20 Little Things I love About Fall & a Giveaway of My Memories Suite!

Today I am so excited to share with you: 20 Little Things I Love About Fall  and a unique opportunity for you to win a free copy of My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Software.

First, take a look at my post created with the scrapbook pages from My Memories Suite.

  All photos property of: The Charm of Home

I just went back through my photos from the last three falls and created these scrapbook pages in about two hours.  I have never scrapbooked and I found the software easy to use.  I went online and looked through all of the choices they have to create pages, photobooks, calenders, cards, videos.  They have plenty to choose from.  It gets me really excited to think of the things I could use this for.  An alphabet book for my niece with things she is familiar with, a cookbook of family recipes for Christmas gifts, oh the list goes on!  So the best part is YOU can win a free copy of this software!   Here's how!

To Enter for a copy (download) of My Memories Suite 3 ($80 value):

• Visit My Memories.com and tell me what you would like by leaving  a comment. ( 1 entry) This is mandatory to win.  Always leave your email or make sure it is visible in your profile.   You do not have to blog to win.
  

 For extra entries after you have done the mandatory entry above:

• Like My Memories Suite on Facebook. (1 entry) 
• Follow My Memories Suite on Twitter. (1 more entry)
• Follow My Memories Blog. (1 more entry) 

This giveaway is open to any one anywhere but the software is only available in English.   The giveaway will end on Sunday, October 7, 2012 at 8 AM.  Winner will be announced on this blog Monday, October 8th.  Please leave your entries in separate comments.

Good luck!  I am so excited to offer you this opportunity!
If the winner doesn't respond after 7 days a new winner will be chosen.

*I did  receive a free copy of My Memories Suite for writing this post.

This giveaway is now closed.
For anyone wanting to order from My Memories Suite here is a $10 discount code off the purchase of the My Memories Suite Scrapbook software and a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store - $20 value! :

 
enter (copy and paste to avoid typos):  STMMMS76380  (on checkout)

Sherry

I will join:

Tweak It Tuesday at Cozy Little House

Cottage Style Link Party  at Lavender Garden Cottage

Sunday's Best Party  at My 1929 Charmer

Seasonal Sundays at The Tablescaper

Sunny Simple Sundays  at Sunny Simple Life

Share Your Cup Thursday  at Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson
My Monday Muse at Carter's Cottage

5th Annual Fall Nesting Party  at The Inspired Room
Someday Crafts Giveaway Directory

Home Sweet Home #86

Hello and welcome to Home Sweet Home!  Some of the things I have been up to this week included styling a Classic Fall Mantel with items I already owned.

Pat from On Crooked Creek inspired this Autumn Tea for her kindness she showed me as a friend.  Thank you Pat for these amazing smelling votives.  I have been enjoying them a lot! 

And I am still cooking from the 1930's in my Depression/Recession-Era cooking series with this Hungarian Goulash recipe. 

Now I would like to highlight some of the posts that caught my eye last week.

Cristina at Remodelando la Casa transformed her ugly pumpkins.  See how she did it!

Kristen at Sophia's showed off a gorgeous table centerpiece she created.

 Sarah at Alderberry Hill showed off these adorable fabric pumpkins she made.

Kathleen at Charm Bracelet Diva {at Home} showed off this French Stenciled Burlap Table Runner.

There are many great links each week!  Thank you to all who join me at Home Sweet Home!

 

And now, how about the winner of the giveaway!   

The winner of the $50 Amazon Gift Card sponsored by Appliances Online is Judy Bigg of J Bigg's Little Pieces.  Congratulations Judy!!  And a big thank you to Appliances Online for sponsoring this giveaway!

I have another giveaway in the works for you scrapbookers and it is a good one.  Stay tuned for that soon!

 I also am excited to bring your attention to TCOH's new Sponsor RoseKraft.   This is a wonderful Etsy shop featuring Cottage Decor and Gifts: Victorian Scrap Die Cuts.  

