Visions Of A Ghostly Soirée

I was going to write a wee more about Charleston today, but with the Trick-or

Treaters coming next week and with the weather here in Nashville cold and rainy it’s actually starting to feel a lot like Halloween!

All Pictures Courtesy of Carolyne Roehm

This is our first Halloween in our neighborhood and we have heard through all of our neighbors that we will be swamped with kids. This is great news, especially after last year, I bought several bags of candy, the good stuff too, and not one single kid--I gained five pounds (where are those kids when you want them). The hubby and I are going out of town next week and we decided to stay over Halloween so we could pass out candy and perhaps have a few neighbors over for cocktails and appetizers. So with all that, I’ve been thinking of maybe doing just a few little extra touches. Just a few!

What comes to my mind is Carolyne Roehm’s “ Spooky Soirée” that she did for her book A Passion For Parties. I know I won’t be able to do this next week, but I love it! (When I love something I always store it away) I love absolutely everything she did in order to create her soiree, excellent color choices, not your typical black and orange, the candelabra with black candles and the cute black widow spider cakes! Plus, to me the party is kid friendly but also sophisticated for adults. She said she was inspired by a Charles Dickens’s novel-- Great Expectation -- Miss Havisham’s decaying banquet room.

Love everything!

Cute black widow spider cakes!

I highly admired Carolyne Roehm for her creative talent, hard work, excellent taste, and, most importantly, her passion. You can tell she truly loves what she is doing. All her books are well-designed, filled with beautiful photos and lots of inspiration. One of her first books that I picked up was her Summer Notebook; next came, At Home with Carolyne Roehm; then, A Passion for Flowers. Also, I bought A Passion for flowers for Cruella last year for Xmas. When Cruella is not busy antiquing, she tends to live in her garden from early March until mid-May, so I thought this would be most fitting!

A few months ago for my husband’s birthday, which was on Labor Day, I did a BBQ type theme. One of the things I used were the mason jars for tea -which I had seen in At Home With Carolyne Roehm. Everyone thought I was clever. I said no, I just know the best books to use!