It All Started With A Yankee Candle

Ah, I've got a serious case of "if you give a mouse a cookie" syndrome. I was MIA from scrapping for a week or so because I went into decorating mode. It happens a few times a year. Almost always at the change of the season. Go figure! This year we got a few early days that felt like fall and well, you know...that calls for a new scent in the house..... Autumn Wreath was the choice for fall...ummm, smells so good. It's burning right now in fact. Anyway, that led to pulling out the fall decorations and of course, discovering I NEEDED more stuff. Trip to Hobby Lobby of course and you see, I had this 40% off coupon and there was SOOOOOO much stuff on sale at 50% off ....how could a girl have had any will power. Now it was not really the "fall decorating" that cost me that much money there. Instead it was this "empty wall" in my family room. That room has been a PITA to decorate. It's taken me almost 3 yrs of living here to get it where it feels homey and comfortable to me. Not quite all the way there yet but almost. Anyway, back to the subject of the empty space. I thought I wanted a large armoire for that space and had been keeping my eyes open for one. Everything I looked at was so expensive and just couldn't be budgeted in. Plus, there was a problem with it seeming "too heavy" for the location. Finally the light bulb came on and I decided to try a baker's rack or etegere there...hey, it wasn't that heavy, it folded up, and I could get it home by myself and if I hated it I could return it...right? Found this one at my beloved Hobby Lobby and used that 40% off coupon on it. Loved it...perfect size...not too heavy looking. You know I had to buy all new "stuff" to fill it with too. Every single thing I bought was on sale for 50% off that week! woo hoo! I'd been wanting to get more family photos out somewhere in that room and this sure did the trick. It's pretty much loaded with kid pics. A few things have been shuffled around since I took this picture but you get the idea. I've now got my two most recent family scrapbooks on it bottom left. The album covers are "not right" though. Those were purchased for my bedroom so I can see new purchases in THAT department in the near future.

OK and while I'm sharing family room pictures. I'll show you what my last little Hobby Lobby "project" was. Guess I completed this nook about 6 months ago. It's my "bistro". Never could figure out just how you decorate the area "outside" the "window" of a wall mural until the bistro idea came to me. Before I'd had plants and picture frames up in that "window" and all the frames just didn't look quite right. Here's what I came up with. For fall I've changed the window sill up a little bit. Some fall color to tie the room together and some little fake pumpkins, goards, etc in a wire basket. You get the idea.

I'm planning on scrapping this weekend and then next week it's moving on to the next project....ugh...Chels' room. Wish me luck there...going to be a major undertaking!