Fall Nesting: Looking Back At October {Day 31}

We made it-- the last day of October! Thank you for joining me this month for my Fall Nesting series. I had a great time, but I'm ready for a more normal blogging schedule. Whew!

I hope you stick around with me for all the coming holiday festivities. It will be fun!

In case you missed anything,

here are a few of my favorite highlights from this month:

1. Simple Apple Crisp
2. Rosemary Parmesan Popcorn
3. Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Dip
4. Pumpkin Paper Craft
5. Thanksgiving Sign
6. Window Writing
7. Spool Table
8. Reclaimed Wood Trough
9. Leaf Watercolor

Fall Nesting: How To Take Better Halloween Photos {Day 30}

Tomorrow's the big night! I hope all your costumes are all set and you're ready for a safe, fun evening.

Halloween can be a tricky time for capturing good photos of all the costumes and fun moments because of the lighting. Nighttime photography has always been a challenge for me!

Below are a few resources to help improve the quality of your spooktacular photos.

Simple As That blog

• How To Take Spooky Halloween Pumpkin Photos at Simple As That blog. (I wish I knew some of her tips before taking photos of our jack-o-lanterns this year!)
• Digital Photography School's Halloween Photo Tips
• How To Take Great Halloween Pictures of Your Kids from Fourth and Hazel

Fall Nesting: A Little House Tour {Day 29}

Recently, I was asked by a fellow blogger to share a short home tour on her blog with her readers. (When it's up, I'll let you know.)

I've never posted an official home tour here before for a couple of reasons.

1. I would need to have a clean house. Ha.
2. There's always a laundry list of things to do in every room before it's "ready."

Excuses no more. I bit the bullet this weekend and we rearranged a few things, cleaned, and took a few pictures. To be fair, I'll show you all a few pictures as well. It's not a complete tour, but I'll slowly get there. I will soon add a "Home Tour" tab at the top with a more complete look, but for now you'll have to keep with a few images.

Keep in mind, these are in progress photos-- not after photos.

Fall Nesting: Weekend Links {Day 28}

• Brooke over at All Things Thrifty has a family tradition of carving over 90 pumpkins per year. They have some pretty incredible designs!
• One Charming Party shares how to make your own foam fingers for the next football game.
• This spider pinata from Oh Happy Day is actually really cute. . . . Did I just really say that a spider is cute? It really is.
• You should check the Light Brite pumpkin from Giver's Log. Adorable and ingenious.

Fall Nesting: Autumn Is a Second Spring {Day 27}

Happy weekend, my friends.

Fall Nesting: Spool Table DIY {Day 26}

This summer Josh brought me home this baby from work:

It's a big spool for wire. He said he had a surprise for me, but wasn't sure if I would want it. Haha. Of course, honey!

I immediately thought-- that's my next coffee table.

However it sat out in the driveway until this weekend.

What a cute photo bomb!

I gave it a scrub and a sand.

And a couple of coats of paint.

Josh put a few casters on underneath, so we can roll it around the living room.

Eventually, I think we'll put some rope around the middle, but for now we're happy.

It isn't perfect, but I think it has a certain charm about its imperfections.

Linking to:

The Inspired Room's Fall Nesting Party

Home Stories A to Z's Tutorials and Tips Party

Fall Nesting: DIY Thanksgiving Sign {Day 24} [Thanksgiving Craft]

I hardly have any Thanksgiving decorations. It's such an underrated holiday. So I wanted to make a Thanksgiving sign. We had plenty of leftover wood from the trough project.

I sanded the wood down a bit, but not much because I didn't want it "perfect". We still had paint leftover from the hallway makeover, so white it became!

After I painted the three boards, Josh screwed another smaller piece behind to connect the all boards together.

If you're lucky enough to have a Silhouette - making something like this would be easy. More power to you. However, this is how I'm not so lucky, so this is how I did the lettering:

I found a font that I liked and printed it out rather large. I think it was 550 pt. or close to that.

Then I cut out each letter and traced it onto the boards with pencil. I wouldn't suggest pen as the color can bleed through some paints.

Using a small paint brush, I filled in each letter with acrylic craft paint.

I decided to go a little lighthearted with the sign-- we had already "given thanks" with the mantel. : )

Linking up to:

The Inspired Room's Holiday Nesting Party
Home Stories A to Z's Tutorials and Tips Party

Fall Nesting: Things To Come {Day 23}

I thought I'd give you a sneak peek at what's to come tomorrow. I can't offer too much more than that because I lost the light before a could take final pictures.

I used to love the shorter days of fall. Not so much now. Too much to do and not enough daylight hours once I get back from work.

Sigh. Dumb job.

: )

Fall Nesting: A Little Fun with Photos {Day 22}

I couldn't help myself. : )

Most of the time, I think editing photos is a whole lot of fun. So when PicMonkey (my go-to site for quick photo fixes) came out with their Halloween editing features, I was pretty excited.

(And no, they aren't paying me to say this. I'm just a fan.)

Last year I shared Picnik's Hallween photo editing, but that site has since sadly closed. However, the creators of Picnik opened a new site that is even better -- picmonkey.com. They have so many more options than Picnik ever had.

