Just being authentic...

When staging a home, designers like to leave an open book and a wine glass or teacup, to give things a homey feel.  When the designer is a witch, it looks like this.

One of the drawbacks of living in the very heart of a small Midwestern town is that I cannot really get away with ignoring lawn chores. I do let them slide, but I don't get away with it. Yesterday, my elderly neighbor called to ask if I would like him to remove the dead things from my flower beds. Those would mostly be the zinnias and marigolds whose seeds I save, so no, I would not. In fact, in previous years, I have left the zins, and enjoyed watching the birds feast on them all winter. I guess he remembers this. At the very least, dead things are great instant Halloween decor, when paired with a hundred and six year old house, so I especially did not want my yard tidied on Halloween (but thanks for the kind offer).

Scruffy flower pot, dead lilac tree, dried weedy flowers, fallen seed pods.  Add a fresh pumpkin, a handful of gourds, and last year's bat, and it's not lawn trash, it's decor.

I was so busy these past few weeks, finishing fireplaces and taking that Barb Kobe art class, I didn't have time to decorate for Halloween, but by early Wednesday afternoon, I finally had a few minutes to think about it. With downtown trick-or-treating starting at three o'clock, I had little more than a few minutes to pull something together. Lucky for me, it already looks pretty witchy around here!

This witchy tabletop vignette would not have looked nearly so authentic without the leaf carpet and dried florals in the background. 

Now see, if Mr. Arvin had tidied my yard, I would not have had a dead lilac to stick in the peeling flower pot, along with some nice white flowery weeds. I would not have had fabulously crunchy leaves for marauding pirates and princesses to swish through. With the yard all tidied, my leaning mailbox and peely porch paint would have looked shabby, not haunted. I'm seriously hoping for a warm afternoon to repair these soon, as I don't think I can disguise them all winter with fake spiderwebs and glittered bats.

Painted with Pebeo's Porcelaine (not Vidrio) paints, thrift store goblets are cheap chic, and way cooler than plastic party glasses. 

 I only have two boxes of Halloween stuff, but because I have the perfect Halloween house, and a perfect procrastinator's tendency to leave the autumn lawn work for early November, this is one holiday look I can pull off in under an hour...and tidy away just as quickly. Hopefully before Thanksgiving.

The dried arrangements were done earlier in the year, for an article in the premier issue of 365 Being, which I co-produce with my friend Cat Isles (365being.com).  A ceramic jack-o-lantern was just the touch of Halloween it needed.

So, I've promised my dear neighbor that I will clean up the corner near his front door this week. I even gave him permission to haul away a pile of branches in my back yard that I've seen him eyeing balefully. I know how truly fortunate I am to be surrounded by kind souls like him, and bless their proper Midwestern small town hearts, they do not know what to make of the artist lady from Ory-gone, so I really do try not to confound them unnecessarily. Maybe I can install a nice proper bird feeder on the front porch. Oh! Maybe I can make one from some really funky bit of junk and...oh, dear.

By the way, in case anyone is waiting to see it, I did finish the fireplace job, but the stain guy hadn't done the hearth surrounds yet, and carpet was to be installed today and tomorrow, so I'll get shots over the weekend, to post on Monday.

Thanks to nice folks who hire me to decorate their homes, I don't have lots of time for being tortured by pesky garden chores.  You can view my portfolio at theartofthehome.com.  I haven't updated much there for the past two years, so you might want to scroll down through this blog for more recent stuff.

If you have questions or comments about anything in this post, you can comment below, or email me at dawnmariedelara@gmail.com.