Musical and Thanksgiving Decor

Whew!  It has been a crazy few months.  I volunteered to head up the costume committee for the Middle School Musical, "Alice in Wonderland, Jr."  Little did I know the committee would be me and one other person.  LOL!  So I spent the past few months making cute little costume accessories.  It really was fun!  The kids loved their costumes as long as there was some glitter on them. 

This play included the little kids from grades 3-5 also, so my 3rd grader was able to be in it.  He was the King of Hearts. The play was this weekend.  All went well and the kids put on an awesome show.

Here are a few pictures!  I know you want to see them.  :-P

Ok... so now you know why I haven't posted much.... now on to today...
I decided to move furniture around today because I have a "formal" living room which was never meant to be formal.  Nobody sits on the furniture in there.  It is kind of annoying to me.  So anyway, I decided to move the leather couch from that room to our comfy living room.  This will make room for the Christmas tree in the "formal" living room.  I love the new look of both the comfy room and the formal room.  I can't wait to put up the tree. 

So, I am going to put the tree to the left of the fire place this year.  The tables will move over beside the chairs.  I love way everything aligned in this area now.

The couch on the left was where the red chairs are in the photo above.  I love it in this room. Why didn't I think of this before? Now we will sit on it for sure!  I may need a larger coffee table now though.  LOL!

The other thing I did today was decorate my tables for Thanksgiving.  I cut some branches of red berries from my yard and used them in various arrangements around the house.  I love them!  I also painted the white pumpkins for Halloween and I love them on my Thanksgiving table.  Of course, I will need to set up another Thanksgiving table for the rest of the guests, but that will be done on the day of.

When I lived in San Diego, my boss and I took an Ikebana class together.  It was really fun and i'm glad I did.  Not because I am any expert at Ikebana... not by a long shot, but I got all of the great kinzans and floral frogs and containers, so I can sort of make the arrangements look a little like Ikebana. :-)  Here are two in my kitchen.

 Here is the one in my living room too.  Love it!

I guess that should catch you up on what I've been doing.  What about you?  Have you decorated for this holiday?  Or will you be heading to someone else's house for dinner?

Happy Thanksgiving!!!  Gobble! Gobble!

Fall and Halloween Decor Ideas

I've used a lot of cake stands to make fall's harvest the center of attention this year. I love the pretty colors of veggies from the farmer's market and vegetable stands. The best part is that you get to eat them too!
Apples picked fresh from the orchard and potpourri in diplays. If you mix potpourri with fruit, however, you can't eat the fruit. These are on our screened-in porch table so they will stay for a long time. It is nice and crisp and cool out there.
Paper and velvet leaves scattered about a display adds to the fall feeling.

Sneeky spiders show up in a lot of my displays. They also add cobwebs to my stair railings and on my lights hanging above my tables.
A rat hangs out under my 2-tiered pie plates. An orange bow adorns the top (although you can't see it in this picture). Skull and crossbone spoon and fork decorate the plates as well. These were from Oriental Trading Company a few years back.
Mixing purple, apple green, orange and black, make a whimsical table setting the my boys love a lot.

Satin ribbon and a plastic spider make a great little napkin ring. Just hot glue the ribbon into a ring and hot glue the spider on the top. Very easy!
My boys have a few Halloween toys, so I take advantage of them by collecting them up and hiding them here and there in my displays. These pumpkins are on the table and will eventually be polka-dotted with furniture nails.
Another of the boys' toys on our napkin holder.
My entryway table....
A spider adorns the corner of the mirror frame. I cut some "fire bush" and stuck it into a couple of dollar store vases. Some leaves have fallen from them and I left them because it makes the table look more festive!
I love this canvas I found at HomeGoods. Very fall and very me! I love the way the striped vases mimic the one in the canvas and the one below it has the same color scheme. The smaller vase has some ornamental grass in it. I have had it since last year and it stayed very nicely.
Mean looking bat hangs from the light inside the main entryway of the house. Scary, right?
A pillow my friend gave me last year. So cute!
I've had these bat balloons on a stick since the boys were little and we decorate with them every year.
Cute black kitties on the table. Look at those faces. What's not to love?
That's it so far for the Halloween and Fall decorating. Hope you found some inspiration in some of the ideas!

Tami

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving today. The kids tried everything which is a new treat for us! The centerpiece is two cake plates stacked one on top of the other. On the top one is the linen roll holder that Kris got us while in Czechoslovakia. I put tangerines in the middle, rolls around the outside and tangerines at the bottom of the cake stand. The berry wreath around the outside is sitting on the edge of the bottom glass cake plate.

We sat the camera on the stairs and took a family photo. LOL! WE weren't sure when it would go off and you can tell by the looks on our faces.

One word.... YUM! A chocolate macadamia tart (from Martha Stewart). TotallyWTC (worth the calories). It is basically a chocolate shortbread crust, homemade caramel (I didn't use the recipe's caramel... but went with MS's caramel apple caramel instead), toasted macadamia nuts, and ganache.Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Tami