Fall decor-The finale

Today is the first of October and Rhoda over at Southern Hospitality is hosting a blog party. It's called "It's Fall Y'all!" Don't you just love that? I know I do.

Now as some of you know, I've already posted twice with some of my fall decor. And yes, I did link those posts up to Rhoda's party as well. Or you can find part 1 here. And part 2 here. But I wanted to finish showing you my fall decor. Only because it is now time to decorate for Halloween. Yippee!!!

So before I change everything around for Halloween, I thought I'd show you the rest of my fall decor in my family room. We'll start with the top of my white trunk. I love this trunk!!! It stores blankets that I might need if anyone ever comes & stays with us. Or if it ever decides to snow in southern California. I'm betting on the company over the snow. But you never know!!!

As much as I love this trunk, it's hard to decorate the top as the top is all uneven. So I have to work around that. You can read more about my 3 tier cake stand in my part 2 post here. The twig pumpkin came from Target's Dollar Spot, but it was $2.50. The wooden charger holding the faux pumpkins & gourds came from Walmart for $3.00. I had planned on doing a fall tablescape using my new fall chargers, but I was too lazy. Maybe I'll get one done in time for Thanksgiving. The faux pumpkins & gourds on the charger came either from Dollar Tree or Walmart. The brown acorn is actually a candle & came from Kohl's for 50% off plus additional 20% off. The leaf candle holder on the right also came from Kohl's for the same percentage off. The candle came from Target last year or maybe Kohl's on clearance. The other items aren't fall but if you want to know about them. My SIL made me the Forever sign on the easel. The easel came from Dollar Tree. And the Families are Forever sign in the front came from Deseret Book on clearance in the spring. My Eiffel Tower lamp was a thrift store find a few years back.


Next is my hutch. Nope, I still haven't painted it. Remember, I am the procrastination queen. Plus it's not good to paint in 100 plus temps. OK, so yesterday it was in the 70's, but I was at work. And now it's Santa Ana wind season. I'm good at coming up with excuses, aren't I?


I just did subtle changes to give it a fall touch. Added rice & beans to my vintage blue canning jars.

Placed my "Welcome to our home" sign on the top shelf. Added a couple of faux glitter pumpkins from the 99 cent only store between my white pitcher collection. On the 2nd shelf I added a couple of brown transferware plates & a cream star.

And a cloche covering some of my vintage bottles.
I love this look!The bottom has my tarnished tea set. I love to leave it tarnished this time of year. I usually polish it up for Thanksgiving & Christmas. The tea set & tray came from a thrift store for $35.00. I've added another brown transferware plate. These came from Marshall's a couple of years ago. I think the plates were like $3bucks each. The cake plate is just one I've made. It is made with a plate with pink roses, so this time of year I just add on top a plain white plate. I have my green balls from spring/summer resting on the plate along with some faux acorns (I don't have an oak tree close to me) and one of my flower frogs. The count your blessings sign came from Deseret Book on clearance in the spring for like $2 bucks.
Here is my centerpiece for my dining table in my breakfast area. The toile table topper came from the thrift store. The candelabra came from the thrift store. It was silver, I painted it white, distressed it & added the faux crystal prisms & garland. The candles came from Walmart.

The silver tray, is thrift store. The pumpkins & pumpkin scatters came from Dollar Tree. The faux acorns came from Tai Pan Trading. I really need to get back to that store.
And finally we have a little sneak peek at Halloween. I just made the Halloween blocks at my SIL's house this past weekend. You can read about it here. They probably won't stay here, but for now, they will do. This is the little end table to the right of my family room couch. The ghost jar came from Dollar Tree. The lamp & the book it is sitting on came from two different thrift stores.
As you can probably tell, I don't like to spend a lot decorating. But I love to decorate. And I'm happy with the way things turned out. But now it's time to move on to Halloween. I guess I will now have to venture up into my attic to get down my Halloween decorations. Anyone want to help? You would all be running the other way if you saw how my garage & attic look. SCARY!!!!

