broccoli cheese soup in a bread bowl

With temperatures cooling down I've been in the mood for soup, and the first recipe that came to mind was this one for broccoli cheese soup. I got it from my friend Sara a few years ago and I have no idea where she got it... so sorry, no source.

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter

1/2 onion, chopped

16 oz package frozen chopped broccoli, thawed

2 cans chicken broth

1 lb Velveeta, cubed

1 cup milk

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/3 cup cornstarch

1/2 cup water

Directions

Melt butter in a big pot. Add onion and cook until softened. Stir in broccoli and cover with broth. Simmer until broccoli is tender, about 10-15 minutes. Reduce heat and stir in cheese cubes until melted. Add milk and garlic powder. In a small bowl, combine cornstarch and water and stir until cornstarch is completely dissolved. Pour into soup and stir constantly until thick.

This soup is creamy and delicious, and served in a bread bowl it is just heavenly. I think Velveeta is nasty stuff, but in this recipe it works and you don't get that gross fake cheese flavor. Enjoy!

fall yarn wreath

I made this fall yarn wreath with felt flowers last year but never got around to posting it here, probably because it's pretty basic and you have probably already seen a bunch like it all over Pinterest and blogland. And because I didn't take pictures of the process, so it's just the finished product instead of a tutorial. But I love it, so when I got my fall decorations out last week I decided to post it.

For the flowers, I cut circles in different sizes out of felt, cut a spiral into the circles, and rolled them up. There are tons of tutorials out there for various types of flowers if you want something different. You can find a few ideas on my Pinterest boards here.

To hang the wreath, I used the pop top from a soda can. I just tied it on with the end of the yard after I was done wrapping it around the wreath and then used some hot glue to really secure it. It's a great solution for hanging a wreath (or anything), and the wreath is very light so I don't worry about it coming loose. 

Can you tell I'm a little bit OCD when it comes to wrapping the yarn around the wreath? I wanted it to be even so it took a little bit longer than if you just wrapped it however, but I know myself and messy yarn would drive me crazy. Every time I walked by.

I have thought about using orange in my decor all year because I love it, but I'm afraid fall would be a lot less fun to decorate for if I was used to having it around all the time. I think it adds a very warm and cozy feeling to my living room in the fall and makes me want to sit by the fire.

Here's my fall mantel from last year. I loved it, and I'm not one to completely change everything every year so it's pretty much the same again this year. And I still love it :)

spider wreath

So. Crafting pretty much came to a complete halt in my house this summer, hence the blog silence. For whatever reason, it just didn't happen. But now that fall ~ my favorite season ~ is here, I have ideas for some things that I will be posting about in the next little while.

First, this cute spider wreath!

The silver web part is a placemat I saw at Z Gallerie a few weeks ago and it just screamed Halloween to me. I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do with it when I bought it, but I knew I wanted to think of something and it didn't take long to decide on the wreath idea. Who doesn't need a new wreath, right?

The spider is from Tai Pan and I love that it has a little bit of a glam look to go with the silver web.

So basically all I did was wrap some strips of black fabric from my stash around a styrofoam wreath and then hot glued the placemat to the back and trimmed the edges. The spider is stuck on with some clear thread and hot glue. 

That's it! Simple to do, and I love how it turned out!

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