Chateau Gahan at Christmas

The advent calendar on our fridge. I open up a door each morning while drinking my coffee.

This year's calendar has glitter on it. 

I just may keep it and pack it away to look at next year. Much too pretty to throw away.

Christmas books collected since Harleigh was little (and a box of vintage Christmas cards).

On the coffee table to enjoy.

With a tree in the living room, and one in the ken,

I alternate my breakfast each morning between the two room.

The old pail is a $1 garage sale find.

Stuffed with greens and fake candy canes.

(Gideon watches from the window.)

Thanks to Pinterest, we've all tied a tree to the top of a toy car.

This car, in Harleigh's bathroom (and, off-season, atop a pile of clean washcloths)

usually has a surfboard on the roof.

I have a church, a sweet shop and a tavern that are all lit and have little 3-D scenes inside.

They grace my mantle.

This S.D. Kluger toy/decor plays the actual Fred Astaire version of

"Santa Claus Is Coming to Town."

[NOTE: S.D. stands for Special Delivery.]

And our Santa from The Forum.

Is he not the best?

And on a side note, here is the kindergarten cabinet that I saved from the dumpster 

and is now for sale in my booth.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Stay tuned for more pix to come of our holiday decor!

A Bit Out of Sorts

Lots going on as of late. The office moved. Harleigh is wrapping up her senior year, graduating next month. Been busy with church volunteering, and am ready to embark on redoing all six Sunday School classrooms (I've come up with a grand design, if I must say so myself). And already working on decor for our 2015 VBS, Everest (because it's a snow theme, shopping now, with all the Christmas stuff out, is critical). The booth is keeping me busy (and is ready for a holiday overhaul). Wrapped up a backyard wedding; will share pix soon. Am starting serious planning for my niece's wedding next October.  Also gearing up for a minor surgical procedure, and the bottom line is that I ain't got no time for dat. I'm at an odd place right now. Feeling a bit unconnected, to myself and the world around me. In limbo. Chapter II of my life is still a big question mark. I had hoped that I'd be seeing a clearer picture. I'm not. And I'm struggling with being OK with that.

All that to say, my blogging has truly suffered — both posting and looking at other blogs. I'm much better at Instagramming these days; it's more mindless. For those who follow me on Instagram, these images will be yawn worthy. But if you don't follow me on IG, then enjoy!

Until I can get up to the attic and pull down my generic fall decorations, 

a little chalkboard with my heartfelt sentiment

will have to do.

The craft room is in shambles.

Which makes no sense at all, since I have no time to craft. Pity.

My little Ferdinand the Bull. But instead of smelling the flowers under a cork tree,

my sweet boy is watching the world from the overgrown monkey grass.

Some of the dining table flower arrangements from the backyard wedding. 

I used bold-colored florals, white hydrangea, and a hint of pink.

Little man.

A Wedding This Weekend

I was honored to be asked by a past co-worker, Steve, and his fiancee Beth, to do my thing for their big day! The wedding is tomorrow. Atlanta promises to be in the 70's with no rain. Keeping our fingers crossed. It's outdoors. A bonfire (with s'mores!). BBQ. Tubs of cold drinks. Corn hole. I came up with a plan for decor, presented it weeks ago, and am now putting the final touches on all that I'm crafting.

A little peek—I hand-painted all the dinner napkins. The color palette I'm using is matched down to the paint used on the napkins. As with all events I do, I use Pantone chips to create my palette, and make a little card that I carry with me everywhere as I'm planning and shopping.

When I made my design presentation, I staged some of my ideas. 

Beth loved the idea of using pumpkins (our Pinterest board was so very helpful 

in honing in on Beth's tastes), and in order to pull in the teal blue from the palette,

I bought a fake pumpkin and spray painted it using Montana paint.

(If you're not familiar with Montana, it's the spray paint that graffiti artists, the pros, use.

It comes in 204 colors. I buy mine at Sam Flax. I'm like a kid in a candy store.

