I’ve never driven a pick-up truck or enjoyed listening to country music, but every time this year I look around and notice my life’s gotten a little bit country, and it gives me all the warm fuzzies. I love bringing pumpkins inside, making garlands with natural elements, and giving center stage to my two favorite colors: orange and yellow. Pop a spice cake in the oven, warm some mulled cider on the stove, and I’m in paradise!

I thought before all the leaves have fallen and Christmastime is here, I should take a moment to remember what Fall looks like in our home, and share a few photos of the fam.

I’ve always enjoyed decorating for Fall and Christmastime, and now that Lucy’s old enough to enjoy the decorations, it’s become so much more special! Her favorite is the pumpkins, and she hasn’t even decorated one yet! That’s next on the docket, and I think it might blow her mind. Of course, it’s really not just the colors, but all the fun activities that make this time of year special. We’ve been to pumpkin patches and apple orchards, experienced hayrides and bonfires, and I really enjoy the coziness that abounds with nights in together as a family in warm sweaters with hot drinks in our hands.

The look on Lucy’s face (above) during our hayride really captures the wonder of it all. Fall really is the best time of year in the midwest. I never want it to end!

It seems like just yesterday I was all wrapped up in the excitement of decorating Lucy’s nursery. She was on the inside then. (….of my womb, that is.) And as much as I knew a little infant wouldn’t care about the color of the walls or the cute toys on display, the whole process was certainly thrilling for a new mom. But as fun as all that was, decorating a space for a toddler is at least ten times as exciting! You can suggestively sell Lucy on just about anything with the right tone of voice, but I was careful to include her in most of the decisions for her new room. (Or “womb,” as she calls it— can’t miss the irony in that!) She wanted blue walls, yellow flowers, and lots of books that she could get out to read at any time, without having to ask for help. After all, her motto is, “I do it myselfs!”

So here is her room, after rearranging once already to make room for better playing, and with her walls finally decorated— though, don’t be surprised if I change things up from time to time. (I’m a little nervous about those figurines in the interlocking shelves!) Pretty much everything you see here was thrifted, found at a garage sale, or purchased from a flea market or antique shop, with the exception of the following:

• pink chairs: from Amazon— here in pink and here in white
• eyeball sconce: from Urban Outfitters
• high chair: part of a set with stroller and crib from Amazon here
• rug: from Amazon here
• dog sheets: from Land of Nod here
• bunny nightlight: from Target here

The following items were DIY. Click the link for the full projects I shared at A Beautiful Mess.

• pom pom curtains
• picture rail moulding
• play tent

We just love having a cute, put-together place that Lucy can call her own, and I promise you, if you ever come over to our house, one of the first things Lucy will say is, “See my new womb?”

Last week at a craft night with friends, someone asked me what my favorite craft medium is. Obviously I love crafting and all things DIY, but I’d honestly never thought about what my favorite medium is! I told her maybe woodworking or sewing. They’re both forms of sculpture for me— I can take something flat and giving it a new shape and new life with a little vision, time, and work. But after saying this, I felt the need to clarify something about the sewing thing.

Not quilts. I love sewing, just not quilts.

Give me a few months, and just like a difficult child birthing experience, I’ll most likely forget my back pain and woes and be ready to give it another go. (Though if quilting is anything like birthing babies, I’ll need a few years between each one!) But as of now, I’m very proud to have finished my first quilt, though I cut a few corners along the way and definitely compromised on my original vision. This was certainly an instance of “Done is better than perfect.”

The top of the quilt is a simple rectangular block construction. At first I wanted to keep things super easy and figured I would just hand tie the quilt, but I really love how quilts get crinkly when machine stitching the layers together. So I watched this very helpful YouTube tutorial and bought myself a free-motion quilting foot for my sewing machine. I designed an elaborate geometric pattern that I had planned to draw on the top of my quilt and then go over with machine stitching. But by the time I had basted together the layers, I had sunk many hours and late nights into the project and thought it might be better than I just finish it up, instead of dragging it out while tediously stitching a complex pattern onto a heavy quilt without the assistance of an extension table on my sewing machine. Not a prospect I relished much, considering the work load I had waiting for A Beautiful Mess projects.

So I decided. Done is better than perfect. I made binding for the quilt and machine stitched it in place, instead of blind stitching it— another compromise. Oh well! I don’t think anyone beside me would have noticed that detail anyway.

Happily, Lucy loves getting tucked in under her new quilt in her new bed. She gets a little distressed if I don’t cover her with it before leaving the room. And my heart melts. I suppose it’s perfect for her, and I hope that she will always treasure it, knowing that I made it just for her!

It’s fun to do these little projects to make my firstborn feel special, knowing that a new kiddo will soon be sleeping in her old room and old bed, and she’ll most likely have some trouble adjusting.

Have you ever had trouble finishing projects that you end up not enjoying as much as you thought you would? My issue is that I always add more details and tend to make each project more complicated than I have time for. Gotta keep at least one foot on the ground, right?