An Alternative Fall - Home Decor

Well, we had SO much fun creating pumpkins for our earlier Fabric Pumpkins Blog Post, and had so many compliments on them at a show we attended over weekend, we decided to share with all of you how wee incorporated them into our personal home decors. These pumpkins are fairly easy to make and perfect for adding a custom look to your house from early fall through Thanksgiving. Just pick a fabric or 2 or 3...that coordinates with your style, and get started...  As mentioned in our previous post, Stacy and Christine have different styles and created very different pumpkins, which of course carries over to our differently styled homes!  Everyone's home should be a reflection of their personal comfort and style. We would love to see pics of your style with your pumpkins!!

Antique Sideboard display - Out 2 Lunch 

My style (Stacy) definitely tends towards a classic coastal look; bare feet, the moon on the water, the breeze in a clear blue sky, the deep shade of moss covered oaks - these are the happy places I travel in my mind, and the decor of my home helps take me there. I grew up on the shores of Lake Ontario, and lived many years of my adult life in Charleston, SC - I am drawn to the water and find peace there. With three elementary age children, peace is a valuable commodity in our house!! When we made our pumpkins, I chose fabrics that echoed the sand, sky and water. In addition the paisley fabric was a baby sling I used with my youngest- I held on to it for over 6 years, waiting for the right project.

Beach Pumpkin- Out 2 Lunch 

Fall is one of my favorite times of year, to enjoy the outdoors and the changing of the seasons.  However, it IS NOT my favorite time of year to decorate my house. I'm not a big fan of creepy Halloween, so that doesn't leave a lot of options. My children love to decorate their play space with whimsical Halloween, and I am glad to finally have something that captures my style.

Each piece I feature in my decor has meaning for me, from family pictures to handed down furniture, to items sent to us by friends living far away. The fisherman in this area was a treasure we found going through my grandmother's belongings. Although she lived in Kansas      and Texas for most of her life, he was the perfect memento to add to the driftwood and fossilized rock my children collected in Charleston.



 I love that these pumpkins can add the warmth of fall without replacing my existing decor - they just seemed to fit in seamlessly - other than the large blue pumpkin in this picture. I loved that it was a "life size" pumpkin; lesson learned... consider the space before you create!

     

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Fabric pumpkins, milk glass decor - Out 2 Lunch Designs

For me (Christine), fall and the holidays are about textures and feeling.  I love the crisp cool weather that comes in at fall.  I love the changes all around me from the lush green, hot sun of summer, to vivid colors, and cooler nights, fire places lit up, and jeans, boots, and sweaters replacing tees and shorts.  With each season I enjoy and embrace the change-over.  I spent the bulk of my formative years in North Carolina, and love the distinct changes of seasons evident in areas from the coastal Outer Banks to the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains!   As always, I am drawn to shiny, sparkly, glam textures, as well as vintage styles and nature.

Black Velvet Pumpkin

My fall most definitely incorporates a mix of natural elements along with vintage and sparkly/shiny items (milk glass, glam vintage fabrics, shiny accessories with rocks, twigs, etc).  With the coziness of fall I also always look forward to incorporating lush textures - my hands-down favorite? Velvet!

 

Fall Mantle  via Out 2 Lunch Designs

Over the last couple years, my home has taken on a more neutral mid-tones look, incorporating mixes of grays, greens, taupes, and golds in various combinations; so I stuck to those colors with my pumpkins, letting the mix of natural stems, and glam fabrics shine.  And of course, I paired them with my fave classic, vintage milk glass, plus other elements like: glass, rocks, pottery, and textiles.  Some of my little pumpkins even show up in my Fall/Thanksgiving table set-up...but that, dear reader, is for another post - stay tuned!  :)


If you follow our fabric pumpkin post and make your own, I hope you have as much fun with them as we did!  What I absolutely love about these are their versatility, and how everyone can make them to fit their own style and personality!  Happy Decorating!

Cheers,
Christine and Stacy

A Not So Haunted Halloween...

My Little Buddies Ready for Snacks!!

