Felt Rose DIY: Part 1

Hey guys!

Today Thomas and I have done LOTS of crafts and completed what we feel like are some of our most successful DIY projects yet. Before I start, I have to tell you that I didn't come up with this craft on my own. I saw a tutorial for the wreath on Pinterest, and read more about it on the blog Little Things Bring Smiles. Katie did an excellent tutorial on making felt flowers, which can be found here. Now, lets begin.

Here's what you'll need for the wreath: (Note: If you decide to trace circles for your flowers, use a lighter colored pen. Otherwise you'll end up with dirty looking roses).

And here is how you actually make the flowers/wreath:

Here's what Charlotte did the whole time we worked. Wrestled Thomas' shoes.

Lets just say that this whole process was pretty messy. It's really, really important that you put a trash bag under your wreath while you glue the flowers on--otherwise, glue will probably get everywhere. Regardless of any precautionary steps you take, felt will definitely get everywhere:]

After you finish, walk around with your wreath looking for the perfect hanging spot.

Even though the wreath looked unbelievably cute on our pets, we decided to hang ours on the front door, which is protected by storm glass. The felt can't get wet so be sure to bring yours in if it gets rainy.

I'm SUPER happy with the contrast between the orange roses and the dark blue of our door. It's one of my favorite color combinations!

We also got some real flower pots, so our Fall porch is now finished!

 

We love how everything turned out, especially given that we got all the felt and the wreath itself for less than $10! Tomorrow I'll be posting about a couple of other felt-rose crafts that are in the works, so I hope you'll be back then:]

-Kinsey

Pumpkins out the wazoo.

I have now officially worked my first 40 hour week! Overall I really enjoyed myself, and I definitely feel like I'm getting into a routine. Everyone I work with is really fun and nice, and it's been really nice to finally start making some new friends. 

As you all know, I've been really looking forward to decorating for Fall for a few weeks now. I'm sure you can imagine my disappointment when I opened the box labelled "Fall" and found only a couple of things:

This light up pumpkin...

And this squishy one with a huge schnoz, buck teeth, and his tongue sticking out.

Thomas wasn't super impressed with either (particularly the squishy pumpkin, but I've had him for literally my entire life), and we both agreed that it would be nice if we could add to our Fall decor selection. Because right now, it's kind of pitiful.

I have to admit, I find decorating for holidays overwhelming. I look at tons of magazines--and now Pinterest--pages upon pages of gorgeous homes all decked out for whatever season, and at first I'm really excited. Then I remember that we're pretty poor budget conscious, and it's a little intimidating to imagine decorating every room of the house.

Instead of setting huge and expensive goals to begin with, we decided to start out small. So this morning, we set out into the world of craft stores to gather the supplies for a few DIY projects. Don't get too excited...there aren't any featured in this post, but there is one in the works.

To start off our "Fall decor palooza," first we headed to Hobby Lobby. They had some great sales going on, but I'm sad to report that our trip was a complete bust. We didn't find a single thing we wanted/needed there! Pretty unbelievable. So we moved on to Michael's.

While at Michael's, we found two scarecrows that were only $4 each. Thomas apparently doesn't like scarecrows, but I DO, so we bought 'em. And I proceeded to pretend that they were children for the rest of the trip.

First they rode in the kids' part of the basket...

And then they sat in Jack's car seat. Because I believe in protecting scarecrows. Safety first!

After what seemed like a long morning of shopping on an empty stomach, we asked Scoutmob where we should eat (for 50% off). It told us Alvarado's Taqueria! We've been there before, and I have to say that our food was even better this time.

I had a chimichanga. It was covered in sour cream and guac, and I was in love.

Thomas got the adobado plate, which he says was amazing.

After lunch, we made our weekly trip to Walmart. Oh joy! We've decided that we'll be grocery shopping on Friday night from now on, because there's something about Walmart that makes us feel like we're wasting our Saturday. We grabbed lots of pumpkins and gourds while we were there, and even got some Fall flowers. Then it was home to decorate.

 Here's our cute little gourd centerpiece.

And here's our front steps! Please disregard the lack of real flower pots...it's a long/sad story:[

Our little scarecrow couple. They're even holding hands!

 My favorites, the striped pumpkins.

We also got the supplies for a DIY wreath, which I'll be posting about within the next couple of days (assuming everything works out well). 

