good...no small task!

Organizing Ideas: Crafts & Office

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Back in August, we were on our usual summer organizing roll around our house. It always feels so good to get things organized again. I have some organizing ideas for you today. Today I have office organizing ideas and craft organizing ideas as well.

Our office/craft room is what is supposed to be our formal dining room. We would use it a couple of days a year as a formal dining room (if that), so we use it as our office and our craft room. It works really well for us. However, it had gotten to be so disorganized it just wasn't working and was always a mess. As it is on the first floor and I am in there a lot or walk by it about 50 times a day, it was bugging me big time!

I got to work and tried something completely different this year. It has worked SO well for us. We have been keeping this organized for 2 months now and it is still looking good! Yippee!

I decided to move the kid's craft supplies and our office things around completely. What was kid's craft supplies, photos and office stuff is now only office and photo stuff.

Slow Cooker Applesauce Recipe

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We recently went apple picking. We picked 20 pounds of apples! I knew exactly what I wanted to make with a big portion of those apples...this fantastic and super simple cinnamon applesauce made in a slow cooker. It is so quick and easy to make and is oh so delicious to eat. My kids gobble it up. The cinnamon is a subtle flavor in this recipe and not totally overpowering like some recipes I have tried.

Doesn't it look delicious? I have a printable version of this recipe at the bottom of this post. 

Training Tuesday: Half Marathon Training Week 16 & 10K Race Results

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I'm excited to share with you my update on my half marathon training as well as my results from my 10K race this weekend. So, let's get right to it.

I didn't have the best training week ever. I got in my first short run for the week. 

I also wanted to explain that most Tuesday's now, I'm opting for the 'rest option in my plan. I am doing that because we have our homeschool co-op on Tuesday mornings. It just makes it easier to get out of the house on time. Also, I teach the P.E. class at our co-op, so when it says rest, it really means I taught P.E. and totally couldn't breathe while trying to talk and tell them what to do next as I do the exercises with them. I still get a workout in on those days, just not one that I have on my plan.

I was really looking forward to my 8 to 10 mile run this week because the physical therapist had taped my knee to see if that would help my IT band while running. Unfortunately, he taped it for me on Monday afternoon. Mr. T got called out of town for work on Monday night and didn't get back until late Thursday night. Therefore the tape was a total waste and I didn't get to see if it made any difference in my running. I was so disappointed and frustrated. I'm running out of time to figure this out so I can finish the half marathon and there went another week with no progress. 

I did have a good week in that I enjoyed doing my strength training and physical therapy exercises at home. I felt good and strong to get some of those workouts in. 

Now on to the super fun part of the week. This weekend I ran in a 10K.

Cookie Recipe: Easy Pumpkin Decorated Chocolate Chip Cookie

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With fall in the air and Halloween just around the corner, I decided to make a fun, easy chocolate chip cookie. I've got the cookie recipe for you as well as how to decorate your cookie to look like a pumpkin. So cute and so easy!

Toy Storage: Kid's Playroom Reorganization

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Figuring out toy storage and organizing our kids playroom is something I actually enjoy doing. Yep, there you have it, I actually enjoy it. I like seeing if I can figure out a new way of doing things that will work better or fit better or that the kids can actually keep up with better. It has become an annual event in our house. The kids know it and have even started looking forward to it as well.

Here is a look at the before and after of our reorganization this year. You may notice the before and afters aren't that dramatic. They mostly show how I moved things around. If you are interested, you can see how the room looked last year when we reorganized. Real Organization - Our Playroom

Our playroom does get used and it does get quite messy, but overall things have a home and usually once or twice a week they get put back in their home. For us, this yearly reorganization is a good chance to purge and make space for new things. 

We usually do our reorganization in the late summer. It is perfect timing as Pumpkin has a birthday in October, then we have Christmas, and in January is Snowflake's birthday. This is our time of the year to get rid of the old to make room for the new. Let me show you what we did this year.

American Girl Doll Bedding Pattern {Free}

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Today, I'm excited to show you a recent sewing project I took on while my Mom was in town. We spent a rainy fall afternoon sewing bedding for both of my daughter's American Girl Doll beds. You can see how I customized these $20 IKEA doll beds here: Polka Dot Bed and Stenciled Bed. We made our own pattern rather than buying a pattern. In this post, I'm going to show you my free American Girl Doll Pattern to make bedding so you can make your own bedding and save money by not buying a pattern.

Isn't the bedding cute? We went to a craft store and I let each of my girl's pick out 4 fabrics that went together. They had looked at some pictures of bedding on my American Girl Doll Ideas and Sewing Pinterest boards. They both liked the idea of having a fluffy, fuzzy fabric, so we made sure to include some in their selections.

Training Tuesday: Half Marathon Training Week 14 & 15

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It has been two weeks since my last half marathon training update. Did you miss me? I missed you and missed running. I got a cold and didn't make a lot of my plan because I wasn't 100% and couldn't breath as well. I let some of my planned runs go. Below is what I did complete.

First, let me just say that I don't follow the plan perfectionistically. I do things on the days that work for me, so while it may look like I was sick, then ran 5.5, then was sick again...that isn't how things went. Cluster the sick days together to get a better picture. As you can see, in week 14, I made a 3.5 mile run as well as my 5.5 mile run. I did not complete my long run that week. 

Make Your Own Stencils {Tutorial}

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I recently guest posted on The Frugal Girls website. I shared how to make your own stencils. In case you missed it, I wanted to share it with you here. Enjoy!

I'm going on a journey today. Won't you join me me? Let's learn how to make our own stencils.

