Now since it’s October, I am finally ready to unveil my Fall House Tour for 2015! I know in blogland it seemed like house tours started September 1… but my pumpkins weren’t ready yet! 

So c’mon in and have a look around…

 My scary cat topiary actually died last Winter but we placed him in a planter box and planted some new ivy a month ago and voila! Looks like new! I thought the pumpkins stacked on the concrete urns were kind of cute!

Now that you’re inside, imagine the smell of Fall as I have a candle burning…
This dough bowl full of pumpkins is the first sign of Fall that you see in the house, but I’m saving my table scape for a whole other post so you only get a little preview today!

 I’ve put mums in the tulipiere and lined the halls with the mini pumpkins that we grew in our own garden!

Mr Swan is full of Fall foliage.  The pumpkin candles are new this year… thought they were fun.  Below the swan are DIY wool acorns… I’ll have a post dedicated to them too! I just love how colorful they are!

 The little birdies are having a chat about pumpkin spice lattes…

Off to the living room we go. I stacked the pumpkins on top of an anduze pot! Don’t you just love the cinderella pumpkin? I love the red-orange color! We will take a closer look at the hearth later…

 But first, hello Scary Cat and Pumpkin Bear! Today they are sitting on “the puzzle table”… where we often gather around and spend some time putting together puzzles, especially on blustery Winter days. I think I’ll will do a proper tablescape with them later…

Ah ha! I spy a velvet pumpkin patch! I just love the colors of these pumpkins.. they are so rich!

 In the hallway sits pumpkins and acorns on tiered cake plates from my wedding.

 Can’t forget to say hi to the owls in the kitchen, they are next to the cinnamon/nutmeg/fall smelling candles!

ok a closer look at the mantle… some faux foliage sits amongst baby pumpkins, mini candles (owl, squirrel, and hedgehog shaped). I used my antique staffordshire figurines that are with donkeys… I am pretending they are hauling a Fall harvest in. I placed the lanterns on the sides and filled them up with mini pumpkins. I love it!  

One last look at the fireplace and mantel. It’s too hot to turn the fireplace on… so no, the pumpkins won’t be baking in front of the fire! 

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed the Fall House Tour of 2015!!  If you don’t follow me, click on any of my links in the side bar… as I’m sure you’ll love the Fall tablescape I’ve put together and the DIY acorn project! 

Written at http://peoniesandorangeblossoms.blogspot.com
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Hoot-Hoot! Tweet-Tweet! The owls have landed this year in the large island in the kitchen! Aside from my velvet pumpkins, I think my owls are my next favorite Fall decoration! I always look forward to pulling them out of storage. 

The lighting in the kitchen isn’t very good – yellow tones from overhead lights. Oh well. I guess it puts a “sunset” color on them, right? I have my MK childs candlesticks and tray in the background which I think provides a nice contrast against all of the brown! My family hates this brown granite – it is just so boring to stare at, but I will say I think it goes nicely with the Fall colors!

 The squirrel was new last year, as were the mini owl and acorn candles!

The brownstone pitcher and brown staffordshire dog are hiding behind the owls.  I like the candle on the right as it reminds me of a pumpkin! 

New this year are these little owl ornaments – actually used for Christmas last year on the tree… but then I thought, wouldn’t they look cute nestled in the acorn wreath?? I think so!

Stay tuned in this week, I’ve got a new recipe that you can use with those deliciously crisp apples you picked (or will go pick, right?? Pick of the tree, pick out of a bin, pick out in the store…)

Written at http://peoniesandorangeblossoms.blogspot.com
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Pumpkin week continues with 10 decorating ideas with pumpkins.  For these 10 decorating ideas, only REAL pumpkins were used.  I like real pumpkins as I find the plastic ones often look, well, plastic. But, there are some nice plastic ones if you keep your eye out for them. The other thing is that once Fall is over we throw them in the compost pile and don’t have to store them in our house!

1. Stack ’em up!

I just love this look! You need 3 different size pumpkins. They will need to be of the flatter variety so you can stack them up! You can imagine the round jack o’ lanterns won’t work because they are too round. You could do all white, all red-orange, all blue, or mix it up! I added some faux Fall foliage to the bottom and stacked them on top of the anduze vase!

Ideas for decorating with pumpkins

2. Put them inside a lantern
I’m sure most of us have lanterns… remove the candle from inside and stack them inside!! Doesn’t it look super cute??

