Pumpkins!

One of my favorite parts of Halloween is decorating with pumpkins and gourds. This year, I am using all white pumpkins on my table for a very clean, monochromatic look. We have all seen (and done) the classic jack-o-lantern carving with the triangle eyes and sparse teeth. If you feel like changing it up a little this year, check out some creative pumpkin decorating ideas below from around the internet. So cleaver!

Readin' Pretty

I’m sure that you’ve seen these all over the design blogs:




They are Penguin’s Clothbound Classics series featuring the designs of Coralie Bickford-Smith. Basically they have taken a collection of wonderful classic books and suped them up with bold colors and fun cover art. Each cover features a pattern design significant to the story (Alice in Wonderland sports flamingos, Oliver Twist’s are clocks). Each design is stamped onto linen with beautiful matte foil.

Originally only available in the UK, they have sloooooowly been released in the US over the last year. You can purchase them on amazon.com or in some Anthroplogie stores. My mom ordered a bunch of them for my birthday back in June. And then low and behold, another three showed up on my doorstep this week. Five new designs were recently released.

I can’t decide if I actually want to read them and risk creasing the pretty little spines or not. For now I am using them as art. They live on top of my armoire with a vintage suitcase that I picked up at a junk market last winter and my stainless steel curly-cue initials from Ballard and Design circa 1999.

{book images from here}

Orange and Grey

There is an episode of Seinfeld in which George Costanza states, “I would drape myself in velvet if it were socially acceptable." Well, if it were socially acceptable (and wouldn’t kill me), I would drench myself in charcoal grey paint and saunter around town. I love the color grey. It can be warm and rich or cool and dark. It pairs with everything and is a much more dramatic neutral than say, beige. Blah.

One of my favorite colors to mix with grey is orange. Any shade really. A deep pumpkin shade can create a cozy room. A soft sherbet shade can create fresh, vibrant space. I thought being that’s its now October and orange is pretty much the star of this month, today would be a good day to take a look at how well orange and grey compliment one another in these spaces.