Recently, I needed some stencils. Have you shopped for stencils? They are expensive. Even though they are expensive I need them because I'm no good with free handing things. I wish I was, but it is not my forte. Therefore, a stencil is a necessity for me. I wanted to figure out a way to make a stencil myself so I could make as many as I wanted without it costing me a small fortune. I decided to try two different materials in my quest to make a stencil.

Storage Solutions: $24 Shelving and Storage for Kid's Toys

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I was totally planning to show you my playroom re-organization and purge today, but I have been fighting a cold this week and am behind. I just couldn't do it to put together those pictures. It was more detailed than I could handle today. I hope you understand. Instead I'm going to show you a peek of that project and show you a storage solution we came up with for our playroom. It involves some shelving as storage for some of our kid's toys AND it was cheap, but it also looks really nice! Love it!

Do you think they like it? Ummmm, yep, they are really happy with the final product!

This project all started with my oldest daughter, Snowflake, knowing that every year around this time, we reorganize and purge the playroom. She loves Build-A-Bears and has nearly 30 of them. We were running out of room under her bed to store them all (Her bed is open underneath and has space that she can actually display them under there). She came up with the idea to put up lots of shelves and have them all on display. She also wanted some kind of hanging bar on which to hang all her Build-A-Bears clothes. Initially, I had no idea how I was going to pull off her request as the only ideas I could think of, would cost quite a bit more than I had budgeted. 

An Elegant American Girl Doll Bed

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I mentioned in another post that both of my daughter's had bought doll beds at IKEA. You may have seen my post about the first bed I finished: Polka Dot American Girl Doll Bed. That is Pumpkin's bed. She knew instantly what she wanted. Snowflake needed more time to figure out exactly what she wanted.

She figured it out and decided about a month ago, then kept asking me everyday if I was going to paint her bed today. I finally got it done, much to her delight! She picked out a more intricate design and is quite pleased with the result.

Now that you have seen the end result, let me show the how we got that elegant bed Snowflake designed.

Photo Organization: Simple Method

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I recently went on a getaway weekend in which I was scrapbooking. I love photos, I love photography, I love the story the photos tell, and I love scrapbooking. For me, it is not normally overwhelming to get my photos from being taken to into an album and most importantly (for me) the story told. 

My Fantastic Consultant and I at a weekend scrapbook getaway.

I know that to lots of people doing something other than taking the pictures gets to be overwhelming. I have helped a number of my friends and family with finding a method that works for them and wanted to start a new series in which I pass on that advice to you. Please feel free to ask questions or let me know topics/things you would like to see me cover. I would love to help you, so just let me know topics or areas of interest. You can do that by leaving me a comment below this post or by emailing my your question or topic.

Today I'm going to start with the most simple version in which to take care of your photos. We are not going to talk about the scrapbooking or where the photos go, just how to get them from your camera to a printed form so you can do something with them.

Organizing Hair Clips

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We took a month long break from our homeschooling in the late summer. I used that time to do a lot of organizing around our house. It felt so nice to get things back into order and come up with some new ideas for how to organize and hopefully stay organized through the busy school year.

I thought I would start by showing you a simple organizing project that took me maybe 10 to 15 minutes to complete and has helped keep the girls bathroom better organized.

Food Savings Tip: Freezer Packing Meat

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Today's post is going way back to why I started this blog. I originally started this blog and the urging of friends. They were amazed that our grocery budget is $155 per week (it was even less when I started this blog) to feed a family of 4 including all of our cleaning products, toiletries, etc. I don't use any coupons and we eat primarily natural and as much organic as the budget will allow, which is a good amount. My friends wanted me to start this blog to show them and others how I do what I do. I've never quite figured out what my 'secret' is and it is also not a passion of mine, so I have taken my blog in a different direction. 

I do have a tip that will save you money at the grocery store for you today as it is one of my 'secrets.' We buy our meat in bulk at Costco. I usually do this with ground turkey and buy organic ground beef because we don't eat beef that often. This time, however, we were buying a bulk package of ground beef. You can save a good amount of money by buying the meat in bulk because the price per pound is lower than for one pound. In this case it was $2.89 per pound. Almost half the cost of my usual pound of organic ground beef (and for those who don't usually buy organic buying in bulk will still save money as it is less per pound).

DIY Stencils - Guest Post

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Happy Birthday to me! I'm giving you a gift...two posts from me in one day! ;-) Only, I am not in my usual location for this post.

Today, I'm guest posting over at The Frugal Girls.

I recently went on a quest to figure out if I could make my own stencils. That way I could have custom stencils exactly the way I wanted them and I could save lots of money over what stencils usually cots.

Here is a sneak peak of my quest. Head on over to The Frugal Girls: DIY Stencils Tutorial...  to see my tutorial.

Have a great day!

  

Blogs I've linked up with:

© 2011-2012 The Real Thing with the Coake Family.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Training Tuesday: Half Marathon Week 13

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Apparently, I started celebrating my 41st birthday early. When you see my training for this week, you will understand. I was a bit of a slacker OR I could say I lived my life and trusted that I have trained enough up to this point to let it go for a weekend.

Fall Centerpiece

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Last week I showed you the main star of my fall centerpiece, the spiral rosette yarn wrapped pumpkin. Today, I want to show you what I came up with for our fall centerpiece on our table.

Voila! Right now, I have a fall centerpiece with a slight Halloween twist. I will change it to just fall after Halloween (and I'll probably show you how I change it, too). 

I was forced to drink some wine to be able to use the wine bottles for the centerpieces, but I was willing to take one for the team so we could have a pretty table. ;-) I cut a stencil out of vinyl using my Cricut machine and used etching cream to etch the pumpkin and spider web into the glass bottles.