A French Pumpkin and Other Fall Décor

Hello Friends!

It's not too late to post a few fall decor pictures, especially if the photos have a French pumpkin in some of them.  A citrouille!

In looking through my fall décor, which you can see below, I found that I did not have what I needed to create a French vignette on the dining room hutch.

It's not like I didn't have enough stuff; I just didn't have quite what I was envisioning.  So I got busy trying to produce this idea I had rattling around in my head.  When you have seen something on a blog that speaks to you, you want to try it out for yourself and put your own spin on it.  That's what happened to me when I saw things on three different blogs that I thought were terrific!

One of my favorite blogs is Stonegable, written and produced by Yvonne. She has impeccable taste in all things décor. Her post from a couple of years ago inspired the general look I was going for.  Love the way she has flatware in a pitcher with the handles showing at the top; adding the stack of plates was very appealing and I knew I wanted to do something similar.  I put some dried hydrangeas in the background of mine and in the little pitcher up front--always good for Frenchifying a vignette!

Thanks to Stonegableblog.com

You can see the rest of her lovely fall decorating here:
 http://www.stonegableblog.com/fall-home-tour-and-1500-giveaway/  Many thanks to Yvonne for consistently posting great idea after great idea!

I had seen some white faux pumpkins decorated with Sharpie pens last year and wanted to have a French one this fall. I found some French-language poems about autumn on the internet.  I made copies of four of them, penciled them in so the poems ran along the pumpkin in a continuous spiral, and then went over the pencil marks with a fine-line Sharpie. Parlez-vous Francais? If your answer is oui, you might notice a mistake or two where I left out a letter or didn't put in the appropriate diacritical mark.  I don't speak French--wish I did--and recognize only a few words here and there.  End of disclaimer!  The pumpkin had been one of those orange faux pumpkins that are sold in craft stores everywhere--I just painted it with chalky off-white paint.  It was a great surface to write on with a pencil and it was easy to erase the pencil marks after using the Sharpie.

The inspiration picture for my project is one I found on Pinterest.  It was posted by Gretchen at http://boxycolonial.com/pumpkin-parade-sharpie-pumpkins/  Thanks so much for sharing a great idea, Gretchen!

boxycolonial.com

For the dining room table I put together a country-look using a round galvanized tray to corral all the traditional things--pumpkins, gourds, crows, flowers, leaves, and grapes (that are on the other side of the arrangement).  It is sitting on a burlap square--I just fringed the edges for a simple look.

Here's a quick shot of the drysink and a blue pumpkin I painted two years ago.  It was also inspired by  Pinterest pictures posted by several different bloggers--right now, I don't remember which ones.  Yep, that's an old doorknob in place of a stem.

On the sideboard I put my steal-of-a-deal ceramic pumpkin that I scored at the Purcellville, VA, town-wide tag sale in mid-October this year.  It is in perfect condition--no chips, dings, or scratches.  When I asked the gal who was selling it how much was she asking for it, she said $5, but I could have it for $4!!  I didn't ask twice, crossed her palm with four singles, and made off with a lovely, unusual pumpkin to add to my growing collection.

The chandelier needed a little love, so off came the mini-lampshades that usually perch on the light bulbs, then I twined a leaf swag over the five arms and called it done!  Two minutes, tops.

There was space atop the green picnic basket that resides on a vintage metal cart in one corner of the dining room.  I remembered a lovely arrangement done in a lantern that I saw on Confessions of a Serial DIYer, another of my many fave blogs, and made my version of it.

This is Christy's gorgeous dining room with her lantern decked out in neutrals and a little green.

confessionsofaserialdiyer.com

Follow this link to see how she put it together and made a coordinating wreath.

http://www.confessionsofaserialdiyer.com/fall-lantern-centerpiece/

By the way, hang on to your real gourds when you start to put away your fall decorations.  I'll show you in my next blog post how to dry them and give them new life so they can live on for many years in your fall stash!

I hope you'll visit these three blogs and be inspired, too!  Please remember to Pin from the blogs I shared, rather than from mine.  You are welcome to Pin any of my photos--and, please do!

I'd love for you to leave a comment--they make my day!!

Thanks for reading all the way to the end!

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