Halloween Dinner for Two

 

This very cute tablecloth followed me home from the floral wholesaler the other day.  I swear it did!  I made a vow to resist any and all fall or Halloween décor or dishes this year.  I have many more than I can even use and it's ridiculous.  But hey!  Take a look at this......you'll understand.  It's black and white "dupioni silk" (probably polyester) edged with this fresh orange burlap.  Then these appliques and checked ribbon run all around the 70" sides.  Perfect for a topper on a round table or catty-cornered on a long one.  I layered it on my dining room table over a black linen tablecloth. 

 

Mr. Pressed Pants and I were the only ones here for Halloween dinner and I knew we wouldn't have any trick-or-treaters, so we had a simple dinner of chili and salad and apple crisp.  We always had chili when the girls were small, so we could eat early and get out for the goodies, so I simply give in to nostalgia and fix chili every year.  These unusual black and white plates were perfect for this cloth.  They were made by Rocher and I bought them at Homegoods a couple of years ago.

 

Here's the bowl I used for chili with a black and white plate from Target in between.

Then I added my black handled flatware, also from Target.

 

Look closely at the napkin rings.  They are fangs from Party City.

 

This stemware is etched and colored black.  I broke three of these stems this summer, so I'm down to five now. :-(  You can see the vintage salt and pepper shakers here too.  Our girls loved these so much.

 

The flowers were some bright orange Gerbera daisies in a bright white Chippendale vase that I had left from the Halloween Luncheon I gave the day before.  (Post to follow.)

 

Then we sat and got all sappy remembering all of the costumes our girls wore through the years.  For the record, Big Bird was my favorite!

 

 

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Too Much???

If you saw this in your neighborhood, you would probably think nothing of it.

But, what about this......

and this.......

and this?????

Yep, all of these blow-ups and more are on one yard in a beautiful neighborhood in Atlanta. Can you imagine? 

This same home goes all out for Christmas, too with what seems like hundreds of these blowups.  I did a post about it here.  The noise alone from all of those motors is unimaginable! 

You'll never find even one blow-up in my yard, let alone a hundred, but there are lots and lots of people who get a great deal of enjoyment from their efforts.

The neighbors are less than charmed, but for a few weeks, there are thousands of children who are in awe of this spectacle.  What do you think?

French Shelves for Halloween

I always rush to decorate for fall, but delay the Halloween decor, because frankly, I love it, but tire of it.  So, here's my first Halloween display.  These French shelves in our bar are always fun for me to decorate.  In my previous home, they were hung much lower, so I decorated the top of them, too.  

One reason I was looking forward to this year's Halloween shelves is because one of my dear Bridge Buddies gave me these darling plaid plates last year.  I was so surprised and thrilled.  I thought of a million ways I wanted to use them, but this display won out.  (At least for now!)  

There are six plates with four different designs on them.  The top row allows a taller plate, so I backed the dessert sized ones with our everyday white dinner plates.  I love the way they show up against the wood here.  Then on the bottom shelf, I needed a smaller plate, so I found these black rimmed salad sized plates in my stash.  They don't show up as well, but they looked too small without them.  Then I  used real pumpkins and black glittery ones and filled in with black glittered garlands that I cut up.  The black stuff came from Michael's, but they are all out at my store now.  I was looking for more yesterday.

Since I needed eight plates to balance the display, I used two of the salad plates by themselves.  They looked too stark, so I added a black raven in front of each one.  Better!

I have a special watercolor that usually hangs under this shelf, but it detracted from the black and white and orange.  I removed it temporarily, and hung a bit of felt garland flags. The rest of the garland went on the front of the table.  My daughter bought me this last year.  Thanks, Susie......I love it!

On the table below, I used a white caterer's linen tablecloth covered with black netting from the Dollar Store.    Then I raised two big pumpkins on small glass pedestals and used the rest of the black garland around them. This table will be used next weekend for desserts when my wine club meets here, so I made sure that I can put up the drop leaf and have lots of room.  The front of the table has the remainder of the felt garland.

Several years ago, my favorite store, Boxwoods, in Atlanta sold this pair of glittery Halloween crowns.  They have sharp picks on the bottom which keeps them on the pumpkin.  I chose this one for the girl pumpkin.  Then I added lipstick and press on eyelashes tipped in gold from the drug store.  She's something, isn't she?

Her prince is apparently the strong, silent type.

Oh yes........there's a little uninvited friend checking out the whole thing.  Hope he's here stag!

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Halloween Decor

Yesterday, I posted about our annual Halloween dinner party here.

The post got rather long, so I'm posting today about the Halloween decor for the party.

