Our Halloween Porch

Halloween is just around the corner.. We spent this past weekend updating our front porch, making it a little more Halloween and cleaning up all the leaves.. We raked and filled LOTS of leaf bags and made a stuffed 'Leaf man'. Nicknamed 'Dude' by my husband and daughter.  See below for some of our subtle decor tweaks on how we made our

 Fall Porch a little more Halloween..  

Shared with Moonlight and Mason Jars link party over at Cherished Bliss 

Below is a snapshot from our Neutral fall home tour.. If you missed it Click here. I'm not really a huge decorator for Halloween but this year I wanted to do something to make it fun for our daughter. We changed the 'Autumn Banner' to a 'Boo' Banner.. Which seemed appropriate as it is one of our daughter's favourite words.. it has been for months now!! Most of the time she says it instead of Hi, so it's really fitting for this time of year. 

Behind our festive Straw bench I added another vintage frame. Inside the frame I hung a Burlap 'Trick or Treat' Banner available at my Mom's Etsy Shop. With all the raked up extra leaves we made our leaf man 'Dude'.. As a kid this was a family tradition with my Sister and our Papa.. So I want to make sure we carry on the tradition with our daughter. .

For 'Dudes' head we used one of those plastic orange jack-o-lanterns that I covered in pieces of Newspaper to make it a little more scary and modern it up a bit!! It was a pretty easy nap time project.. 

Here are some easy steps on how I updated our plastic pumpkin. First I ripped pieces of newspaper. Then I used mod podge and stuck the newspaper pieces all over the orange plastic pumpkin.. Once the pumpkin was covered in paper and dried, I painted the inside of the eyes, nose and mouth in a Black Acrylic craft paint. I then covered the green plastic stem in some jute rope and lightly painted the rope with the same black paint.

Modern Pumpkin Update

Our daughter was happy with how it all turned out! She loves her leaf man 'Dude'

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Neutral Fall Home Tour

So Fall has officially arrived..Sept 23rd.  I was so excited this month to decorate for the Fall because my little one is getting old enough to kind of understand everything it entails like Hayrides, pumpkin picking and lets not forget trick or treating!.. So in decorating for the Fall season this year we kept it very neutral and natural looking.. Lots of beiges and whites... My fav! I have been busy making some fun festive Fall pillows by mixing some left over patterned fabric and stencilling words like 'Fall', 'Boo' and 'Harvest' on them.
Come and see how we decorated our Front Porch and House Interior... Join the Link Party at Thoughts from Alice.

On our Front porch we made this exterior bench using 2 straw bales as a bench and layering it with a ton Fall themed pillows. This straw bench is going to make a super cute Fall Photo Prop for my niece and daughter..  

 As you walk to the front doors I have a Antique window Frame with a hanging 'Autumn' Banner. The Autumn banner is made of Jute with scrap fabric bows tied on either end.

 Come inside and have a look.. I just LOVE these little white pumpkins..they are the perfect Fall accessory! I used them everywhere I could ;) I just bought this amazing Antique Dough Bowl two weekends ago at a local outdoor antique market. I got it just in time to decorate it for fall ;) I placed it as a Centerpiece on my kitchen Harvest table along with a Burlap ruffled Table Runner. To fill it up I used Spanish moss and paired with dried grass from my garden and these adorable small white pumpkins.

Our Mantel features a Burlap Fall Banner available here. Its a Mix of a Twig wood pumpkins, a vintage book, Rust colored ceramic pitchers and a Glass jug filled with dried off-white star flowers from our local garden centre.

To keep with the fall theme, just above our TV we displayed another Fall Vignette. We kept the rope in the glass jar from our summer display, I felt it went with the Rustic Neutral look I was going for. We placed the painted Deer wood planks I just painted over the nautical boat artwork that we had up there. And added a White medium sized pumpkin for good measure.

For our kitchen Buffet just some Simple change ups for the season . The daisies and hydrangeas got switched out for dried off-white star flowers. Inside the vintage tool box is a mix of dried flowers in glass milk bottles surrounded by small white pumpkins. For the Large glass hurricane vase, we switched out small white shells to Acorns.. which I painstakingly picked up off the ground while visiting my parents. What a in-expensive Vase Filler!!

 The best and easiest way to change up decorating for the seasons is through changing the Pillow covers!! I just love Burlap ones for Fall.. well I love it all year but it really goes perfect with a neutral Fall theme.

