Instagram Sunday: More Fall Beauty

Have I mentioned lately how much I love fall?

Instagram Sunday: Visions of Fall

Visions of fall from a trip to our favorite local apple orchard with my parents yesterday...

Basket O' Gourds

 White mums.

Rows of Yellow Delicious.

Treasury Tuesday: A Cozy November

I'm not a huge fan of November. I think it may be the most depressing month in the fall season. The time change makes it get dark earlier. The beautiful fall foliage has dropped to the ground and the trees are almost bare. It gets colder. It gets drearier.
BUT....November doesn't have to be all that bad! There are a lot of good things about it too!...like craft shows and our thoughts turning to the holidays and spending time with family!

I say "Make the best of it!"...so I made this treasury to turn our thoughts to staying cozy in November. It includes some members of the Rochester NY Etsy Street Team I'm a part of, RNEST, as well as artists I've met at Mayday Underground. (And other artists are included just because I like their stuff!)

A Cozy November

Be sure to check out some more Etsy Treasuries on the RNEST Blog's Treasury Tuesday!

Treasury Tuesday: Festively Fall

I got on a treasury-making kick this week. Sometimes, when you make one, you've got to make more!

This first treasury was the last one I made, but is my favorite one. I was inspired by those grey fall days (it was quite grey and rainy the latter part of last week and the weekend), but with a splash of color...

Cozy Festive Fall

The next one was inspired by my itch to go apple-picking (I'm hoping to finally go this weekend!). I live in apple country and it's become something of a fall tradition since we moved out here.

Itchin' To Go Apple Pickin'

The final treasury (which was the first one I made this week) is all about...you guessed it...MONSTERS! I find it interesting that the word "monster" no longer conjures up images of grotesque, scary creatures...but of funny, friendly, and sometimes furry creatures instead. I think this is thanks to Jim Henson, as well as the Disney/Pixar movie "Monsters Inc." The color scheme was inspired by a Halloween decoration aisle at a store. While shopping with my husband a few weeks ago, I noticed that turquoise seems to be the newest "Halloween color". At one time there was just orange and black. Then green was added. Then at some point purple joined in. Now it seems that turquoise has been added to the mix. You won't find me complaining though...turquoise is my favorite color! And I love pairing it with orange! So that's the back-story for this treasury.

Cute & Creepy Halloween Monsters

Oh yes...as usual, please check out the Treasury Tuesday post I do over on the RNEST blog!

More Fall Owls...

I've been making more fall Owl Nubbins...

I'm loving these colors together. I bought the dark magenta fleece from the remnant bin at Joann Fabrics. I may need to go get some more sometime. It looks really nice with the gray.

Autumn Owl Nubbins

All the owl Nubbins I had made before were sold at the craft show last weekend, so I needed to make some more...

Selling at a Private School's Homecoming

This turned out to be a great show, despite some slight issues in the beginning. The weather prediction for Saturday was cold and rainy, so when we were given the choice of setting up inside or outside, we chose inside. We were also told that the bounce house and crafts were going to be inside, so we figured that would be where the most people would be. Not so.

But before I go on with the story, here are some pictures of my booth setup. We were in a gym, across from the entrance, and Mom had the idea of setting up my tent in order to draw people visually.
I was happy to finally use my tent. We'd gotten it for the Braddock Bay Redtail Days show, but didn't end up using it since it rained and we had the show inside.

It never fails...before every show I do, I'm concerned about not having enough product, but I always have more than enough!

So on with the story. After about an hour and a half, the bounce house was having problems and they had to shut it down. Then NO ONE was coming in. So we were told we were going to be moved outside. Sure, it was going to be a bit of an inconvenience to move everything outside after I had everything set up just how I wanted it, but if it would get more people to come look at the booth, I was cool with it. Plus, it was hot in the gym and it had turned out to be pretty nice weather outside. Well, a few minutes later, we're told that the soccer coach said we couldn't move outside because of the soccer game. What??? Well, that stinks! The vendors were considering whether to just pack up and go home, when we were told they WERE in fact going to move us outside (where there was PLENTY of room for us to set up, by the way.)

And here's our setup outside! It didn't change much. And moving my stuff wasn't that much of a pain. They had some guys and some of the teenage students help us move everything. I was glad we moved outside. And once we did, I didn't even bother to sit down, since there was almost always someone in the booth, either wanting to talk or wanting to buy.

The only other weird thing was that kids kept asking how many tickets it took to buy monsters. I guess you could buy tickets, either worth a dollar each, or you could buy 15 for $10...and these tickets were used to purchase the food and use for the other activities. Well, no one made it clear to anyone that the vendors weren't accepting tickets. (and no one even told me about the ticket thing) So I had to keep telling these poor kids that I only took money, not tickets. But despite the ticket confusion, I made lots of actual sales.

This kid was SO adorable! I loved his hoodie! (they're supposed to be kangaroo ears). It looks just like my monster-ear hats! He was a little shy, but he was kind enough to let me take a picture.

