 |
| Hand Made Halloween Wreath from Kristen with her fab blog 'Write It Down' |
 |
| Hand Made Halloween Quilt - the back side- I prefer this side for adults! From talented Kristen with her fab blog 'Write It Down' |
It's Friday & you know what that means... it's the weekend again! Wow - did we just have one? My week has gone unexpectedly super fast... but it has been a fabulous week with some great news along the way, and I delivered part 2 of a project to my lovely client last night for their styling & decorating needs, which I am am happy to say she was really excited & pleased with it all - so much so she ordered some of the hall way & dining furniture recommendations today!
Images from Country Living & Southern Living.
HALLOWEEN COOKIES - Cookie sandwiches built to look like witch hats are a hit with kids. Purchase or bake chocolate cookies wide enough to hold a chocolate ice-cream cone. 
HOMEMADE GHOSTS - A treat for little fingers, these pudgy meringue ghosts aren’t at all tricky to make. Using a pastry bag, squeeze dollops of homemade meringue onto a cookie sheet. After baking them, use a small paintbrush to add eyes with black paste icing. Then pile the ghosts high on a vintage tin cake stand that’s dressed for the holiday with glued-on black grosgrain ribbon and orange and black jelly beans. Get the recipe for a pumpkin spice cake with a jack-o’-lantern stencil.
Pumpkin Spice and Pecan Cake
Spiderweb Cupcakes Super-easy white-chocolate toppers appear to float, Houdini-like, over chocolate cupcakes.
Spider Cake - All you need to create this dazzling cake is boxed cake mix, store-bought frosting, and black sanding sugar. Recipe: Along Came a Spider Cake 
If you're not into the typical Autumnal / Harvest colours of Halloween - why not try something a little different and go metallic! Spraying your pumpkins & gourds in black, with pewter, bronze, gold & silver can add a sophisticated air to a table setting, a hanging ornament or a door step vignette... You could almost keep them on for Christmas if they didn't collapse!
Although I know it's not Autumn [Fall] here in the Southern hemisphere, and we are in beautiful Spring - not to mention - just about to embrace a gorgeous sunny & hot Summer... I can't help but share these Autumnal shades of Halloween - these colours just naturally go with this fun festive time mostly due to their Northern Hemisphere & Harvest time origins, all the same they can't be ignore. So warm, rich, cosy, fun & friendly...here's a palette you can incorporate into your Halloween decorations & settings. 
I stumbled across this great idea for a stylish pumpkin door wreath on Southern Living - here's the 'How-To ' so you can get cracking on it... "Wreath of Pumpkins" is from the October 2004 issue of Southern Living.
With Halloween on Saturday 31st October, it's literally just around the corner... I found this great image that shows that not all decorations have to be inside, especially if your worried about forgetting those pumpkins on your living room carpet! Here you can show your Halloween spirit from your verandah doorstep - by greeting passers-by and guests with a warm pumpkin welcome by carving your house number into the pumpkins & lighting them up. What a lovely & stylish way to illuminate your house number in approaching dusky evenings... 
The cooler weather [for us in the southern hemisphere] is just around the corner - I have pulled out a few cardis this week for a few brisker mornings.... undoubtedly this is my favourite time of the year - Autumn [my US friends - Fall]... As my birthday falls in end October [Halloween} and I have always wanted to be on the East Coast US maybe upstate NY to see all the leaves turn; having said that we had an amazing time on the West Coast US a couple years back for Halloween - there's nothing like it - the decorations, the spirit, the pumpkins - actually everything with pumpkin, loved it! 
Holiday decorating ... I just love the way the Amercian (retail) stores have every possible decorator item to make your 'holiday' look just right. There's nothing like it! Having visiting stores in the States I fell in love their ability to merchandise everything from a tea light candle to a 9ft dining table with matching 4 stack plate setting and cutlery! With the Halloween holiday coming up, and although a mostly American celebration, I have always been drawn to it as my birthday also falls on the date - 31 October. From this I was inspired to share my favourite product images from a store and brand I just love, Pottery Barn. Both a very successful brand & business model, that many have flattered through their imitation. 
A little background for you ... Halloween, or Hallowe'en, is a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31. Traditional activities include trick-or-treating, Halloween festivals, costume parties, bonfires, visiting "haunted houses", viewing horror films, and participating in traditional autumn activities such as hayrides (which may have "haunted" themes). Halloween originated from the Pagan festival Samhain, celebrated among the Celts of Ireland and Great Britain. Irish and Scottish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Other western countries embraced the holiday in the late twentieth century. Halloween is now celebrated in parts of the western world, most commonly in Ireland, the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom and sometimes in Australia and New Zealand. In recent years, the holiday has also been celebrated in various other parts of Western Europe. The term Halloween (and its older rendering Hallowe'en) is shortened from All-hallow-even, as it is the evening of/before "All Hallows' Day",[1] also known as "All Saints' Day". It was a day of religious festivities in various northern European Pagan traditions,[2] until Popes Gregory III and Gregory IV moved the old Christian feast of All Saints' Day from May 13 to November 1. In the ninth century, the Church measured the day as starting at sunset, in accordance with the Florentine calendar. Although All Saints' (or Hallows') Day is now considered to occur one day after Halloween, the two holidays were, at that time, celebrated on the same day. Liturgically, the Church traditionally celebrated that day as the Vigil of All Saints, and, until 1970, a day of fasting as well. Like other vigils, it was celebrated on the previous day if it fell on a Sunday, although secular celebrations of the holiday remained on the 31st. The Vigil was suppressed in 1955, but was later restored in the post-Vatican II calendar. In Ireland, the name of the holiday was All Hallows' Eve (often shortened to Hallow Eve), and though seldom used today, the name is still well-accepted, albeit somewhat esoteric. In Irish, the festival is known as OÃche Shamhna (Night of Samhain), or simply Samhain; in Scottish Gaelic it is Samhainn or Samhain; in Welsh, Calan Gaeaf to the Welsh; "Allantide" to the Cornish and "Hop-tu-Naa" to the Manx. Halloween is also called Pooky Night in parts of Ireland, presumably named after the púca, a mischievous spirit. 
Sources: Pottery Barn http://www.potterybarn.com/ , http://www.williams-sonoma.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween
