Grandma & Me: Discovering Grandma's Garden

I am so excited to share this month's "Grandma & Me" fashion post with you because it's the first time I was really able to show Alethea my perennial garden.  It's a dream of mine, to share my garden with Alethea.  I want her to remember coming over to Grandma & Grandpa's house every summer and see all the flower gardens and have fond memories of those visits.  I want her to have "special flowers" that she loves because she remembers seeing them in my garden:  like purple coneflowers, black-eyed-Susan's, and iris.  Someday I hope to plant a "Fairy Garden" with her.  I hope she will be as enthusiastic about my garden as I am in sharing it with her.

Even though it was a warm August day when these photos were taken, we dressed up for fall since I knew they would be posted in September.  It was a good thing we had on all these layers because the mosquitoes were awful.  Poor Alethea got some bites on her face, and my daughter, the photographer really got bit up because she was wearing summer clothing.

For Alethea's fall outfit, she wore a denim dress, chambray sneakers, and a blue hair bow.  An over-sized mustard yellow cardigan completed the outfit.  If you can only buy one knew item this year for your fall wardrobe, I highly recommend something in mustard yellow.  It is this season's "it" color.  Every store I've shopped is spilling over in mustard yellow.

For my outfit, I actually wore a mustard yellow skirt I showed you before in THIS POST.  When I bought this skirt, I knew it would work great in the fall as well as the summer.  Here I paired it with a long sleeve white embroidered shirt (Stitch Fix, old), a denim vest (Target, old), a straw hat (H&M, bought this spring), and a new pair of open-toed booties from DSW.

Alethea's first visit to my garden was fascinating to me.  On the one hand, she seemed so excited to see all the flowers, trees, and shrubs.  On the other hand, she seemed very apprehensive.  She is so little, that everything is so HUGE to her.  I'm sure she felt like she was in some strange new world, or how I would feel if I were in the Amazon forest.   She also just learned to walk, and found walking on wood chips a bit unsteady for her.

She just loved peeking around every corner wondering what was around every bend.

I tried to point out certain flowers I knew she loved, liked Purple Coneflowers.  She always likes to touch their centers and feel the unique texture.

This picture really shows how tiny Alethea is and how this "garden world" must have seemed to big to her.  This is a Viburnum bush.  I have to literally get down on my hands and knees when weeding under this bush, but Alethea can stand underneath it!

Alethea loves to pick things off the ground (most of the time it's something she shouldn't be picking up!).  She found a pine cone and was so fascinated with it she couldn't let it out of her grasp for the rest of the photo shoot.  And of course she got sticky sap all over her hands!  haha!

Isn't this chambray head bow with white polka dots just the cutest?   Normally, she rips head bows right off her head, but on this day she was so distracted by everything around her, she had no idea it was even on her head.

Even though Alethea's first experience in my garden was for a fashion photo shoot, I sure enjoyed showing her around.  I can't wait till she's a little older, and we can start planting things together.

Oh, I just love her to pieces!  What a little treasure she is!

All these flower pictures remind me of how tiny she is.  Most of the flowers are around two to three feet tall, and yet they tower over her.  No wonder she was a bit apprehensive!

Here we are looking at the pine cones in the pine trees that haven't dropped yet.  Gardens are such great places to teach children about life and it's all stages.

Still so fascinated with that pine cone! 😊

For jewelry, I chose a multi-colored, multi-strand, stone beaded bracelet.

My bag is new this season.  I spied it earlier in the season, but I waited till the end of the season to buy it on clearance, and with coupon.  So I ended up getting it for around $10.00 from DSW.  I was more patient about waiting for this bag than I usually am because I already owned a straw bag and really didn't need another one.  I was just drawn to this one for the round handle and I liked that it had a liner that zipped close.  My other straw bag doesn't have that feature.  This one is also beige and blue and my other one is brown and beige.  It's still available HERE and on sale, but not as inexpensively as I paid for it.

For a necklace, I chose this brown, white, gold beaded one from my collection.

And I'm so excited to show you my new shoes, which you will be seeing in many fall fashion posts to come.  I absolutely love open booties for the summer-to-fall transitional season.  You get the look of fall without the heat of a traditional bootie.  I bought these on clearance for less than $30 at DSW.  I can't find this exact pair on their website anymore, but THIS ONE is almost identical.

Look how big this daylily is compared to Alethea!  Oh my goodness, that bloom is almost as big as her face!

I hope you enjoyed discovering my garden with Alethea today!  And I also hope I've inspired you to transition some of your summer skirts and dresses for fall by adding winter elements like cardigans, vests, jackets, and booties.

