Tag: seasonal

We’re a little more than a week away from Halloween and I am behind in sharing all of our fun decor!  🙂  There’s so much to see, and so far I have only posted about the entry.  Today we’re taking a peek at the other side of the foyer, since I shared a few weeks ago (agh!) about the other half, right when entering from the front door.

I’m excited to say that for the past month and a half, this has been the funny view for visitors…

 I love that it’s pretty, because obviously the decor and finishes are beautiful, BUT it’s just the right amount of spooky.  🙂  Beautiful and festive…that’s my favorite combination.

This is our skeleton collection, and I’m pretty proud of it.  Mister Bones, his dog, and maybe the skull of his late wife?  Who knows!  These guys are not the expensive ones from Frontgate… I think they’re from Target.  But all of the limbs move, his mouth opens and shuts, and the best part is that he is posable.  At least  I think that’s the best part — it makes for some good laughs!

 I think this little pillow is so cute.  It used to live outside and is a little faded, but the muted color works nicely with the more neutral tones in this room.

A fun table vignette anchors this spooky display.  Curly willow is an instant Halloween element!  Use what you have.

 This is how our skeleton looks these days.  This is my husband’s doing…he’s got the best kind of sense of humor.  😉  No eyes, no need for glasses, and no reason for a winter hat, but at least Mister Bones is ready for the next season (although, don’t tell him, but he will be packed away in a box by then!).

Halloween really is a time for simple, festive treats.  I’m not about the overly-gross variety — for me it’s all about the cute!  😉  Use Fall flavors, seasonal candies (hello candy corn!), and spooky shapes for your Halloween treat-making.  Here is a little bit of spooky inspiration.  Have a great day!

Monster Cocktail Stirrers

Candy Corn Pretzel Hugs

Candy Corn Butterfingers

White Chocolate Ghost Cookies

Ear Wax 😉 — This is about as gross as I will get!

Witchy Dirt Cups

Hi, everyone!  Happy First Week of October!  🙂  I’ve been so excited for the month to start because Halloween decorations have been up in the house since the beginning of September, but I thought I would wait to share so that the mood was a little more festive.  Now that we’ve reached October, the time has come, and I have so many fun vignettes to show you!

The foyer is pretty large, so I’m breaking it up into two posts.  The outside of the house has a few little Halloween touches that I love, too.

 That spider is big and he’s furry!  Sometimes he spooks me when I go outside at night.  😉

This is just a store-bought sign with a bit of zhushing.  It was up on the door last year, and has been decked out with black tulle and ribbon.  It’s a fun little Halloween welcome for guests, and the UPS delivery guy.

 The foyer is long and on the narrow side, so the decorations live on the perimeter.  I LOVE this idea that my mom-in-law came up with.  The silver tray is one that we use all over the house for both holiday and year-round decorating, and its been elevated on an iron stand that complements the iron doors so well.

 You can see here that it’s got some height!  Compared to the other decor in this corner, it’s really nice in size.  The gourds are huge!

The pumpkins and gourds are all from Trader Joe’s.  They have been rubbed with a bleach solution since we read online that that helps un-carved pumpkins from rotting quickly.  The antlers were a fun Sweet Salvage find, and I wrote about our experience there a couple of weeks ago!  Adding in a few sprigs of leaves and some berries gives the whole vignette a nice, filled-out look.

 These moss planters are here year-round (there’s another one on the other side of the bench), but I like that little velvety spider.  He’s startled me a couple of times, too!  Can you tell yet that I am sort of afraid of spiders?

 Here’s the full view looking toward the front door.  🙂  It’s just such a happy room, with so much natural light and so pretty.  The other side of the room is really fun, and I can’t wait to show you!

Good morning!  🙂  I hope you’re having a great week so far.  Temperatures have been dropping here in the morning and evening, and it’s basically Fall Watch 2016 in our household.  Any excuse to be outside, right?

If there is one decorating-related thing that I have loved about living with my in-laws during this season of our lives, it’s the versatility of the foyer.  There happens to be a pretty large one in this house, but I know that some of us have smaller entries — really more like drop-zones — that we want to decorate, too!  Grey and I will be lucky if we have anything like that in our first home.  😉  But I really feel like a foyer or an entryway sets the tone for the rest of the house — they are a great place to create a feeling.

