Pumpkin Patch 2012

            This year we have decided to try a different farm for the family's pumpkin patch.  It's about 20 minutes away from the Carpinito Farm in Auburn that we used to always go to since 2009. It was a sunday and the rain had just poured unexpectedly. We almost did not go for fear of just getting so muddy. hahaha! But well, it's the second week of October and we thought we needed to go or else we wouldn't. Plus we had to reinforce ourselves because we needed our much awaited pumpkins for carvings. Luckily, the weather favored our joy and excitement. It was freezing cold but atl east no drops. It was great, we dealt with it. We immediately saw Jaida's enthusiasm as we entered the gate into the farm to the parking lot. A lot of guests were there considering it was about two hours before closing time. 

            The Spooner Farms and Pumpkin Patch have many fun activities and spots that are way different from the Carpinito Farm and that made our trip a little more exciting. They did have a kitchen (restaurant) that serves pretty good snacks like hotdogs, sliced apples with caramel, sandwiches, sodas, etc. It was a little enticing since they do have a patio that has tables and chairs serving visitors that come and go.  

           They also have a gift shop that offers many souvenir items. Most of them are home made cookies, fudge  and some home decorations too. The Halloween stuffs were the center of the sale obviously. A bit quite pricy for me but for those tourists that will visit the Puyallup area, I think it'll be worth the spending. I didn't get any of the Halloween decoration since I thought it was over my quota for this spooky season. hehehe. I can't wait though until Walmart goes on sale after Halloween then I can grab some more additional Halloween stuffs for the home for next year. (That's one trick we, the triple Js learned...to not be impulsive buyers but to patiently wait on to a better deal. ) 

There was a popcorn and a steamed corn booth too. Amazingly tasty for a dollar each small bag of popcorn and $3 per freshly grilled corn. Mouthwatering yumminess on your tummies' way as  you exit the farm. Also they did have a pumpkin slingshot. This could be the most interesting part that most kids love trying out. {Pardon my too much excitement that I failed to take a photo.} 

Anyway, so here are some snapshots from this year's pumpkin patch of the triple Js. ;-) 

 {resource}

                 Where have you spent time pumpkin patching this year? ;-) 

Tweet

Halloween Decor in the Workplace

        One of the coolest things about the 'ber'/holiday season (as we fondly called it...when the months ending in 'ber' begins to run our calendars) is its extension in the workplaces. No matter what you do as a career individual and the place where you actually do what you do, the essence and feel of each season will always be visible.  And that holds very true to the team I am with in this IT world. ;-) About a week ago the halloween fever has began to sprout and two of our co-workers have started to put up their decorations of spookiness. Mind you, it was intense. From skulls and tombstones to some eeky spiders and rats and bugs oh boy...and those lights....surely, made their area cubicle so ready for the dark dark night. It's amazing how this dark and scary part of the supposedly jolly white holidays is so popular and a humongous amount of time and effort are exerted to it so much that it's becoming a national party! ;-) 

         Anyway, so joining the bandwagon as it is I have put up mine too this monday. We also have started to do it in our home sweet home (and I shall share that here soon after a few more touches that need to be made). 

Here it is...my halloween interior designs for my small desktop and cubicle. 

            The cobwebs were from last year's grab on Halloween sales. (That's the trick ladies and gents...get your decors after the holiday seasons because prices just drop insanely! That will also mean you'll endure the simplicity of what you're scarce this year but will certainly make up big time next year.)

         Here I stick on some halloween icons from dollar store. I thought it'd be nice to give accents on your drawers too.

          The favorite in the office are the bogus brain and the cheating heart. ;-) I find skulls, tombstones, corpse, coffin too gruesome so I decided to just bring up just the internal organs. hahaha. I find humor in it better than bones and stones.

           This is my personal favorite amongst all the decorations just because I cut them out myself. The bats were just so stunning I must say on that white post. ;-) Gives my background a good spooky vibes. I used a black drawing board and a nice bat stencil pattern from www.countryliving.com.

             These are my halloween flowers. Also from dollar store, I just chose those shades with the closest association with autumn. And I put on some rats on it to add an eeky goosebump-causing-material. 