The front door welcomes our guests.  We set up a fog machine and when someone rings the gate, we crank up the fog, so that they approach the house in a spooky haze.  See this little grill in the door?

See this mechanical hand?  We open the little door and stick this hand out into the fog.  It always sets the tone for the giggles of the night.

The living room has a spooky, bat covered candelabra and a bright pot of mums.

And there's a glittery pile of bones.

The end table holds a pottery bowl filled with acorns and sparkly fall fruit.

In the powder room, there's a pile of Halloween hand towels.

And in the corner, there's another pot of mums.

This feathered vulture ponders the future of this little pumpkin.

The black cat checks out another one.

One more Halloween detail is new this year.

This vignette sits on the kitchen counter beside the sink.

This end table in the keeping room holds a sweet little bouquet from the cutting garden.

I put together this arrangement in the dining room with flowers from Whole Foods.  The flowers turned out so vibrant that they actually look fake.

They sit on three different sizes of faux bois pottery logs that I found at Homegoods.

The bar holds this arrangement on a bird topped metal tier.

And I used a small pumpkin on the console on the bar.

This little French peasant girl is a new piece.  I found these teeny little fall vegetables and filled her brass baskets with hay and vegetables.  It's her first Halloween with us and I think she's a bit nervous about all the scary stuff.  She shouldn't worry.  Our guests are harmless!

Boo!!!!

Our favorite dinner party that we give each year is the one we do for Halloween.  It's always no more than 6-8 people and we never have repeats guests.

I start with this black linen tablecloth and top each place setting with an orange straw placemat.  The the chargers are black French wire.  Don't they look like a spider web?

The next layer is our everyday white dinner plates.  Nothing precious here!

The glassware is a Waterford wine stem in the Lismore pattern and the water stem is etched and painted with a black harelequin pattern.  Here's another example of how my tables are usually a mix of high and low, meaning that some items are high quality, but they will be mixed with low cost, often mass produced items.  Some occassions call for pulling out the best of everything, but not for this dinner.  Fun is the goal here!  You can see a Waterford wine coaster here, too.  I used this for the water, which you will see later in the post.

These napkins are vintage linens that I found years ago.  Some have black cats, some are pumpkins, and some say "boo".  Many years later, I found tea towels that match.

What's better than plastic fangs for a napkin ring?  Every single year that I've done this, someone has put these in their mouth.  Last year, it was a judge!

I bought these tiny little zinc signs to use as placecards.  I used chalk on these to make them look like a tombstone.

These mis-matched pieces of silverplate get used more than any other set of flatware I own.  I've collected it for years and the only thing the pieces have in common is the keystone shape of the handle.

The mother-of-pearl handled knives are pretty special, though, don't you think?

I'm not too sure what these little pumpkin-like things are, but I got them at Whole Foods.  I put them in a white footed urn which shows up well on the black tablecloth.

Then in these white chippendale squares, I put these wonderful roses in the most vibrant orange I could find.

There is no doubt what holiday we are celebrating here!

These kitchy salt and pepper shakers were the girls' favorite from the time they were little tykes.  Here's part of the high/low combination.  They're pretty low, but fun.

Check out the wine we found.

This is a French Syrah by Montperoux Estates.  The lable is done by designer and visionnaire Christian Audigier.  It might be just be too perfect to open!  One thing's for sure.....I won't be throwing this away when it is empty.  It's begging for a drippy candle, don't you think?  The wine coaster is sort of gothic, too.

I replaced labels from water bottles with some from the Martha Stewart line at Michael's.  Then I put these plastic bottles in that Waterford wine coaster!

This setting is nothing but fun.

I about broke my neck to get this shot! 

I wish I could be sure to get these every year.  Are they persimmons?  Anybody know?

Here are the bar glasses set out for drinks.

And these cocktail napkins are so cute.  They are actually orange cotton appliqued with this cute black cat.  I've had them a long, long time.

The coffee tray is set up early.  The pumpkin cream and sugar set is old, as well.  There's that tea towel I was talking about.

Mugs, not cups for this party.  We are so casual and this allows us to linger at the table until late.

My friends give me the best gifts.  Knowing how I love Halloween, Ann knew how much I would love this handmade apron.  You can just barely see the petticoat like ruffle on the bottom.  Isn't it the cutest?

Bows, appliques, and sparkly fabric!  All I'll need is a pair of black pants and a t-shirt.  And killer heels, right?

We'll be dining at the witching hour!

This is getting pretty long, so I'll be posting on the decor and the menu in another post. 

See lots and lots of fall ideas at: