Welcome, Fall!

Good morning!  And happy third-day-of-fall! We hope everyone is having a fantabulous week so far. Our week has been pretty good. The first days of the new season have definitely been fall-like. We’ve finally had a good rain storm for the first time in quite a while. The biggest problem with the rain is the wet pant cuffs... We’ve also been working at school. It’s always fun to work in the same school and grade as each other and mess with the kids a little. Sometimes you have to go with the “No, I’ve never met her before today” when they ask if you’re related. Good to know most of them can tell the difference between their everyday teacher and the sister.

Anyway, today’s project is a quick fall-themed home décor project we came up with. We wanted to post it on Tuesday but unfortunately didn’t get around to it until today. It is a set of fall-themed wall signs.

We were inspired by some prints we found online and maybe possibly a new line of projects to sell. Just what we needed- another set of items to create!! Especially since we were talking about what to focus on last night!! We decided to go with some fall images, including a cute scarecrow, a tree with its changing leave, and a set of little pumpkins. The last one is a little “sentiment” that reads “welcome fall”. How cute are they?!

Now we have to figure out if we want to frame them or make them into canvases. Either way would be super cute! We like our version (compared to some of the other ones we’ve found) better because they are thought-out and 3D (even a little) compared to just a printed image.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Enjoy the rest of your day and come back tomorrow for some more fall-themed party items we’ve been working on!

Cupcake Saturday!

I don't know about you, but this week went by super fast! We've been busy adding to our store, with new cards and banners. And we had our aunt and uncle over, which was great. It's been a few years since we've seen them, so it was nice.
It started to feel a little like fall, and by that, I mean, we had two days of rain. After almost 2 months without any rain, we had just a little. So for our first fall-inspired cupcakes of the season, we have a Spiked Pumpkin Latte cupcakes!

These cupcakes have pumpkin puree and coffee granules, and are spiked with pumpkin pie liqueur. The original recipe called for mudslide mix, but I couldn't find any, and found this instead. It works for me! The frosting is a buttercream, with the same ingredients mixed in.

Thanks for stopping by!

Another Halloween Card

Good morning, everyone! I hope our east coast readers are all safe and sound. We're thinking about all of you. (I expect that once power comes back, this will be the very first place you check :) )
Anyway, we have a cute little Halloween card to share with you, a little late to send out for tomorrow, but that's okay.

It's a little hard to tell in this picture, but the pumpkin and frame are in the same glittery paper used in yesterday's layout. And, for some reason, purple comes out blue-ish on our camera, but the top spider web is supposed to be purple.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cupcake Saturday!

I think we can say goodbye to the sun out here in the Northwest. After some beautiful weather for the past 3+ months, we won't be seeing much of the sun until July. Oh well. That means there is plenty of time for cupcake making on the weekends, right?! Today's cupcake is in honor of pumpkin week: a Pumpkin-Praline Cupcake.

The cake is pumpkin flavored with a pecan praline topping. Let me say, this came out kind of a mess (nothing like a sugar and butter mixture exploding all over the pan) but sometimes messes can be delicious. These are really good. The praline topping was supposed to go in the bottom of the cake pan, with the batter on top, but those turned out even messier, so we went with the lesser of two messes and came out with these. They don't need frosting or anything, because they're pretty sweet, but not too sweet (you can kind of see the glaze on top) and the pecans give them a nice little crunch too.

Thanks for stopping by!

What Did the Boy Pumpkin Say to the Girl Pumpkin?

Hey there, gourd-geous!!

Har har! Silly, I know. Happy Friday, everyone! We hope everyone had a great week! We are definitely looking forward to the weekend. After three months of gorgeous weather, the rain has come back and we have an "excuse" to sit home and craft... (like we really need one!) But that's OK, we have a ton of stuff to work on, so we'll be busy, and out of trouble. Hopefully. ;)
Anyway, today's project is another wreath we made to add some color to our apartment. Right now it's hanging on our door. I wish we could hang it up outside, but I don't know how long it would last out there. Not that I don't trust our neighbors, but still.

How cute?! It is supposed to be a pumpkin, with its brown stem hanger and twisted vines. The vines didn't come out quite like I wanted, but it's still cute. This is an up-close view of the words, and the little pumpkin on the side:

This wreath was fun to make, once all of the tulle was cut. Not such a fan of cutting it, but putting the wreath together was super simple. We already have a Halloween one planned!
We are entering this project into BBTB2's Pumpkin Challenge here. We used the Birthday Cakes and Happily Ever After on this project. (Funny story. I had been planning this for like two weeks and saw this challenge, and thought, "Oh, this is perfect!". And then I saw the one from the design team member. And here I thought it was a *brilliant* idea! I guess great minds think alike! I do love all the sparkle on hers!)
Thanks so much for stopping by! We appreciate it!

Carving Memories

Good morning, everyone. I hope you are all having a great week so far. The weekend feels so close, doesn't it? Anyway, today's project is a layout to show all of those pumpkin carving pictures. After picking out the perfect ones at the patch, you need to carve at least some of them, right? So here's the layout.