                 Finally, the next last images were the rest of the decorations put up by my co-workers in their own cubicles. 

          How have you been with your workspace lately? Have you started off on putting up the season's decor? 

Tweet

Starting the Spooky Season

          As the autumn strikes out the past week here comes the first welcome to a series of holiday celebration and parties. Yes, we will be into it this year. Halloween is just right around the corner and surely we will be joining the bandwagon of spookiness and dark decorations. Oooohhh....it'll be a fun-filled scary halloween in the triple J's abode.  This weekend as my time will allow it (apart from finally spending time organizing our office table in our master's bedroom) I shall throw out our small pieces of halloween decorations in and out the house. As I've mentioned earlier, we are not so much a fan of halloween but since Jaida was about  9 months we've sort of began to make this a biggie thing for her so we kinda decided on putting up touches of its feel atleast for a few weeks and then do the Christmas decoration extravaganza. ;-) This year, I promise myself that the parents should be wearing costumes too as we join our Snow White (that's what our little princess will be this year) do her trick or treat. I snagged a few costumes from the Daiso Japan store in Southcenter and scored relatively cheap accents too.  I'm overly excited for some spooky fun on halloween night.

{resource}

          Have you started off your halloween fantastic decors and ideas? What do you think are best accents to use?  

           

Tweet

Living Room Upgrades

         After last week's big reveal of our dining set make-over, I thought it would be a better time to share another happy moment in the triple J's household lately. Although not totally ecstatic about a day ago since our daughter have had some sickness that wasn't clearly explained by her pediatrician except that it was viral and that she could be suffering from diarrhea (good thing she's became better since today). I am now back to my balance and so much thrilled to share another hard worked addition to our living room. 

          There's another hand-me-down item from my husband's aunt that was passed on to us last year. It was this long rectangular wood and glass center table.  It wasn't based on a solid wood but rather a cork type where surface layer is sort of like attached on to the body; and this surface is kind of glossy making the appeal more elegant. Like the dining set, I had to make sure any glossy texture should be out of there so I had to sand it. Using the wood stripper wouldn't work because the surface isn't that thick so I just used about 350-400 grit of sandpaper to sand out the top coat of the wood. Off to hand the sander and started the fun part.  Then I began staining it with the same element I used with the dining set. I thought that the Kona color will work perfectly. I did 2-4 coats to give a stronger texture of it. But I had to resand after the first coat to give a nice finish for the second and third coats. After about a day of doing the table, we were ready to put it on its place and say our goodbyes to those 2 side cabinets that have been there for more than a year. Here it is.  

         To exude a little more feel of space and air inside the room, I have decided to spend a few more on accentuating the floor. Remember, when I said I have placed the rug in the living room to the dining area...I thought the living room needed a new look. So when I was browsing on those trellis-designed rugs I have talked about last week too, I bought one and I thought that it looks so elegant and much inviting. Voila! {I could have gotten the teal/blue but those weren't available anymore. The grey and natural looked so nice anyway so I kept them.}
          Oh and to add a little final touch, is this serving tray that I got from Ross. I have been looking at so many blog pages and magazines and I have noticed that it's becoming or it is a trend right now to use serving trays as decorative touches to your center tables. I am smitten and I thought to give it a try. I placed a small little vase with fake chrysanthemums and a book about philosophy. ;-)

         
         Lastly, are these two decorative pillows that my mom remade out of old pillows from my in-laws that they were planning to donate. ;-) Woot!! That was indeed a great grab because usually these kinds of decorative pillows cost about $20 each. That was against only my expending of about $18 for 3 yards of this very cute chevron-printed fabric in Joann's.  Awesome awesome deal!  Also, it's amazing to have a mom that is so good at sewing. It makes my life a little bit easier lately.

          Whew! That was a whole lot of work I must say. But it's all worth it. I love the look of the center table and the rug.  It opened up our space a bit and toned down the clutter feel (probably because of those two huge and heavy cabinets).

       

         What do you think about these upgrades in the living room? Would you suggest anything that can even better this progress we're making in our home sweet home? 