For now I'll leave you with a video of Charlotte getting into the Halloween spirit:

Have a great weekend everyone!

-Kinsey

Shania Twain said it best...

Here's what my day looked like yesterday:

Yeah. Not super great. We all have days like that though, so I'm over it. I was definitely reminded of Shania Twain's "Honey I'm Home." [If you don't know what I'm talking about, watch the video here]. My day even ended just like the song with Thomas cooking me an excellent (pasta) dinner. It was super comforting and tasty!

A Fall/Halloween package of candy and cute little toys from my mom also helped improve my mood. Lets just say I spent quite a bit of time doing this:

Today is already looking better since we'll be closing early for our annual employee dinner. It's kind of funny that I've only been working there for a week (so there isn't really anything for me to be recognized for or anything), but I definitely won't turn it down. I also woke up on time ;]

Later in the week I'll be doing a post about Fall decor inspiration. I hope to see you then!

-Kinsey

You can just call me Garlic.

Sup guys?

I've been SO enjoying the cool weather! It's much harder to get out of bed when it's chilly (especially because we have a down comforter. Ahhh), but I don't even care!

Big news: I took a step towards the 'new me' yesterday by wearing high heels to work. All day. That's absolutely not something I'd normally do, but it turned out well. I didn't even fall, trip, or anything! I mentioned my new Ann Marino Lottery Suede Pumps a couple of weeks back. Well, I resisted my typical urge to 'save them for something special' and busted them out on a random Monday. Because that's what the new me would do. I figure there's no better time to re-create my image than right now. Am I right or am I right?

Lets pretend that Thomas didn't accidentally cut my head off.

My second week at work is going well so far, and things are pretty exciting. There's lots to learn, and I'm feeling fairly challenged...but in a good way. There are quite a few other new people around, so it's nice that I'm not the only one. Yesterday all the "new kids" were taken out to lunch! We dined at a nearby pizza place called Fellini's. Thomas has been there before for work, and he suggested the white pizza. 

He failed to mention that the white pizza is topped with around a clove of raw minced garlic. It was really tasty, but I'll probably be known as "That Garlic Beast" til the end of time.

  

I finished up the day by drinking out of cups (if you don't know what I'm referring to, look up Drinking Out of Cups on YouTube. Be warned, it is fairly inappropriate and NSFW).

I hope you're all enjoying this brisk Fall day! 

-Kinsey

North Georgia State Fair

Happy Monday!

After reading a ton of Facebook updates about the fair back home, Thomas and I had worked up a pretty solid craving for some fair food. I did some research and discovered that the North Georgia State Fair was going on 30 minutes away, so on Saturday evening we headed up to Marietta. After we parked, we were told to wait for a hay truck that would come pick us up and drive us to the gates. That's when we knew we were in Georgia:] There was a huge hill right in front of the parking area, so I took a picture because we're still impressed by hills and trees.

Earlier in the week, I read on the fair's website that this weekend you could get a free adult ticket in exchange for 5 cans of food. We brought 10 cans and got two tickets, saving $10. It worked out perfectly because we're really bad about eating canned soups and stuff. Winning! Into the fair we went.

It was cooler in the daytime yesterday, but it wasn't too cold so I almost didn't bring a jacket. I was really glad I did, because it got down to around 40 last night!

Our first stop of the evening was the corndog stand. We both have quite a passion for corndogs, so getting a foot long was a priority on our list. We noticed that this fair was a little smaller than the one back home, the biggest difference being the lack of local food vendors. Most of the food places were run by the fair itself (versus local organizations like schools, the Lions club, etc). We wandered to the back of the food area before making our first purchase, and luckily we discovered some of the more authentic carts parked there. Don't worry, we shared this dog.

Next we decided to walk around and explore a bit. We saw lots of really interesting people and things, but one of our favorite discoveries was the stuffed rasta booth.

Now, say "Rasta Ba-na-na" out loud. Weird right?

Another cool find was this awesome striped wall. Everyone knows I love multi-colored stripes, and we thought it made for a really fun picture!

After doing some excellent people watching, we were ready for our next snack: twisty taters. This caught our eye because it was Texas themed!

The taters were really crispy and delicious, and we added a little garlic salt because I mean come on, why wouldn't we?

 I'm pretty proud of this picture. I fancy myself quite the artist (not really).

We walked around and snacked on those for a while, at which point we noticed a booth that Thomas is still talking about.