I love, I mean REALLY love, making holiday themed snacks and meals. Sometimes they can get a bit too involved, but I find the most successful runs I've had have 2 things in common - they are fairly simple and fairly healthy. In that spirit, I wanted to share with you all some fun Halloween treats. What'd a mom to do when she wants to have a mini Halloween get together, but her children are in school all day and crazy busy the rest of the time? Offer to bring food to other people's children of course! Several of our friends with younger children hold a weekly playgroup, and were willing to allow their little sweeties to be my guinea pigs (don't worry, my children enjoyed the leftovers as an after school snack!).

Step one to planning your fall gathering is finding a location - I was very lucky in this regard, as our friend Stephanie is a fabulous hostess. Here house is always adorably decorated for the season, and she makes (and sells) felt wall hangings that are the perfect compliment to her decorating style. Shameless plug - if you'd like to see more of her designs, check out her Season of Restoration  shop on etsy.  The highlight (in my humble opinion) of our fabulous hostess, is her fancy coffee - I enjoyed a pumpkin spice coffee with sweet Italian cream, perfect for the fall weather that is finally reaching Richmond.

Step two - plan the menu! This took me to my fail safe planning destination - Pinterest!! You can find all of the original pins/ blogs for these ideas on our Pinterest page in the Blog Sources board. I decided to go with banana ghosts, pumpkin oranges, and a pumpkin spiced "puppy chow" mix. The bananas and oranges were a breeze to assemble and a big hit with the preschool crowd. The original poster of the bananas used mini chips for the eyes, it was a little more cute that way, but I think it looked ok with regular chips, and not worth the added chip buying - unless you have them around. I also looked at some ideas with skin on citrus "pumpkins" - with Sharpie drawn jack-o-lantern faces. They would be great for an elementary school party, but with preschoolers I decided that already peeled, skinless clementines were the way to go.

Top Pic was my first try!

Then I tackled the puppy chow... You can get the complete recipe here at Sally's Baking Addiction, one of the cooking blogs I love to use as inspiration. Being me, and absolutely hating colored candy melts (it's a real issue sometimes) I went with her suggested substitution of white chocolate. Helpful tip... She isn't kidding when she says to melt the chocolate first and then add the spices. I thought I'd "save time" by adding everything to the chocolate at the start... The joke was on me as I had to get more chocolate and try again! I did melt it on the stove instead of the microwave, and that works fine as long as you watch the temperature (medium at the highest!). 

Surprisingly enough, with both the littles at the party, and my kiddos after school, the fruit was the biggest hit (followed by the cream pumpkins picked out of the mix). The moms seemed to enjoy the puppy chow mix, as did my oldest - I'm wondering if pumpkin spice is an acquired taste? When I make this again, I think that I will replace some of the nutmeg and cloves with cinnamon. 

** ALLERGY DISCLAIMER**  

Knowing that one of our little guys has a peanut allergy, I checked the ingredients on the cereal.  The Cinnamon Chex is made with peanut flout, so I substituted Cinnamon Life and it was still tasty - and no different in texture than previous mixes I've had with Chex (the Chex is gluten-free though, so make the best choice for your crowd!). However, I never thought to check the chocolate. Thankfully mama was vigilant and I had the chocolate wrappers with me. The chocolate chips for the bananas were fine, but the white chocolate had a trace risk of peanuts. I've now learned that chocolate has a fairly high risk of peanut contamination! 

             

  

All in all, I had a great day with some absolutely adorable children. A big thanks to their mothers for sharing them with me! 

I want to leave you with a couple of ideas for big kids on the go as well... 

Christine made these spooky donuts for her family and they had a great time- breakfast and a toy in one! I think that I will be making these this Halloween, and taking advantage of her helpful hint (as I don't love extra plastic "junk" around our house) ... Buy cheap teeth, they can play fir a bit, then the teeth break and are gone! 

And I'm planning to make these jack-o-lantern peppers for dinner tonight. I'll comment tomorrow with the review from my guys and a picture. 

Hope you all have a great fall, I'm off to work on some fun ideas for Thanksgiving and Christmas!


Enjoy the Moment.... Stacy

Halloween Treats...

This week "Well and Truly Out 2 Lunch" is going on the road... across town! I wanted to share with all of you my favorite Halloween Treat ideas - there are so many cute options to choose from.  I put together a menu, but I needed someone to eat it! My littles are so busy this month, and I needed some "mom time". So... In a win-win one of my dear friends offered to host a preschool get together and I'll be providing the treats. The children will be partying tomorrow, and the recipe blog post will be right here for you on Thursday!!