Polka Dot Halloween Party!

I host a luncheon or supper party for girlfriends to celebrate Halloween every year!  This year it is a lasagna dinner ... and the theme is all about polka dots!  Hope you enjoy.  I'm linking to Tablescape Thursday ... and as always want to thank Susan for hosting!  After you peruse my posts ... make sure you click through the favicon on the left to visit all the other great posts!

I always focus on the "witch" in us ... and this year ... I found these adorable shoe-shaped plates ... so had to have those to use as bread and butter plates!  Polka dots were already on my mind ... and things kind of fell into place!

I found the salad plates at Cracker Barrel ... and already had the flatware (Cambridge) ... bought the napkin rings at a little local shop and the small casseroles came from TJM.  Yes, I bought lots of stuff for this party ... but I splurge on Halloween!

 The centerpiece in the following collage is just a collection of cute things I already had!

 I can't decide if I like the purple ... in Halloween ...

... or the polka dots in Halloween ... the best!

I jazzed up the mantel in the dining room with these cute little tricksters!  The dogs set off the purple witch ... she screeches ... and then they bark at her!

I've linked you to all my Halloween posts ... keep scrolling down if you want to see them!

Centerpiece Wednesday - I'll Have a Blue Halloween ...

We'd have a Blue Halloween without you!

Miss Phoebe loves the color blue ... and when she says it, she elongates the "blue-ooooo"! As soon as I found this cute blue pumpkin, I knew we'd have to have at least one room decorated in Halloween Blue-ooooo! Then I found the cute LED blue ghost candles ...

So began the transformation of the already blue sunroom!  I keep a 48" round gate-leg table in that room for special appearances like Sister Scarecrow needed to make!  I already had the perfect little blue ladder-back chair for her to sit on ... I made a couple of multi-layered pictures with my Cricut ... thinking that blue decorations might be hard to find!

The blue scarecrow place mats came from Big Lots ... I'm always amazed at what I find there ... the ghost LED candles came from Pier1 ... After Halloween, I'll remove the ghosts and we'll continue to use the table for Saturday breakfast and lunch throughout the fall.   Our first meal ... Sunday supper ... was a stuffed acorn squash!

I think it is especially pretty at night!

Tabletop Tuesday - More Pumpkins!

I've had so much fun with Halloween this year!  Miss Phoebe is old enough to anticipate things ... so she's been planning her mermaid costume for a few weeks!  I love the black silhouette looks that I see in so many places, so I decided to let my Cricut machine make one for myself!  The frame is a 12x12 scrapbook page frame, so I plan to switch it out with the holidays and seasons!  I made the smaller frame of trick-or-treaters with Cricut, too ... and, of course, had to have a mermaid in it!

Just a note about my old leather-bound encyclopedias you see here ... they are a 1900 edition ... so old that if you look up "airplane" you'll find a picture and description of a derigible.  Pretty cool, isn't it?  I've linked to Tabletop Tuesday, so make sure you click through the favicon on the left to visit the big party!  Special thanks to our hostess!

Met Monday Pumpkins!

I'm not sick of pumpkins yet ... and wanted to show you a couple cute ideas!   You can imagine the "before" picture of a big stack of halloween fabric, a box of old buttons, raffia scraps ... and so on!  It was pretty simple to create the pumpkins.  I glued the buttons on to make it even quicker!  I had all the things I needed to make them ... and actually made 8 of them, but 4 of them went home to live with Miss Phoebe!

The stacked pumpkins came out of my staff of faux decorations ... and I bought the candle holder for next to nothing at a junk store!  Phoebe and I made the faces using some of the craft supplies I keep for her ... sparkly foam sheets that are peel and stick!  We turned this kind of trashy candle holder into something cute!

I'm linking to Susan's Met Monday blog party ... so don't forget to click through to visit all the other posts!  As always ... thanks to our hostess!  http://www.betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/

Centerpiece Wednesday & Tablescape Thursday - Vintage Halloween

Welcome to My Vintage Halloween

Dinner Party!

The moment I bought the china you see in the following collage ... I knew what I'd use it for ... Halloween! It's Sanderson Queen's china and the pattern is Peony Tree - Midnight Blue. It isn't blue, though ... it's black and it came from TJM a few years ago. The flatware is by Hampton Forge. But, what's vintage about all this? Keep scrolling down! You'll see.

Look at the neat pineapple floral diamond shaped compote ... These are Indiana Glass and while I have some reproductions, I also have two that were my mother's ... the real thing!  The two glasses on the left are Depression Cape Cod, made in the 1930s ... a cocktail cup and a juice glass ... but the one on the right is a 1950s look-alike.  The painted tray and the
rhinestone napkin rings are from the 1950s.

