Fall Decorating Around the House

Happy Halloween, everyone!

We're headed out shortly to go trick-or-treating, but before November officially arrives, here are some shots of the fall decorating around the house this year.

 Pumpkins are stationed at the back and front steps.

Mums in a chalk-painted chair.

The grapevine wreath that always hangs on the front door is embellished with fauxliage. :)

The old church pew stationed by the front door.

A close-up of the chicken wire banner I made earlier this month.

Moving inside...

I adore this framed page from The Little House, one of my all-time favorite children's books.

 

Hoo-hoo is this?  It's a new little friend picked up for just a few bucks at Michael's!

 

A full view of the top of the television cabinet.

A paper bag haunted house sits on the dining room windowsill.

The dining room plate rack is looking festive!

Even the wood stove--which will be fired up in the next day or so because it's getting really chilly at night--gets a little fall love with a leaf garland.

Country Living Fair or Bust!

First thing tomorrow morning, I'm headed out and will make the 6-hour drive down Interstate 85 to Atlanta to attend the Country Living Fair.

ROAD TRIP!

Though this will be a road trip for one--which is all good because my car's CD player has a date with several albums, namely Babel by Mumford and Sons--Stacey of A Sort of Fairytale is flying in and we're going to rendezvous tomorrow evening!

Stacey with her adorable Maggie

There will be more than 150 vendors at the fair, the weather forecast is outstanding, and besides looking forward to shopping (I'm totally ready to check out the booth of McMaster & Storm), I'm hoping to see the Fabulous Beekman Boys (a.k.a., Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge), who will be making an appearance on Saturday at a book signing for their Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook.

Photo via Amazon

The cookbook is gorgeous...Santa brought a copy to our house last year...and I also loved reading Josh's The Bucolic Plague, which chronicles, quite hilariously and honestly, how Josh and Brent came to purchase Beekman Farm, return it to its former glory, and ultimately "become" the Fabulous Beekman Boys.

A wonderful weekend is ahead!  Anybody else going to Atlanta?




P.S.--I'd planned on doing a post this week of the fall decorations around the house. You know, since they've been up since September and I photographed them more than a week ago.  My timing is sterling, isn't it?

But...I managed to lose the camera's SD card for a couple of days in a total palm-to-forehead situation that involved misplacing the card between taking it out of the camera and putting it into the laptop.  In my defense, a certain five-year old distracted me at a key moment.  I know many of you can relate!

Fortunately, the card resurfaced a few hours ago. <big sigh of relief>  I'll have some downtime between the end of the first day of the fair and Stacey's arrival, so I'll edit the photos and put together a post then.  Yeah, just in time for November!  Again, Erin's timing = awesome.

Guest Posting Today at Primitive & Proper

Happy Friday, everyone!

It is such a gorgeous day here...I was driving home earlier and leaves were raining down in the sunshine.  Fall is very much here and I'm loving it!

Just a quick post to let you know I'm sharing a furniture painting project over at Primitive & Proper today.  It's been awhile since I've painted any furniture around here, mostly because I've taken a paintbrush to almost every piece in my house at this point! 

Many of you probably already know Cassie of Primitive & Proper and I just adore her to pieces. I was so happy to have a chance to guest post. Here's the before photo of the project I worked on...now go visit Cassie to see the after photos!

Take care,

Fall Decorating Peek

Good afternoon, lovelies.

I was hoping to take photos today of the fall decorations around the house, but it's a grey, rainy day.   This house is difficult enough to photograph on a sun-shiny day, much less when it's overcast!

Hopefully tomorrow.

However, since I'm really in the mood to post photos of fall decorations, it occurred to me to share a couple photos from a project I completed last month.

This year, I've been writing monthly craft articles for Alamance Magazine, a local publication. For the October issue, I embellished Dollar Tree pumpkins and made a candle ring featuring putka pods.

Here's a peek of one of the wee little pumpkins, wrapped in orange and white baker's twine.

Though I do like the way the pumpkin turned out, what I truly love is the vintage-style flash card.  It's from the Ella Minnow Peae Etsy shop.  I may have overused these flash cards whilst decorating the house; I can't get enough of them.

The part of me that's never gotten over playing with dollhouses and delighting in miniatures totally squee'd when I saw these pods that resemble tiny pumpkins.  They ultimately became part of a candle ring fashioned from a floral foam ring, burlap, and a bit of Spanish moss.

If you'd like to see what else I did with the pumpkins and read the full tutorials, you can view the article at Alamance Magazine by clicking on "Featured Articles" in the left sidebar.

A Miss Mustard Seed Milk Painted Frame and Autumn Leaves

Last month I brought home two boxes of the new Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint (MMSMP) from the trip to Lucketts: Linen and Kitchen Scale. 

I haven't tried Kitchen Scale yet but here's an old, formerly brown frame, now bearing a gorgeous coat of crackly, chippy Linen.

The frame came from my mom some months ago and cost just a few bucks.  It had an "alligatored" finish and I figured that would only assist in the natural distressing that occurs with the MMSMP.

The frame actually ended up crackling extensively--which was gorgeous--but didn't flake.  So with the assistance of a wire brush, that effect was promptly achieved.

Today, I stapled some chicken wire to the back of the frame and collected a few brightly colored leaves from around the yard, which were then clothes-pinned to the wire.

The leaves are just beginning to change here so pickings were kind of slim...but red, orange, yellow, green and brown are all represented here. :)

(P.S.--If you want to make new clothespins look old, grey, and weathered run them through the dishwasher in the silverware basket.)

Simple, natural art!

The MMSMP was very simple to mix up.  I used equal parts hot water and milk paint powder (a tablespoon of each in this case since I was only painting the frame the day I tried it out) and any leftover paint can be stored in the refrigerator for up to a week.

The paint is much like skim milk when in liquid form and two coats didn't full conceal the frame's brown color (which was fine by me!) so I imagine it would have taken at least 3-4 coats for full coverage if that's what I'd been looking for.

I love, love, love the chippy finish and authentically old look it produces.  I have a couple small pieces of furniture to paint so they'll be getting a Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint treatment very soon!

Anatomy of a Lovely Day

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*Wake up at 6:30 a.m. perfectly rested and well after feeling on-the-verge-of-coming-down-with-something yesterday.  (Thank you, Benadryl.)

*Welcome the fact that it's a drizzly, chilly day and that the leaves are really starting to change color:  fall is truly here!

*Realize that my husband is off work, so there is no need for me to take Jacob to school.  #daddyduty

*With a cup of French vanilla coffee in hand, bid them farewell, then settle down on the couch and peruse Pinterest for awhile.

*Inspired by this lettered artwork by Mary Kate McDevitt, decide to try my hand at a fancy pants chalkboard design for the kitchen.  In honor of the first day of October... 

Perfect? No.  Love it all the same, though.

*Hang out at home with my husband and do a little crafting. Him: whittle a toy knife.  Me: make some fall buntings of burlap, paper, and chicken wire.

*Tidy the house and vacuum so the floor is clean underfoot.  (Clean house = happy momma!)

*Rock this tabata workout, along with the Monday series of these strength/cardio exercises, and feel both strong and pleasantly tired afterwards.

*Bake two loaves of pumpkin-chocolate chip bread.  Mmmmm...

*Make a paper bag haunted house with Jacob after homework is finished.

*Catch up on the season premieres of Once Upon A Time and Call the Midwife.

*Feel thankful for having an unexpectedly wonderful and ordinary day at home.