Fall Pick-Me Up

I was looking at my favorite magazine, Scrapbooks, etc. and saw the CUTEST "BOO" banner. Something similar to this (courtesy of the Scrabooks Etc. com)...I decided it was too early for a Boo banner and thought a HARVEST banner would be fun and cute! Besides, I was really needing something crafty to do since I've been a little lackadaisical lately!
I wanted to try circles instead of pendant shapes for my banner. I simply traced a bowl and cut out circles from a couple of cereal boxes. Then I glued some harvest-y looking paper down. Next, I used my poor man's Cricut technique and printed out the letters HARVEST on my computer, cut out, glued more cute paper on top of those trimmed up, and glued on the circles. I used scraps and stickers to add a little texture and depth (I used hot glue to adhere those.) I then hot glued the circles onto some twine and added little flowers in the middle. And hung it up on my banister.

The HARVEST doesn't stand out as much as I wanted, but I love the splash of fall it gives the mantel! Hubby saw me hang it up and laughed and said, "Good luck keeping the boys from ripping that apart!" But to my delight they actually HAVE left it alone for the last 2 weeks!

REAL Mom's Dinner: Grilled Hot Dogs, chips, corn on the cob, fruit salad and rice crispy treats. Can you tell it's the end of summer?!!!