Category: DIY

October Bucket List Roundup

Happy Saturday!

Remember my October Bucket List? I can’t believe the month is over already — which means it’s time to take a look back and see how I did!

october list 2

Overall, not too bad!

1. Watch a classic Halloween movie:  Done, and done! Kevin and I ended up watching “Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein” one night, and “Hocus Pocus” on the night before Halloween. I’ve never seen any Abbot and Costello movies before but I really liked the one we watched! And “Hocus Pocus” is, of course, a Halloween classic. As a matter of fact, it was the most searched for movie on Vudu. I know, because we searched for it. 🙂

2. Pumpkin Picking: Ok so this one only counts if you count picking a pumpkin out of a grocery store bin, because that’s what we did. I have yet to make it to a pumpkin patch to pick my own pumpkins. Sigh.

3. Attend a Fall Festival: No check here. There were a couple festivals/fall events going on this month that we wanted to check out, but spending half the month of October moving did us no favors.

4. Make Homemade Apple Cider: I count this one as a half check. We made mulled cider at my sister’s house when we carved pumpkins and baked cookies, so it wasn’t technically homemade cider. But I counted it anyway.

mulled cider

5. Corn Maze and/or Hay Ride: Double sigh and no check here. Again, moving got in the way of this one.

6. Carve a Pumpkin: Check check!

13 October 073

7. Trick or Treating: Another check! Although it was drizzling most of the evening, we still got a fair amount of trick-or-treaters on Halloween night. Super fun!

halloween candy

8. Host a Halloween Party: Erm, this is another one that’s on the fence. I didn’t host a Halloween party, but I didn’t really think I was going to be able do. I did, however, attend a Halloween party! I count it.

halloween party

9. Make a Fall Wreath: This one I can 100% say I completed, and all my myself!

monogrammed fall wreath final

10. Picnic in the Woods: Confession: I almost forgot about this one. As a matter of fact, I completed it on 31 October…and only because Kevin remembered for me! Since we’re down to one vehicle he picked me up at work and surprised me with a picnic basket full of goodies and drove us to a nearby park so we could accomplish the last item on my October bucket list!

picnic

This was a really fun experiment and to be perfectly honest, I completed more items than I originally thought I would. I probably could have done them all had we not moved…and in all honestly, we’re going to try to get to a corn maze tonight – but we’ll see if that actually happens. (Plus, it’s November now, so it doesn’t really count.)

What fun things did you do this October? What are you most looking forward to in November?

DIY: Monogrammed Fall Wreath

Remember my October Bucket List? Well, today we can cross number 9 off of that list!

monogrammed fall wreath

Yes, that’s right – not only did I make my own monogrammed fall wreath, but it doesn’t look half bad! To be perfectly honest, I was really impressed with the final result. Of course I hoped it would turn out to look nice, but I may have mentioned once or twice that I am not the artistic one in my family and as such I was totally expecting this project to be a big, fat, FAIL.

I love it when I’m wrong!

Wait a minute…

monogrammed fall wreath in proccess

You may remember from my bucket list post that I found my inspiration for this wreath from this post by Craftaholics Anonymous. I improvised, obviously, but had I not come across Linda’s blog I never would have considered doing something like this on my own. It seems like it would be common sense but in truth it never would have occurred to me to walk into a craft store and pick up some simple items and create my own wreath! Now that I know how simple it is, I’m already creating wreaths for every season in my mind!

Making my wreath took less than an hour from start to finish, and that includes waiting for my paint to dry. I simply gathered my “ingredients” from Michaels (a wreath, some fall leaves and flowers, paint and brushes, my monogram S, and the hot glue gun) and spread them out on my dining table:

monogrammed fall wreath ingredients

Then I painted my S a nice orange. I originally wanted to do something like Linda with the polka dots, but A) I didn’t know what a “pouncer” was and B) I didn’t want to try to do anything on my own for fear or screwing it up and annoying myself, so I just kept the S plain.

monogrammed fall wreath S

Then I gathered my fall leaves and flowers and played around with placement until I found something that I liked. Fun fact: the yellow and red flowers are actually clips, so I just clipped them onto the wreath! And I just sort of poked the leaf sprigs into the wreath until they stayed without having to use hot glue. I did put a few random dollops here and there for good measure, but I think they would have been fine without it.

monogrammed fall wreath hot glue

Finally, I hot glued my S to where I wanted it.

monogrammed fall wreath placing the S

Voila! A beautiful monogrammed fall wreath for our door! My first official fall decoration!

monogrammed fall wreath final