Fall Fun

It has been awhile since I have posted a blog entry. Life got in the way. Work seems to perpetually pour from my pores. This summer included attendance at two conferences, some small family trips, and very little time at home. Now the summer is concluding and here we are with Fall fast approaching. So this week we have been cleaning out our apartment and putting our lives back in order.

This morning I decorated our hallway tree. Yes, originally it was a Christmas tree purchased many years ago. Now it is a permanent fixture in our hall. It had American flags on it for the 4th of July. I had intended to put sunglasses on it for summer. But that never materialized. It feels good to have it decorated again today. Acorns, pinecones, fall leaves now mix in with the evergreen branches. Looking forward to the preparations for Halloween. That decorating "magic" is back in my spirit. Check back in a few more weeks to see what we "conjure" up for the festivities.

Teal Pumpkin Project

I usually blog about decorations, party decor, etc after the event takes place. Normally, I don't want to ruin the surprise for my friends. But I came across something on the Internet that I need to share. Have you heard

of the Teal Pumpkin Project? You might want to consider adding a teal colored pumpkin to your Halloween decorating. Why a teal colored pumpkin? It is the color of food allergy awareness. FARE - Food Allergy Research & Education is suggesting that to make Halloween safer for little trick-or-treaters perhaps families would be good enough to have a non-edible option too to distribute in addition to the usual candy fare. So many children today have allergies: nuts, soy, milk, sugar, and more. Should these children need to miss out on Trick-or-Treat experience? No, let's put out a teal pumpkin - letting parents know there is a non-food option at your house. Post a sign: http://www.foodallergy.org/document.doc?id=352 so that children know that your house will be safer for them.
For more information you can visit: http://www.foodallergy.org/teal-pumpkin-project 
What an amazing idea! I had to blog about this to help spread the word. Will you have a Teal Pumpkin out this Halloween? I will. I already purchased some Halloween sized containers of Play Doh.

"MARVEL"-ous Halloween

The summer seemed to speed past our eyes quicker than the speed of light (fading daylight apparently that is). The warm summer days give way to cool autumn nights. As we dig out the blankets, jackets, urgh real shoes, it is time to admit that Fall is upon us. I loathe saying goodbye to flip-flops (well at work anyway). They still adorn my feet for grocery getting. But still my more rational side must admit - It's Fall.

Fete Avec Moi

The few highlights of the Fall are the return of pumpkin infused everything! Muffins, donuts, coffee, even macaroni and cheese, and pancakes now get a little touch of pumpkin. Bring on the yum. And once I begin enjoying the Halloween Captain Crunch, you know it is time to begin thinking about Halloween. Well for normal people. I've been thinking about Halloween since the early summer. Deciding on our costume theme takes priority. Then that leads to our decoration theme. And then that leads to our Halloween theme. And voila the magic begins.
I was a good girl for the neighbors. I decorated just the upstairs hallway at the beginning of October. I didn't go marching in all barrels blazing with festivities. But now that it is time, yep I had fun.

Fete Avec Moi

Fete Avec Moi

The second weekend in October was the perfect spot on the calendar to break out this year's decorations for the front walkway. My husband teases me that if I do this much with just an apartment stoop and walkway, things will probably be quite amazing when we have storage and decoration real estate.  So since we are dressing as characters from The X-men I started planning X-men themed ideas. But then somewhere along the way I remembered wait X-men started as that great MARVEL comic book series that i loved.

So MARVEL lead me to super heroes. Which had me tie blue and yellow (wolverine colors) with masks and capes and then the web searches began. So during the summer the hunt for MARVEL (no I'm specific not DC - so no Superman, no Wonder Woman, no Batman, etc.) kids costumes began. I had this picture in my mind of several costumes hanging on the front step railings. I wanted child sized costumes as I didn't want them to be too scary for neighborhood children.

