Getting Cozy For Fall 🍂 | Autumn Decor, Maple Coffee & Baking Pumpkin Spice Coffee Cake

Welcome friends! It is officially fall. Without a doubt my favorite time of year. I just love the crisp mornings, the leaves crunching underfoot, pumpkin and apple everything. So today I want to spend some time embracing all the things that make this season so special. We're going to get cozy for fall together. Of course, we do this every year. You know there are a few important things that we need to do. All my favorite local coffee shops have recently released their fall menus. So we're going to stop, pick up a fall coffee. I've had a pumpkin matcha already but no proper fall coffees. So get one of those. Obviously we need to go to Trader Joe's. I was just there the other day and saw them starting to put out all of their fall things. Probably go to Target too. I feel like their fall decor is always the best. And we'll decorate for fall, incorporate touches of the season throughout our home. Want to do some baking too. I saw a recipe for pumpkin spice coffee cake that looks so good. Then there are also a couple crafty DIY type things that I'd love to get up to as well. So it is going to be such a fun. I'm guessing we'll do this over a couple of days. But let's get started with fueling up for our adventures. Take a trip to the coffee shop. Good. Could I get the salted maple latte? Anything else? So truth be told, I've actually finished most of this latte already. I paused to feed Flynn and I couldn't help myself. Had to try it. It's so good. I can't remember what this was called. Oh, the salted maple latte. I love anything maple. So this one's a big winner in my book. I went to Nightswim Coffee, which is one of my favorite local coffee shops here in Charlotte. Platform Coffee is another one. Both do amazing seasonal drinks and house-made beverages. So if you're ever in the Charlotte area, check them out. But now let's head to Trader Joe's and Target and see what kind of fall goodies we can find there. Okay, back home and we scored in the pumpkin department. At Trader Joe's especially, I came across all kinds of great fall finds. Let me walk you through them. First thing that I picked up was this cinnamon whisk. It was less than $2 and it smells just divine. Thinking I'm going to put this either here in the kitchen or in our bathroom. Just incorporate a little seasonal scent. Also picked up some pumpkin spice creamer. I haven't actually tried this one before, but I'm obsessed with the sweet cream creamer that Trader Joe's does. So excited to try that. Also got a couple of pumpkin Greek yogurts. Love these for parfaits. Got a couple of butternut squash as well. Trader Joe's always has the best price on these. I want to use this to make... I've shared it before. It's like a stuffed butternut squash recipe. One of our favorites. Also got some pumpkin ravioli. This stuff with a brown butter sage sauce is so good. Then I was really excited when I saw this. This is the Synergy Living in Gratitude Kombucha. This right here is my all-time favorite kombucha. It has apple, turmeric, carrot, and spices. When I tell you that this is so good, it makes me sad it's just a seasonal flavor because I would literally buy this all year round. But every fall I really look forward to it. Okay, then this is something else that's new to me. Pumpkin sourdough bread. I love pumpkin and I love sourdough, so I feel like I'm going to love the combination. And my thought is this is going to go so well with... I also picked up some pumpkin butter. This stuff is great on a bread, but it's amazing for cooking as well. I've seen a lot of recipes for pumpkin butter cookies, so definitely going to have to make some of those at some point this fall. Then we're running a bit low on hand soaps. I figured this would be good. Just a vanilla pumpkin hand soap. I feel like with vanilla pumpkin, it can be really easy just to go overboard with the scent and it just smells really artificial. I feel like Trader Joe's strikes that right balance of it being warm but not too sweet. And just a couple of other food things. I got this pumpkin pie spice bark. This is something else that we'll have to try together. Should we try it right now? Let's do it. It says it's pumpkin pie spiced white chocolate ginger snap cookies, pretzels, dark chocolate drizzle, and sea salt. That sounds really good. The pumpkin pie spice with the ginger snap, those are really good. Then last food item is another favorite. These are pumpkin spice pretzels. But of course, apart from the snack food, I also love Trader Joe's for their florals. Seasonal arrangements are one of my favorite ways to embrace each new season. So of course, I had to pick up some flowers to make a beautiful fall bouquet. I picked up these mums. I love the burgundy with the cream and I thought they'd pair perfectly with these. These ones have just a bit more of a green tint to them. So that's going to be the base of our bouquet. And then I also love having a few other options just to add some texture to an arrangement. Not entirely sure what this is called, but it has kind of like drapey wheat-like quality to it. I thought