Have a Very Merry Day!

Enjoy the day...

Hope you have the merriest of days, celebrating the fun, lighter and brighter side of Halloween!


 

Portrait of a Pumpkin

Tis the season... for beautiful pumpkins.

The beauty of their color contrasting with fall's intense blue sky...

 
Orange perfection next to a mosaic of colored leaves...

No matter how many bumps and lumps they might have, they are still beautiful.  Maybe even more beautiful because of them.

They are the perfect model...

Have you take your pumpkin portrait yet?

 Linking up to Making the World Cuter +  C.R.A.F.T +  House in the Roses   +   An Oregon Cottage  

Ready and Waiting

Are you planning your Halloween decorations?

My vintage Jacks will be lined up proudly at my door... Remember a while back, they were rolling around the back yard with my puppy, Breeze.

Right next to my rocker, where I'll be ready to greet the little ones who line up at my door for candy on the big day.

I'll pick the biggest one to use to hold my treats.

The others will just smile and enjoy the view.


Linking up to     

   Vintage Inspiration Friday at Common Ground    

A Little {Vintage} Black Metal Collection

Do you ever go to the flea market and come home with several of the same type of thing? Things you had never collected before, but now, you seem to be on a roll with finding them? That's what happened to me with these little black stands.

The first three I found all in one day. I was in the midst of setting out my vintage plastic jack-o-lanterns and needed to add some height to vary the display. Two different booths netted these three cuties, rust and all.

The same week, a trip to the thrift store resulted in this find...  64 cents.



They made quite the vision with their little orange friends. Kind of  like a little black dress for these pumpkins!





I love the scalloped edge on this one...

This one has the scallop too... and I think it could be used either end up.

The larger one was a perfect base for a glass jar filled with my vintage book shred recipe and a ring of bittersweet. I'm betting these stands will work for Christmas decorating as well. Can't you just picture a jolly plastic snowman atop one {vintage, of course}?

Linking up to: Three or More      Nifty Thrifty Tuesdays     Tuesday Tag Along 

Transformation Thursday at the Shabby Chic Cottage     Vintage Thingy Thursdays  

 fireflies and jellybeans show off your stuff

T


Tan 

A Cup Full of Autumn Memories

I get just as much enjoyment out of unpacking my holiday decorations as I do setting them out or walking past them when they finally take their place around my home. Because of course, I am unpacking the memories they trigger as well.

I found these Halloween dishes, plastic jack-o-lantern mugs to be specific, years ago when my children were little. I think they were 99 cents each, and most likely were on sale for even less. The kids always enjoyed our holiday decorations, and these mugs were practical...  we used them a week or so before Halloween with snacks or hot cocoa after an afternoon at the park or outside playing with friends. Hot cocoa was a seasonal treat and I made it with milk on the stove top {yum}. I was so concerned about too much sugar and sweets in those days but if I had to do it again, I would add whipped cream with orange sprinkles {double yum}.

My children are in their late teens and early 20s now, but I have saved the mugs and each year bring them out with the other Halloween decorations. I set them up on a little tray and they never fail to make me smile.
I asked my son recently if he remembered using them when he was little. He smiled back at me, I think knowing the pleasure his response would give me... "Yeah, mom, of course,"  he said.

Maybe I'll restart the tradition and serve him a cup of coffee this time in our little pumpkin mugs... just for grins {and of course, the memories}.

Linking up to Sentimental Sundays    

Halloween Printable Updated

The link on the Happy Halloween banner has been revised so that you'll have Halloween-themed words in the background. I also added a few letters so you can now spell Trick or Treat as well.  Enjoy...

Want to see the original post and pictures? Click here.

Pink Centerpieces {got glitter?}

A little pink + a little Christmas + a little vintage fluff = Pretty Pink Centerpiece!

Each year I help put together a fundraiser focusing on breast cancer. This is what I came up with for this year's centerpieces.

