Hello Autumn 🍂 Getting Ready for Fall, Decorating & Baking Chai Cookies

Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall. September has given us a doorway to this season of falling leaves, wearing oversized sweaters, watching Harry Potter and Gilmore Girls over and over again, reading books and visiting pumpkin patches while drinking a pumpkin spice latte. It's magic. I think of Ray Bradbury and his quote that goes, that country where it is always turning late in the year, where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist, where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay, the country whose people are autumn people thinking only autumn thoughts. I believe I'm one of those people. This is my season, and now that it's finally here, my heart feels like it's going home. Despite still being a bit warm during the days, the nights have begun to get cold and the leaves have started to change. Autumn is nearly here. So in this video, I'll be sharing my fall essentials, of course doing a bit of decorating, gathering together my fall cozy mysteries, airing out my old sweaters, taking a trip to world market to check out their new fall items. I'll also be making homemade tea bags and just doing cozy things to get me in the fall spirit. And I very much hope that you will enjoy watching. Before we continue on, I want to say a big thank you to Book of the Month for sponsoring this video. I have been such a huge fan of Book of the Month for years, and I'm thrilled to be working with them again. So Book of the Month is an extremely popular and fast-growing online book subscription service for all kinds of readers. Their mission is to promote new and emerging authors to help readers discover books that they'll love. Every month, their team vets hundreds of books to give readers their choice from a curated selection of new and early release titles, so you can spend more time reading and less time trying to research what book to read next. Book of the Month is also risk-free, so you can skip any month at any time and you will not be charged. One of the best things, though, is their price for these beautiful new release hardcover books. This month, I was so excited about their selection, so I chose two. The first one is a mystery called Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn. It's about these 60-year-old women working as assassins, but then as they're about to enter retirement, it appears that someone wants them dead, so they need to work fast to stay alive. And then I'm so excited that Book of the Month chose Sarah Addison Allen's new book, Other Birds, as one of their September picks. This is a magical realism book. There's a small coastal town, a cobblestone building comprised of five apartments, and maybe a few ghosts. It follows the story of these unlikely neighbors. I've heard that it's quirky and heartfelt, and I love that there will be ghosts involved. I really do love Book of the Month and highly recommend checking them out if you're looking for some new books to read this fall. You can use the code LEAVES to get your first book for only $9.99. I will also have a link down in the description box. Now, let's continue on with the rest of the video. in those colorado fumes know that you once loved them and probably always when i caught you in that soft and yellow sky oh i was only halfway to life when you caught me in the corner of my eye if i was the ocean i'd wrestle every flame but if i couldn't get to you i'd let the whole world see your face in the crest of every wave a little part of you never splashed on me i held you once in the cold and dimming dusk the cold and dimming dusk love cold and dimming dust meet me back by the aspens you once loved no that's where i found you were you always this is just water oh whoops it's not tea might seem like it actually i wish it was but it's still a little bit too hot here for tea sadly i have been drinking it in the mornings and the evenings but now that it's like late morning early afternoon i've got my water preparing for fall is actually one of my favorite parts of fall in general getting the first like pumpkin spice drink of the season and lighting fall scented candles and kind of airing out my old sweaters that have been in storage since last autumn there's this magic that feels like inviting autumn back into my life and it's just it's one of my favorite feelings some of the things i always do i always start watching gilmore girls and over the garden wall i love to stop by home goods or world market or bath and body works basically anywhere that brings out fall decor and see what they have in for this season i'll start listening to red folklore and evermore by taylor swift i mean as if i don't do that all year but i specifically listen to them a lot more on repeat during this season i'll start wearing more beiges browns burnt orange mustard yellow brown like colors like that to just make me feel more autumnal and as you saw i like to switch up my bedding and add new pillows i also bring out my fall mugs this is one of my favorites because the dog on it looks like my dog d'artagnan i found some really cute things