Autumn Decorating

I love autumn - it's hands down my favorite season of the year.  It's probably why I'd never be able to move to Florida or Southern California.  The leaves have started changing and we probably have a week to go til peak color.  Don't worry I'll post pics next week.  The air smells crisp and clean with a hint of cinnamon and apple cider.  I can't wait til this weekend when I bring my boys to the Cider Mill to watch the doughnuts being made and cider being pressed.  There's something magical about watching the pressing of the pulp, then walking around to the front to watch them fill up the gallon jugs from the spigots.  It's a must-have activity for any open hour during the autumn.

The change in weather makes me want to change out my summer decor for deeper more earthy colors.  Bring on the pinecones and pumpkin scents.  I'd like to say that my autumn decor is all of the tasteful, harvest variety like the tablescape on my living room coffee table.

But the reality is that I have way more in the way of Halloween kitsch and fright night fare like my silly fun Frankenstein lamp.

So my Autumn mantle is a mixed bag of both tasteful harvest and kitschy Halloween decor.

I love all the colors that Indian Corn comes in.  The flowers are from our front garden.  Our white mums have absolutely exploded.  There's about 3 times as many white ones as orange or purple even though we planted the same number of each color.  The blanket flowers looked like they wanted to get in the vase also, so I cut a few of them on my way into the house.  The hand candle holder is a favorite of mine.  It's meant to hold a votive or tealight, but I like the way it looks as a stand for the spider votive holder.  I felt like I needed a tad more height on the right side, so I grabbed a great leather bound book to use as a riser.  I'm adding my mantel to the Nester's Fall Mantel Party.  Pop on over there to see what other's are doing to prettify their mantels this season.

I've started to pull out the gazillion and one orange and black tubs stuffed to the gills with Halloween decor, games, and costumes.

I need to sift through the tubs and separate out the happy pumpkins, fuzzy non-threatening spiders, and rubber rats from the scary moaning, groaning floating skeleton ghouls.  When Whirling Dervish was just a wee one, we'd throw him a happy pumpkin type Halloween party.  Each year we added slightly scarier decor with the later years being a full on Haunted House.  This year will be Snuggle Bunny's first Halloween party.  We'll need to start back at a happy harvest type party for SB's Kindergarten buddies.  I don't want his classmate's parents to think we're scary people.

More pictures of Halloween decorating coming up soon, when it's all been sorted.