Dried Hydrageas are another cheap and easy way to fill a vase.. especially now since it's the end of the season. So if you haven't already.. go to your garden and cut the remaining flowers off your bushes.. Its the easiest way to I have found to dry them!! Another Fall change.. Filling an Urn with moss balls. ( clearance at Restoration Hardware) Moss is great natural addition to a home, plus they will transition you right into Christmas season perfectly.

Thanks for looking. Hope you enjoyed! I will be sharing more pics of our New house soon..

Shabby Chic 1st Birthday Party

It all started with the dress!! My sister in-law gifted me the dress before my daughter was born.. a dusty rose Baby Gap dress with a Tulle skirt and a Bow! It was super Girly and Pretty.. So the theme was Born! My Daughters first birthday would be a Romantic Pastel Shabby Chic Birthday Party!!!  I wanted it to be super Girly and pink. I love all things shabby chic so I tried to go all out.. in pastels, flowers, ruffles, polka dots, burlap and natural fabrics and mixing in vintage elements. 

I kept decorations fairly simple and not too kiddish ( I will do kiddish when she can pick a theme herself!) We had just a few baby pink and white balloons, pastel coloured poms, shabby fabric garland and a personalized burlap birthday Banner available here.

On the main table I displayed white picture frames with pictures from when Elle was first born. I had a 3 tier metal stand with striped pink and white bowls full of Kraft Dinner for the kids. (HUGE hit!) Mason jars were used to hold pink utensils. Above the table Hung a personalized Burlap Birthday banner. Below I hung a Shabby Fabric garland that I purchased on Etsy. Instead of a basic table cloth,  I picked up a few meters of a mini rose Shabby chic patterned fabric from my local fabric store. I left the ends unfinished and draped that over the Dining room table instead. (That way you can wash and re-use it as is OR make a pillow and have a great keepsake of her 1st Birthday!)

The Dessert Table featured real Baby Pink Hydrangeas that I special ordered from a local florist. I displayed the pink hydrangeas in vintage white vases. I put my cake stands to good use.. one holding the larger cake that was for everyone and the other holding the small smash cake for my birthday girl!! I even used our Large Silver wedding Cake stand as a prop. The white 'E' bowl featured yummy chocolate eggs in pastel colours (The E was a part of the L.O.V.E bowls that I also used for our Candy display at our Wedding.. see it here) Then we used Candy jars from Walmart to hold pastel candy necklaces and other candies. A Vintage Tea cup held mini chocolate bars and a milkshake glass was used to hold twizzlers..And of course Cupcakes on a tier stand with yummy baby pink icing..YUM!

The vintage framed chalkboard is a part of the wall decor in our kitchen all year round.. so I changed the usual quote to a more appropriate Birthday wish for my little one. The cake banners are made by me using scrap fabric and jute. I wrote the font with a Brown permanent marker.

Here is another look at the Dessert Table.. Makes me hungry just looking at it again.

The Cupcake Banner hung under the dessert table

 The Cake was Home made by me!! (very daunting.. I don't recommend this as I had a million things to do that day.. Must learn to delegate tasks!!) It tasted amazing though! This is the Recipe I used. I made the cake the night before her Party and then added icing about an hour or so before the party. For the main cake I did a simple icing rose in a Pink Ombre effect.. It was my first time making a cake from scratch.. And overall it was pretty easy to do plus it tasted soooo good!! Except when I (the inexperienced baker!) Didn't line the spring cake pan and all the batter started dripping down into my stove.. yes this happened!! To add to my stress!! So I had to get my Dad and brother in law to do another ingredient run!! Awww memories..In the end it was all worth it. The icing was Yummy too.. You can see my daughter really enjoyed it.. and isn't that the most important thing that the birthday girl is Happy!! ;)

 We placed the Kids Goody bags by the front door in a wooden box with a chalkboard front reading Favours on it. (Also from our wedding!) For the Goody Bags we used personalized initial Burlap bags with a Bold Baby blue initial for the boys and a light pink Script Initial for the girls.. they are available here. We attached these super cute personalized photo gift tags to each of the bags..The tags were a huge hit with the parents and kids alike! Check them out at this Etsy shop.

Thanks for looking.

Source List:

Shabby chic Fabric Garland 

Painted Mason Jars 

Happy 1st Birthday Banner

Cupcakes Burlap Banner

Personalized Burlap Bags

Paper Poms 

Silver Cake stand- Save on Crafts (4 years ago)
Candy Jars- Walmart
White Vases- Antique Market
Tea cup- Antique Market
Chalkboard- Antique Fair (7 years ago)
Box with Chalkboard front- Bought while on vacation at a small home boutique.
Milkshake Glasses- Ikea