There are so many non-holiday decorating ways that we can talk about foyer design, but today we’ll focus on…Fall!  I know, I’m relentless.  Whether you’ve got a large entry table with pumpkins and greenery, or a small console table with a place to drop your keys and display a couple of gourds, it makes no difference.  Your entry is just another place to showcase your style, to preview that feeling that the rest of your house has.

Take your aesthetic and vignette it — are you an orange pumpkin person?  Are you a modern white, glass, greenery Fall decorator?  Are you more classic and traditional when it comes to this season — opting for creamy gourds, silver, and lots of layered texture (that’s me!)?  Showcase your style and create that feeling!  Tell a story with your space.

Vintage Finds

Karen Hill Photography

Better Homes & Gardens — Favorite Fall foyer of all time!

Maison de Pax

Savvy City Farmer

Original Source Unknown

Our Foyer Display — Last year!

The Cottage Journal

Honey We’re Home

Guys, I had the most amazing experience over the weekend.  By chance a Facebook event popped up on my feed last week referring to an event called Sweet Salvage: Wicked Faire.  I am usually not one to respond to these or even go to an event advertised on Facebook for that matter, but knowing my love for Halloween and my husband’s incredible love for Halloween, it sounded like something fun we could do together.  We ended up going with my in-laws, too.

Sweet Salvage is a 4-day market experience once a month in the Melrose district of Phoenix, and I am not kidding when I say that even if you intend on buying nothing, it’s worth taking the drive just to see the incredible displays.  Think a giant vintage shop with everything random and beautiful you could ever imagine, all displayed in the most artful and detail-oriented way that you can dream up.  I literally walked through the entire store for the better part of an hour with a giant goofy smile plastered on my face — it was that good.

Next month is their French Market show and I can’t wait to go to that, too.  Then I think during the month of November they will have a holiday-related show.  I’ll let the pictures do the talking for the rest of the post.  🙂  There is so much inspiration to be had here for your own Halloween decorating!

Good morning!  🙂  It’s official — I was outside this morning and get this… I was wearing… a jacket.  It was chilly, guys.  I’m giving all the heart eyes to the fact that Fall is officially upon us, so — let the Fall baking ensue!

I love baking and making seasonal desserts.  I’m relatively good at baking but do have a knack for taking the baked good out of the oven just a few minutes too early.  😛  There have been many a deflated, gooey-centered banana bread.  I’ve just got to practice more, and what better way than to whip up some sort of Fall treat?

Each year I do these sort of round-up posts of all of the awesome decorating, cooking, etc. ideas from the blogosphere.  If you’d like to see lots of other fun Fall ideas, check out my Pinterest board dedicated to just that.  🙂

Apple Crumble Cake

Roasted Apple Butter + Apple Crisp Ice Cream

French Apple + Cinnamon Tart

Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Whipping Cream

Brown Sugar Pumpkin Pie with Honey-Sweetened Meringue

Apple Pie Biscuits

Oatmeal Pumpkin Pie Bars

Of course mixing black and white in graphic prints is nothing new to the interior design (or fashion!) world, but we’re about to see a whole lot more of it this Fall.  Everything from carpets and rugs, tiles and backsplashes, accessories and soft goods, wallpapers and artwork will be getting graphic, and we have incredibly creative and innovative designers like Kelly Wearstler to thank for that!  This classic ‘color’ scheme will be making its way into all of our homes this season, whether it be with a Jill Rosenwald vase or Fornasetti wallpaper.  Or, in my case, a trip to HomeGoods for something a little less expensive.  😉

Architectural Digest

Ivory Lane

Arkpad

One Kings Lane

Home Bunch

HGTV

I’ve mentioned before that during the summer months, my in-laws’ seasonal decorating aesthetic is all about simplicity.  Our major design ingredient is the seashell — a versatile element obviously varying in size, which makes for perfect vignettes!

 The hallway leading to the back of the house is lovely (especially with those windows I mentioned yesterday), and this table is one of my favorites.  Simple tabletop decor always graces it, with a few nods to whatever current season we are experiencing.

 See just the few little seashells that make this space summer-ready?  I love the artwork, too — drawings by my sis-in-law from her college days.  Every space in this house is the perfect mix of high-meets-low, creating a design that looks altogether luxury and high-end.  Antiques and heirlooms mixed with HomeGoods finds.

 You can never have enough sand on-hand this time of the year.  Just as pinecones are to fall and eggs are to spring, sand (and seashells, of course!) are what summer decorating is all about.  🙂  Layer decor with texture, height, and scale for  the best mix.