Three Easy, Natural, and Free Fall Centerpieces

Some people see raking autumn leaves as a chore. I look at it as an opportunity to redecorate my home with some unusual (and free!) natural fall elements.

My first centerpiece couldn’t be easier to make. I literally tossed a small collection of leaves, crabapples, seedpods, and a couple of buckeyes that I gathered from my yard and neighborhood park (always make sure that you have permission to take anything from property that isn’t yours first) around a paraffin free candle on an old tray.

Since I’m working with natural and dried elements near an open flame, you’ll notice that I have the candle in a protective glass holder so I don’t accidently set my centerpiece on fire. I also make sure that I do not leave burning candles unattended.

How to Winterize a Rain Barrel

If you live in an area that gets ice, snow, and/or freezing temperatures in winter, you should add one often overlooked task to your Fall Prepare for Winter Checklist: drain any standing water from your rain barrel.

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During the winter, if the standing water you currently have in your rain barrel freezes, it could cause the rain barrel to crack or split, and well, then you’re out one rain barrel. Given the cost of those things, a rain barrel is not something that I personally would want to replace every spring or summer. Ouch.

2 Rice Bags Turned into Shopping Tote Bags

Husband and I had some empty rice bags in our stash of reusable shopping tote bags. However, we rarely used them, or even worse, we got the passive aggressive stink eye from clerks at the grocery store because the rice bags were much smaller than the rest of our shopping tote bags.

I decided to make my small rice bags into larger shopping tote bags.

Shopping Tote Bag#1

I opened up the seams and removed the handles from this burlap rice bag with a seam ripper. Then I cut two 5 inch (3 inches wide + 1 inch seam allowances) rectangles out of a way too-faded-to-donate-to-charity 100% cotton curtain panel and sewed them to the sides of bag. I made and attached handles to the top of the bag for easy toting around town. I like how the green reclaimed curtain panel coordinates with the green lettering on the burlap rice bag.

The zipper is not functional. I just left it in the side of the bag so everyone knows that yes, this was once a small Basmati rice bag.

I’m in Love with Earthlust Stainless Steel Water Bottles

We have several BPA free reusable plastic sport bottles hanging around The Condo largely due to Husband getting them as promotional freebies in his 5K, 10K, and ½ marathon race packs. I’m not a big fan of these bottles because of the sport tops – it’s just too hard to drink water through them. Either I have to squeeze the plastic bottle and/or suck like a manic baby on the sport top to get the water to come out of the bottle. Even then I still don’t’ get a decent drink of water. In most cases, I just unscrew the sports top and drink straight from the bottle because I like to live dangerously.

Since I have some freebies and I generally not a fan of the reusable plastic water bottles we currently have, I’ve been slow to jump on the metal reusable water bottle bandwagon. Especially when I saw that some of those supposed-to-be-better-for-you-and-the- environment metal water bottles have plastic liners. So if you want me to ditch my current #2 plastic-but-bad–reusable-water-bottle for your metal-but-supposed-to-be-greener-but-lined-with- #2 plastic-reusable-water-bottle you had better offer me something that’s much better than what I currently have sitting in my cupboard.

Earthlust did just that. They make a naturally safe stainless steel water bottle that is not only unlined (no plastic in this reusable metal water bottle!) but uses non-toxic paints, and looks good.

I got to try an Earthlust water bottle and I’m hooked. First, I like that the Earthlust bottles are just plainer prettier to look at than some of those other reusable metal water bottles. In fact, some Earthlust designs are inspired by what the owner sees around her during walks with her child. I love that. I’m a total sucker for something that has both good design and an interesting back story.

Halloween Seadog Cemetery Decor

One of the great things about buying our Condo is that Husband and I finally have a porch and yard of our very own to decorate for the holidays. The first year we decided to decorate for Halloween, we opened a bottle of wine and after a glass or so, decided “Hey - let’s put out the Halloween decorations!” This is what we came up with. A Seadog Cemetery. Granted it's a small cemetary. We confined it to our flower beds so we wouldn't have to deal with the HOA's lawn service mowing over our holiday decorations.

This is Captain Twiggy. He’s the guy that started it all. For about 8 years, Captain Twiggy was our lone Halloween decoration because Husband and I were performing at the Ohio Renaissance Festival every weekend in October and honestly between the weekend acting job and our weekday professional jobs, a pirate skeleton on the door was about as much holiday décor that we could handle at the time. Now Captain Twiggy hangs out in our sea dog cemetery drinking his favorite brew – Rogue’s Dead Guy Ale.

Make a Halloween Witches Parking Sign

Made this Witches Parking sign out of an old decorative sign I picked up at Old Time Pottery. I liked the painted border of the original sign but I didn’t like the saying. So I painted the center with black craft paint. After the paint was dry, I painted my own saying, “Witches Parking Only: All Others Will Be Toad” in the center of the sign with white craft paint.

I hung it on my porch next to a bamboo-handled broom. I tied the broom to the sign with raffia so it wouldn’t be tempted to fly away with any mischievous goblins or ghouls on Beggars Night.