spilling out of the bouquet, that would look really nice. I also love these. The texture of them is super cool. And then finally, just to kind of fill out the arrangement, I got some greenery too. So that's the direction that we're going with this bouquet, but I'll take you along as I put that together. All right. And that's everything that I picked up from Trader Joe's. At Target, I didn't actually end up getting all that much. I do have quite a few fall pieces at this point. So I didn't really feel like there was any one thing that was calling to me. However, when I went out the other day, I struck out in the scented candle department and Target does the best candles. So I did come home with one of those. This is from the hearth and hand collection. Has a really pretty little kind of floral detail to it. And this is the scent harvest chestnut. It's rich, it's warm, but it's not sweet. This is the smell of fall to me. All right, but now let's put all of this away. We can get to work on our floral arrangement. Let me talk you through my approach for flower arrangements. And as you can see, we've acquired a little guest. He's going to stick around at least until he falls asleep, which might be pretty soon here. But the way that I like to go about putting together arrangements is to focus on having a variety of shapes, colors, and textures. So shapes you can see here, we have three very distinct ones going on. You've got smaller petals. These create kind of like a pom-pom type texture. These ones are somewhat similar, but with wider leaves and they're just a little bit more spread out. And then these ones have very wide, bold, thick leaves. So they provide a great contrast. You also have a few different scales going on with these being smaller, these kind of a more medium size, and these ones larger. And the colors are in the same family, but they're not the same. I actually think they especially look good with this grassy texture. I feel like the color palette and arrangement is huge and you just want colors that will work well together. You can, of course, go for something more colorful. Although for autumn, I love going for something like this that's more tonal. But the big thing is just that the colors that you use marry together well. So like this is a very warm toned palette. If I put in like a blue or a really vivid pink, it just wouldn't really feel like it went with everything else. And then of course, to fill out an arrangement, some greenery is always welcome. So those are just a few of the things that I like to keep in mind as I'm arranging. But now let's get these out of wrapping and we can start putting it together. All right. I think I'm happy with where I ended up. This is our complete bouquet. I just love all the colors, the textures. I feel like those marry so well together, especially if you pick things like mums, greenery, grasses, this is an arrangement that should last us for weeks. So excited that we have just another fun piece to decorate with. And speaking of decorating, I'm going to attempt to transfer him so that we can crack out all of our fall decor and properly decorate for the season. Let's decorate for fall. I keep all of our autumn decoration in here. This is like fall and Halloween. So I'm really only going to get the fall stuff out right now. Save the Halloween stuff for a few weeks from now. I'm going to have to be strategic this year too, because I have a two year old. So a lot of the decor that I've set up in past years, it's just not that toddler friendly. We'll probably be putting a lot of stuff out of reach, but I do love incorporating touches of the season into my decor. So let me walk through with you what I've got. Stuff is all Halloween. Some pumpkins. I like the braided detail on these ones. Although this one has some like green spots. That's probably from all over last year. A couple little mushrooms, my pumpkin mugs and my boo mug too. And I have just like a autumnal arrangement. These tea towels have honestly seen better days. They're not that absorbent. So I think I'm actually going to declutter these. Oh, but I love this piece. This is a print of a covered bridge in, I believe it's New Hampshire. We actually went and visited it. I guess it was two years ago now when Oliver was six months old. That was such a magical trip. Actually the day that we went, the vines were exactly this. The leaves were in peak color and there was even snow on the mountaintops too. So what I did last year was I put this in a frame and just kind of left it as a framed piece. I think I'll probably do that again. And then we have our little crock. Mini pumpkins. Oliver will have fun playing with these. And then we have a napkin that I like to use for styling. More florals. And some more. This little hand print garland that I made with Oliver. We'll have to hang this up somewhere. Some moss balls. That's most of what I've saved from past year. So to this, we're just going to add the couple of pieces that we picked up last week. And actually let me find them. I went to an estate sale recently and absolutely scored. I found some beautiful pieces for fall. So just a few pieces here. This