Some of the lovely things you might find at Rosekraft are wreaths or

framed Victorian emphera.

Please go and check out Rose's shop Rosekraft.  There are many pretty things that would make great gifts.

  Sherry

Follow me on Twitter  
Follow me on Facebook 
Follow me on Pinterest 
Follow me on Hometalk

I will join these ladies today:
Vintage Inspiration Friday at Common Ground 

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage

Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home

Home and Garden Thursday  at A Delightsome Life 

Potpourri Friday at 2805
Inspiration Friday  at The Picket Fence
G'Day Saturday  at Natasha in Oz
Passion Parade Link Soiree  at Petites Passion

 I have a SPECIAL REQUEST of you, if you visit Home Sweet Home and would like to PIN the great post you see here! Please pin from the ORIGINAL SOURCE and not my blog.  If it is my original photo you can pin away, I won't mind!

 Guidelines for Home Sweet Home Party:

Attention: To link up with inlinkz you must have a permalink back to this party in your post or they will not allow you to link.  

Link up anything in your home or garden.  I love seeing neat shops too!

My button is on my sidebar for the party, if you want to use it.   If you are new here I hope you will become a follower. Please don't link up more than two posts.  No Etsy link ups or direct advertising, please.  Please visit some of the other blogs and get some great inspiration.  Thanks.:)

Now let's see your beautiful homes!

Buttercup

{image source: flickr user law_keven at www.creativecommons.org }

 

I remember the buttercups that used to dot my elementary school playground. 

 I went there for nine years so I knew the field well.  The buttercups would shoot up faster than the blades of grass between mowings.  

 

{image from wikipedia}

 

When we were younger, we'd hold them up under eachother's chins & it was, " Do you like butter?" 

  

A little older and it was, "he loves me, he loves me not"

 

{He loves me!}

 

 You never really knew if he was going to love you or not with buttercups because some types have 5 petals and others have 6.

 

 

 

I loved making flower chains & never really grew out of it.  I remember doing them in the Spring as I waited for my turn at long jump in high school track.  One day I remember making necklaces for the other sprinters & somehow convincing even the guys to wear them as crowns...  (My coach must have loooved that ;)

ahahahaha   (It really still makes me laugh out loud.) 

 

More than anything, I just remember always picking them up & playing with them when I see them.  Long talks on the field with my best friend, scooping down to pick a buttercup, subconsciously.  Crumbling the old flower centers into little pieces between my fingers & rolling them around. 

 

 

 

 

I love these pics of the plants from NC State...  (above & below) 

 

 

 

{image source for above pics: http://www.toronto-wildlife.com/Plants/Buttercup_family/more_tall_buttercup.html }

 

It's for pretty much all of these reasons that I've known for a while I wanted to do a buttercup design for my textile line.  When the power went out for days this Summer & we needed to get out of town, we made an impromput visit to see my dad in Illinois & have him meet the baby...  The car ride is 13 hours and it was the first time after Luke was born (in May) that I'd had some time to sketch.  I  worked on "buttercup" in my lap...

{The beginnings of it...  as you can see, drawing doesn't come easily to me & there are lots of erase marks & mess ups}

 

The design (like all of them) is just an interpretation... not a botanical study.  I add my own little things here & there and I'm sure I leave out pretty important parts, but it's the feeling that I'm after...

{One of my first strike-offs}

I'm working on the final colorways now but I'm really happy with the light earthiness of this first one...

 

A few more options are on their way & I hope you enjoyed a peek into the process.

 

...

 

Do you have any buttercup memories?

 

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Hungarian Goulash

 Today I'm still cooking in the 1930's but with Ida Bailey Allen.   Mrs. Ida Bailey Allen was the Betty Crocker of the Depression-Era.  She was a former Home Economics Editor of "Good Housekeeping," and was President and Founder of the National Radio Home-Makers Club.  Thousands of radio listeners tuned into to her radio show to learn about the latest developments in home-making and she had a staff of dieticians developing new recipes for the kitchen.