I hope you have enjoyed my 3 posts on my fall decor. It's finally starting to feel like fall here in southern California. As I mentioned, yesterday it was in the 70's here in the Inland Empire. But today it's suppose to go back up to the 90's. Oh well, it was nice to feel like it was fall for one day.

I'm now off to see what the rest of you have done. I can't wait. I love getting new decorating ideas.

Kim

I need me some "FALL". Where is it?

Isn't today suppose to be the first day of Fall? The calendar says it is. But Mother Nature is telling us a different story here in southern California. The temp is suppose to be 105 degrees today where I live. Sounds like Summer weather to me.

But, and there is always a but, the weather man did say we were suppose to get Santa Ana winds today as well. Now anyone who knows anything, is that when the Santa Ana winds hit, it is the true sign that fall has arrived.

For those of you who don't live in southern California, we don't really get "fall" weather. We get Santa Ana winds which translates to "fall" weather for us. The few leaves that do change color here don't usually do so until about December. And that is usually when the leaves fall off the trees as well.

And because we don't really get "fall" weather, I usually don't decorate for fall. But this year I did decide to decorate a few areas to try & make me feel cooler (hasn't worked so far). I've already shown you my mantel, a shelf and a cabinet that I decorated. Today I want to show you a small area of my trunk.

I'm linking to the following blog parties: Three or More Tuesday, hosted by Tam at The Gypsy's Corner. Celebrate the Holidays hosted by Cheri at Its So Very Cheri. And since it is also the first day of "fall", Rhondi at Rose Colored Glasses is having a Welcome Fall Party today as well. And finally, we can't forget the fabulous Rhoda over at Southern Hospitality. She is hosting a "It's Fall Y'all" party on Oct 1. Be sure to visit all of their blogs to see who is all participating.


The three tier cake stand came from Brylane Home Kitchen. I got it for "free" as I had a gift certificate. I placed it on top of an old glass block. My trunk top is not even so the glass block gave it a larger flat area to sit on so it doesn't fall over.

Doesn't the candy look yummy? I told my boys that they can only eat the candy in the candy dish in front. The candies in the little jello molds are for display purposes only. Let's see if they stick with the plan. So far so good.
On the top cake stand I placed a pumpkin candle (don't remember where I got it) and two birdie candle holders from Dollar Tree. Since I almost burnt my house down using real candles in the past, I have now graduated to using battery operated tea lights. They don't look or smell as nice, but much safer. I love these birdies. I was going to paint them white, but they are the perfect color for fall.
The middle tier has my small collection of swans. It started with the crystal swan on the left. It is a Swarovski crystal swan that I bought on our trip to Europe back in 2003. I bought it in Austria where Swarovski crystal is made. The silver & glass swan in the middle came from a thrift store as well as the larger glass swan on the right (hard to see). There is also a Lenox swan in the back that I couldn't get a photo of. The small glitter pumpkins came from the 99 Cent Only store on Saturday. All four pumpkins for 99 cents.

On the bottom shelf I placed my mini jello molds that I picked up at an antique store in Phoenix while on vacation this summer. I filled them with fall like candies. I had seen this done by Pottery Barn and thought that it was a fabulous idea.

I filled the molds with Pumpkin candy (yum, yum), Boston Baked Beans (my favorite), Caramels, Root beer candies (I wouldn't recommend eating them as I've had them for 4 years stored in a jar on top of my kitchen cabinets. They were looking a little melted so that is why they are in the back), Candy Corn and Tootsie Rolls. All the candy (except for the root beer candy) came from Dollar Tree store. The candy has been out on display for 5 days now & it looks like none of it is missing. I have good boys.

I see you eyeing my candy. Hands off!!!! It's mine!! OK, I will share, but you can only have one piece. I need enough for everyone to have some. Just don't tell my boys. I'll tell them we have ghosts. They'll believe that, as they already blame everything on ghosts.

Thanks for visiting, be sure to leave me a comment. Tell me what your favorite candy is and if "Fall" has arrived at your house.

