Outdoors Indoors

Well there's a pretty significant ground frost this morning, and it has prompted me to take the wee man out to the park to collect leaves while we still can, that is, after I've completed my rule of five post alcohol tea drinking ritual - cup number four currently being sank. Hopefully the frost will have cleared and we'll be able to gather up a few good Autumn leaves to bring back home to use as Halloween decorations. It's perfectly acceptable to bring evergreens into the house at Christmas time, and I don't see why autumn should be any different. You can help make leaves and berries last longer a number of ways; glossed over with a glue and water mix, painted or simply doused with a bit of hair spray. Some interesting twigs, conkers, pine cones and even stones can help make attractive centre pieces, stair runners or fire place toppers. When I made my sister's wedding cake last October I even used sugared leaves as part of the decorations, all you need to do is ensure that they are clean and free of wee beasties.

Another form of decoration I'll be putting up over the next few days, comes courtesy of my friend Sara Love. I was DJing at a Halloween Hoedown last year and Sara had run up some home made bunting for the event. It's such a simple idea and one that can be adapted to so many different kinds occasions, using various colours and materials. But as I've mentioned before, when it comes to Halloween, the tattier the better, so I'll be using string and scraps of old worn material in browns, greys, oranges, dark greens and purples to construct mine.

Finally, and the wee man deserves credit for this, is the transformation of our windows into spooky stained glass. Last year when we received one of the mandatory Quality Street tins for Christmas, Damien insisted on keeping all the sweet wrappers for crafts. Shuggie discovered them this morning and has been sticking them to the window and they don't look too bad. I think we'll arrange them properly along with some ghost, bat, pumpkin and witch cut outs for added effect.



Top Image: Catherine Hadler / FreeDigitalPhotos.net