 That's right. There was a Japanese cart at the fair selling 'homemade' eggrolls. Thomas was SO excited, but sadly we didn't have enough money to invest. There were no prices on the stand, and I wasn't super into the idea of getting an eggroll at the fair. My theory: you can only get fair food once a year, but eggrolls are everywhere.

We didn't ride any rides (because they were $2 a pop and I would probably barf), but we did take some cool pictures of them. 

 

At this point we counted up our money and realized that (leaving out $3 for parking) we only had $3 left to spend. This was pretty disappointing, because funnel cakes were between $4-$6. We settled on some fresh cotton candy on a stick, which I hadn't had before. It was really tasty and fun to eat.

While we munched along, we headed into the exhibit area. We saw quilts, food, plants, and animals, and there were actually some pretty interesting/weird sights.

 Coolest plant ever, Chinese Lanterns.

This rabbit was bigger than Charlotte. It made me sad because he reminded me of our old rabbit Lilly, but he was badly taken care of. His fur was super matted and gross. He was really huge, so I guess that's cool...

This chicken was kind of neat because she was a mini-chicken. Fancy.

A huge inflatable shark slide outside the exhibit area. If only it hadn't been a dollar to slide...

We had a super fun time at the fair! We even saved $3 because they didn't charge us for parking. We could've spent it on a funnel cake, but oh well--no regrets (except Thomas and the eggroll cart).

I hope you're having a great Monday! Enjoy your week:]

-T, K, J & C

Sunday Funday!

Hey there!

I hope you're all having a great Sunday. I'm still getting used to the whole full time work thing, and I haven't been able to post as much this week. I really enjoy blogging, so I'm going to try to keep posting as much as possible. I may do more weekend posting since that would be easier than working it in on a weekday, so we'll see what happens over the next couple of weeks.

Today's post is just a mishmash of random pictures taken since last Thursday (which was our 4 month wedding anniversary), when we decided to have a fun date night after work. Of course, Scoutmob helped us out as always and suggested a restaurant less than 10 miles away, a place was called Bambinelli's. It was SO good, and super cheap. Here's what we got, all for less than $15 (sorry these pictures are terrible. Low lighting and iPhone cameras don't mix).

Garlic bread came with the meal. It was hot and fresh and really tasty.

My favorite pasta is definitely plain fettuccine alfredo. How adventurous, right? This one was particularly good, and there was so much that I saved half for dinner the next night.

Thomas had cannelloni. He was very impressed. We'll definitely be back.

Then, it was Friday! There's just always something so exciting about Friday to me. I guess it's because the day is filled with the promise of the weekend? Who knows. But my excitement was definitely showing as I finished getting ready for work.

Friday work went well, and I was glad to see my first work weekend. I loooove Fall Saturdays, and there are tons of festivals and fairs going on in Atlanta. While we were reading about them and making plans, we had a leisurely morning drinking coffee and eating waffles.

Jack spent the morning snuggling in bed...

While Charlotte rolled around in laundry. Would you believe me if I said that we leave it on the floor because she loves it? Because she seriously does. It helps that it's also in a sunny spot.

After lounging for a while, we headed out for some errands. First on the agenda was a stop at BB&B to buy K-Cups (we have a Keurig at work and it's BYOC) and to get me a coffee cup! I am SUCH a real grown up.

We named this little beauty Starla Copco (because she's Copco brand).

Next we ventured in to TJMaxx to look at bags. I've been wanting a bigger purse for work (useful for carrying lunch, papers, etc). We didn't find the right bag there, but we did find these guys, and they were really hard to pass up. Because they're covered in hair. I wonder how many people they had to shave to make them.

Then we stopped by Target, where we found THE bag. I also got a new wallet, which Thomas actually picked out. He's good at things like that, lucky for me. I had a gift card and both were on sale, so I got the bag and wallet for less than $8. Cha-ching!

After some afternoon relaxation, we went back and forth on what we wanted to do Saturday night. A cold front hit yesterday, and it's been SO Fallish! I'm absolutely loving it. During the day, it was around 60 degrees! We've even brought out our snuggly down blanket.

After much discussion, we ended up deciding on the nearby North Georgia State Fair. I actually took my big camera (since it could fit in my big bag), so I got some really great pictures. I'll be updating about those tomorrow, so keep an eye out!

Happy Sunday:]

-T, K, J, & C