The Apple Festival!

Last month, we went to the Apple Festival in Kendallville. It was a beautiful fall day, warm and sunny with just the slightest chill in the air.

I had never been to the Apple Festival before. Normally, I go to the Johnny Appleseed Festival in Fort Wayne, which is pretty much the official kick off of fall in this area. Since I was unable to go to Johnny Appleseed this year, I thought I'd try something new.

There was a lot of yummy looking food, much of it featuring apples, of course. We ended up getting some ham and beans with cornbread, one of my faves. I also picked up some small, decorative pumpkins and some more ceramic mushrooms to add to my collection!

Perfect fall day for a festival! A country road somewhere around Kendallville.

Beautiful mums and pumpkins at a farmer's market area.

I really liked the cute little vendor shacks they had.

Another cute shack selling apple pie! Love their set up with all the pumpkins, gourds, and hay!

Look at all those pumpkins!

Fall Leaf Pillow

I love a good pillow! This year, I was inspired by several really cool looking fall leaf pillows that I found on Pinterest. (Which, by the way-I have a Sweet Home Indiana Pinterest page that you should really check out!)

Originally, I had thought about cutting out my own leaf shapes from felt, but I then I found some beautiful fall felt leaves at Hobby Lobby. They were perfect for what I had in mind! I also got a 16x16 linen-esque pillowcase and pillow insert from Hobby Lobby. I am all about making it easy! I am also all about making it cheap as I had to go back on three separate occasions so I use coupons on them. When you are a baller on a budget, you do what you gotta do!

I was unsure of what to use to attach the leaves to the pillowcase. The leaves are actually pretty thick and sewing them on just didn't seem like it would work. I decided to glue them and started researching what would be the best glue to use when gluing fabric to fabric. After doing quite a bit of of research, I settled on Aleene's Fabric Fusion. It said it was permanent fabric adhesive, which was exactly what I wanted.

How could you not love these leaves!

My cleaned and pressed pillow case along with the leaves and glue.

I used a cardboard insert from a box of kleenex to make sure that the glue would not bleed through the pillowcase and end up gluing it shut. You learn things like this from trial and error!

First things first, I arranged the leaves in the design that I liked best so I knew where to glue them. Also, notice that I put the zipper on the bottom of the pillow design. There's nothing worse than getting finished and realizing you put everything on upside down! Again, trial and error!

I put a moderate amount of glue all over the leaves and pushed them down with my hand for about a minute to get the glue to start setting before I went on to the next. I also started putting heavy books on top of the glued leaves once I got down the line, so it would help them set up as well.

After letting the heavy books sit on top of the pillow overnight so that everything would really stick, I was so excited to see the finished product! I lifted the pillowcase up to admire my work and a leaf fell off. Of course, that lead to me picking on the others and a few more fell off. I have to admit, I was pretty devastated. I had such high hopes! It was supposed to work perfectly! I have no idea why after all this time crafting and doing other home projects, I always think that everything is going to go smoothly and turn out perfectly. It rarely does!

Never one to give up easily, I re-glued the leaves while cursing Aleene and her stupid glue. I made sure to push down even harder and put even more glue on. After letting them dry, I checked it out again. Success! No leaves fell off this time. I forgive you, Aleene. Excitedly, I jammed the pillow insert into the case and thought, "Hmmm...this looks different than I had imagined."

The finished product. It really does look good. I just had not anticipated that the leaves would be so....not in the middle? Busting at the seams? The middle looked very plain to me and the leaves were further on the edges than I thought they would be when I designed the pillow. But that is life, it rarely turns out how you imagine.

Looking good on my antique rocking chair. I actually love how it ended up turning out. It looks pretty awesome if I do say so myself!

Quick Halloween Wrap Up

So yes, I decided to go the easy way out this year and use the plastic jack-o-lantern. Sometimes there are just not enough hours in the day (or money to buy more pumpkins) and you have to be okay with that.  I have to say that serendipity stepped in here because what started out as just a regular, cheesy, plastic pumpkin actually turned into something totally awesome!

First, the light in the pumpkin would not work. We switched out the bulb. Nothing. So I decided that we should just put some glow sticks in it and it would be this eerie, green, glowing pumpkin!  My wonderful husband said he would take care of getting the glow sticks.  He came home with a strobe light instead. I was skeptical, but when he turned it on, man, was it cool!

Too bad you can't see the actual strobing effect! It was awesome! Admittedly, this pic makes it look kinda lame....but trust me-so not lame! You couldn't even tell it was a fake pumpkin in the dark!

We had some cousins over to go trick or treating and I made a few snacks to go along with our pizza, including these awesome bone cookies and brain jello!!!  I have had this brain jello mold and Wilton bone cookie pan for years, just waiting to bust them out for a Halloween party that I have been meaning to have. I got them both on clearance from Meijer the day after Halloween. Can't beat that!

I found this awesome serving tray at Walmart this year in the Halloween area. It was perfect! Maybe I should've gotten a few more!

This is part of the wrapper that the bone cookie pan came in, complete with some awesome ideas for the cookie decor. I was originally going to do the one on the bottom that looks like an old, real bone but when I tasted the cookies they were super sweet. I didn't even want to add a glaze to it, they were delicious as is! So I just left them plain.

All in all, it was a pretty awesome Halloween! Very low-key, but good fun, good food, and good friends. I'm excited for next year so I can do it up even bigger!


P.S.

GO CUBS!!!!!!!