Teatime Tuesday~Gearing Up For Thanksgiving

Happy Tuesday!!!

&

Happy November!!!

Time is flying by like a storm these days. Here in our parts we have been blessed with cooler weather and rain this week! It's always exciting when we get rain and cool weather after having such a long dry, hot season. Today I enjoyed a nice bowl of oatmeal with tea and cream. I also rearranged some of my decor and brought out a few of our Thanksgiving decorations to cozy up the place. I am also gearing up for Thanksgiving. Looks like it will be just the three of us again this year...Which I love! There's no one more I'd want to spend the holidays with than my dear Mr. Darling and Freckles. We would love it if our boy could be with us too...But just not enough time off for him and his job. We miss him very much! But also grateful he will have his girl with him to spend the holidays with and he could also spend it with his grandparents if he wanted.

No matter, our Thanksgiving will be splendid!

I brought out my wooden pilgrims...They are near and dear to my heart. I made and painted them many years ago when our son was about two years old...I was in a MOPS group through church and this was a project we made together. They have adorned our 

Thanksgiving table for almost 20 years now!

I can't believe it has been that long ago...It really blows my mind!

They will be with us for the remainder of our days for sure. I envision us around the Thanksgiving table old and gray with our children and their spouses and our grandchildren with these wooden pilgrims there. That would be so cool.

I made a little collage of some of my favorite chick flick films for ya! Many of them are great tear jerkers. I love a good lighthearted movie or a sweet romance. Since Autumn is the perfect time to cuddle up in a quilt and watch a flick with a nice hot cup of cocoa and caramel popcorn...I thought I'd start you off with a few of my favorite suggestions. Enjoy!

And.....I found these sweet Thankful cards on Pinterest...In which I am planning to use for our Thanksgiving....Thought I'd share with you. You can print them out and hand them out to your family members, have them write down what they are thankful for and share them around the Thanksgiving table. It's a nice way to share what your thankful for and have a bit of conversation together. Making memories and making new traditions is a good thing!

Thanks for popping in today! 

have a delightful week ahead!!!

Halloween 2015

I finished 31 days of sketching! I actually added 4 days into one 

picture since I was still sick...I am a lot better now...yay!!!!

Freckles and I cut out Jack O Lanterns and dressed up for Halloween. We were actually separated this year...Freckles went out with a bunch of friends this year! Yep, she's growing up! She and her friends were going to dress up with Alice In Wonderland characters...One friend was joining in with her dressing up as female Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum...

Mr. Darling and I joined in with our local Safe Trick Or Treating downtown, setting up our booth, representing our church...And handed out candy to a ton of kids. I dressed up as a Pop Art character

Hope y'all had a safe, fun Halloween!!!

Friday Tidbits

It's been a week since we were hit by the flu...I'm not yet 100% but trying to make it through my days...There has been a lot of napping and body aches, sore throats ...But getting rest is first and foremost. I got out a few Autumn things and spruced up our great room. Just small touches here and there. I guess I have a thermos collection? funny...But hey it looks pretty cool grouped together with my old metal trays. I am hoping to find some gumption to make a couple fabric/quilty pumpkins to put up there...Soon I hope. I found some fun stuff thrifting last week too! The vintage patchwork pup was one buck...I have always wanted one and had planned on making one..but there he was waiting for me to snag him up sitting in a pile of stuffed animals! I also found som vintage orange and yellow tupper ware bowls, an old cake pan, an apple basket, vintage lace for sewing projects, and some floral fabric. It was a good thriftscore kind of day.

I found this quilt last month from an Instagram shop for dirt cheap. I thought it would be a great piece for the end of the bed or snuggle blanket watching a movie. nothing fancy but worth the price I paid. 

I also made this adorable Autumn wreath for our front door to cheer things up and bring on the festive fun that comes with Fall. I love love love how it turned out with my 70's calico fabrics. 

Well I'm off to take another rest. I can hardly keep my head up and this tea is tomorrow, 

Happy Friday y'all

Autumn Flavors...Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hello Autumn...
Now that Autumn is upon us we also enter the flu and cold season and cooler weather. This week, I have been quite under the weather with the flu and fever. I am still fighting the bug as I write...But wanted to pop in and share a little recipe for a nice little sweet treat to ring in the new season. My dear Freckles wanted to do a little baking, requesting her favorite cookie....This is a recipe we have had around for years. A favorite of my family indeed. A delectable, moist cookie with delightful flavor, reminiscent to the Autumn season.
I bet you can't eat just one of these yummy, muffin like cookies. She prepared the batter and got to baking. The treat was sure to lift my spirits with the wonderful flavors of pumpkin and chocolate. MMMMMM...It was perfect.