Walmart has a great selection of children's dress up clothes (wasn't really costume season yet). But if you get creative and explore the Clearance racks, you will be surprised what you can find. I found a Spiderman mask and pant set on sale for $6.00 in the clearance bin. It was missing the shirt but okay. So while visiting a friend in Pennsylvania I found a red shirt. Outfit complete. At the BigLots in CT I found an ironman costume. In Vermont on vacation I found a few more decorations. On a weekend away we visited the PEZ tourist center. Guess what they had? MARVEL Pez dispensers. Of course we had to snap them up for prizes. On the drive home we stopped at a Christmas Tree Store and found an Incredible Hulk costume. Then it was time to wait. Search online. Complete our costumes. Curate ideas for our annual Halloween fun.

Fete Avec Moi

Then finally after sitting on my hands long enough this past weekend it was time to decorate. In my searches I found several adorable pictures of wall art scenes that could be used for photo-ops. My friends seem to really enjoy participating with these when they are visiting. So I just had to recreate something similar as: sample one and sample two for our hallway.

After Halloween of course I will have more to share. But I don't want to ruin all the fun for our guests. Hope you will check back after Halloween to see the additional updates.

Black and White and Yummy

Just settling down after our Pre-Halloween festivities. It was a fun day. Love when friends gather and provide feedback that makes my party planning and effort so worth while. Love all the oohs and ahhs as friends and family look around. So here's a little recap of the festivities.

As was mentioned in an earlier blog post, we went with a black and white theme inspired by Edgar Allan Poe and The Raven. Little touches here and there that pulled it all together.

Let's begin with today's menu.

Appetizers - J.Shields

Appetizers:

Cheese and grapes (simple fair presliced cheese and grapes)

Lemon Pepper Cheese Balls (a mix of alouette and cream cheese with lemon pepper rolled into balls)

Roasted Red Pepper Hearts (marinated roasted peppers cut in half)

Main Course:

Main Course Table - J.Shields

Black Bean Salad

• Black beans
• Cannelini beans
• Safflower oil
• Vinegar
• Salt
• Lemon Pepper
• Artificial Sweetner
  

  Refrigerate overnight

Tell-Tale Heart Salad

• Romaine Hearts
• Roasted Red Peppers
• Mozzarella balls
• Hearts of Palm
• Artichoke hearts
• Cranberry vinegrette

Raven Wings

Was going to cheat and order wings. Realized they may cause a health issue for a family member due to an allergy. So I made them from scratch.

Saute oil and minced onion

Braise chicken wings in the oil

Season with seasalt and lemon pepper

Prepare BBQ sauce (oil, minced onion, garlic pepper, brown sugar splenda, apricot jam, pomegranate jam, ketchup and white wine vinegar.)

After sauting add to the BBQ sauce and boil.

Refrigerated the wings overnight. The day of the party I simmered the wings in the sauce in a crockpot to serve warm.

Black and White Pasta

• L'Antica Madia Farfalle (black and white striped)
• Alfredo sauce
• Tomato sauce

Backbone Sandwiches

• Turkey sandwich roll-ups ordered from Costco

[insert picture of food table]

Desserts:

Oreos (black and white of course)

Cupcakes orders ½ chocolate with white icing and ½ yellow with chocolate icing

Candy Buffet (mounds, ghost peeps, blood orange dots, tootsie rolls, hershey bars, hershey cookie and cream bars, mints, chocolate eyes, tootsie roll minipops, and black and white lollipops)

Lady fingers

Soon I will have another post with some of the decorations and other preparations. But after all the festivities, I am a bit overtired. Time for a rest.

Sophisticated Halloween

August Inspiration - FeteAvecMoi

This summer while on vacation my mind wandered towards what will this year's Halloween theme be for 2012. I knew what our costumes would be. [No spoilers]. Didn't want to decorate the apartment in that theme exactly. But hoped for decorations that would pair well. While shopping with my mother in late August, I found these great plates.

Inspiration found, August 24th. Care to eavesdrop on my internal monologue? It went something like this: moons, haunted houses, black, black and white, bats... no...crows...no ravens.... The Raven... Nevermore... Poe... Eureka! I always marvel at how the brain works. In my 80's raised brain, I hear that old tune, "Connect the dots la,la,la".