from world market i'm excited to try this pumpkin spice creamer and the pumpkin scones i got this fabric from joann's because i've been wanting to make some pumpkin pillows for the sofa and the bed they're quite expensive to buy the store and one of my patrons sent me a blog article about how to make them yourself i'll leave it down in the description box if you're interested in more detailed instructions so for these pillows the idea is for it to be as simple and easy as possible so no sewing the instructions said to just fold the fabric over and tie the ends into knots and tuck in the little extra pieces underneath this turned out to be a bit more of a struggle than i expected and i think it would have worked better if i had left like six to seven inches of fabric around the edges instead of just three to four even with tying the knots as tight as possible i still wasn't able to cover the entire pillow but you know i am still a complete beginner with stuff like this so i can't expect it to be perfect i just tried my best to make it look as decent as possible so then i just took some twine and threaded it through the knot at the bottom to give it that pumpkin shape again this was so difficult and i think it might have been easier if i had just used stuffing instead of a pillow and then at the end i just tied it off and made it look a little bit less frumpy there were still some open parts at the bottom but you know what no one is going to see that so i still consider this a success now for the stem i used the stem of these big flowers that i had purchased from michael's that were just sitting in storage i had jared help me cut off a big chunk and then bent it to resemble a pumpkin stem i used hot glue to wrap some fabric around the top because i wanted to give it some width and then also you'll see later when you wrap the twine around it it covers the end of the stem so that you don't have to struggle with wrapping the twine around the very end of it so then i used the hot glue to attach some twine and i wrapped it around the entire stem gluing it off at the end and then i went in a second time with more twine because i wanted it to look a little bit thicker to attach the stem i just used some more hot glue and pushed it down for a couple of minutes and waited for it to be completely dry before i let go this was the coziest most perfect fall activity and i am so happy with how it turned out why does bringing out fall throw pillows make me so happy i don't know i mean yes i do they're abdominal that's enough of a reason they just make me so happy so i brought out some more decorations just putting little pumpkins and all the nooks and crannies i always love adding little touches to our coffee table this avonlea autumn candle smells exactly how i imagine green gable smells during fall it's so good and then of course i had to change out my mugs these are some of my favorites for the season okay i think we need to make some cookies and i think they need to be taylor swift's chai cookies but with pumpkin spice i recently got some chai tea that has pumpkin spice in it and so i think instead of using regular chai we're gonna use the pumpkin spice are you gonna be my helper are you gonna be my he's like oh my gosh i'm obsessed okay would you make me a call fear too i don't wanna head out half asleep swallowed the cannonball in my dream and it's pulling me back underneath my sheets it's freezing out morning blues i'm here i ain't no coward i was never hiding from you a couple calls a few forlorn stares wind whistles in the windows oh he dares to question me we run when the past comes back to life where those cold still hands were sharp as knives oh they clung in the disguise where the air was cold as i so could you spare me a dollar or two i never like to take off having too much to lose couple coins yeah my lungs but all need burn down one winner wow oh that's so good i've always wanted to try making my own tea bags i love stories of apothecaries and herbalists and while this tea won't be made to heal any illnesses or ailments it will invoke the warm feeling of a cozy autumn i've been testing out different recipes and ingredients and settled on this one i like to call it my harvest apple tea and it's an herbal tea i will put the exact measurements down in the description box i got these tea bags from amazon and it has rooibos tea cardamom star anise cinnamon dried apple pieces and a little dash of spiced red apple cider mixture for extra flavor once the tea bag is filled i wanted to kind of personalize it even more so i got out my stamps and paper to add on that little square paper that you often find at the end of a lot of string tea bags i have this really pretty fall leaf stamp that i love to use i love that the stamp gives it a little bit of a vintage feel it's really easy to cut the paper so that all you need to do is put on a little bit of glue and then just fold the paper over and that's it it's so easy i can't think of anything more cozy than a warm cup of tea on a brisk autumn day snuggled up with some cookies and a good book it's little moments like this that just really make it feel like fall