Hello everyone! As I was organizing and cleaning until 3am this morning as expected guests are now coming tomorrow instead of Sunday I realized I haven't been keeping up here, you know how those semi conscious thoughts come flowing in the exhausted wee hours. Soooo, I'm officially working on some things! Last year mom stuck this little witch hat on Mr. Crow as a joke but I love it! So he's always up to no good. As is Lil Bit, below. Nothing but adorable trouble. My tablescape has changed since then but he thought he made a nice ornamentation. The orange pumpkins, above, I got on major sale a few years ago. They were metallic gold and I almost gave them away this year because I started to hate them but inspiration hit me when I realized I had some orange paint in my paint stash so I gave them a quickie glaze and voila! Orange pumpkins that I didn't have to rebuy!
With and without cat.
I've got a thing for vintage Halloween, anything really. Here is my kitchen shelf with some of my vintage collection. I found the Red Devil box mixed amongst some old nails and tools left from the original homeowner. The vintage Milky Way ad is from the 1950s by Ludwig Bemelmans, author and illustrator most famously for Madeline. So perfect!
Someday I would love to visit Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle in NYC. He negotiated that he would do their murals for free in exchange for free rooms anytime he wanted. Check out some pictures here. So beautiful!
Turkey Pie anyone?
I found this wonderful vintage repro deco poster at the thrift. I'm incredibly lucky!
I got these adorable little hooty owls from Magpie Ethel! I love all of her things, so much inspiration.
Trick or Treat. Adorable sign from Target.
I've been crafting away the last few weeks making holiday vignettes. I made this absolutely adorable haunted house. I was sad to see it go but I know they will love it! Spooooky!
So I wanted to share a little DIY project inspiration. This one is very easy if you have the nack. I found this vintage Menaboni print of two Evening Grosbeaks. I thought it was sweet and would look cute out during the holidays with the piney branch. The frame was worse for wear and unfortunately the print has water damage but for a few dollars worth it in my opinion. So home it went!
So first off I sanded the entire frame. There were some big gouges and overall scruffiness going on but since I was going to be painting I just wanted to smooth it out some. Nothing perfect. I had some green paint in my paint stash and made a chalkpaint mixture. Here is the thing about chalkpaint. It's not a perfect science in my opinion. There are many, many, many premade varieties on the market but I, personally, refuse to pay $30+ for a quart of paint that I could potentially make myself. Not everyone is that adventurous but I'm cheap baby. So here is the blend I generally start with:
1 cup latex paint
1.5 tablespoons tap water
2.5 tablespoons plaster of paris
Mix the water and POP well, we don't want lumps. Then add the paint. I generally use at least 3 or 4 tablespoons of POP. You'll need to test out your blend and see how it's looking, depending on how much of a chalky finish you want you'll want to add more than the 2.5 tbsp in the starter recipe.
So after I sanded my frame I painted it with my chalk paint. Chalk paint tends to dry pretty quickly and this was such a small project I waited maybe 30 minutes then I lightly sanded to distress and finished with some Restor-A-Finish in Walnut I had handy. This darkened it a bit, I wasn't crazy about how pastel it turned out, and it sealed in the paint finish. I found out about Restor-A-Finish when I redid my mid-century buffet earlier this year.
I enjoy seeing what everyone is doing with their own holiday décor. If you have suggestions for other great blogs or IG users please share. I'm heading to the Country Living Fair this weekend, anyone else attending? I love it!
Have a bright day!
Chelsea
