Hello October!!

Welcome to October, my most favorite month of the year!  I love everything about the month probably because of my childhood in the midwest and all the sights, sounds, and scents of the fall season. I remember the over-the-top beautiful leaves....one minute clothing the tree limbs in magnificantly colorful draping, the next minute falling to the ground. Back in those days, people raked their leaves into huge piles and burned them. While I'm sure it was terrible for the environment, it really made our little town smell wonderful while providing a beautiful glow in the evening's setting sunlight! I could muse about the sights and sounds of my childhood Octobers forever, but I think for now I will have to do a quick pictorial recap of my very busy first October week. It was a week that went by far too quickly! I want to savor this month that I so love and not have it speed by as quickly as this entire year has seemed to do!

So what kept me so busy this week? Weeelllllll........I finally started decorating for the fall and yes this is more than a month behind schedule for me, but hey, we had a baby!!! Well, ok, technically, my daughter and son-in-law had a baby, but it feels like "we"! (And I have to be careful here, because if you think I  ramble on about October, just get me started on this new little man in our lives and I will show you what real rambling is all about.) He's perfect, he's amazing, and it's hard right now to concentrate on anything else....


Here he is during a bath time...His dad took the picture,
I copied it and enlarged it and made it black and white.
Isn't he just the sweetest?


So, back to the fall decorating! I DO love the fall, as I said before, and I have been wanting the last couple of years to incorporate more teal and a lighter not-quite-sky-not-quite-aqua blue into my decorating. I decided that 2012 was the year to get this started and I had big, big plans to paint a few accent walls in my house. I am working around what I already have, which includes this fabric....


This is used in bits and pieces on the sofa and love seat in my
family room. There are four different fabrics used and
 the cushionscan be arranged  to create anything from almost
a "solid" colored piece to a piece in which all the fabrics are showing.
This is the fabric that I thought would allow me to add some teal even though
the overall look of the sofa and love seat is predominately a bronzy-green.

So, I went off to find the perfect paint! That was a lot harder to do than it has been in the past. I don't know if I've lost my touch, or my timing was off, or what the problem was, but nothing I sampled was just the "right" color, so I ended up painting just the back hall-alcove that leads to the master bedroom.

Yep! I went this dark and I love it against the white doors and the baseboards,
but, I don't thing it is the right color for all the different areas that I had intended,
so I have decided for time's sake and my sanity, to just kind of "sit on it" for awhile.
We'll see how I feel once the holidays have come and gone.
******

Of course one thing led to another and I didn't like the "beige" transitioning into the "teal",
so I decided I had to paint the archway the same white as the door, moulding, and baseboard.

Which of course meant that I needed to paint the other archway in the room white.

Which meant that I needed to learn how to properly end one color and start another
on highly textured walls!!! I tried it "my" way and then when that was a complete disaster, I researched
how the "pros" say to do it! It was a long process, but in the end worth every minute because the
lines really are crisp. Had I stuck to "my" way, the whole room would have ended up being re-painted the original
color.....It was just that awful!

Anyway, I do love the archways! I actually feel like we have different living spaces now, even though the rooms are very open to each other! I wish I would have done this last year as soon as we moved in!

So, I had my "teal", but became very unsure about using the lighter version of that color, so I decided to settle for now and just paint the bookshelf that had been hanging around in the garage, waiting for some TLC.

I have always loved this color of blue (with just enough of a greenish cast to lean towards the teal side) with the traditional fall colors of orange, peach, and gold and for now, this little shelfing unit will have to satisfy my craving. No large walls to be painted in this hue until I am absolutely certain!!! (Painting is H A R D!)

I had rearranged a lot of furniture and the entryway, (which really is more or less just a "wall") was empty, so for the time being, the bookshelf is filling that space and loaded with my "too many things-but can't bear to part with them" halloween decor items. I like to mix them in with every-day decor pieces, so that the effect is a little more subtle, but, the ratio just didn't allow that tactic. During the month of October, this is a predominately Halloween zone!! I have probably far exceeded the "tacky" limit, and every year I swear I will get rid of things by the next year....but I never do.

Finally, with the painting done (for now anyway) and the furniture in place, I could finish placing things. Almost every piece has some sentimental value (which is why I can't seem to let go) so I do a lot of reminiscing during the placement and that is always the fun part. Here's a peek at a few of the areas....

My "botox-lips" witch!

Wood Haunted House I painted years ago with some new "rub-ons" for accents.

I thought we needed a "Ghost Wedding Portrait" by my daughter's!
I used a black frame from the dollar store and cut black paper to fit inside.
I stamped three ghosts with white acrylic paint to the "under-side" of the glass, then cut
a black paper oval for the backing. I "swooshed" a little orange paint on the black paper and lighty
rubbed it over the frame.



My favorite witch hanging out amoung the family photos!



Vintage postcards alternately backed with two different papers and tied together for
a garland in front of two mirrors. It's necessary to "back" items that hang against mirrrors so that
the underside (which definetly shows) is pretty too!



I still have some tweaking and embellishing to do on this basket that I got
at Goodwill and spraypainted black! I can imagine all kinds of ways to finish this but would love to hear if
you have any ideas! And in the background you can see the blue-painted shelf in the "entryway".



Some of the match boxes I made from "scraps"....oh how I love to make these!



My other favorite little witch offering the big bad raven a little bite of her candy corn!



Labels made from Martha Stewart stickers.

I wish I could say that this is all there is, but there really is sooooo much more. I really might need to scale back just a wee bit. Maybe next year! What is your favorite holiday and how do you decorate, cook, celebrate or prepare for it? I would love to hear any ideas you have.....maybe it would inspire me to look beyond October 31st!

Thanks for visiting! Happy Octobering!