speaking of vintage halloween...

Check out these vintage Halloween photos circa 1989 and 1987 (or somewhere around there):

Pettus tradition: dressing as black-eyed-peas for Halloween.

Funny, I was almost Rainbow Brite this year, too...

happy halloween!

Somehow, (although I'm not really sure how...) I turned into a big fan of Halloween. I loved this vintage Halloween print that I found at Snippet & Ink. Too cute, right?

[image found via Snippet & Ink]

autumn in new york city

not too shabby, huh? I snapped these pics on my walk home through Central Park yesterday afternoon. Apparently, the island of Manhattan somehow maintains its own climate which creates a difference in the weather patterns, like delaying the peak time for fall foliage. I'm not really sure what all of that means (or if it's even true...), but it's worth the wait for this!

paste art

If you like art, you will love this lady! I met Denise from Paste today at my office. She came over to bring the bulldog print and I fell in love with her stuff. She takes vintage book pages and collages them together to make these images. How brilliant! Coincidentally, I had seen an ad for her in House Beautiful this month, earmarked the page, and then totally forgot to check out her website. And who would have thought that I would get the chance to meet her? She was a lovely lady with especially lovely art!

[I chose a few of my favorites...which you can tell, are quite a few!]

fall dinner party

One thing I love about fall is that it just makes you feel like cozying inside with friends, making a homecooked meal for dinner, and gazing out the windows at the beautiful fall foliage (that is, if you live in the suburbs, I guess.) But, as a city-dweller, we can at least take advantage of the first two. And this past weekend, I did!

I tried to construct a menu that consisted of all things fall. Here are the recipes I used:

Hot Caramel Apple Cider (yields 12 ounces)

1 1/2 cups of apple cider

1 1/2 tablespoons caramel sauce (I used the stuff that is used for ice cream sundae toppings)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Combine apple cider, caramel, and vanilla into a sauce pan. Heat over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until apple cider is hot and caramel has melted. (Be careful, it gets REALLY hot!) Pretty simple, huh? And very delicious!

Cowboy Stew (courtesy of my good friend-chef, Caylen)

1 onion

1 red bell pepper

1 green bell pepper

1 lb ground beef

1 lb sausage

1 lb mexican velveeta cheese

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp. garlic salt

1/2 tsp. cumin

And, 1 can of each:

Black beans

Kidney beans (I used Pinto beans in place of this... because I like them better)

Rotel tomatoes

Stewed tomatoes

Corn

Chop veggies into small bite-sized pieces and saute in 2 tsp. olive oil until soft. Brown the meat, then add the veggies. Cut velveeta into chunks and melt into beans and meat, then add spices. Simmer until heated through. (Basically, I just cooked and opened everything and then poured it all together in a huge pot!) And believe me, it will feed an army!

I might have shared the recipe for these here before, but I'll share them again because they're that good!

Garlic Cheese Biscuits

2 cups buttermilk baking mix

2/3 cup milk

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Combine all ingredients until soft dough forms. Drop dough by heaping tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 450 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes or until golden brown.

1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted

1/3 teaspoon garlic powder

Combine ingredients. Brush on warm biscuits before removing from cookie sheet.

A nice, not-especially-fallish salad (everything can't be fall-esque, I guess). Katherine majorly contributed to this, and Brendan got the cranberries and walnuts. The salad was his creation...too bad I forgot to snap a picture of it.

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes by Maggie (get her recipe here!) They taste as good as they look!

And, a delicious Pumpkin Crumple made by Ann-Marie (and I think Jon did the crumple on top). I don't have the recipe for this, or a picture, yet. But believe me, you'll want to add it to your recipe box as soon as I get it!

color invasion this year

You might remember me attending an event last year that was right up my alley, called Color Invasion? Can you possibly think of an event name that I'd be more excited about?! And I've been lucky enough to attend Color Invasion, one of the biggest interior design industry-wide events in New York City, for the past 3 years now! Last Thursday night I met up with LA and some old coworkers and enjoyed one of the most fun parties of the year. The theme this year was nurse & doctor, so I opted out of costume the part. But I did wear scrubs-green.

Meg, me and LeeAnne reuniting.

I have more pictures, from the official Color Invasion photographer, to post later but I was made to promise that I wouldn't post them anywhere yet. More to come.

perfectly imperfect

Call me crazy, but I think this easel with paint splatters and spills already on it is brilliant. Of course, Anthropologie thinks of everything. It's like buying jeans with the holes already in the knee! Except buying hole-y jeans is a little more reasonable than this beautiful pre-splattered easel for $2100...

geezie peezie

If this blog were a picture frame, it would be covered in dust at least an inch thick. These days it seems that I can hardly account for the date or day of the week, where the hours in my days are going, or what happened to summer, much less an organized thought to put into a random blog post. However, hopefully that will change soon! I have so many thoughts for inspiration and great blog posts running around in my head, they just haven't made it to real life yet (and, when they do, some may be a little belated). But now that it's fall and I'm starting to prepare for hibernation mode in the coming months, I'm also preparing to be a better blogger again. Stay tuned!

she's heeeere!

My mom is in town, and we've been having a blast hitting the city together! She shopped with me at the D&D for two days, met me for lunch, went grocery shopping with me at the new Trader Joe's in my neighborhood, and helped me to recover the seat of a street find (blog post on that coming later!). And! She's not leaving until Wednesday so there's even more fun to come. I'm heading out to New Jersey tomorrow to have some family fun time. The weather is cooling down and fall is here, so hopefully beautiful outdoor adventures will be in our scope.