There photo mat measures 6.25x12, to fit three 4x6 photos side by side. I don't really like cropping my pictures out to small sizes, so most of the layouts we use hold 4x6 photos. If I do need to crop something (or someone) out, I use photoshop and still make it 4x6. So with those three pictures there, a lot of the paper wouldn't be shown, but that's okay!

Thanks for stopping by!

My Little Pumpkin!

Happy Wednesday, everyone. Just a few more days to get through. Today we have a cute little card to share with you.

This one is kind of like the "apple of my eye" card we made last week, but with a pumpkin instead! The googly eyes definitely add some cuteness to the already cute pumpkin. It's a perfect card for a little one to get at Halloween time, or any time! This one measures 5.75x4.5 inches.

Thanks for stopping by! Come back tomorrow for some delicious pumpkin cupcakes!

The Perfect Pumpkin

Good morning, all. Today we have a layout to share with you, for all those pumpkin patch pictures. (I love the alliteration!)

I was kind of surprised at how well this layout turned out. I didn't realize we had such perfect paper for the photo mats. It was one of those paper finds that makes your day.


Thanks for stopping by!

Less-Mess Lanterns

Oh Monday, how you mess up the week... Well, hopefully this project will brighten up your day a little. Back in August, during our camping week, we made cute little lanterns with mason jars. Here's the link to that project. Since they weren't being used at the moment, we figured we would dress them up and repurpose them. Here they are.

For the jack o'lantern, we used regular acrylic paint to coat the inside. I used a sponge brush so there would be enough color, but still let more than enough light out. The face was cut out of black paper, but black vinyl would work even better. They would be so cute lining a walkway on Halloween night. (And less messy than jack-o-lanterns, hence the title of this post.)

I was ready to make a second jack o'lantern, but realized that I wouldn't have enough paint to cover the inside. We had some cheesecloth from another project left over, and I knew a mummy would be great! I also know that mummies don't glow, but how can you resist? I cut strips of the cheesecloth and glued them randomly onto the mason jar, and then added some googly eyes to it. How easy is that?!

Thanks for stopping by!

Pick of the Patch!

Welcome to another week here. It wouldn't be fall without a week of pumpkin projects, would it? So, to start it off, here is a cute little shape card we made.

Who wouldn't like being told they are the pick of the patch? I know I would. I love how it came out, with a little bit of the added texture on the pumpkin pieces. The card measures 5 1/4 x 4 3/4 inches.

Thanks for stopping by!

Wishing You...

A fabulous fall! Yesterday, we went on about how this is our favorite season. And, since it's our favorite, we decided to make it this week's theme. So, for today's quick project, we decided to show off our fall card for this year:

 

We decided that this little birdie was too cute not to use! The inside of the card says "Wishing You a Fabulous Fall" (hence the title of the post)

And what's fall without something pumpkin-flavored?! Since we're just two girls on budgets, we can't really afford to get fancy coffee drinks everyday. While we were perusing Pinterest, we came across this recipe for pumpkin lattes, so you can have them whenever you want! I love how easy it is to remember, and it takes less than five minutes to make one! I only use coffee when I make these, but if you're fortunate enough  to have an espresso machine, you can surely use that. (And how cute is that mug?! We designed them with just some Sharpies (another Pinterest project ;)

Pumpkin Spice Latte

Makes: 2 large mugs

Ingredients:

2 cups milk

2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons pumpkin pie filling

2 tablespoons imitation vanilla extract

Pumpking pie spice*
1 cup of strong coffee, prepared

Whipped cream, for topping

Caramel drizzle

Directions:

1.       In a small saucepan, add milk, pumpkin, and sugar. Heat on medium heat until steaming. Stir occasionally.

2.       Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and pumpkin pie spice.(*I usually use just enough to cover the top of the milk)

3.       Pour mixture into blender. Blend for 30 seconds, until nice and fluffy.

4.       Divide coffee and milk between two cups. Top with whipped cream and caramel, if desired 

 This recipe is obviously pretty easy to cut in half, in case you only want to make one. Or make eough for two and drink them both...

Phew, that was a long one! I think it's time for me to go make one of these! Thanks for stopping by!

Cupcake Saturday!

Happy Fall! It's official! The best season of the year is here- holiday season! Now that Fall is here, that means that it's (past) time to think about Halloween and Thanksgiving. And, of course Christmas gets included since most of the prep time for the holiday actually falls during Fall! I don't know if you can tell, but we get really excited at this time of year!
OK, enough rambling. Time to get to our favorite day of the week- Cupcake Saturday! Seeing as today is the first day of Fall, we thought we would make today's cupcake based off our favorite drink. One thing Washington is knwn for is Starbucks. One of the best thing about Starbucks? They're pumpkin lattes. Unfortunately, they are a little expensive to have too many of them, so today's cupcake is a Pumpkin Latte cupcake:

Oh, they could be twins...These are pumpkin cupcakes, with just a hint of coffee flavor (I know a latte has espresso in it, so it's not quite a latte, but you can't taste too much of it in the drink anyway.) We topped it with some whipped cream, a little caramel drizzle, and a sprinkle of cinnamon! These cupcakes taste about as close to the real thing as you can get!

Thanks for stopping by today! Join us tomorrow, when we start a new theme for the week.