 

 

I leave you with the ingredients below. Note* mix all the wet ingredients with the sugar first...Then add the dry ingredients. Mix well...It gets thick, so a lot of the mixing will be by hand...and there is a ton of batter so be prepared to bake dozens. Drop by heaping tablespoons about an inch apart on a cookie sheet...They will bake like little muffin delights.
 In my oven, it only took 13 minutes...
so watch your time.
The cookies should be golden brown.

Enjoy dear friends.
And do take care as the weather changes.

Making

I finally sat down in the sewing room to make something. It has been months since I created anything at all. (with exception to Freckles birthday gifts) And it felt good to make again. She is a work in progress, but just about finished. I have more Hallows Eve creations swirling around in my head...To get them out....I will certainly try. Our home school year begins next week too....So a lot of my time will be devoted to educating my daughter. With good intentions, I will work on making more.

 

I am really happy with how this pumkin gal turned out. There are several different things going on with paint, sewing, hand stitching, using wool, felt wool, vintage fabrics, old buttons and cotton fabrics...Let's just say there was a lot of love put into her. She is fun, festive and sweet all wrapped in one. Can you believe Autumn is just around the corner? Whew, this Summer flew by. Okay, okay....Back to work.

Stroll With Me Through Halloween's Past....

I made this just for you dear readers.
Go ahead and save it to your files. Hope you like it.
Below I also made this print...Colorful Autumn Subway Art...
You can purchase a print in
My Shop.

Seeing my old house really brought back some memories from my previous post. So, I spent some time this weekend going through some other memories...Like my kids dressing up for Halloween. It was quite the treat to look back at how much they have grown, what we dressed them up in etc.... We went back and forth with the Halloween thing over the years. There were a few in between where we did not dress up, but would celebrate at a Church Harvest function or we would celebrate Reformation Day instead. No matter though, the years we dressed up were fun times in our home...Something they looked forward to and one memory I am sure they will cherish in their childhood memories when they are older.

Here's my boy...
A little Jack O Lantern...S
o cute right down to that little nose.

Here he is was Robin Hood.
 I made the costume for him.
Too funny.
He was two at the time....So little.
 
The year after that I made another costume...He was Noah....See the two lions? They are my Nephews. Tee hee...Noah and the two lions and a Pegasus?

Then he was a Scarecrow.
 
fast forward a couple years...I made these costumes. My son was a frog...The red thing hanging from his hat was supposed to be a tongue with bugs on it. This was our first Halloween with our baby girl so her and I became Lady Bugs....We were the only bugs my son ( The frog ) Didn't eat that night.
  
This was one of my favorite Halloween's. My son was a Skelly Man and I made my daughter's costume...She is supposed to be a flower. Can't you tell? Trick or treating in our old town neighborhood is like going back in time...The sights, the sounds of a ton of kids dressed up,
 knocking on the doors of historic houses as your feet crunch down
on streets of leaves in the coldest of nights, was a delightful memory. A bunch of old fashioned fun.
  
Of course every year we carve pumpkins...
A tradition we will always keep.
 
The next year I made their costumes again. This time we had a Knight and a chicken. I remember using the Martha Stewart directions for the chicken costume...That was a fun one. I also made my son's shield from a piece of plywood. On it,  I painted
 my husband's Italian Garbarino Family crest. We still have that.
  
Ahhh. The year of the Princess and
Neo from The Matrix...
  
Next up I made my daughter a butterfly costume and below
she was a little cheetah girl ballerina.
 
And.... one of the last years my son actually dressed up, I made him a Link costume,
 a character from a video game called Zelda.
   
Finally we have my daughters costume from last year. I made an owl costume for her. One of my favorite costumes yet. This year she will be dressing up as The Hunger Games movie character, Katniss. Who knows, this just might be the last year she will dress up for trick or treating. Thanks for coming along with me down memory lane. It was so fun to look back at these pictures with you. Have a wonderful weekend. See ya Monday. And be ready for the next installment in another home tour coming up this Wednesday.
XOXO