The Raven Inspired - FeteAvecMoi

So I started collecting. I saw a white pumpkin on a TV show. Hmmm black and white pumpkins would be cool. Visited our local Michael's Arts and Crafts, http://www.michaels.com and purchased some. At a dollar store I found black and white garlands. At another dollar store I found black ravens. Building, building. Thinking, thinking. Planning, planning.

At a local Marshall's, I found faux book boxes. Love those! So this led to a thought of going vintage.  Of course now my online crawling began. Black, ravens, natural, classic. Ideas swirled in my head.

 I found this adorable display. So very cute. I had to borrow this idea. I decided to just make three. Each carrying a trick-or-treat bag. Labelled one "Trick", one "Or" and one "Treat". Ordered baby sneakers and 18 month old jeans from Walmart. Yes, please bring Halloween decorations and deliver them to me. Lol. I cut a small hole in the jeans seat. Ran old flag poles down through the jeans into the hook on the back of the sneakers. At PartyCity, I found these hanging ghost decorations. They have a dual sytrofoam tube under the heads. Perfect to slip into jeans. Tied underneath with pipecleaners to hold together and form hands to hold the bags. I believe they are simply adorable.

I also found a Nevermore wall cling on Etsy from VinylDecalOutlet. Definitely, had to have. I also found some black feather hair accessories. Broke them off and added them to the wall cling.

As I shop in all the Halloween decorations available in stores I have this theme in mind. While away at the Montgomery, NY car show I purchased a few magazines. Curled up to relax and marveled at all the ideas on the same theme. Only thing I found that I liked was the concept of using a chalkboard and chalk. White on black. Simple. Elegant if you can print nicely. I learned calligraphy as a summer activity one year in highschool. Turn the pages quickly. Scan for ideas.  The rest of the decoration ideas, I either had, didn't want, or had better. Guess shopping early all the way back in August helps.

Now, September progresses and each night I plan a little more. I found a pillow on Etsy with a raven that said “Nevermore”. But it sadly had already sold. But it gave me the idea. I searched online for an interesting photo of Edgar Allan Poe. I landed upon this one. I printed it out on paper. I traced on a dollar store pillow case. I colored in with a permanent marker. I slipped it over an old pillow and now have an adorable decoration for the apartment.

My web-searches brought me to this fabulous decoration. I bought 20 black and white masks for $.99 each. I had every intention of making this wreath for our door. But as I saw them laid out on the table I realized they would look more interesting as a garland. So I stapled them end to end and added black and white ribbon curls. Now they adorn our stairway railing leading up to the apartment.

More photos will come after Halloween. I don't want to give EVERYTHING away before my friends get to stop by for coffee or something more...

But here is a before and after of our front steps:

Before Decorating -FeteAvecMoi

After Decorating - FeteAvecMoi

After Decorating the Walkway - FeteAvecMoi

Garlic Onion Chicken Soup

Today is first weekend in October. Time to accept that the Fall Season is truly here. Started the afternoon with some Halloween decorating. [Blog post to come soon on this topic.] Settled in with some pumpkin coffee and some Nook magazines. Dinner was the remainder of a rotisserie chicken purchased earlier in the week, some mashed potatoes, and broccoli.  Than I had an idea. Why not make some nice chicken soup for next week?! Placed my minced onion and safflower oil (my new favorite) in the pot. Tossed in my chicken left overs. Reached for my chicken broth (I usually have on my shelf). Small problem, no broth container waiting for me. Urgh, time to restock the shelves with stock. But I did find the last half on envelope of Onion soup mix from the last time I made dip. Well worth a try...  Added water. Cooked away. Added minced garlic, cinnamon, Herbs de Provence, lemon pepper, and garlic pepper. The apartment was quickly filled with the most delicious aromas. Another light bulb lit over my head. I have Ronzoni Pasta Portions (small servings of pasta in 3 minute boil in bags). I added a bag to the soup. Let it cook for 3 minutes, covered. Removed the lid and enjoyed the sweet spicy smells. Drained the pasta and added it to the soup. Yummy, I admit. Felt I needed to share my discovery. Grabbed my camera phone and clicked a quick picture so I could add this to my blog. Hope someone else enjoys this tip when you don't have chicken stock readily available.