The cookbook I am using today is "The Service Cookbook."  This cookbook was published exclusively for F.W. Woolworth Co.  It was sold at the height of the Depression in 1933.  Although it never mentions the hard times once in the cookbook;  from this cookbook on, Ida Bailey Allen did publish some of the first cookbooks created for a budget.  Like the one shown on the right.

So the first recipe I picked out of this cookbook was Hungarian Goulash.  This recipe didn't make a stew like dish, it was all of the meat and veggies served on top of noodles.  My Grandmother used to make this dish and I remember how much I liked it.  I haven't had it for a long time.   The other thing I have to bring up about this dish is if you suffer from allergies; depending on what they are, you might be able to eat this.  Has anyone had Oral Allergy Syndrome?  I have had this for over a year now and it has been one rude awakening on what I can and can't eat.  Every week I hear how more and more people are diagnosed with allergies they have never had.  The reason is still out for debate if it is climate change, the way we grow our food, or the way we prepare our food but, whatever the reason it is making it harder and harder for people to eat without being sick and "old school" recipes like this are really poised to make a big comeback.  

*Note: I updated some of the cooking terms for 2012.

Ingredients:

3 tbsp. of olive oil 

1 lb. of lean beef, any cut (I used ground chuck)

1 large onion diced

1/2 a green pepper, minced

3 sprigs of parsley

1 cup of stewed or canned tomatoes, diced

8 small peeled potatoes 

Salt

Paprika

Put the olive oil in skillet; add the onion and green pepper, and the meat which has been diced large; and fry until brown.  Add the parsley, chopped , the tomatoes and enough water to barely cover the meat.  Cover and cook over a moderate heat for forty minutes.  If you are using browned ground beef you can skip this step and add the potatoes now.  Lay the potatoes, thinly sliced on the goulash; and season with salt and paprika.  Cover and continue cooking for twenty minutes, or until the potatoes are tender.  Border with buttered and seasoned noodles; and serve on a heated platter.    

So, how did the family react to this old recipe?   It was a mixed reaction.  I was thrilled! About half way through cooking I took a little taste and realized I could eat this!!!  It had a lot of flavor to me.  My husband thought it was okay, he had seconds.  But, the kids whose taste have been brought up on processed foods weren't so sure they were fans.  They are so used to processed cheese-like products dripping off of everything they eat.  There wasn't many processed foods in the 1930's this was one of the reasons I also wanted to start cooking out of these cookbooks.  I wanted to start tasting real food again!:)

Enjoy!

Sherry

I will link this to: 

Foodie Friday at Rattlebridge Farm

Thriving on Thursdays  at Domesblissity

On the Menu Monday at Stonegable 

Rooted in Thyme Simple and Sweet Fridays

Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style

A Pinteresting Party  at Tutus & Tea Parties

Thrifty Things Friday  at The Thrifty Groove

An Autumn Tea

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

Marcel Proust

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. 

Albert Schweitzwer

I am sharing some quotes on friendship that remind me of some of the sweet friends I have met blogging.  One of these sweet people responded to a comment I made about these votives recently and then she mailed some to me.  Thank you so much Pat from On Crooked Creek.  The votives smell perfect for fall, they have a scent of tobacco.  Many times I have felt rekindled by my friendships with all of you reading my blog.  It is truly a blessing!   
The picture above is free of a watermark you may take it to use.  I have it on my desktop right now and it makes a really pretty desktop photo.  Thank you for visiting me, leaving sweet comments, and being my friend.  
 Sherry

 I will link this to:

 Tea Time Tuesday at Rose Chintz Cottage 

A Return to Loveliness  at A Delightsome Life 

Tea Cup Tuesday at Martha's Favorites

Tea Cup Tuesday at Artful Affirmations

Table Top Tuesday  at A Stroll Thru Life

Tweak It Tuesday at Cozy Little House

Tuesday Cuppa Tea  at Antiques and Teacups

The saucer is marked Olde English Countryside by Johnson Brothers.  I am not sure the cup is it's match but, it is marked Made in England.

