Falling For Autumn

An artificial pumpkin is balanced by hydrangea

Autumn is certainly in the air, despite the Indian Summer we just had here in Scituate. Columbus Day brought the last taste of summer we’ll have for a while; Conor searched for hermit crabs while John boogie boarded in celebration of the 80 degree heat in October.

Soon it will be time to pull the rakes out and jump in piles of leaves. I absolutely love everything about autumn. Pumpkins, dried flowers, leaves, stews, soups, apples fresh off the tree or baked in something sweet. Yum. I can’t wait to throw on my cashmere sweaters, wooly jumpers, chunky scarfs and Uggs.

I knew I wanted to do something different on the mantel this year and was inspired by the current Better Homes and Gardens cover with white pumpkins and swirls of bittersweet twisting around them. I love how organic and natural it looks. Then I found out that bittersweet is poisonous to dogs… Didn’t want Pop-ilicious to get sick so decided to try a different idea.

I really love reading Shaunna’s blog, Perfectly Imperfect. She has some really great design ideas and love her beachy style. I was inspired by what she did with chalk paint and real pumpkins. Check this out:

From Perfectly Imperfect

Aren’t those pumpkins beautiful? I love the blues, grays, gold leaf and metallic paints. So different and so fun.

My mom came over the other day and I asked her to help me pick out some artificial flowers to use on the mantel from Michael’s. She has a great eye and always decorated the mantels at our family restaurant when I was growing up. So we had a great time at Michael’s with the kids (all the stuff I bought was half off). We came back from the shop, poured ourselves a glass of wine and got busy decorating.

The full mantel

We used real and artificial pumpkins, gords, leaves and flowers; I think it gives a nice texture and feels very much alive and natural. The beautiful ball-like hydrangea were a gift from my neighbor’s gorgeous garden. The small blue ones were from my yard. We piled small white pumpkins on top of each other in pumpkin tea light holders that I got at Christmas Tree Shop last year.

Maurice (our Beta fish) now has a nice view of gords (real) and berries (artificial).

The right side of the mantel has John’s ghost he made out of model magic, a glass pumpkin (that I had in the attic) filled with treasures from the beach.

We had some leftover artificial pine cones and hydrangea and we put them in a vase with more shells.

As you can see, you don’t just have to use orange and black for harvest decorations. I love pinks, blues and greens. Using Shaunna’s inspiration of the chalk paint pumpkins, I realized I could mix in the colors that I love to celebrate fall. It is also great to shop your own home and find things that you can reuse like the glass pumpkins and metal tea light holders. Next year I will find a new use for the artificial berries, branches and pumpkins. What do you think? Are you falling for Autumn, too?