The creation of the centerpiece has been a real enjoyable task! However, not one piece of it is actually vintage ... just looks that way! I made the cheese cloth ghost and perched the glittery pumpkins on candle holders I already had. The tall chimnies are filled with Christmas ornaments in black, silver and taupe ... and a few skulls for pizzazz!

I don't want you to miss a single member of the centerpiece family, so here's another view. I love the pumpkin head and thought the black candle cage looked a little like a cemetery fence!My favorite piece, though ... is this glittery cat with the purple witch hat! I think he is in control of the entire table!




So, here's the placesetting. It starts with a silver basket-weave charger ... then one of this season's Wal-Mart ruffle plates in the cream color. I had other white plates, but the edge of those plates made me happy and it perfectly matches the cream color in the center of the peony print on the salad plates.
Then the Queen's salad plate and the Depression compote dish.

Hope you enjoyed!   Special thanks to Susan at Between Naps ... Don't forget to click through her button on the left to see all the other posts.  I've also linked to Centerpiece Wednesday, so visit the Style Sisters at http://thestylesisters.blogspot.com/  
Happy Halloween - vintage style!   Check back next week ... you'll see my Halloween - Polka Dot Style  ... and "Blue Halloween" at our house! 

We party all month long!

New Colors for Thursday Parties!

Welcome to my new colors!  I'm linking to Tablescape Thursday and Thrifty Thursday!   Make sure you click through their buttons on the left of my posts ... so you can see all the other posts.  As always, special thanks to our hostesses.

Here's a peek at the new color on our old house!  Our little brick ranch is 50 years old this year!  We've owned it over half that time and the shutters have always been blue ... some shade of blue!  Butterschotch gold is a vintage color ... and a big change for me, but I love it.  It is clearly a perfect autumn color ... but I already know what I'm going to do for Christmas, spring and summer decor on the porch!  Thought that through before I chose the color!  I know I'm goofy, but we have to be prepared!

You're about to view a collage of a cake and coffee tablescape on the front porch!  The sunflower plates and mugs came from GW and they were just $3 ... can you believe that?   The green glasses came from a garage sale, but they were free!  I bought a doll collection, which you will see in future tablescapes and the gal threw the glasses in for free!  You know by now that I don't need the things that I buy at GW or junking ...  and chances are they will go back to GW in a year for somebody else to buy and enjoy.  I enjoy the hunt.

The forks are from a set of flatware from Pier1 and the rust napkins came from Old Time Pottery.  When I have the cute decorative boxes from sets of tableware, I frequently use them on the tables.   I'll be setting a cake in an old avacado green platter on top of the boxes!  Hope you enjoy!  Make sure you click through to the party hostesses and click through to visit my website and see the details about my Autumn Affairs Cookbook ... I can ship it anyplace ... just $18 includes the shipping.



Heart of the Home Party! Yeah!

I'm so excited about the Heart of the Home party ... not to show you my kitchen, but to see yours!   I'm planning a giant "rip out" for next spring and still haven't decided what kind of new cabinets I want.   Maybe I'll find just the right style in one of your posts!

Thanks to our hostess, Sheila ... for coming up with this great idea.   Make sure you jump over to her site to visit all the party-goers.   You can click right through her button on the left of my post.

I decided to show you my little kitchen table ... not for the table but for the shelves above it.  Truth is, we eat in the sunroom, in front of the television and on the back deck almost all the time.   Empty nesters that we are ... we don't have those rules about "no meals in front of the television" for ourselves!   But our kitchen spot is pretty special.   The little octogon table (that has 2 leaves to make it 90 inches long) was a game table in our first house, so we've had it 35 years!  It has hosted lots of card parties, held every board game that was popular in those 35 years, handled lots of homework ... craft projects ... and cooking projects.   It gets used for photo shoots ... we do eat on it sometimes ... and Miss Phoebe loves to open up her giant coloring books on it!  It is the one place where we can scribble crayola, spill glue and sprinkle extra glitter!  It has handled everything!

Nomatter what is going on on this table, Phoebe's red snack can is always there ... filled with something her mother probably wouldn't like for her to eat!  I love being the grandmother.  The next collage is our Autumn 2009 shelf decor ... you'll see this year in a future post!



The next collage is the old table dressed up for some photo shoots for my tourism magazine.  Hope you've all subscribed to our free magazine, Food, Fun & Folks.  All you have to do is call 800-526-1500 and tell the girls you'd like to be on the list.   Leave us your mailing address ... or email Devon at cctb2@neondsl.com

There are no strings attached ... It is a free tourism promotional piece and I know you'd love it.