I like to mix textures, sizes and finishes in my designs, and this was the perfect compilation of all those things. Some of the ornaments were even coated in glitter {love glitter}.

 We were lucky enough to have purchased the tiered ivory Longaberger pottery stands a few years ago. I added a few of my favorite things... some pink Christmas ornaments, ivory pearl and metallic pink Christmas picks...

and some confetti type fluff made from vintage books.  All of the ornaments and pics were from Hobby Lobby.  They are on sale this time of year, 40 to 50 percent off if you make it to the store in time!

The vintage book fluff is easy to make. Take some old books--look for those with yellowish aged pages and rip the pages out. Feed them into a cross-cut paper shredder and... you've got yourself some vintage paper shred! It's best to clean out the shredder before you do this so you don't get your bank statements or other previously shredded stuff mixed in.

I actually made up one of the centerpieces, then multiplied all the items in it x 23 tables... divided that number by the number of items in each product package and got the number of packages I would need.

Then I made up a little "recipe card" of what went into each centerpiece, specifying how many of each item went onto the top and bottom tiers.

I had volunteers helping me assemble these and it was a great way to move through the process quickly. We couldn't get into the banquet hall until the morning of the luncheon, so we had to move fast at creating these on site.

They turned out really nice; I received quite a few compliments on them. I wish I would have somehow mentioned one of my dream-businesses... styling events in the program, but I thought of this too late. There's always next year!

Linking up to Pink Saturday at How Sweet the Sound                   
Frou Frou Decor            Tablescape Thursday                     Blue Cricket Design          Tea Rose Home

Happy Halloween Printable Pennant

This is a little project I made to decorate the hutch in my office. It's a bit smaller than many of the pennants you'll find online...

I wanted something to hang on my bulletin board or hutch and needed a more delicate scale. You can download the printable Happy Halloween banner I made here.

Each letter appears once, you'll have to print a few copies to get all the letters you need.

In case you'd like something shorter (and faster) than HAPPY HALLOWEEN, you can also make EEK! or BOO! with this printable banner. {Note: I just updated the printable to include the letters for TRICK OR TREAT.} This is a great project to keep in a basket with all the supplies. You can keep it in the car and pick it up while you're waiting to pick up your kids, or by the television and multitask while watching your favorite programs.

After printing the document out on card stock (I used ivory), I simply glued each pennant to black card stock and trimmed with a pinking shears, leaving a little bit of border. Repeat this step with orange card stock.

The next step was to punch a hole at the top edges of each pennant. I used a ribbon punch (looks like a little rectangle) to make it easy for threading my ribbon through. You could also use a round hole punch.

I used 1/8" black ribbon and cut it about 12" from each end.

 I hope you enjoy this printable paper craft. Would you like to see more of these?

Note: The link on the banner has been fixed so that you'll have Halloween-themed words in the background. I also added a few letters so you can now spell Trick or Treat as well. Enjoy!

Linking to:
Craftberry Bush: Halloween Link Party
Celebration Shoppe
Vintage Wanna Bee
A Diamond in the Stuff
Krafty Kat
One Creative Mommy

A Book Has Many Lives - Used Books as Home Decor

SI have always loved books... for reading. More recently, I have begun to love them as decorative accessories for holidays and everyday. I especially love the vintage ones with textured cloth covers.

These books aren't that old, but I love them for another reason... their titles. When I'm putting together my holiday decorations, sometimes I need some sort of pedestal to add height to something, or I just need a "stage" to set a smaller item on. Books work.

These books were purchased for their titles... fall titles that either bring to mind Halloween or the fall season. When I walk into a used book store at my library, I scan the titles for all the possibilities. My eye also gravitates toward the colors. Orange, black, brown and rust are perfect for this season.

