October's cottage living room...

It was a beautiful day in New England today as the sun made a triumphant return after the weekend's first mini snowfall... October has visited the living room in the form of "lamp bandit" in the window, "Ratty" in the birdcage, and a cottage pumpkin on the c0ffee table.

(click any photos to enlarge)

While Spotty lounged on the sofa, I 'tweaked' a bit more...


I decided that the big vase of roses on top of the pie safe was just too much in between the lamps. I love the vintage mirror that we attached to the top of the pie safe, and the roses blocked too much of it...


There... I think this is better. It's less cluttered and shows off more of the mirror, which in turn opens up the room...


The vase of roses has been replaced by a small green music box that plays Evergreen... ("Love, soft as an easy chair"... I love the lyrics to that song!).


One of my shabby stuffed pumpkins from Ronda's Tempting Textiles sits in the tray on the trunk...


...atop a small sampling of the many Halloween and/or spooky books I read to the girls when they were little (are they really both in their twenties now??? Talk about spooky!)

Wishing you all happy October memories-in-the-making!!!

Donna

Books that go bump in the night...

Not literally, of course, but I do love the girls' old spooky and/or Halloween books!

So I pulled them out of the bookcase today, browsed through them, and reminisced a bit...


Some of them were bought through the school (I think I used to get more excited about the Scholastic or Troll order forms coming home than the girls did!)...


Or sometimes we'd find a favorite at the library and then purchase a copy for ourselves. (Exception: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow with the incredible Will Moses illustrations was a more recent purchase - for me!)


These all bring back such great memories of reading to the girls, either curled up on the couch or hunkered down under the covers in bed...


And then they grew up and had sleepovers and read stories to each other and their friends from books like these!! Whoooooooo!!!! Anyhow, since it is Halloween month, and since I do love children's books, I thought I'd share some of our favorites with you... I hope you all have a frightfully fun time reading some of your own favorites!

Donna