We had a great time at our Fall Women’s Ministry Event last Friday, I shared the food and decor here yesterday, and today here’s the activity we did. After a word of encouragement, and some great food, we love to do something creative together, something that we might not ever get around to at home where there seems like there is never enough time or space or energy left for lots of women to do something they like to do. This was their night! We supplied the inspiration, the materials, and did the clean up!

We decided to make felted sweater flowers and use them as hair bands, pins, and hair clips. We started out with wool sweaters of various colours, and felted them ahead of time. I found them at second hand stores, just remember they have to be all wool, angora or cashmere, in order to felt. To turn them from sweaters into felt you simply wash the a couple times on hot, and throw them in a hot dryer.

We laid out the sweaters in a rainbow pattern from orange to white -I loved all the great colours we had to work with. After I demonstrated a few of the simple techniques to make the flowers the girls got creating with all the great materials. In addition to the felted sweaters, we had lots of fun embellishments, like buttons, beads, ribbons and tulle. If you’d like to know how to make them see my tutorial here.

The ladies had a great time creating some beautiful flowers, here’s just a sampling of their amazing creations.

This was a really fun activity to do together, and I’d recommend it for any ladies get-together. The pins turned out great, and they weren’t too hard for anyone to create. We made sure we brought in some glue guns for those who really didn’t want to sew. I shared a bib necklace I made for inspiration that showed several different types of flowers together.

I used a necklace from the dollar store as the chain, and made it to hang asymmetrically. The centre of the large flower is actually a ring, also from the dollar store, that I was able to cut apart and use. I love how it looks like a vintage pin, but only cost $2, which is even less than buying fancy buttons.

Making these fun accessories together was a great “girls night”, and I’m sure you and your girlfriends would love it too! The night out with no kids, great food, encouragement and the chance to be creative -now that’s when life really is a party!

This weekend we had our Fall Women’s Ministry Event at church, and had a wonderful time together. We created a beautiful fall inspired, rustic dessert table. I mentioned my latest crush -burlap. It made a great table cloth, layered over white. To add a rustic, vintage feel, we used an old window frame, and several old wooden crates to create height.

At the drinks table we served coffee, regular and herbal tea, and hot apple cider.

Serving the apple cider in a crock pot worked out great, it stayed nice and warm, and smelt great too.

We decorated the table with lots of pumpkins, in white and orange, and lots of candles. I also reused a couple of the fall branches, see the instructions on how to make them here.

The desserts were delicious. We had ginger cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, a beautiful fruit tray, pumpkins scones (recipe here), apple cake, a chocolate chip bunt cake, and a pumpkin and pecan dessert, all served up with a dollop of vanilla whip cream! We tried to include lots of homey fall favourites.

I made a few fun dessert picks, that said “My Little Pumpkin” and “Happy Fall”.

At our sign-in table, more pumpkins and pumpkin scented candles.

I also brought in my twine pumpkins, and we displayed them on the large coffee table. See the how-to for them here.

We had a wonder time of eating, laughing, and creating together. With great women gathered together to share their life journey, and joys, all while nibbling great fall desserts -well, life really is a party!

Tomorrow I’ll share our great activity for the night, making flower pins out of felted wool sweaters.

Like so many other bloggers, I seem to have developed a bit of a crush on burlap. It seems like such a great fit with rustic, cool, fall days. This year I decided to make a runner for my dinning room table out of burlap. I did check out the fabric store, but all they had was “fancy” tightly woven burlap, not exactly the sack bag image I’d been picturing. So, I headed to the hardware store -success! Not only did they have the authentic stuff there, but it was way cheaper -and you know me and a bargin -BFF’s. So I purchased some burlap, intended for winterizing shrubs, from the garden centre.

To make my runner I cut a strip about 22 inches wide, and long enough for some overhang on my table, remembering that it would have all it’s extra boards in for Thanksgiving dinner. Just follow the line of the fabric as you cut.

I considered different methods of finishing the edges, but in the end decided I really liked the slightly frayed look of leaving it as is. It was a little lumpy, bumpy so I gave it a quick iron. The smell of ironing it reminded me of days as a little girl playing in my Grandma’s barn at her farm, happy memories.

I am using it for fall on top of my dark wooden dinning room table, but I also used it for Thanksgiving over a white table cloth, and loved the way it added texture to the table. Here’s a sneak peak of Thanksgiving.

This was a simple, quick, inexpensive little project, and I love how it turned out. Happy Fall!

This post is linked up at WhipperBerry, French Country Cottage, Tatertots and Jello, and The Shabby Nest.

I love finding ideas for projects on other blogs. I was so inspired by Lucy’s awesome wreath at Craftberry Bush, that I had to make my own version. I pretty much straight up copied it, and I love how it turned out. Thanks for the inspiration Lucy!

I cut a wreath form out of foam core, and used natural coloured coffee filters. I cut out the oak leaves from book pages on my Cricut machine, and found some moss covered twigs and a bird to add, similar to Lucy’s.

My new wreath was so pretty that I just had to redo my mantel to show case it, and when I considered redoing it, I couldn’t help but think how pretty my all white fall mantel turned out last year, so…I decided to do another neutral and white mantel this year.

I went on a search for white pumpkins. I found this sweet ceramic one, from President’s Choice, the others are real. I love all the different textures.

I relocated my glitter acorn garland to the front of the fireplace, where I think it really shows up nicely. See how-to make your own here.

I also scattered a few on top of the mantel. I love how they glitter, and that the oak leaves in the wreath relate to the acorns.

I really love the final result, and although the rusts, oranges, and reds of fall are beautiful, I think I might just be becoming more of a white for all seasons kind of a girl. Happy Fall!

This post is linked up at Faded Charm Cottage, Savvy Southern Style, Whipperberry, French Country Cottage, The Shabby Nest, Somewhat Simple, and Tatertots and Jello.

This fall, I’m loving the look of burlap, twine, white pumpkins, and neutrals. Although the oranges and reds of fall are so beautiful, I also love the natural look of creams, whites and browns this year, and I really love the look it creates when I can be restrained enough to use a neutral palette. I spotted a fun twine pumpkin at Recaptured Charm, and thought that a grouping of them would make a great fall decoration. Lisa used a dark brown jute twine, see her great tutorial here. I wanted to try it with a lighter coloured twine and white cotton string as well.

I blew up several small balloons, all in slightly different sizes. I dipped the strings in white glue, and got my hands dirty wrapping the balloons.

After the string was dry, I popped the balloons, and made sure there was a big enough space in the bottom to insert a battery operated candle. Then, I went for a little walk to the forest, and found a stick large enough to resemble a pumpkin stem. I cut the stick to length, and glued it to the top of the string ball with a little hot glue.

I grouped the five little pumpkins on a cream coloured runner on my kitchen table. They look great flickering away in the evening.

This was a fun, and simple project, and I got lots of compliments on them at Thanksgiving.

This post is linked up at Blue Cricket Design, Savvy Southern Style, Whipperberry, French Country Cottage, The Shabby Nest, Faded Charm Cottage, and Tatertots and Jello.