September Decor and Party

By all these lovely tokens

September days are here

With summer's best of weather

And autumn's best of cheer.

~Helen Hunt Jackson

Most people I know start decorating with leaves and pumpkins in September. Not me. I know that the months of October and November will be a blaze of fall foliage and fruits, and that Christmas will round out the year with vibrant red, green, and gold. For September I choose to take a breath, a peaceful pause before the flurry of the holidays. And so I decorate with a soothing monochromatic color scheme. 

The tiered shelf above plays into lots of my decorated through the year. I simply go through the house and scavenge things that give me the feeling that I want to create. Not ONE single item has been bought to decorate. They are simply things I already have. The mother of pearl opera glasses were a gift from my pop. What looks like a black rattle is my great-great granny's darning egg. The frames hold pictures of my great granny and grandma.

For my table I indulged in a long cherished wish. I wanted a runner made of old book pages, but I am completely averse to tearing up books! I found some that were literally falling from their binding, as well as an old encyclopedia that had been stored out in the damp and was mostly ruined. I took all my favorite pages and sprayed them with spray glue and affixed them to a length of paper from a roll. Voila, my longed for table-runner!

The candlesticks are turned wood and were handed down from my other great-great grandmother.

My middle son found this great arched top spring-form in the dumpster behind his work. It is perfect to pin up old photos of people whose family has forgotten them. I have been a sucker for "lost ancestors" since I was a kid and would buy them by the box at auctions. I just think someone should love them.

The ornate metal piece is actually a zinc pediment that capped an old column. My moma gave it to me for a birthday. I nestled a vase of dried flower and seed pods behind for an arrangement.

I was feeling the nip in the air at my last gathering and whipped up some molasses cookies and pumpkin bread with a nutmeg and vanilla bean buttercream frosting. We had these with hot buttered apple cider!

Soon enough the house will be in festive color, but for now I am enjoying my visions of calm in the newly cool days of fall...

"Summer's lease hath all too short a date..." ~ Shakespeare