Just Make Stuff

Happy Halloween...

After two years of Halloween nights spent at high school football games, we will actually be home again this year. The front porch and mantle were decorated this weekend at pretty much the last minute.

I reused a bunch of decorations from over the years...but I added a "31" from the Target dollar spot, a skeleton print, and took all of five minutes to type "trick or treat" on an orange background.

Halloween has never been my favorite, but seeing all this makes me wish I had decorated at least a week in advance. Since all of this will only be up for about 72 hours total...then it's on to Thanksgiving since that is my total favorite.  

Here's the trick or treat print in case you have any very last minute decorating to do.

Five favorite fonts...

one.two.three.four.five

And here are more favorite fonts.

Ikea Television Cabinet Hack...

Yet another project from this summer was a new television stand in our family room. We have had the couch for a couple years now and wanted to get something a little smaller than what we had, with more useful storage.

So off to Ikea we went and came home with this Besta stand. In an attempt to help this look a little more unique, one sheet of this wall paper was ordered and these drawer knobs were bought. I'm grateful that Sean was able to make another one of my crazy ideas work. 

Now if we could just sit down a little more often to watch a show or two. We don't have many shows left that we watch regularly, but I am absolutely loving "This Is Us".

Halloween Snack Cups...

With Halloween a week away, I wanted to share the project I contributed last month to Eighteen25's Spooktacular September. 

It wasn't terribly creative, but I made up Halloween versions of the dessert cups I have made before. This time I just filled some with candy corn and some with muddy buddies. Oh, but a pumpkin muffin with some caramel cream cheese frosting would be so good!

Fall mantle...

Ahhhh fall. The time of year where I look longingly at the social media posts sharing beautiful fall leaves and discussing crisp weather...while enduring another heat wave. Pretty sure I keep complaining about this every single year...2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010. 

And today it was ninety-six degrees, so that's all I'll say about that.

Project Life 2016: 03

Apparently I have completely forgotten to share anything in months, but I am still completely committed to using the Project Life app to crank out pages.

These twenty pages are actually from mid-May to early July. With Mac's high school graduation, there was lots of extra documenting beside the usual weekly stuff. 

I continue to really love the details I am catching that I know would have never been made into something otherwise. For instance, I have a whole page of photos from driving him to high school for the last time...I know those will rip my heart out in a few years. Heck, they already do.

College Isn't Scary...

I started Thursday afternoon, when I got home from school, and have been working almost straight through this entire weekend. I pretty much just stopped to eat...and to go for a couple walks. 

I have a lot of grading the next few weeks and will not have as much time on the weekends, so I buckled down now to get everything prepped. 

I have almost thirty different class meetings planned...every activity, worksheet...lecture, notes and videos...ready to go. And I created at least half a dozen new lectures and activities. 

My brain is mush...but happy teacher mush.

And I changed last year's Halloween treat, so it can be used on any assignment. Here's a PDF of the cards... College Isn't Scary Extra Credit Cards

Favorite Gift Wrapping...

At the end of each year I have been gathering favorites around here and I think this might end up being the favorite gift I'll have wrapped all year, even though there's still a chunk of time left.

It's actually from all the way back in April that I never shared. My cousin's daughter's had her first birthday party and the toys I bought were too wonky to be wrapped with wrapping paper. So I broke out a paper gift bag and recycled this idea.

But I think my favorite part of my favorite wrapped gift is the tag that I dragged brush pens across to make some messy stripes...I'll have to recycle that idea too.

All the colors...

Mac is taking a ceramics class that offered extra credit to visit local museums, so today we went to The Broad.

Sean, Mac and I all gravitated towards different things as we wandered the galleries late this morning...and I went towards color, color and more color.

Caramel Cream Cheese Apple Dip...

This is as good as recipes get. It's easy, can be made in advance, is perfect for parties and is just basically amazing. It's similar to this recipe I've shared before, but the couple of differences make it even better.

A good friend shared this and a spinach dip recipe ten years ago and they both have been made for so many parties around here. In fact, that seems to be just about the same thing I said when I shared the spinach dip recipe.

I also have made this caramel dip as a snack for events like mini cheer camp and have just omitted the toppings. It's a great way to get kids to eat apples.

Plus if you have pretzels or potato chips sitting around and love salty sweet combos as much as I do, dip those in too.

Caramel Cream Cheese Apple Dip

• 2 eight ounce blocks cream cheese; room temperature
• 3/4 cup brown sugar; packed
• 2 tablespoons vanilla
• 1 sixteen ounce tub caramel dip (I use Marzetti brand)
• 6 Heath Bars; roughly chopped (Skor bars work too)

Using a hand-mixer, blend cream cheese, brown sugar and vanilla together until smooth. Spread the mixture into the dish you will serve it in. Top the cream cheese with the caramel dip, spreading it to the edges of the cream cheese layer. Sprinkle Heath Bar all over the top. Can be made in advance and stored in the fridge. 

One of my favorite washi tape tricks...

It's not really an actual trick, but more of a tiny detail.

I don't always tear off a piece of washi tape very neatly, which then bugs me. My solution has been to use a tape dispenser. This one by Poppin is heavy enough to stay put and the center pops in and out very easily, which means switching tapes takes barely a second. 

Planted...

I have always had plants around our house...mostly philodendrons since they seem to be the only plants I can consistently keep alive.

In the last year though, there have been more and more plants...

Which also means there have been a few too many plant funerals...actually way too many. Hopefully one day I will be able to really figure out how to keep house plants happy.