Fabulous Fall

Yes, I'm one of those people that loves fall. I love the cool temperatures, I love the colors of the leaves, and the general feeling in the air. I love back to school time, and Thanksgiving. It's just one of those seasons that I really enjoy.

Last weekend I had a Taste of Home Entertaining party with a chocolate theme. The girls came over and we checked out a bunch of cooking and entertaining products and had a LOT of chocolate. But being a rubber stamper, I couldn't resist the opportunity to use my stamps and papers to gussy up the table a bit. The place cards shown above told all the guests what kinds of food we had to go with our chocolate and were super simple to make. I folded pieces of green and brown 4 1/4" x 8 1/4" paper in half, cut pieces of 4" x 4" white paper and stamped leaves and pumpkins from our Mini Sampler set in one corner with black ink. The rest was coloring the leaves and pumpkins with watercolor pencils, blending quickly with a water brush and adding lines and hatch marks around the remaining edges with a black pen and a ruler. Then I just stuck the white paper to the colored folded pieces with double-sided tape. In some instances I tented them on the table next to the food, and for others I taped the folds shut over a wooden skewer that got stuck into the food. And voila! everyone knew what they were eating and had a nice table to look at. The whole process took about 30 minutes for 10 place cards. This idea could easily be converted to place settings for people at Thanksgiving, or name tags at a fall gathering or party.