This girl was SO thrilled to buy this sweater monster! You would have thought I was her best friend in the whole world. After she gave me the money she gave me a BIG hug and was saying "Thank You! Thank You!". LOL. Girl, you're paying ME....thank YOU! ;) He was one of my favorite sweater monsters, I'm glad he went to someone who is obviously going to love him so much! Hmm... he was the one that broke 3 sewing machine needles...I should have charged more for him! (just kidding!)

We stayed until after the soccer game was over, and made a bunch of additional sales when all the people were walking by the booth as they were leaving the game. (that was Mom's brilliant strategy. I don't think I would have done nearly as well at this show without her!)

I sold so much that we only needed to make one trip back to the car (instead of the 2 trips we took when we got there!). Mom was joking that she felt like she was coming to Ellis Island (referring to the steamer trunk). I am SO glad she thought to bring that little dolly cart! It made life SO much easier!

And now I need to get sewing to have more product ready for my next craft show on November 6th, Mayday Underground!

Fall in the Adirondacks

Yep...it's fall.

Fall is my favorite season. When I was a kid it was a toss-up between Summer and Winter because I loved swimming in Summer, and playing in the snow/sledding in Winter. Actually, I think Summer won out as my favorite because there was no school, and my birthday is on the first day of Summer. Of course Winter has Christmas...hmmm... I do love Christmas.

But as an adult, my favorite season has changed. I still like swimming, but Summer gets SO HOT and I'm ready for it to be over by mid-August. And I still enjoy snow (and Christmas!), but Winter is SO COLD for SO LONG!

Fall is perfect. It's got pretty, changing leaves and cool, but not cold, weather. And apples... I love apples. Fall is a lovely in-between season, but never seems to last long enough. Summer always lasts too long or winter starts too soon. Of course, maybe that's why I love it so much...Fall doesn't last long enough for you to get sick of it. Fall has learned the showbiz rule of "always leave 'em wanting more".

But enough of my thoughts on the seasons...on to some pictures!

This is "our spot" on Moose River in the Adirondacks. We usually come here in the summer to swim and jump off those big rocks into the water. But last weekend, Mom, Grandma, and I decided to stop here on our way back from the Remsen Festival of the Arts (aka: Remsen Barn Days). I'll elaborate on the Festival more in the next post.

It was chilly...but I still had to fight the urge to swim (not having a bathing suit kind of helped in suppressing that urge).

Green-Tongued Sweater Monster

With sweater-weather comes sweater monsters!



The tongue is green courderoy. (I love making monsters with courderoy!)


This guy was made out of a sweater I used to wear in high school...back when I used to wear oversized sweaters bought from the men's section of Rue 21 (and thought it was a good style for me) because the clothes in the women's section were for skinny girls and didn't fit me.

Frump-girl fashion issues aside, this navy blue sweater with orange stripes was my favorite. It was comfy and I thought it made me look pretty good. (this is actually one of my favorite senior pictures) I don't know where the sweater is now. I most likely gave it to Goodwill years ago, before I started making sweater monsters. ~sigh~

The Robin Hill Arboretum

Go check out my friend Tricia's blog post about the Robin Hill Arboretum. It's just around the corner from where I live and really is a gorgeous place that I still haven't seen all of yet. Last time I went was when my in-laws were in town a few weeks ago, but my mother-in-law can't walk for long periods of time and we only were only able to stay briefly, so I didn't get a lot of pictures. And it seems as if the leaves have changed since I took my pictures. Tricia's pictures were taken more recently and are much prettier and more numerous.

"The Smith family always welcomed visitors, and that has not changed. Anyone who respects this wonderful place is welcome to enjoy it whenever they like." - Robin Hill Nature Preserve Website

Mini Apple Crisp

With no "real" oven I made a small apple crisp in my toaster oven. I just halved my normal recipe. It was just enough for two!

Apple Picking Fall 2009

This past Saturday, we finally went apple-picking. It's a tradition we've only picked up in the last few years (usually due to our friends inviting us to join them). And I don't know if it's from living in the country so close to so many orchards, but I've had such a hankering to go apple-picking ever since fall started this year.

We were debating about whether to wait until this upcoming weekend, since my in-laws are coming to visit us and see the new house. But the weather has been so rainy lately, and Saturday morning was so nice, that I wanted to go while I knew the weather was nice. (I didn't want to wait until this next weekend and that have it rain). It worked out well because I guess my in-laws went apple picking the same day!

Look at that fruit practically dripping off the tree! We went to Lynokan Farms (it's just around the corner from us) and got a bushel of apples (mostly Cortlands with a few Golden Delicious) for $20. We would have gotten Honeycrisps (which are monstrously huge and delicious!) but they were more expensive and had to be in a seperate bag.

(My friends on Facebook are all saying that this is "such a great picture" of me and I "look so gorgeous" in it. I didn't particularly think so, but I guess I won't turn down the compliments!)

Luna got the special treat of being allowed to go off-leash (which we very rarely ever do), and she was very well behaved! She stuck right by us and barely barked at anybody (except this couple that had funky hats on...she didn't seem to like them).

She kept thinking that the apples in our hands were balls that we were going to throw for her to chase...so we picked up a few bruised apples off the ground and obliged her!

She was such a happy puppy!

Now I need to make some mini-apple crisp to bake in my toaster oven! (we still don't have a real oven/stove!)