Afternoon Tea

I love any excuse to have friends over and to use my flying turkey dishes, and a Saturday afternoon tea seemed to achieve both ends. It was a gorgeous day, with plenty of warm sunlight streaming through my living room windows. Since Halloween was just around the corner, I used my existing Halloween decor to complement a menu inspired by fall flavors.

The table all set for tea. You can see the gorgeous sunlight pouring through the windows, warming the entire room!

I hand-wrote invitations, using stationery from a supply that overflows a drawer of my console. (I'm very guilty of always buying stationery and never actually writing anything by hand.) I rummaged through my hutch and cabinets to find all the serving pieces I would need to make a pretty tabletop display, so no special purchases needed. 

The Menu: 

• Pound cake with vanilla honey butter and pumpkin butter
• Ginger-molasses cookies
• Cinnamon-chip scones with maple glaze
• Pumpkin mini-cupcakes with cream cheese frosting
• Pumpkin blondies with caramel filling (find the recipe at Tasty Kitchen)

Of course, a tea party is not a tea party without tea. Aveda's Comfort Tea is a fantastic brew for the tea-averse. It's naturally sweet with a hint of peppermint, and therefore doesn't require sugar or milk. Another pantry staple is Earl Grey; a traditional black tea whose flavors work beautifully with the spicy sweetness of the tea treats. To change things up, I also brewed a batch of my Southern sweet iced tea, using Tazo Wild Sweet Orange tea as the base. 

To make space for teacups, saucers, stemware, and the teas, I pressed my living room console table into service. I covered the potholders used to protect the surface of the console from heat with a square of black velveteen used in my Halloween decor. It's probably a little un-chic to use silver teakettles and not teapots for service, but the silver finish of the kettles did work well with my silver mercury-glass votives, candlesticks, and painted pumpkins!

Achieving Creepy While Avoiding the Cheesy

I love Fall, and really love Halloween. The old tales of All Hallows swirl in my head, conjuring up images of ancient feasts, consuming fires, dry leaves blowing free of their branches, and mystery lurking at every nightfall. There is so much inspiration around every corner....the creak of wind against the windowpanes, lengthening shadows, harvest moonlight, and an abundance of harvest produce. 

Unfortunately, so many commercially-made items for Halloween teeter on the abyss of tacky. While day-glo orange plastic jack-o-lanterns are great for trick-or-treating and large black plastic spiders do their job admirably, my tastes are a little more subtle. 

So when I moved into my current apartment, I wanted to find sophisticated and spooky decor that reflected my love of the holiday. Below are some of my favorite finds:

 Ravens. It's amazing how a few well-placed ravens can lend to an eerie atmosphere. I found these specimens at a Michael's store a few years ago for only a few dollars apiece. They perch at the top of my hutch, on top of a lamp, or in the arms of my chandelier.

Cheesecloth. Instead of using the spider webbing found at almost any discount store, I shred cheesecloth to make my own old-fashioned webs. I like the finished product better, and I drape it everywhere: the tops of bookcases, mirrors, picture frames, lampshades, etc.

 
Pumpkins. It doesn't matter their color, shape, or size; natural or faux; I place pumpkins all over my apartment. I have gorgeous cream-colored wax pumpkins from Pottery Barn on my kitchen shelves. I found silver pumpkins at Michael's and placed them on my ever-present silver candlesticks (below). In past years I've glittered pie pumpkins in purple and black. And of course I always pick one perfect specimen for carving (like last year's jack-o-lantern, above).
 
Bones. I found some cheap plastic skeletons at Oriental Trading Company a few years ago for our annual Halloween party. Inspired by a project in Martha Stewart Living, I glittered a few of the bones and presented them on a big silver platter. Add a few mercury glass votives, and voila! Instant display.


Lanterns. Flickering candlelight creates perfect ambiance every time. I have a few black metal lanterns and I place black pillar candles inside them. There's something about the complete darkness of the lantern and candle illuminated only by a flame that looks so wonderfully spooky.