is a ceramic artichoke. It's super heavy. I love the autumnal coloring of it. I thought this would be so cool displayed on a bookshelf or bar cabinet. I feel like honestly, this is just one of those statements pieces that looks great wherever you put it. I also picked up this tray. I thought the leaf detail would be perfect for fall. I love trays like this for just gathering essentials. And then at the antique mall, I picked up this vase. Look at the colors of this thing. It definitely gives like autumnal landscape vibes. And then I showed you when I got this last year, but this is a piece that I use as a spoon rest. Not sure why it wasn't in with the rest of these, but just pulled that out. And then the other day at the farmer's market, I picked this up. It's just a little ceramic leaf that's meant to be used as a teabag holder. And during the fall and winter especially, I'm always drinking tea. So that's everything that we have to work with. Now let's do a little decorating. Liking the way this room is coming together with little touches of the season, especially since this room is still functioning as a bedroom nursery for us. I didn't want to go like all out, but I do feel like there is one final kind of nod to this season that we can incorporate and that's to swap out our bedding. Right now we have this really nice kind of blue and oak color that I feel like work together really well, but I'd love to kind of update that for fall. So the other day I picked up this sheet set. It's 100% cotton and I love the pattern on these sheets. Kind of like an orangey red and a burgundy with a green. I am such a sucker for a block print and I'm thinking that these will probably work for fall, but we can probably roll them into Christmas too. We're going to put these on, pair them with these green shams, and then especially as the weather's getting cooler, I don't think we're ready to crack out the duvet that goes inside our duvet cover just yet. That's more something we start putting in in October or November once the weather starts properly cooling down, but I do think it might be nice to add just like a blanket or something because I do sometimes get a little chilly at night. It's nice to have something that I can either pull on or take off just depending on how I'm feeling. So there we go. Simple, but I think a nice little update for the new season. I'm not sure if I've shown you yet our new bookshelf. We replaced the bookshelf that we had here previously with a new one that's about three times the size, fits our entire book collection. That was something that we had planned to do before Flynn came. He came early, so we ended up doing it right after we got home from the hospital. It was like literally that week, but we have been absolutely loving it. Just having the books out and it also gives us a great space to style as well. Let's add a few elements here, probably do some in the kitchen, but I'm mostly going to try to focus on places that are above Oliver's reach or if they're within reach, make sure that the things that I'm putting out aren't breakable. Decorating with a toddler is a whole new logistical challenge. One thing that we don't have in this corner is any kind of light source. There's the hallway light over here, but no lamp or anything. And at night, I really have been feeling lately, like the space just needs something. So I picked up this lamp at Target the other day, like a little ceramic mini lamp. It's really cute and it has a rechargeable battery. I'm going to put it on this shelf right here. I love how it's just that perfect little added amount of coziness and warmth. I already swept out our dish towels last week, but the rest of the styling in this corner is still very summery. So let's swap out a few pieces. Something I love doing is having a little pumpkin crop on the stove, put it in the corner there, and it can just stay there as a little piece of decor that we can pull out and use anytime during the season. A little spoon rest swap. Love the leaf, just like a spoon resting on it. This is a pumpkin still life painting I did last year. Still one of my favorite pieces. I'm going to put that in our frame right now. I love using art that's either something that you've done, something someone you know has done, or an artist, just something original. I feel like it adds that really personal touch to your home. Doesn't that just look so good? Although maybe we should swap out pumpkin for this guy, just for a little something different. Also Christopher has been learning how to make homemade sourdough. How good does this look? This is his first ever attempt at a loaf. We're excited to try it in a little. So something I want to try adding to our windowsill is some books. I think it's just such a like very romantic storybook feeling even to have a bunch of books stacked along a windowsill. There's a local coffee shop that I recently saw do this. I thought it was just the coziest vibe ever. Unfortunately, a lot of our windowsills around our house, they just aren't wide enough for that. But I think this one is, I think it would be really cute just to have a couple little books just propped