Blog Posts

October DIY

In this post, the Liv Avenida Blog has five different DIY projects to help you more fully embrace fall. The weather is getting at least a little cooler, the pumpkins are coming out, and apple-everything is in season. Celebrate the changing season by relaxing with a craft or two before the month is through. We hope you enjoy our post! DIY Flannel Coasters from View from the Fridge The nineties are never more in style than during the fall. DIY flannel coasters will help you embrace 90s cool all while protecting your coffee table and celebrating fall. You can’t ask for more than that. Learn How to Paint Orange Pumpkins from Flower Patch Farmhouse Last week was all about pumpkins on our blog. This week we’re still focusing on pumpkins, but this time we’re painting them instead of picking them. This is an easy and relaxing fall craft, perfect for the beginner crafter. Fall Mason Jar Craft from Sugar Bee Crafts Fill your fall mason jar craft with candy or with candles for a delightful fall decoration. Sugar Bee Crafts outlines a leaf onto her jar, but feel free to make a jar using any number of iconic “fall” items—a witch’s hat, a broom, or a pumpkin would all be great options. DIY Twig Letters from The Happy House Glue twigs onto a craft store wooden letter for a rustic fall letter that is perfect for hanging on your front door in lieu of a wreath or propping up in your living room as a fall decoration. This easy craft requires a hot glue gun, some twigs, and a craft letter. Pumpkins from scrubbing pads from My Soulful Home We’ve got another pumpkin craft for you to enjoy. Can’t make it out to the pumpkin patch? Use scrubbing pads, twine, glue, and felt to create your own pumpkin. This craft is perfect if you need an easy centerpiece for fall. Do you have any fall crafts for us to try out? Tell us about your favorite DIY in the comments, and we’ll try it out! Thanks for reading!

All About Pumpkins

It’s October, and fall has officially begun! It’s a fall tradition to trudge out into a pumpkin patch, brushing through the dirt to pick your perfect pumpkin. This week the Liv Avenida Blog has several tips for picking pumpkins and a few pumpkin decorating tips for you to use and enjoy. We hope that you get the chance to visit your local pumpkin patch this month! First, of course, you have to find a pumpkin patch. Fortunately, there are several pumpkin patches in the Chandler, AZ area. Vertuccio Farms’ Fall Festival begins on October 1st and includes a pumpkin patch (of course), a corn maze, a mini hay maze, and duck races. Schnepf Farms hosts a Pumpkin & Chili Party which features several activities including a corn maze, bonfires, and fireworks. Either of these farms would be a great place to go to pick your perfect pumpkin this fall. When picking your perfect pumpkin, it’s important to know what you’re looking for. First, make sure that your pumpkin is the right shape and size for whatever you’re carving. If you plan on recreating a character or other figure, make sure your pumpkin fits your vision. Also make sure that your pumpkin fits your purpose. The pumpkin you pick might be great for carving, but it might not be suited for making pies or cakes. All About Pumpkins has a guide to the different types of pumpkins you can buy and their purposes. Next comes the business of decorating your pumpkin. Pumpkin carving is traditional, and there are all sorts of patterns and characters for you to draw inspiration from. People have done everything— they’ve carved realistic faces into their pumpkins, recreated their favorite scenes from movies, and creating abstract art with their pumpkins. Good Housekeeping and Better Homes and Gardens have a few different pumpkin carving and decorating ideas on their sites. We love the idea of painting instead of carving your pumpkin this fall. We hope that you’ve enjoyed our list of tips! Where are your favorite places to pick pumpkins? Did we miss any of the pumpkin patches in the area? How are you planning on decorating your pumpkin this fall? Leave us a comment and let us know! Thanks for reading!

Decorate Your Apartment

Decorating an apartment can be difficult. Often, there are restrictions on what you can and can’t paint, changing hardware, and hanging things on the walls. This month the Liv Avenida Blog has a few apartment-friendly decorating tips for our residents to use. Make your Chandler, AZ apartment feel like home with the help of these tips this month. Throw Pillows Throw pillows are a fun and easy way to bring a little personality into the room. They come in all different shapes, sizes, patterns, and colors. Mix and match different colors and patterns for an eclectic look, or go with a nice, monochromatic scale of your favorite color for something simple and classic. Throw pillows also come with fun pictures, inspiring quotes, and even the portraits of famous historical figures on them. Pictures Hang your favorite pictures from your last vacation, weekend out with friends, posters from your favorite movies, and prints of famous works of art on your walls. Hanging pictures up serves as a reminder of all the fun times you’ve had (and will have) and also works as a great conversation starter at your next dinner party. “You’ve been to the Grand Canyon? Me too!” Plants Plants are an easy way to brighten up any space. Grow your own herb garden for freshly seasoned food or, if you don’t have much of a green thumb, choose cacti and succulents to line your shelves. Freshly cut flowers and flower arrangements can also be a fun way to incorporate plants into your decor. Mirrors Nothing makes a small space feel bigger than a mirror. Use one large mirror to really open up your space or hang a collage of cute, vintage mirrors up for an eclectic and unique look. Sticky tack or “poster tack” is an easy way to hang pictures up on your walls without damaging them. We recommend using sticky tack if you’d like to avoid putting too many holes in the walls. Thanks for reading! Do you have any decorating tips for us? Leave us your best tip in the comments section.