I'm not going to go into the details of how I edited these pictures because there is too much to go over and most of it is easy to figure out. But I do want to show a little bit of what's out there.

The new Halloween features they have are:

• Zombies
• Witches
• Vampires
• Day of the Dead
• Demons
• Trick or Treat

Here's a "before and after" of me becoming a zombie.

And a vampire wedding picture!

One thing I would suggest as you check out each effect,  is to be sure to click the little light bulb icon in the corner. I didn't notice it for a while, but it does give you ideas on how best to use the effect.

If you have a family gallery wall in your home, I think it would be fun to edit the same pictures with some of these effects and replace them for the Halloween season.

I think I'll change my Facebook profile picture to my zombie picture and see if anybody notices!

Fall Nesting: Weekend Links {Day 21}

• DIY sweater bracelets from the Lovely Cupboard
• 39 Easy DIY Ways To Create Art For Your Walls from BuzzFeed Shift
• Two great lists of apps for iPhone and android from A Beautiful Mess
• Freshen Up Your Home For Fall from C.R.A.F.T.

Fall Nesting: The Two Sounds of Autumn {Day 20}

Fall Nesting: Writing on my Windows {Day 19}

Typically for fall we put up a few really cute jack-o-lantern window clings. However, since we made the decision to skip the Halloween decorations this year, my windows were looking a little bare. So I decided to write a nice fall quote on our backdoor window instead.  It's definitely simple, but it really looks pretty cool, especially when the sun is shining.

Pick out a quote and a pretty font. The thicker the font the easier it will be and the better it will turn out. Print it out and tape on the outside of the window.

Trace the quote with a wet-erase marker. Since the glass was double-paned, I had to close one eye to trace it. Otherwise it kind of looks like a 3D movie without the special glasses. Trust me. Close one eye and trace-- it will be just fine.

And there it is!

After I was done photographing this I realized that I probably should wash my windows. : )

Fall Nesting: Three Fall Projects I Wish I Had Time To Make {Day 17}

Busy, busy, busy.

But who isn't these days?

If you are one of the lucky few with a couple spare minutes, I would make one (or all!) of these projects if I were you.

1. Ombre Pumpkin from Funky Time
Beautiful, huh?

2. The Great Pumpkin Cake from a Merrier World
It's just two bundt cakes. Genius.

3. Leaf Roses from Design Sponge
Gorgeous. To make these roses I would have to resort to stealing though, since we only have the yellow and brown leaf varieties in our yard. Humbug.

Fall Nesting: Rosemary Parmesan Popcorn {Day 16}

I have a very busy week ahead of me. And I came home from work today wanting a quick snack and a little down time on the hammock in the backyard. The only snack I had in the pantry was a lonely little bag of popcorn.

It needed a little snazzying up so I mixed together a few things and came up with something pretty good.

This recipe is not an exact science. I can tell you the measurements I used, but you should feel free to adjust for your taste. I don't think you can get it wrong.

I don't have a popcorn popper, so I used the 100-calorie, 94% fat free microwave popcorn I had on hand. So keep in mind, that it was a smaller size bag. You should double the recipe for a normal bag of popcorn. If you air pop some corn, that would probably be best though.

• 1 tablespoon melted butter
• 1 teaspoon chopped rosemary 
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 tablespoons finely grated parmesan cheese
• 1 small bag of popcorn

1. Pop the corn.

2. Immediately stir in the butter, then the rest of the ingredients.

If you wait for it to cool too long, the cheese mixture will not stick to the popcorn.

Hope you all are having a restful week!

Fall Nesting: Decorating My Fall Mantel {Day 15}

I finally did up my mantel for the fall this weekend. I thought about doing a Halloween mantel, but I didn't want to redo it again in a couple of weeks so I'm skipping right to Thanksgiving decorations.

I'm keeping it pretty simple this year.

And cheap. I just used things we had on hand. The letters I made from cardboard. I printed the letters out in a size 640 font that I liked. I traced and cut them out of an old cardboard box, then sprayed them with leftover paint from the marquee letter project. I could have bought chipboard letters from Hobby Lobby for $1/piece, which would have been easier.

But you can't beat free- when it's basically the same thing.

Three little pumpkins sitting on a fence . . .

I bought a few pumpkins on clearance at Crate and Barrel last year that I was excited to finally get out of storage. I had to add a few bright leaves for a pop o' color.

Yes, that's the same trough that was added my kitchen a week ago. I moved my DIY trough to the mantel and flipped it over for a bit of height. I loved it in the kitchen, but I'm always changing things up. We'll just have to make another.

The old books are Josh's contribution to the mantel. I was rummaging through the house trying to find needed something to balance the wheat and he pulled out his box of old books. Perfect-- except I had to turn one of them around. I didn't want to include "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" to my mantel.

The wheat is leftover from last year. I stuck it in a pitcher I bought from TJMaxx a couple years ago. The more I stare at it the more it looks like the pitcher had a crazy hair day, but I decided that I like it anyway.

And there it is again!

How are your mantels looking? Did you spookify your home or have you skipped ahead to Thanksgiving?

Linking up to:

The Inspired Room's Mantels and Porches Link Party