along the edge there. I think that's really cute. And maybe we could even find a few more for this corner. It's really happy with the touches of fall we've been able to incorporate throughout our home. I think my two favorite corners have to be right here and then also in our bedroom. But now I was just outside gathering some hydrangea blooms. Our hydrangea is in full bloom right now. We have a limelight prime hydrangea out in our front yard. For the past few years, I've really been trying to focus on letting it grow bigger. It's a decent size now though. So I figured this year we could try harvesting some of the blooms and using them for a pretty simple DIY. Last year, I used these preserved leaves to just add them to a wreath form and make a really beautiful simple autumnal wreath. I still love this. So we're going to be putting this on our front door again this year. But I thought it might be fun to try making like a smaller, more compact version to display over a microwave here in the kitchen. I thought that trying to make one out of hydrangeas might be so much fun for the fall. So to be honest, I don't know exactly how this is going to go. I don't have another wreath form. So I was thinking of just trying to use, I have some floral wire here. And my thought was to basically just try to string them together. I'm not entirely sure if it's going to work, but come along and we can give it a go at least together. So we're just going to take all of the leaves off and then wing it with putting this together. Hopefully this turns out well. Okay, we're going to do one last piece here and then comes the moment of truth, whether or not we can actually make a wreath out of this. So now we have, it's a very basic wreath shape. Actually, I'm pretty happy with how it's looking. But as you can see, there are definitely some spots that it's a little bit wonky. So I have a couple smaller little pieces here. What I want to do right now is see if we can just kind of perfect the shape of it and make it feel full all the way around. Okay. I actually love how this came out. I wasn't sure how trying to build this without a wreath form would go, but I love it. I feel like it has a very whimsical kind of, yeah, unstructured feel to it. And I was originally thinking I was going to put it above the stove, but I was thinking, and I actually think it would look so cute on our back porch. We have a basket of flowers hanging on the door currently, but those flowers look like they've seen it better days. I think that this would be the perfect addition. So why don't we go put this wreath out, this one on our front door. And I think that wraps up decorating. What's already feeling so festive and autumnal in here, but something else that I love to do just to welcome each new season is to make treats that incorporate some of the flavors that we love from each time of year. So of course for fall, I want to lean into the spices, the pumpkin, especially as we head into cooler weather. I love baked goods, cakes, muffins. Not only do they taste amazing, but they also perfume the house with the most incredible cozy aroma. I just love it. Right now we're going to do some baking. I came across a pumpkin and coffee cake recipe that I want to try out. We've been really getting into fun breads recently. I showed you Christopher's sourdough. I'm about to head off in about an hour or so to see some friends. So I thought pumpkin spice coffee cake, that felt like the perfect thing to bring. Whenever I bake a recipe with you, I always try to link it for you in the description box. So if you want to know how to make this recipe, check there. So we've got the batter ready to go. I'm just going to line the very bottom of this cake pan with a little bit of parchment paper. Should make getting the coffee cake out easier. I am off to my friend's house now for girls night, going to enjoy a dinner there. And then this evening I'm thinking we're just going to keep things chill. Christopher and I will probably watch some football. If you didn't know, we're both huge NFL fans. Go Pats. And football being back, it does feel like one of those quintessential fall things. And while we watch that, I'll probably make myself some tea, do a little embroidery. I've been embroidering in the cutest little, it's like a little two piece set with some pumpkins, some mushrooms on it for Flynn. You should fit it pretty soon too. And I think we have a day where the high is in the sixties in about a week or so. So perfect timing, but yeah, just planning to keep things a chill this evening. So I hope you enjoyed coming along with me over the past few days as we got cozy for fall, that you're feeling ready for the season. Now I'd love to know what are some of the things you're really looking forward to this fall? Is it apple picking? Are you going to do a corn maze, visit a pumpkin patch? Let me know what your plans are in the comments below. I know we have lots of exciting things planned and especially having a newborn, this is just going to be a really sweet season. But as always friends, thank you so much for watching, for being here, and I will see you all again very soon. Bye.