3. Arrange them in a bowl
I *just* got this antique dough bowl yesterday (!!) and filled it up with pumpkins. I will have a full post on it later… but this dough bowl is BIG. So I stacked a whole bunch in it! If you don’t have a dough bowl, you could always just take the largest bowl in your house and arrange pumpkins in it too!

4. Use them in your table setting
Place individual mini pumpkins on your table setting… you can use them for name card holders too. You could just add a little ribbon with someones name or lean the place card up against the little pumpkin!

5. Line them in a hallway
We happen to have our hallway with a ledge separating the rooms… but you could always line them on the floor too!

6. Stack them outside in and around garden statues!
Now this picture is actually from a garden shop, but I thought it was super cute! You could put them in your bird bath!

7. Place them in a tiered cake stand or rack
This is really easy to do… just place them on a tiered rack. You don’t need that many to get a Fall look!

8. Put one in a tea cup!

I am sure you have some teacups displayed somewhere in your house… take a mini pumpkin and rest it carefully inside! Instant Fall!

9. Stack them in boxes!
To make it look more full, put a filler under them like pine cones or crumpled newspaper… that way it looks like you filled the whole box but in reality it’s only a small layer on top!

10. Put them ANYWHERE!
The great thing about these mini-pumpkins is this: you can really put them anywhere. These are in my bathroom in the poor quality picture below (as you can imagine, the bathroom doesn’t have the best lighting in the house). If you take 3 pumpkins and put them in a corner it really adds Fall to any room.  This for vignette for me is free as I grew these pumpkins. But if you didn’t grow your own, they cost between 50 cents to $1 in the store, so this really is your cheapest option for Fall decorating!

Written at http://peoniesandorangeblossoms.blogspot.com

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I’m not doing a Friday Favorites today mainly because I’ve been at work 9 of the past 10 days (with one more day to go excluding today!)… so I don’t have much to “favorite” if you know what I mean.

Instead, I leave you with some scenes of Fall to get you in the mood for this season while you sip on your first Pumpkin Spice Latte! 

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Did you get your Pumpkin Spice Latte today??? Because it’s in stores starting today!

Well, I’ve started to put away Summer and decorate for Fall.  I’m not quite ready for decorating with pumpkins just quite yet, but I think transitioning into Fall colors is a good idea.  

I put up some harvest nutcrackers… the wine maker and the sunflower nutcrackers as I think they go well with the harvest theme.

 I just love how the fresh sunflowers pop against the Mackenzie Childs courtly check teapot and candlesticks! Don’t you think it looks nice?

 I like how the brown dog, teapot, and acorn wreaths all go together too. I am really enjoying this centerpiece that sits on the island in the kitchen.  I have some string lights that are little leaves that you can kind of see in the picture.  They are more noticeable at night!

Are you ready for Fall? I’ll admit… I baked some pumpkin bread yesterday. It was delicious!!

Did you check out my announcement yesterday?  I’m having a Pumpkin Week… ends with a pumpkin themed link party Sept 18! Check it out here

Written at http://peoniesandorangeblossoms.blogspot.com

linking up at: amaze me monday The Scoop!  2 Bees in a Pod,  Metamorphosis Monday’s Inspire Me Tuesday Wow us Wednesdays! Creative Ways  Share Your Style Thursday Favorite Things, Tablescape Thursday’s Your Turn to Shine The inspiration gallery Home Sweet Home Feathered Nest Fridays Foodie Friday & Everything Else Best of the Weekend Sunday’s Down Under

Guess what?! I had this really exciting idea!  As you may or may not know, I LOVE pumpkins. I love pumpkin patches, pumpkin soup, pumpkin bread, pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin pie, pumpkin shrimp (j/k). So I thought, why not host a “PUMPKIN WEEK”?

Pumpkin Week will start Monday September 14 and end Friday September 18. I will feature pumpkin recipes, decorating with pumpkins, and even more pumpkins!

Pumpkin Week will end with a big finale on Friday September 18 with a pumpkin link party where everyone can link up their favorite pumpkin-themed links! Doesn’t that sound like fun???