Don't be fooled by those pesky dust jackets. Peek underneath and check out the book's true colors. I always take the jackets off... let 'em get comfortable, right? Libraries tend to use tape to adhere the jacket to the book. I've ripped a few trying to remove them, but I have found that a blast of heat from a warm hair dryer will loosen the adhesive to minimize the damage as you take the jacket off. This one above has a mark where I got a little too anxious to remove the cover. But these books are made for stacking, so either another book or holiday prop will hide it.

The best part of this type of collecting is that you can read them after you've tired of your display, or donate them back to your local library for resale at their next used book sale.

I think they're rather fun... and certainly easier to haul home from the flea market than an armoire {i do love those, too}.

LINKING UP TO    SKIP TO MY LOU    MAKING THE WORLD CUTER
C.R.A.F.T.    THE GYPSY'S CORNER    COASTAL CHARM    SUGAR BEE   COMMON GROUND

Little Pink Angel Vintage Christmas Card

This post will be cute, short, and pink.

Vintage Christmas cards just make me swoon... the vibrant colors and sweet faces of the illustrated children and animals.

This one features two of of my favorite characters... an angel and a sweet baby deer {with sweet little spots}.

The inside features two sweet birds perched on a snowy evergreen branch. I love the message... featuring "Christmas Happiness."  Now days you see Merry Christmas, Season's Greetings, etc... but never Christmas Happiness.

The back of the card is undated, but labeled with the number 243 and also Norcross, New York.

It may be hard to see on your monitor but the green of the card brightens to the most beautiful color of kelly greenish-blue. Maybe I should take the card to my paint guy at Home Depot and mix up a batch for my next furniture find!

And of course, I can't forget the pink gown on this little angel. Pure pink... it's just so heavenly.  I do believe the only element this card is missing is a little glitter {love glitter}.

Hope you enjoyed this cute, short and pink post in honor of breast cancer awareness month.

LINKING UP TO   PINK SATURDAY

Vintage Inspiration Friday at Common Ground

An Impromptu Pumpkin Party

Our fall trip to the lake included a drive into town to pick up some pumpkins and gourds.. Instead of putting them in the car for the trip home the next day, I put them on the back deck and had some fun arranging a little pumpkin party {yes, I am easily amused}!

I really went out there to empty the summer planters, but I liked the vine part of the pot that was on the table so I just pulled out the other flowers. I plopped the pumpkin on top and it worked out quite nicely, I think.

I brought in the rest of the gourds and placed them around the larger pumpkin amidst the flower vines. Next, I picked up a few of the leaves on the deck and sprinkled them on the table for a bit more color.The older I get, the more I like leaving some of the leaves on the deck {for color, of course--it has nothing to do with the labor that would be involved with removing them... well, maybe a bit}.

A pie pumpkin and pretty bi-color gourd were part of the sideline fun... lined up along the edge of the deck.

A beautiful orange canopy of trees framed the view. Very inspiring!

And of course, just like almost every photo shoot, my puppy is following me, trying to hone in on the fun.

 I put up with her shenanigans, but then I usually try to have a little fun with her as well, as you can see below. .... and I make her pose. She really is a very good model. Of course, she thinks this pumpkin is a ball.

 

On another part of the deck, a pretty pumpkin in the middle of several adirondack chairs gives a simple arrangement of chairs a festive fall touch.

This one would be a little hard to move but still looks kind of tempting...

Try this on your patio or deck... so pretty to look out your back window and see your own little pumpkin garden party.

And when you are done, grab a cup of hot cider, enjoy your surroundings and the beauty of this colorful season!

Sources

Adirondack chairs: Home Depot

Golden Retriever: As Good As Gold Golden Retriever Rescue 

Linking up to: Between Naps on the Porch   My Romantic Home

Shabby Nest    Finding Fabulous Feathered Nest Friday
 Frou Frou Decor    Funky Junk Interiors   Under the Table and Dreaming  
An Oregon Cottage: Tuesday Garden Party   The Tablescaper  Peace Creek on the Prairie

Color Outside the Lines Vignette Fridays    Feature Yourself Friday