Tweet

Red Yellow Palettes in the Northwest

       Certainly autumn is approaching quite so near the evergreen state lately. Evidenced by the discoloration of the trees, falling of the leaves and this freezing feel of air as it brushes your face while walking on that side street. It's that time of the year when you can greatly feel and smell the holidays coming into your home and not too long of a wait parties, gatherings and endless decorations come their way pouring the homes with the freshness of autumn styles and yummy recipes too.
        Well, that is kind of how our home is now the past days minus the recipes (since I have no idea of any pumpkin recipes...). I have started on putting up the feel of  autumn and the next  few more days we'll install our first ever halloween 'touches'. I call it such because we won't be really doing a full blown halloween extravaganza. ;-) Needless to say, Christmas is actually our most celebrated holiday of each year and we do it early too. But since we made Jaida participate in the trick or treat fever since she was 9-months old we want to make sure our home gets to have its own feel of this mysterious thrill of the Halloween.
           Now that we have began to put up some of those touches, it is more adequate to begin the to-do lists for projects that will perfectly fit the entire season before the cold winter gets in and the spirit of the holidays begin.  (So stay tuned for those. I have accumulated a pretty good listings of hopes-to-finish-and-work-on projects.)

         These were my first autumn flower decor from last year and I find them still very much fresh and beautiful. Though the arrangements on top of that old record player wasn't from these hands I am just so thankful that my mom has the most creative ones that really put my dull attempts to a gorgeous much more enticing piece of art.

         Have you started out the holiday decorating fancies in your home?

Tweet

A 360° Overhaul

            Since May of this year, I have started out to do projects from small to medium types relating to organizing, reviving, remodeling, rearranging, etc and then put them to writing and pile them up to this self-made blog page as my weekly journal of just about anything happening in our home. This is my de-stressing exercise so-to-speak.  Like one of the thousands of working moms all around the world, it is quite nice to get a 'me-time' moment and relax ourselves from our daily activities as mothers, career women and wives to our beloved husband.

           After almost 5 months of blogging, I shall do my biggest reveal to everyone of one of our could be major remakes for now, which I planned out a month ago. And with my dad's fantastic help (actually, I'd have to credit the biggest part of this success to him.) we are able to finish our biggest most tedious work of art to say the least over the weekend. We did it exactly about 7 days ago.

            This is our handed-us-down oak dining table from my husband's uncle and aunt who left the US a year ago and came back to Manila to retire. The 4 pieces of wood windsor chairs were goodies found in Craigslist about a year ago too right before we moved-in the house for a whopping $50. I thought it wasn't too bad then because the oak stain was good as brand new.
           But as you can see it the color of the table and the chairs don't match and I just thought it didn't go so well with each other plus most of the furniture at home are in the same shade.

            So I thought that redoing it will certainly make a huge difference. Then we began to repaint them. However, a stained wood wasn't easy to repaint. We had to remove the old stain and sand the wood to release the original texture so that the new stain will stick quite nicely to it. That was our gruelling moment especially for my dad who did all 3 chairs (I did one...unfortunately. hehehe!) and the table. Though I did, the last polishing touches.

          There were sanding, scraping, wiping, and sanding again...finally, we started painting everything. We used Varathane Poly + Stain (Kona) semi-gloss paint in Home Depot. This was the same paint I used on those two bar stools I reupholstered a week ago. 3 coats were applied to these but depending on how it looked according to your taste, we added some more just to release a darker color.

           Note that we used 2 types of sandpaper to give this nice smooth surface texture for both the chair and the windsor. First sanding was about 120-150 grit. And then after partially smoothing out the surfaces we used a finer type about 400 grit to give that polishing texture for the wood. And off to get a nice stain brushing.  As I've mentioned before, the brush would always be the bestfriend in this type of project. So invest in a very good one.

          Without so much words to say...I am just so excited to show these. Here's our newly redone dining set. Oh and I decided to put this rug (which was originally in our living room) here in the dining room to match the table and chairs perfectly.

             What's your biggest project done so far for the home?

Tweet