Hello and welcome to the Grateful Gatherings blog hop! I am truly grateful for the opportunity to host this hop and to be inspired by 13 other talented bloggers who will be sharing their late fall and Thanksgiving decor over the next three days! If you are coming over from A Delightsome Life and Common Ground, welcome! If you missed Kathy and Debra’s amazing decor, simply follow the links at the end of this post. You will be glad you did!
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday! Of course I am Christmas crazy too, but I think Thanksgiving is just so beautiful! It encompasses the last of Autumn’s splendor and the excitement of the holidays ahead, which makes it perfect in my opinion! Today I will be sharing some “Grateful Gatherings” of late fall and Thanksgiving decor in the kitchen, the heart of the home!
*I have added some affiliate links throughout the post and at the bottom of this page for your convenience in case you see something that interests you!
Merry Halloween! That salutation sounds a little strange to us in modern times, but it was often used in Hallowe’en days of old. Antique postcards and vintage Halloween ephemera depict the sweetest and merry Halloween characters. Today I will be showing you how I keep my Halloween decor light and merry too!
What constitutes a “Happy Halloween” or “Merry Halloween?” For some, Halloween is a time to embrace evil, dark, and sinister things. A few folks pull serious pranks and use the day as an excuse for mayhem instead of merriment. Others embrace even darker things which should not even be discussed (Ephesians 5:11-13) For more on this subject see my post Halloween: Celebrate or Participate?
For most people however, it’s all about the candy, fun costumes, and nostalgia! We vintage decorators have lots of fun with Halloween. I love how my friend Debra at Common Ground blog explained in a recent post that most of us don’t “celebrate” Halloween, but we do enjoy remembering fun traditions and collecting nostalgic treasures associated with happy memories.
Who recalls these fun vintage cupcake and cake toppers? They are back from the days when no one was allergic to gluten, dairy or peanuts! Homeroom moms could surprise the class with cupcakes topped with little black cats and funny happy Jack-0-Lantern men without fear of lawsuits! Those were the days! I scored a bag of these little treasures for a quarter at a yard sale a few years back and I just love them. I can still taste the gluten and dairy butter cream frosting now!
Did I get your attention with, “A $10 Antique Farm Table?” Well Today I am going to share the true story of how my husband and I lucked into this authentic antique farm table for only ten little buckaroos at a yard sale on one glorious fall morning in 2013! I was looking at some older photos of my farm table for Thanksgiving tablescape inspiration, and I thought you might enjoy them too. Hopefully this post will give you yet another reason to want to decorate your home with yard sale finds and to start saving those extra quarters for junkin’ adventures! You just never know how lucky you may get! The farm table is truly our family’s best yard sale find so far… such a steal at only $10.00!
Back in 2013 “farmhouse style” was just starting to become popular. I have been incorporating vintage country farmhouse elements in my cottage style decor for years, but I wasn’t really on the lookout for a farm table when we found it. I was actually just wanting a table to use for folding laundry in our basement. One day while my husband and I were out junkin’ we stumbled upon this gem at a yard sale. The top was covered with a cheap veneer and the legs were painted a dreadful shade of brown. Nevertheless it was sturdy and big, so it would serve me well in the laundry room. My husband looked it over before purchasing and he noticed that there were huge wooden planks under the veneer! Because of his background in antiques, he also recognized the age of the piece by the types of nails used and the fact that the solid oak planks had been sawed by hand. He gave me “the look” to remain calm, but it was hard not to do the happy dance right there in the seller’s yard! With an aloof expression I offered the seller ten bucks for the table…cha-ching! SCORE!
Sometimes the hubby grumbles about is a little reluctant to work on furniture makeovers, but he was excited about this one! As soon as we got home from the yard sale, he unloaded the table and immediately ripped off the veneer, sanded down the original wood planks and stained the top. When it was completely dry he used a wax to give it a nice smooth finish (we later added a water-based sealer for a little more protection). The bottom part of the table had been painted an unsightly, flat brown paint so he mixed up some DIY chalk paint and painted it white. A little distressing, and voila…the perfect antique farm table! Well, almost. At some point someone had chopped the legs just a bit resulting in an odd height, but no problem… this junker always has a stash of junk with spare parts for “just in case” times such as this one. Four casters were added and we had a “brand new” antique farm table. Since we already had the paint, stain, wax and casters, the table really did only cost $10.00! Similar tables sell anywhere from $200-$1500 and they are even more popular today. And this people, is why I am a proud junker!
Here it is right after it was finished back in 2013. Oh how I wish I had a real camera back then! It turned out stunning and I remember that I had so much fun decorating it for fall for the very first time!
I was eager to get started with the decorating, so I shopped my house to style it up. I used a very old antique linen runner topped with a mix of a few faux gourds and real gourds. A beautiful Musquee Du Provence heirloom pumpkin took center stage, and some deer antlers and fall leaves were nice natural touches.
I had just found some awesome jute place mats at Home Goods for $2.99 each and they matched the Pottery Barn rug under the table perfectly ( the rug was also a yard sale STEAL at $20)! Then I simply set out my cream plates and saucers and put some pretty tiger striped pumpkins on top. I kept this arrangement for a few weeks until I was able to find some more interesting heirloom pumpkins.
Fall is truly my favorite season, and also my favorite time in the garden as nature puts on one last spectacular show! Today I thought it would be fun to share some ideas for combining plants, pumpkins and vintage treasures to create unique fall garden displays. We will taking a look at some of my older fall gardens (2011-2016) for inspiration. I have a better camera now so my photography skills have certainly improved, but there are still some ideas worth sharing in these photos. Here are some highlights from my fall gardens past.
When it comes to creating beautiful fall displays, “mum’s the word!” Actually it’s no secret! Mums are the quintessential fall flower and they are perfect for adding pops of color anywhere in the landscape, on the porch or deck. One of my favorite combination groupings is yellow mums alongside whatever green herbs may still be thriving in my garden when fall arrives. Actually I am always incorporating herbs in my fall displays in some way. I must have herbs, always and always! I also like to use old garden tools in my displays too. This rusty green spade is an oldie, but goody!