Additionally, I’ll be pinning EVERY SINGLE POST at the linky party to my new “All Things Pumpkin” Pinterest board! That means more social media exposure for you!! Help me spread the word out to #pumpkinlovers 

Spread the word on Twitter:

Tweet: Visit Pumpkin Week Sept 14-18 at http://bit.ly/1C9bvrw ends with a #linkyparty on Sept 18 #pumpkinweek @LePetit_Macaron

Follow the new Pinterest board:
Follow Peonies & Orange Blossoms’s board All Things Pumpkin! on Pinterest.

I’m excited!! Are you??

sums up #pumpkinweek

I love pumpkins. I love decorating with them. I love pumpkin in everything… lattes, breads, cakes, soup, cookies, etc.  

I had to share these pretty displays from Roger’s Gardens this year. 

I wanted tons of pumpkins like this to come from my own garden. Sadly, 7/8 of my planted pumpkins have died. The last one is barely hanging on. 

You could place some pumpkins in a birdbath or outdoor pot to spruce the outdoors up with Fall!

Ok, so not a pumpkin, but how cute are these doggy topiaries? 

And these scary black cat topiaries! 

 I also love these blue pumpkins and the white pumpkins.  Some day soon when I move to the Central Valley of California (where everything grows like magic), I will plant my own pumpkin patch with all of these pumpkins! How fun would that be?!

Written at http://peoniesandorangeblossoms.blogspot.com

Linking up with these fabulous link parties: The Scoop!,  Inspire Me Tuesday, Wow us Wednesdays! What’s it Wednesdays, Centerpiece Wednesdays, Creative Ways,Tablescape Thursday, Treasure Hunt Thursday, Home Sweet Home , Feathered Nest Fridays,G’day Saturdays,

I love these owls made of natural material.  I have very slowly built this collection of owls.  This is several years in the making! 

This year though, I found the owls a new friend… a squirrel.  Of course there should be a squirrel searching for acorns in the “tree” that the owls are sitting on.

I think the owls are just the cutest.  I also like how they are not very in-your-face which is what I find a lot of Fall decor to be.

You can see now the squirrel sits at the end of the leaf branch.  

Linking up with these fabulous link parties: The Scoop!,  Inspire Me Tuesday, Wow us Wednesdays! What’s it Wednesdays, Centerpiece Wednesdays, Creative Ways,Tablescape Thursday, Treasure Hunt Thursday, Home Sweet Home , Feathered Nest Fridays,G’day Saturdays,


Written at http://peoniesandorangeblossoms.blogspot.com/

As I’ve been busy decorating for the season this year, I thought I would revisit some of my posts from last year.

Last year’s scary cat and pumpkin bear table.  

A beautifully decorated Fall doorway… just not my front door!

A look at Halloweentime at Disneyland 2013

The BEST pumpkin festival I’ve EVER been to in my whole life! Over 450,000 pumpkins!!

A Fall tablescape

I made pumpkin waffles

and a healthy Fall Harvest Salad

and I shared about antique Clapsaddle Halloween postcards.

I have other posts too, but frankly I’m a little embarrassed by my picture taking skills!  I’ve learned a lot about photography in one year, especially since I now have a Canon rebel.

Linking up with these fabulous link parties: The Scoop!,  Inspire Me Tuesday, Wow us Wednesdays! What’s it Wednesdays, Centerpiece Wednesdays, Creative Ways,Tablescape Thursday, Treasure Hunt Thursday, Home Sweet Home , Feathered Nest Fridays,G’day Saturdays,

Written at http://peoniesandorangeblossoms.blogspot.com/

I’ve started setting out my decorations for Fall!  I’m pretty excited about decorating for Fall this year.  As you can tell, I’ve updated my blog design this week to go with the change of seasons.  The pictures on my new blog design are from pumpkin festival I went to last year (except the velvet pumpkins). 

Here’s a quick little preview of what’s to come…

A new squirrel found its way inside

Pumpkins are popping up around the house…

Of course, I love love love my velvet pumpkins. These were the first things out of the box!

Perhaps I have a new Autumn arrangement?

beautiful sunflower

There will also be several Oktoberfest themed posts as the Oktoberfest starts later this month.

Oktoberfest

I’ve also started cooking up some Fall recipes…

Fall recipe preview

Be sure to keep checking back as I unveil what I’ve been doing recently!!

Linking up with these fabulous link parties: The Scoop!,  Inspire Me Tuesday, Wow us Wednesdays! 

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