This Has To Be A Fire Hazard...

Herrow! Time for more fall pics!

Here's the whole living room in all it's glory. I wasn't sure how I'd like orange in here with all my grays and blues, but it actually worked pretty well I think!

Close up on my mantle. No it's not on fire, that's fall-y leaves! Though I definitely won't deny that this could be a fire hazard. These candles get lit only for you guys. These leaves and the little red bird were leftover from my friend's baby photoshoot, and everything else I already had. The middle candle holder was on my coffee table and the pillar candles and stands were on a shelf above my TV.

Close up on Mr. Birdie! Love how warm and glowy this looks :)

With this candle holder on my mantle, I needed something else to put on my coffee table. Here's what I decided on!

I already had this cute basket from Marshall's, I cut off some of the leaves from the mantel piece, used some candles I already had, nested in the other Mr. Birdie (they came in a pack of two), and used some of the same filler (also leftover from the baby photoshoot) that I used for my entry way table here. As much as I love you, I didn't light these candles for you. After all, they are basically sitting in a bed of tinder. Might not be smart.

Lastly, here's my dining table! Similar to my Halloween set up with the orange thing and silver tray, but using pine cones and my white World Market pumpkin instead of glitter skulls and candy corn.

I'm super proud of myself because all of these were essentially FREE (aside from the $1 bag of pine cones). Such an improvement after my Halloween spending!

How have you guys transferred Halloween and everyday decor into something Fall-ish? I'd love to see!

Much love,
Katelyn

It's Not My Fall(t) That I Autumn(atically) Make Horrible Puns...

This bad pun takes the cake so far. I feel like I can't write a post without a corny lame title. Anyways, I finally took down my Halloween decor and switched it for Fall! Please step in to my Autumn Emporium...

First thing I decorated was my entry way table. Since pretty much it's sole purpose in life is to be decorated.

 

These are the Fall colors I like! I tend to stray away from the orange-brown-yellow combo. Kinda makes me think of old lady turkey crafts. Not that I have anything against old ladies, turkeys, or crafts- I love all those things! I also love the pops of white I used on this display to freshen things up a bit, and the hint of green in the wine bottle that ties in with the green in the dried roses.

The only thing I bought for this whole display was the pine cones (a whole bag of em for $1 at Target). The pumpkins were from Halloween, the flowers were dried roses Hami gave me, and the bunnies were a present from my brother. The scarf, candles, hurricane, and wine bottle I also already had. Whoop whoop for a $1 display! Oh and the nesty filler was bought by my friend Alyssa for a photoshoot we did our friend Kendra's baby girl. Alyssa didn't want it so I got to keep it! Hells yeah!

 

Fun fact- this display took me a few tries to come up with. Ok that's not the MOST fun fact in the world but it is a fact. Here are some prior attempts...

bleh

blah

almost there...

Since this post is already getting long and I gotta get back to work (eek!) I'll end it here and cover the rest of the Fall decor later. More posts means more lame titles- whoopwhoop!

In the meantime... anybody else tend to shy away from the typical brown-orange-yellow Autumn decor? What are your alternatives?

Much love,
Katelyn

Post Halloween Sale!

The only good thing about Halloween being over? Getting Halloween decorations (and costumes) half off!!

I may or may not have gotten a little over-zealous with the on-sale impulse buys but hey, girl's gotta stock up for next year.

My favorite purchase were this little lantern/luminaries from Target. I've been eyeballing them all month and they happened to have 1 of each design left! Score! So I had to get them of course.

Am I the only 13-yr-old boy who can't help but this of something dirty about this pic?

I also picked up these cute sparkly pumpkins. I envision gaining a collection of white painted pumpkins and black sparkly pumpkins, all in different sizes, to place around my fireplace next year.

I got this little wreath too. I think it's Halloween-neutral enough that I could almost use it all year round (since I have so many black accents in my apartment anyway)

Now that I've gotten my fill of Halloween decorations... time to see how I can spend less on Thanksgiving/fall decor. I'm gonna use what I have and hopefully only buy a few touches. I tried to use Halloween decorations that could be translated to Thanksgiving/fall too, like white pumpkins and orange placemat thingies and candles.

Keeping that in mind, my spending goal for Thanksgiving/fall stuff is $10. Yep. Lets see if it's possible, considering I spent about 5x my spending goal for Halloween :P

Anyone else get any fun post-Halloween decor deals? Also, how do you smartly translate your Halloween decor into Thanksgiving/fall decor? Share the tips and tricks plz! :)

Much love,
Katelyn

"What's wrong? I thought you LIKED frog's breath"

If you know who says that I automatically like you. And if you don't know... I will sneak into your house and leave a copy of Nightmare Before Christmas under your pillow.

Anyways, my pumpkin this year is Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas! Take a look:

This was a tricky design to carve but it's pretty close to the original I'd say!

I just love Sally and this movie *squee!* I carved this with all my fwends at a little pumpkin carving get-together the weekend before Halloween. Check out everyone's awesome pumpkins!

We have (from left to right):

1. A creepy owl
2. My Sally
3. Pig from Angry Birds
4. Totoro!
5. Hami's 3-eyed monster eating a person
6. A traditional jack-o-lantern
7. Mean/yelling/throwing up pumpkin
8. Bobby Hill

Pumpkin carving is so much fun!!! But as much as I love digging goopy pumpkin guts out of the real ones, I may switch to fakies for a while. It's just too sad when real ones die after a few days. On that note, do any of the tricks to keep carved pumpkins alive longer actually work??

Much love,
Katelyn

Double the Pumpkins, Double the Fun!

In the last post you may have noticed my oh-so-classy black nails spattered with chipped white paint. Lets see if you can guess why that was...

a) Katelyn has no sense of personal style
b) That's not paint, it's dried milk- I punched a cow in the udder. Yep, right in the udder
c) I was picking my nose and my boogers are white
d) None of the above

And the answer is... D! Actually, I was working on my latest Halloween decor DIY! (Although I won't deny that answers A-C are entirely possible)

My DIY project was whitewashing some false gourds! And I still had the time to carve a pumpkin too, so I go the best of both worlds! (More on that next post...)

Anyways, here's how it all went down:

Apparently orange is the most popular pumpkin color. Bah. I've been scanning the stores for white pumpkins and they are SCARCE. Those that I have found are on the pricey side (like $9-$19 for a medium sized one). The only cheap ones I found were at World Market, but they only had one size and girl's gotta have a little variety.

So I thought about nabbing some cheap-o orangies and painting them white to stick it to the man(ufacturer), but I didn't know if I'd have time. Then our group of friends decided we were having TWO pumpkin carving get togethers (because we are awesome)! So I was able to devote one of those evenings to carving and the other to painting. Whoopwhoop!

Oh yeah, and I chose fakies to paint because unfortunately real pumpkins don't last forever :( Which I was reminded of all too well with my carved pumpkin, which was already kaput after just a few days. Anyways, here are my fakies pre-white paint:

Not bad if you're going for that brown-orange-green-yellow look, but not for me. After a few coats of 99¢ paint they were done! Here's the breakdown:

•  3 fake gourdies- $3.25 in total (they were half off!)
• white craft paint- 99¢
• black craft paint- 99¢
• foam brushes- on hand (but you can get a big pack for a buck or two)
  
  Total: $5.25

Woot! And I still have extra paint for future projects! (On a side note, I considered getting spray paint instead of cheap craft paint but I didn't wanna have to go outside and be anti-social during pumpkin time with the friends!)

How are pumpkins going for everyone else? Where do you stand on the real vs fake, carved vs painted debate?

Much love,
Katelyn