Fall Recipes

The transition from summer to fall can be a little rough when you’re living in Chandler, AZ. Once the weather cools down, everything is great. Suddenly, you can go outside again without melting. It just takes a little while for the weather to get that cool. Fall officially begins on September 22, and this month the Liv Avenida Blog is bringing our residents five autumn recipes to help you make the transition from summer to autumn. Caramel Apple Milkshake from My Organized Chaos This easy recipe is perfect for the transition from summer to fall. It’s cool and refreshing, but it still incorporates some of our favorite fall flavors. Septembers in Chandler, AZ are famously hot — cool down with a caramel apple milkshake. Pumpkin Mousse from Dessert Now, Dinner Later Pumpkin Mousse is great because, well, it’s served cold! This pumpkin mousse is especially great because of it’s sweet taste and healthy ingredients. Dessert Now, Dinner Later uses coconut cream to make this treat a little more waistline-friendly. Caramel Apple Mousse Cake from The Gunny Sack What can we say? We love a good mousse. This caramel apple mousse cake is a dream. It’s moist, soft, sweet, and perfect for an evening dessert after a long work day. We recommend bringing this cake to your next fall party — it’s sure to impress all the guests! Caramel Cheesecake Dip from Crazy for Crust Caramel Cheesecake Dip is a quick recipe for those days when you get home from work and just want an easy snack. We recommend making a lot of this dip; it will probably be finished pretty quickly. Crazy for Crust recommends eating this dip with graham crackers or apples. Pumpkin Cream Pie Trifles from Julie’s Eats & Treats There’s nothing we love more than a good trifle. These pumpkin cream pie trifles are delicious and the perfect mix of flavors and textures.Feel free to make homemade gingersnaps instead of buying them from the store if you have the time. Are you planning on trying out any of these recipes? Leave us a comment with your favorite fall recipe, and thanks for reading!

Out with the Old

Fall is a time for new beginnings! Dont wait until April comes and spring cleaning begins to get a fresh start. This month the Liv Avenida Blog has organization tips to help you declutter and deep clean your apartment before winter begins. Were guessing, if youre like us, that youve collected quite a few things over the summer. From swim floats to tennis shoes to extra pairs of sunglasses...its easy for stuff to accumulate. While it may be tempting to avoid deep cleaning until spring, youll feel better during the fall and winter if you clean out your apartment! This will also make spring cleaning easier as there will be much less to clean when April comes around! There are many ways to start organizing your home or apartment, but were going to go over our favorite way to clean. We find it difficult to tackle a huge project all at once thats why the first thing we do when were cleaning our entire apartment is to divide up the tasks and then assign those tasks to different days during the week or month. Remember not to overwhelm yourself assign easier tasks to the weekdays and more difficult or time consuming tasks for the weekend. Once youve picked a space to clean, begin by removing everything from the area. Once youve removed everything, deep clean the space. Use your favorite cleaning products to make the area shine, vacuum the carpets, and move the furniture so that you can clean underneath. Then go through all of your things. Which items do you use regularly? Which items havent been touched in over a year? Throw away any item that has outlived its use and donate items that you dont think youll ever use again. Organize the remaining items in the way that makes most sense to you, whether its by shape, size, color, or utility. Use plastic bins, baskets, and other fun and unique storage solutions to finish organizing the space. Once youre done, move on to the next room or project. We hope youve enjoyed learning about some of our favorite cleaning tips! Do you have any tips for us? Leave us a comment and let us know. Thanks for reading!

Events in Chandler, AZ

Chandler, AZ is a great place to live. There’s always something going on for residents to enjoy. We’re excited about the events coming up this month in Chandler. In this post, the Liv Avenida Blog highlights five events coming to Chandler this month. Wonder Gardens: The Artwork of Pat Scheurich Various dates in September and October From the website: “ This exhibit will feature the flora and fauna inspired artwork of Pat Scheurich, a mixed-media artist with over three decades of experience. Receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Scheurich works in multiple mediums and takes inspiration from the everyday as well as the art of other cultures. Pat utilizes glazes, textures, embossed paper, handmade stamps, gilded foils, and found materials to create images that capture the connection between the human experience and the natural world. She currently creates much of her work in her studio in Phoenix, which she calls one of her favorite places.” Chandler Symphony Orchestra: Pops Concert Friday, September 9, 2016 From the website: “Founded as the San Marcos Symphony in 1991, The Chandler Symphony Orchestra is comprised of a talented group of volunteer musicians committed to providing the community with quality orchestral music.” Makin Furniture + Various dates in September and October From the website: “‘Makin Furniture +’ is a new and distinctive exhibition of hand-crafted furniture and artworks created by Arizona woodworkers, artists and craftsmen. Steven Makin, a veteran maker of fine furniture, served as curator. The exhibit provides an excellent display of wood-crafted artworks from fine, rare, and exotic woods and will celebrate unique and fine woodworking pieces from the American Southwest. Also included are photographs by artists from in and around the state to accompany the display of skillfully crafted furniture artworks. Featured artists include: Dan Allaire, William Barrand, Lily Branift, Dominic Ferrara, David Fleming, Doug Forsha, Gary Goren, Mark Levin, Steven Makin, Damon McIntyre, Kim Toma, Kerry Vesper, and Terry Woolston.” Sara Evans Saturday, September 24, 2016 From the website: “Award-[winning] singer Sara Evans has achieved much since her double platinum album, "Born to Fly" in 2000. She has since racked up the chart-topping singles ‘Backseat of a Greyhound Bus,’ ‘Suds in the Bucket,’ ‘Perfect,’ ‘A Little Bit Stronger’ and more.” Get the Led Out Sunday, September 25, 2016 From the website: “Get The Led Out, also known as ‘GTLO’, and ‘The American Led Zeppelin,’ is a group of professional rock musicians dedicated to re-creating the recorded music of Led Zeppelin as authentically as possible.” Are there any other events that we should know about? Leave us a comment and let us know! Thanks for reading!