Demo & Rebuild

I'm back to the construction zone from a whilrwind trip to NYC and, like I've been mentioning for the past few weeks, we're now down to the studs at our place. (!!)  We're reworking the floorplan- closing doorways, adding new ones, moving walls, removing them... plumbing is being moved, windows are getting enlarged, we're adding a fireplace, redoing the bathrooms & kitchen... it's madness!! (but the good kind of madness ;)  We have the air off because there's so much dust flying around & we want to keep it out of our upstairs "apartment" as it's been dubbed... But as I type this morning, I'm hoping it stays warm a little longer because there is definitely a chill in the air & there's no heat for us until we get the bulk of the contruction completed. 

One of the biggest changes we're making is opening up the kitchen to the living room...  Here it is before:

And here it is now: 

 They've finished sanding down the beams.  The red-brown stain is now GONE and we've exposed the bare pine.  (How I wish that pine had been exposed over the past 40 years, aging gracefully but oh well... It's very raw now & we had it hand scraped & wire brushed.  )  We've also had insulation added between the beams because before there was only a layer of plywood before the roof & we're making it a bit more energy efficient.   And of course as  you can see... the wall is DOWN!!!  The kitchen is now completely open to the living room.  We also expanded the kitchen two feet to the right (taking space from the dining room) so that it spans the whole width of the living room now.   Floors are going down this week & next (more on that as soon as I have pics!) and I CANNOT WAIT.  Once we have floors, we can move our things inside from the garage & pod.  Dave went diving in the pod for clothes last week & climbed over all of the front stuff to get to the Fall stuff in the back.... He dug himself a little hole and climbed down into it....  And I  honestly thought he was buried by the stuff at one point.  (thanks to him of course.)    

{it's since been rearranged} Me, after realizing I hadn't heard him talk in a while:  "Dav, are you okay in there??"him, very quiet/ far away: "Hellllllllp"At that point I was about to launch the jogger strollerfrom the pod to the woods behind me as I screamed "DAVE?!!!!!!"Then I heard "No no no no no!!  I'm fine!!" in a completely normal volume.  Then laughter.Oh wow. He's very lucky I couldn't reach him at that point. We've had the discussion before of "fright or flight" in emergency situations.  I'm a "fight" kind of girl.  There's tyipcally no hesitation in my reactions and I find myself doing things before I've even thought about them.  Thanks to him, (yes am still bitter ;)  I almost launched our Christmas breakables into the woods.   Anyway, things are happening around here & I'm in the midst of planning the kithen (and pretty much everything else around here) so I'll be back this week to share some plans!!  Off to some clients for the day & keep your fingers crossed we find our nanny soon!!  My head is busting with things I need to remember & people I need to speak to... send some brain space my way.  I've never been so busy in my life.  I'm not at the breaking point yet but feel like I should be.  Maybe once you actually get here, you're too busy to break. ??? ;)  

{at least I've got what matters most} 

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

A Classic Fall Mantel

I have got a classic look going on here for the fall mantel.  I am still trying to decorate with out spending any money.  So I shopped the house and pulled out the pewter.

Just a little bit of bittersweet and the mantel will stay right through Thanksgiving.

You could copy this idea with any dishes; for example, transferware, ironstone, or vintage dishes of any pattern. 

Something simple and something free makes for easy decorating.
Sherry

Tweak It Tuesday at Cozy Little House

Cottage Style Link Party  at Lavender Garden Cottage

Sunday's Best Party  at My 1929 Charmer

Seasonal Sundays at The Tablescaper

Sunny Simple Sundays  at Sunny Simple Life

Mod Mix Monday  at Mod Vintage Life

Share Your Cup Thursday  at Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson
My Monday Muse at Carter's Cottage

Autumn Link Party  at Centsational Girl
Fall Into Fall  at DIY by Design
Mantels and Porches at The Inspired Room