Sometimes our table is all cluttered ... sometimes it is set for company!  Three things remain constant on the shelves ... the pig picture that my sister gave to me ... the washboard that was in my mother-in-law's bathroom (she would be 100 this year ... she washed all her undies in the bathroom sink by hand ... on that board!)  ... and the camel back clock you see in this post.   That clock is not antique ... but my house is filled with antique clocks from my daddy's collection!   He loved to hear them chime.

Here we are all dressed up for Christmas last year ... with the putz houses on the shelves!  I hosted the appetizer course for the Women's Club  progressive dinner ... This was the first table they stopped at ... for shrimp cocktail.  Like the way I used the old cocktail shaker and glasses on the stand.  Truth is ... the lid is stuck on the shaker ... so I can't really use it for cocktails! 

Big Daddy and I want everybody to feel as comfortable in our home ... as they  do in their own ... so we try to make several "heart" spots in our home ... but the old kitchen table and the shelves above it could really tell some stories!  Hope you enjoy!

Tabletop Tuesday on the Freshly Painted Porch!

We've had a little makeover!  You'll see a little more of the new color on our little brick ranch in upcoming posts, but since the porch is finished I've been putting the wicker furniture back and dressed them up with some autumn decor!  You're seeing the shelf under my round glass-top wicker table ... looking through the glass complete with reflections of the trees above!   Miss Phoebe decorated the little table with the rabbits.   The rabbits are her favorite things we keep on the porch.   She loves moving them around the yard ... I find them all over the place.   They've enjoyed living in the rose bed ... and inside one of my glass lanterns!  You probably can't tell ... but Phoebe decorates with real leaves and acorns!  She's quite a gal.

Special thanks to our hostess for Tabletop Tuesday ... make sure you click thru to visit the party and the other posts.  You'll find her button on the left of my post!

You'll see more of this round table on Thrifty Thursday and Tablescape Thursday!  Stay tuned! 

From ... almost trash to treasures!

This is my first Met Monday post ... but I couldn't resist showing some neat things I've made in the last month!   I cleaned out our hobby room a couple months ago and found so much stuff to work with ... a box of beads ... lots of beads;  wiggling eyeballs;  all kinds of ribbon and trim scraps ... Take a look at the "afters" ... just imagine the "before" picture of a giant box filled with what could have been trash!  As always, thanks to our hostess ... and don't forget to click through to visit the party!  http://www.betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/

I made several sets of napkin rings because I unearthed a giant box of glass beads!  ... several are from natural stones ...others from glass or plastic beads.  They couldn't be easier to do ... all you need is pliable wire.  Put a loop on one end, string the beads and hook the other end in the loop and curl the raw end under so you don't prick your finger with it.  You can make a double length and twist it like the red ring ... or just string beads like the yellow one!  Even if you have to buy the beads, you'll make these for about 20% of the cost of ready-made ones.

I needed a grape wreath for a weekend dinner party and I had all the stuff to make one ... so here it is!  I took it apart when I was done ... so I could use the grapes for other things.

When I make tassels,  I use wooden flower pot shapes and string them with wire that I string beads on.  I've made lots of these and find it a great way to use scraps of ribbon, etc.  Like the painted metal tray? 

I'm sure you've all made ghosts from cheese cloth and Elmer's glue!  I've started making mine on styro balls, so I can insert a hook and hang them!  This year I found some neat Christmas ornament hooks with glass beads on them ... All you have to do is uncurl the bottom of the wire hook and turn it into a spiral .. kind of like those spiral things you put in the ground to chain a dog to ... Then it will stay in the styro ball ... will pull out easily (no glue) ... so you can use all the supplies for something else.  I also sprayed my ghosts with silver  glitter paint.   My daughter sets hers on tall clear wine glasses instead of hanging them! 

Mr. Owl Has Lived with Us for 35 Years!

I recently made a run to one of my favorite places ... a collectible shop that supports a small community museum.   I donate a few things to the shop from time to time ... but generally buy more to bring home!  My daughter and I loaded up on lots of things to use in our autumn decorating.   Then we decided that we should take lots of pictures that can be posted to let people know how neat the shop is!  So, this Shannon crystal candle holder in the Dublin pattern was a good buy!  I filled it with faux pumpkins.  In the middle picture, the little "cage" came from the shop and cost me a whole dollar!  It looks equally cute with faux pumpkins!

I have finally found the beaded fringe I want to glue to my little lampshades on my antique lamps.  The next time you see them, they'll be "adorned" with some glitz!  Mr. Owl will like them better!

This is my first post to Seasonal Sundays!  Make sure you click through to visit http://thetablescaper.blogspot.com/ so you can see all the other neat posts!  I'm also posting with Tablescape Tuesday and you can click through thefavicon on the left to see all those participants.  I hope you'll also click through to visit my website and take a look at the cookbooks I have for sale.  I can ship them worldwide.  Enjoy!