Kim

I'm falling for Fall

I normally don't decorate for "Fall" in September. I usually don't do any special decorating until the beginning of October when I decorate for Halloween. I put out a little "Fall" decor then, but it is mostly Halloween. I don't put out my "Fall" decor until after Halloween when I decorate for Thanksgiving.

And the reason I don't normally decorate for "Fall" in September, the HEAT!!!! August & September are the hottest months where I live in southern California. The temps are usually in the high 90's to low 100's. This year is no exception.

Now that I am into blogging, it motivates me a little more to decorate when I normally wouldn't. So I have decorated three different areas of my family room with an "Autumn" look. This was done without having to go up into my blazing hot attic to get down the decorations I already have. Instead I have used items I have picked up in the past few weeks that didn't cost much.

We'll start off with the small cabinet that resides between my kitchen & my family room.


The white empty frame is always here. I plan making it into a chalkboard someday. Hopefully before they go out of style. The white ceramic pumpkin I picked up at Goodwill in Arizona when I was on vacation last month. It cost me $1.50. The birdy candle holders came from Dollar Tree, as did the leaf doilies. The apothecary jar is always on this cabinet. I got it from Kirkland's about 3 years ago. I filled it up with letter balls that I picked up on clearance at the Coldwater Creek outlet last month. I think I paid $12.00 for them. The brown & white toile plate came from Marshall's about 3 years ago. I'm loving this color combo.


Next we will move to the shelf in my family room. I had seen a copper pumpkin at another store that I really wanted but it was $18.00. I was going to make my own until I found my copper pumpkin at Target for $8.00. The 2 small green pumpkins came from Walmart last week for about $1.00. The small white pumpkin came from Dollar Tree. The sparkly eggplant colored pumpkin came from Target. It was $5.00. A little more than I would have like to have paid, but I loved the color, the texture & that it sparkled. All the pillars, books & silver tray came from various thrift stores over the years.

And the last thing I have decorated for "Fall" is my fireplace mantel in my family room.

Here is an overall view of the mantel.

Here is the left side of the mantel. The brown & white toile plate matches the one on my small cabinet and came from Marshall's a few years back. The 3 apothecary jars I got at Big Lots and have had quite a while. I filled one with number balls from Coldwater Creek outlet. The middle jar has fall colored faux crystal gems from Dollar Tree store. The jar on the right has faux pumpkins & gourds, also from Dollar Tree. The leaf doilies and the fall garland also came from Dollar Tree. The silver candle holder is actually an old jello mold that I picked up at an antique store in Arizona on vacation last month.

I placed the "Family" sign that I made in the middle. If you missed my post on how I made it, you can find it by clicking here.


On the right side of my mantel I placed an old silver tray from a thrift store. My new "old" bust that I picked up at an antique store in Arizona on vacation. The crystal compote I got at a thrift store a year or two ago. I filled it with the acorns I picked up at Tai Pan Trading last Saturday. The white pumpkin I just got at Target for $2.99. The mercury glass acorn I just got at Home Goods. It was $7.00. I splurged on it. I really wanted a mercury glass pumpkin but I didn't want to pay $15.00 for one. So I justified spending 1/2 for an acorn instead.

I've sort of done the top of my white trunk and my china hutch. But not quite there, so I didn't want to share yet. Hopefully by next week I'll be ready to post more photos. And then in a couple of weeks it's time to decorate for Halloween. I love decorating for Halloween. But I have fallen for "Fall" as well.

I'm linking this post up to Its So Very Cheri for her Celebrate the Holidays Season Decor weekly party. Be sure to visit her blog to see this weeks participants. It will hopefully motivate you to start your seasonal decorating, if you haven't already done so. You know you want to join in on all the fun. And you have to see her faux mercury glass pumpkins. I want to make some now.

I'm also linking up to Rhondi's Welcome Fall Party. Be sure to visit Rose Colored Glasses for the participants in this blog party as well.


And not to be forgotten, I am also linking up with Rhoda at Southern Hospitality's "It's Fall Y'all" party on Oct 1.

Have fun partying!!!