 



Feather wreaths. While not a find per se, they are one of my favorite Halloween decorations. I had to make these wreaths myself because the inspiration for them was way too expensive. I wrapped wire wreath forms with inexpensive feather boas (easy to find in the costume section at discount stores!) and topped it all off with orange ribbon. They look great hanging in my living room windows, and even look a little creepy when the radiators are blowing the feathers about.

Pumpkins of Halloweens Past

With a linoleum cutter set (found at any art supply store), an awl (even a long needle will do), an image to transfer, and a little bit of patience, almost any image can be carved into a pumpkin! Below are some of my tried-and-true tips for amazing pumpkins, but here are a few samples from years past...enjoy!

Pumpkins carved for a Harry Potter-themed Halloween party a couple of years ago

A pumpkin carved for a contest at my old job...this one earned second place, good enough for a large gift bag full of Martha Stewart goodies!

Pumpkins I carved for last year's 80's themed Halloween party.

Obviously Michael Jackson's Thriller was a huge inspiration for the pumpkins!

As promised, here are some of the things I've learned in the last few years to make the pumpkin-carving process less daunting: 

• Prep your space. Always lay down plenty of newspaper to make clean-up easy.
• Carve under good light. Natural light, or at least bright overhead lighting, will make carving intricate details much easier. 
• Print out your carving image. Use your computer's photo-editing functionality to make the image negative or "inverted", and print in grayscale. That image negative will help you determine exactly how deep to carve. For example, light skin tones on a photo will appear black, signifying that you need to cut almost through the wall of the pumpkin to achieve a lighter (brighter) image when the pumpkin is lit.
• Use what you have on-hand. Masking tape will hold the image onto the pumpkin just fine, and even attach a sewing needle to a ball-point pen or dowel rod to serve as a makeshift awl. A cereal bowl serves as a great pedestal for the pumpkin while carving, keeping it securely balanced. A cheap scoop from a pumpkin-carving kit or a soup spoon is all you need to hollow out the pumpkin.
• Cut the bottom off of the pumpkin. This is really the best way to keep a great stem intact, prevent the lid from falling into the pumpkin as it dries out, and to make lighting a cinch.
• To get down to transferring the image and carving the pumpkin:
• Use a kitchen knife to carve a good-sized hole into the bottom of a pumpkin. It should be large enough to accommodate your hand so cleaning is easy.
• Clean out the pumpkin, making sure to get rid of all hanging strands and seeds. I also try to get the top-most layer of the pumpkin flesh scraped out, in order to make the lighted image brighter.
• Trim your printed image down to a half-inch border all around, and use masking tape to adhere it to the pumpkin. 
• Transfer the image to the pumpkin by using an awl or needle to create hundreds of tiny holes on the surface of the pumpkin. Don't be intimidated by the complicated pattern you see upon removing the paper from the pumpkin! 
• Using the original image as your guide, use the linoleum cutters to gouge out the skin of the pumpkin. I recommend starting with the largest areas first, and then working down to the smaller detail. Try to gauge how deep to cut into the flesh using the negative image. The white areas on the image should be left uncarved; the black areas should have the most flesh removed. However, make sure that you don't carve all the way through the wall of the pumpkin!

• Check your progress in the dark. Keep a votive or pillar candle on hand so that you can periodically check your work. Once you're happy with your carving, or to make sure you're on track, turn out the lights and place the pumpkin on the lit candle. It'll help you see what areas need more work. 
• Make your image brighter...fast. If you're pleased with the carved image but want it to be brighter, it's much faster to scrape out more flesh on the inside of the pumpkin than on the outside. Scrape carefully, layer by layer, checking the image in the dark, until you achieve the desired brightness. 
• Go beyond candles for lighting. Although a flickering candle is eerie in a jack-o-lantern, twinkle lights can be just as effective (and a lot safer). Just wrap a string of 50 twinkle lights around an empty jar, plug in, and voila!