Autumn Blessings From New England

Oh what a beautiful place to be this time of year!

Autumn's Beauty

The splendor of orange, gold and red

paints an image of beauty inside my head.

The colors of fall appear before me

reaching far for the hills and beyond what I see.

The crisp, clean smell of the air right now

has captured my senses off guard somehow.

The magic of Autumn with it's beauty galore

is a gift from God for us all to adore.

by Deb Boudreau

There is no prettier place to be in autumn than New England.

The air is crisp and sweet . . .

The leaves are magnificant shades of red, gold and orange . . .

The smell of burning leaves - mmmmmmm . . .
The frost is on the pumpkins . . .

The mums boast their colors . . .

Apple pickin' and candy apples . . .

Fall country fairs . . .

Speaking of country fairs, last weekend I participated in the annual "Collector's Eye Fall Festival". It is a two-day event held the last weekend in September, boasting wonderful antiques, primitives and collectibles, as well as hand-crafted offerings, art and other needfuls.

Pictured below are some of the photos I took of my setup at the fair featuring handmade creations that I have worked on all year. Some of them I featured in earlier blog posts. You may recognize them as you scroll through the photos.

Surrounded by mums, this is a sign I constructed and painted. It would be a great addition to one's bar, pub or game room.

I purchased this rustic trellis at my friend Lynn's shop, Log Cabin Antiques. I made the little "harvest blessings" sign and embellished with a swag of bittersweet from my back yard.

My friend Mollie dropped off a section of picket fence one day, so I decided to craft something with it that would be useful. I got out the power tools, screws, paint, sandpaper, etc. and this is what I came up with. A rustic bench! Not bad for a woodworking novice.

The next few photos to follow are my booth display. Please click on each image for better detail.










In this photo, I put out some homemade pumpkin mini muffins. It confused a lot of folks because inside my tent I had a "Fall Festival" candle burning. The candle smelled like pumpkin, cinnamon and all the smells associated with baking muffins. So my visitors were not sure if the muffins were real! Too funny!



This box is one of my re-do's that I featured in an earlier blog post. I simply added a mum and some bittersweet to create a colorful autumn display that would be great on a porch.





This small divided box was one that I purchased from Log Cabin Antiques. I repurposed it by hand painting a saltbox scene and adding "home sweet home" embroidered inserts. A very unique offering . . .







I had to make several yoyo's to create this embroidered table mat. Even the flower centers are yoyo's with small pompoms inside.

This is one of two wall-hangings that I completed in time for the fair. I featured this one in an earlier blog post.

Happy Fall to All

Mystery Project Completed!

I recently completed my "mystery project" that I had teased you about in a couple of my past posts.

I am a huge "green" supporter, so I am always looking for ways to re-use and recycle various items. Nothing hits my circular file without getting the "creative possiblity" test first. So I recently emptied this oats container (the large size) and tried to come up with a practical and decorative re-use for it. Well . . . . . .

what do ya think?

I designed this little sewing tote using the empty oats container. I used various scraps of fabrics to create the bag and the yoyo flowers and leaves. The buttons were used for the flower centers. I lined the top portion and made a casing for the ribbon drawstrings.

This is not only decorative, but it is also useful!

Once I completed the project, of course my brain started buzzing about other ideas for this type of project. So far, I came up with a "My Bingo" bag, a "button, button, who's got the button" bag, "My Paint Brushes" bag, a "From our house to yours" homemade gift cookie container, or just a plain and decorative container to hold recycled plastic grocery bags. I guess the possibilities are endless. Please let me know if you have any fun ideas.

Happy Crafting!

Whatcha Working on Wednesday

Today I am listing several projects that I plan to start, or I am already working on. I can't just focus on one thing at a time, I have to have multiple things going on all over the place!

First of all, I completed my wool applique table runner pictured below. I am very happy with the way it turned out. The colors are warm and rich.

As I explained in last week's WWW, I plan to start working on Fall themed projects in preparation for upcoming fairs that I will participate in.

Pictured below is a picture/pattern designed by Heather Waldron from "Patchwork & Stitching" (Australian magazine), Volume 9, Num. 1.
I plan to work this up with the fall colored prints I have selected below, of course they are Thimbleberries! I plan to revise the project slightly by changing the word "Daisy" to "Autumn Blessings", and I will change the daisy flowers to maple leaves and sunflowers. For a hanger, I plan to hit the woods and find the perfect branch to hang it from.

Below is an old wooden box that my husband used for nails. It was destined for the burn pile, along with another larger box and some rough boards. I rescued them before my husband noticed. So far, I have painted the box black. I will distress it and probably make a fall themed wool drape to hang over the front. I will add a potted mum and some bittersweet vines and sell it as a decorative fall arrangement.


Below are the cut up rough boards that I rescued. I grabbed them because I loved the rough nature of the wood and thought they would be great for small signs. I traced the lettering on each of them and just need to paint, distress and wire them. You can't see the words very well in this photo. The top one says "primitives', the second one says "woolens", but the O's will be small wool sheep or pennies. The third one says "country" and the last one says "welcome". I offset the "welcome" so I can attach a rusty star or a wool penny pineapple next to it.



Finally, I have not yet begun my mystery project that I pictured last week. I guess I should start that before my autumn projects just to end the suspense.

To see what others are up to today, head over to Leslie's blog, "My Country Home".

Don't Throw That Away!

Once upon a time, there was a couple that lived in a house that they built over 25 years ago. Residing in the basement was an old woodstove that was not in use. It wasn't a nice air-tight stove, just a plain, "ho-hum" stove. When the lady of the house (me) decided that she wanted to renovate the basement into her crafting studio, she kept stumbling over the old woodstove that seemed to always be in the way. The lady asked her husband how much it was worth and he said "not much". So she asked him to please list it on Craig's List for sale. When he didn't do that, the lady asked him to put it out at the curb with a "free" sign on it. When he didn't do that, she became a bit frustrated because she wanted it out of the basement.

A bit of time passed and the lady of the house happened to come up with an idea for the woodstove. Around the second weekend in May, the man asked the lady what she wanted for Mother's Day. She replied "I'm not your mother, but I would love a woodstove planter". "What?" I explained that I wanted to put the woodstove out in my garden and use it for a planter. He said "No way! I don't want that piece of junk in the yard!"

A couple more weeks passed and it was the lady's birthday. The man asked her what she wanted for her birthday. After thinking for a moment, she replied "Hmmmmm.....I would love a woodstove planter". He chuckled.

Anyway, I ended up having a very happy birthday!