We have been adding autumnal touches around the house these past few weeks. Pottery Barn’s seasonal decor ideas are increasingly my favorite resource. Not too mod (ala some of the most popular craft blogs)and not too cheesey. As Goldilocks would say, they are ‘just right’ for my taste.  Not quite as right for my budget comfort, however. We have solved this problem rather easily though. Enter Walmart. <g> Literally and figuratively. 

Perusing the home, floral, and craft aisles netted several knock off’s for next to nothing. A ‘for instance’ – we picked up this wooden dough riser/kneader piece for $5. It looked just like the one featured as a centerpiece in September’s Country Living mag. We filled it with some tiny pumpkins.

In the floral aisle they had many shapes and sizes of glass vases similar to those in the PB pages.  I can’t see any measurable difference in a $5 glass container vs a $25 version. It is what they are stuffed with that makes them attractive. A bag of cranberries costs less than $3 at the grocery. We had some time while the kids were in choir practice on Sunday so Kieran and I gathered a bagful of pinecones from under a tree in the planter outside. They look stunning in those oversized glass vases or in open bowls. Walmart had several wood bowls in the kitchen/dishware section as salad bowls. They would make really classy  displays of natural fall-ish stuffers. Their pillar candles would look great stuck inside those glass vases with stuffers like berries or acorns surrounding.

I am finding with this many people in the house my tastes are leaning towards the clean lines and simple graphic-style displays vs lots of small stuff which is soon tipped over or dusty.  In fact, anything with ‘clean’ in the description fits the bill. ; )   I far prefer using these natural materials to the  cartoonish commercially available holiday standby’s.

Oh, another project in the works here are the rattan chargers shown at left. (from PB too) I thought they would look so nice on our mission cherry table.  We spotted some round placemats in the seasonal sale section at Walmart. (below)I have seen them paint these on HGTV and think that a coat of walnut paint would produce a lovely set of knock off chargers for waaaay less than $18ea. I will keep you posted : )

This is right up there with, "Whose socks are on the chandelier."  I went to grab something from the freezer the other day and had to do a double take.

"Why is there a man in the freezer??" 

Something about playing house and needing a drink and ice cubes and forgetting…. <g>  Ah well. They keep you on your toes! The Funschool flickr has been updated with more letter activity images btw. Have a wonderful day!

You hear about it everyday don’t you?  Road rage, bottlenecks, traffic coming to a standstill. We are not immune.  No sirree-bob. When you least expect it you might turn around a mountain bend and find trouble….

thugs even…

always a ringleader or two …

passing on the left…

hard tellin’ where it might all end.  I would suspect a corral however. : )

Oh bliss!  Oh tumultuous joy! Oh everlasting happy!  Ok perhaps I overstate that but man, oh man, the printer is BACK!

Hello Teacherfilebox.com! Hello labels! Hello scrapbook titles!  Hello loooong sweet narrations dictated by little people!

Hello exclamation marks…. ; D 

If you printed Funschool plans already please note this addition:

Golf tees! Buy some this week from your sporting goods section. We will have another manipulative using them next week. We made a great game with a remnant of pegboard leftover from a garage organization project. Put some large wooden beads or scrap 1by 2 wood on the bottoms so it is elevated a few inches when it sits on the table or floor. The children make pictures, letters, patterns with colored golf tees dropped into the holes. HOURS of fun. Like the geoboards I found the kids go back to this game over and over over and…….  I will get pics uploaded this weekend.

Words escape me.  Not that I won’t pursue them relentlessly. ; )  The big brown truck brought me Stacy Julian’s The Big Picture this week and I think I have read every word on every scrapbook page shown.  I think my son has read every one too. It is addictive. It makes you think. It makes you think about writing and photography and your life.  This is without a doubt THE best book on the scrapbooking I have. If you buy only one, buy this one, even if you don’t think you are a scrapbooker.

Each section of the book begins with an envelope containing a handwritten (ok, its handwritten and then printed 5 million times obviously) note with random thoughts about things like personal style (she thinks its over-rated) photos (its not about the photos) and simplicity.  She makes the point that you could conceivably scrap all your photos and never tell your story.  That is something to think about. Its not about the pictures. 

The message is to take fewer photos of ‘events" and more photos of everyday moments, things like perfect pancakes, sleeping children, your stack of library books, your grocery cart, the toy box. These are the "nothing-special-here kind that in just a few years become so real, so nostalgic."  This is your life.  Are you taking note?  It goes so darn fast. Don’t miss a thing. : )