Welcome Fall!

Fall starts when I make wassail. The house fills with the wonderful smell of fall spices. The first thing the kids say is "Oh it smells like Christmas is coming."

This year we added gingersnap cookies to our yummy smelling, and tasting, fall tradition. It made everything twice as good so I think we will keep it. I cooked them so they stayed soft.

It was a perfect crisp fall day outside and a warm, cozy day inside. A perfect way to welcome fall.

(I'll add the recipes later :-)

Tasty Fall Treats

It is always tastier when the food is beautiful. I love to add little touches, like leaves to the pie, displaying food in a colorful way or serving on a beautiful serving dish. Little touches make it so much more fun to cook for everyone and it is amazing how it brings out the flavor :)

My sister in law made these fabulous candied apples! The kids loved them and they are beautiful!

Thanksgiving place cards

I love making everything festive on the holidays. I wish I had taken a close up of these they are so much more gorgeous in real life. I used a business card template in word and inserted a text box and then just used all different fonts for the names of the guests that were coming. We had used glitter modge podge on fall leaves and acorns that we had gathered earlier in the year an then glue gunned them on to the name tags. Simple but gorgeous! (When you modge podge the leaves do it on wax paper and let them dry. I did an entire 3' arrangement still on the branches. It was absolutley stunning especially in the evening light.)

Pumpkins & Witches Brooms

We had the funnest time making pumpkin & Witches broom treats for our friends and neighbors. They turned out gorgeous and the treats were yummy too!

First for the filling:

We popped a bunch of popcorn and added small pretzels, a few cashews, and m&m's then layed it out on large cookie sheets. (You could also use wax paper) I drizzled orange melted chocolate on the mix. Waited about 10 in. for it to be cool and put it in a large bowl.

For the pumpkins:

I took orange party napkins, put about a cup to a cup and a half of the popcorn mixture in the center and pulled all of the corners together. I twisted the corners together and wrapped green floral tape around it so it would look like a stem. Then I hot glued a silk leaf it and if you look closley you can see that I took a piece of green craft wire and twisted it around the stem and curled the ends to look like the vine part.

For the brooms:

I took brown paper lunch sacks and put about 2 cups of the mixture in. It depends on the size of your bag. I had the regular size but if you could find smaller it would be better. Then I cut strips in the top of the bag about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way down the bag. I cut the strips about 1/2" wide all the way around the bag. I cut limbs from our apricot tree and stuck a limb in each bag and then tied purple rafia around the cut lines. Tada- a witches broom. Hope you have fun with this idea! We had a blast. It was fun to hear all the ooos and ahhs when we delivered.