It's not that much more expensive than the spray paints you buy at the hardware store,

it goes on flawlessly, AND you can find any color, a-n-y c-o-l-o-r!)

This staged arrangement used silk flowers, but will be real flowers for the big day!

The flowers I'm using:

Sunflowers

Orange lilies

Peach stock

White hydrangea

Viking poms

Light pink garden roses

 Purple lisianthus

I had hoped to use lilac, but the order I would have had to place (flown in from Holland)

would have busted my flower budget. Bummer.

Teal-blue wooden dowels with jars of flowers will be stuck in the grass 

and line the aisle at the ceremony.

Blue Mason jars on the dining tables will be used for candles.

My vast array of aluminum ware will be put to use. 

Accented with teal rick rack, each piece will be different and hold an explosion of flowers.

Will share more images from the event itself. Lots of little touches!

 Two miscellaneous Instagram images from the past week: 

My fruit bowl "dressed" for Halloween.

And Gideon asleep on my bed. Maybe one of my favorite pictures of him.

What's Up With Me and Halloween?

Like I said in an earlier post, I'm not a big fan of Halloween. But this year, gotta say, I've really gotten into decorating. It's been spurred on by visits to Dollar Tree who, hands down, has THE best Halloween decorations on the cheap. At the rate I'm going, maybe I will be handing out candy this year. Heck, I've got enough spooky holiday momentum, I might even dress up for the little ones.

Saw this in Better Homes & Gardens. Now granted, their welcome mat wasn't all janky and greeting guests with "lcome" like mine is. With five Dollar Tree snakes, this doormat is saying anything but Welcome.

Rubber spiders that can weather the elements are attacking my pumpkins. 

Simply punched a straight pin into their bodies and through to the pumpkin. 

I think I might pin down their legs to make them look more real.

Dollar Tree had a bunch of different designs of these mirror decals. How cool is this?

I also picked up a packet of spider cut-outs 

and adhered them to both front windows with double-sided tape. 

Chateau Gahan's a real house of horrors.

[Here's the BH&G version of the snake doormat.]

Boo

With a tinge of Fall in the air, I was knee-deep in working outdoors (painting, flower arranging, building, watering, reading, talking on the phone). I got up early all weekend just so as not to waste any of the warm, breezy days. You name it, I took it outside with me. My driveway looked like I'd set up camp for a week. When sundown came it's a wonder I didn't pitch a tent and sleep under the stars.

I'm not a huge fan of Halloween. When Harleigh was a little girl, it was fun. But now that I'm an old character, Halloween usually means coming home from work, turning off all the outdoor and indoor lights, and reading by flashlight in bed just to keep the trick-or-treaters away. I know. I know. A bit of a Halloween scrooge. But I do like our church's Trunk or Treat. Now for that, I'll be ALL in the spirit! For the sign-up poster at the church to collect names for who will be decorating a trunk, I wanted to do something three-dimensional. I saw these figurines at Dollar Tree, and the idea hit me. Here is the poster, the two dressed-up dolls sitting on the open tailgate of a pick-up truck. (The image of the truck in the picture below was a janky printed version from my ink-deprived printer. I later replaced it, as you'll see in subsequent pictures, with a much better quality image.)

I used an old black metal book end for the "open tailgate." Taped it onto the black board using black duck tape. Glued the two figures onto the base of the book end. Behind the figures, there's room for pens.

Chateau Gahan gets her Halloween on with a few special touches. I don't like the look of that stretchable fake spiderweb stuff when it's put it on real thick. I've seen people use it to where it looks like a layer of pillow batting. The secret is to stretch it super good.

If Dollar Tree were a man, I'd marry it. 

IN LOVE.

It's where all my Halloween decorations come from.

Nothing like spiders . . . everywhere.

Oh, and for the record, I do get giddy about Halloween for one VERY special reason . . . the next day begins listening to Christmas music and the wearing of Christmas pins (a different one every day until Christmas — and I still have a ton left unworn!!!!).