Have a Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

On The Road Again: Fall Break

Hey y'all!  I'm on the road again, this time visiting the beautiful state of South Dakota!  Follow me on Instagram and Facebook for daily posts/pictures of my travels.  I'll be back to a regular blogging schedule on September 10th with a new "Grandma & Me" fashion post!

My Fall Home Tour

I'm so excited because with the exception of potted mums and real pumpkins, I have my entire house inside and out decorated for fall already! Yippee!  It feels so good to have it done.  I was inspired by a new Hobby Lobby opening in our home town;  I walked in and saw all the beautiful fall decor but I was afraid to buy anything new until I got my own fall decor out of storage.  I wanted to be sure I only bought what I needed to fill holes and not buy anything I had already. 

Let's begin our tour shall we?

This is a cabinet in my dining room.  I put vintage wheat plates on the plate rail on the wall.  I created a fall vignette using a tobacco basket, a fall sign, a galvanized pitcher, a dried arrangement,  some fall leaf garland and faux fall mums.

The tobacco basket, galvanized pitcher, and dried fall bouquet are all new this year from Hobby Lobby.  Everything else I already had in my stash.

On my piano, which is also in the dining room, I placed a fall sign, some baskets, a ceramic pumpkin, and a candle with some fall foliage.

The china cabinet on the other side of the dining room has a pumpkin flower arrangement on top with more vintage wheat plates on the plate rail.

A fall candle with a fall candle ring sits in the center of the dining room table.

 In the living room, I filled a vase with silk fall flowers and added a fall candle.  Both sit on a corner table.  On another table in this room,  I have another fall candle and candle ring (not seen).

In the downstairs guest bathroom on top of the vanity I added some fall scented products from Bath and Body Works.

The other side of the vanity holds a vase filled with silk fall mums.  A fall hand towel hangs on the towel ring.

For the office, I put some fall garland on top of a bookshelf and added a ceramic owl to a shelf.

In my entryway, I put a decorative fall metal bucket on a side table with some fall foliage and a little straw pumpkin.

The table that is directly across from the entryway door, and the first thing my guests see when walking in the house, is topped with another fall vignette.  I filled a galvanized vase with Viburnum cut from my garden.  Then I added a basket, a ceramic pumpkin, and a rock with sunflower on it and the word "Welcome".  Fall garland is weaved through all these items laying on the table.

On the entryway door hangs a fall swag.

The outside side porch, and the porch most guests enter through, is the most decorated for fall of all my porches.  Here I put a fall themed pillow on my white rocker, placed a scarecrow doll next to a planter, and I put some faux pumpkins on the porch floor.

On the large porch wall, I hung a large tobacco basket and placed a wooden pumpkin sign inside along with some silk fall flowers and foliage.  I picked up the large tobacco basket at Hobby Lobby this year too.  They are so popular right now, aren't they?   I just love them for layering.

Right next to my porch door is this fall welcome sign.  I painted it myself years ago.  It says "Happy Fall".  I added sticks, silk flowers and fall stems, and then placed faux pumpkins and squash on the porch floor and inside the wooden barrel.

This sign hangs on the wall on the opposite side of the door.

For the front porch, I added a fall leaf stake to a potted plant sitting on the porch steps.

Upstairs, I wrapped fall garland around a hallway mirror.

And I put a fall candle and fall candle ring on the table beneath the mirror.

Down the hall just a bit, I put more fall garland on a shelf, hung a "Give Thanks" plaque on a peg,  and added a wheat bundle to the table below.  My cat Jackson just loves chewing on this wheat bundle.  Ugh!

The master bedroom is mostly white and greys so I added a white fall floral arrangement to a nightstand.

And finally, on the shelf above the stairwell, I added more fall silk flowers and baskets.

After getting out my own fall supplies, I realized I had enough fall decor already.  I updated a little bit with two tobacco baskets, for they are really trending this year!  I also purchased two other trending items:  a galvanized pitcher and cotton.  If you can only purchase a few fall decor items, those would be the three things I would recommend investing in.

I also bought the new fall floral arrangement for the master bedroom.  I needed something more neutral to go with all the white and grey.  If you couldn't tell by the pictures, my house is very outdated color wise.  All the walls in the main living areas are jewel tones.  I've been going through my house the past few years and renovating, repainting the walls a cream or light grey.  I'm all done with the upper level;  this year I am starting on the main level, beginning with the living room.  As I repaint the rooms, I find some of my fall decor doesn't work in that room anymore.  That's what I discovered about my master bedroom, hence the new floral arrangement.  But the jewel tones walls, outdated as they are, look great with fall colors!  Don't they?

So what about you?  Have you decorated for fall yet?  Will you be using more traditional fall colors like I did or is your house all updated with white/grey paint so you use more muted fall tones?  I'd love to hear from you!

Have a Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!