Fall Forest Life and Crafty Christmas at Farm Girl Antiques

I have some photos to share with you guys from Farm Girl Antiques! My mom and I made it there last week, so there wasn't much Halloween left. I'm going to start with the vaguely Halloween/Autumn displays and move into Christmas. I think you guys will still enjoy the Christmas antiques, because there are some unique, funky items. You might also get inspired to decorate or craft something similar. So, we're starting off with one spooky owl. Those eyes! And it's a little creepy, if realistic, to see that this owl has caught dinner. 

This owl lamp is much less menacing.🦉

The owls here... um. If you think that middle owl in the painting is sleepy, check out the owl candle at the bottom. :) Oh, I just noticed there are more owls on that sugar canister. 

I like these mushrooms. 🍄 It looks like someone rolled some birch-looking material around them. 

These little ornaments look like pumpkins to me. 

This deer area was lit up so well. As I'm looking over these photos, I'm realizing how many forest-themed displays were there. 🦌

You can see a few of the old buildings in this neighborhood from the store windows. The Farm Girl building has large storefront windows going around it. You know, the ones with plenty of space to put displays back in the day. She's filled all these little nooks and crannies with mini displays. I think some of the more interesting finds are in these areas.

Here's a view facing the back of the store. You can see the old tin ceilings being revealed. I try to imagine what it once looked like in here. 

I think every Christmas tree in there had a different shape. Many, like this one, had twisty little branches. Maybe some of you will recognize these vintage ornaments. A few of them are classics. 🌲

I was so focused on these cute pinecone critters, that I didn't even notice the book underneath them. 

I wonder what That's Why is about?

We're entering the retro pink and turquoise Christmas section here. 

I like this rainbow wreath. I wouldn't have thought of transitioning color around a wreath, but I'd like to try it. Think of all the color combinations or different shades that could go around a wreath. 

I have a feeling this doll head was part of a Halloween display before. I may even be remembering it from previous years. I'd figured it was the hat that was for sale, but now I'm not sure if this is all one piece. 

Here's a closer look at that ceiling. I wonder what the purpose of that ceramic couple is? I can tell that they held something. They look sort of St. Patrick's Day themed to me. 

This gives sort of an idea of that window space. As you can see, it's pretty roomy in there. 

The string lights add something festive. I bet this place looks interesting at night. Or it could, anyway. It's not open to the public past 4 pm. 

That glittery Santa sign is similar to the deer sign by the entrance. Now I'm wishing that I would have touched one of the signs to see what they were made of. Probably some type of cardboard. I doubt those large signs are vintage, but they have a definite vintage look. A number of items in this store are vintage-inspired crafts. I noticed that the store's name online has been changed to Farm Girl Art & Antiques, so maybe she's going more in that direction. 

I see another one of those little velvet mushrooms here. I may even like them better in pink. It's looking like she took actual pieces of birch bark to make that stand. I'd thought the stands were wrapped in some kind of birch-looking paper before. 

I like all these reflective objects together. That clear glass under the trees looks almost like rippling water. There are actually a few details I didn't notice before, like that planter behind the ornament. There are so many creative uses for containers in this store. I think every tree is standing in something unusual. 

I feel inspired by this icicle box. I'm sure we all have some sort of wood box like this around. Adding some icicles to the front of it makes a perfect container for whatever winter decorations you'd like to put inside. I see ideas like this online all the time, where someone has designed a centerpiece with candles and some sort of foliage in a box. 

Leaving Farm Girl Antiques now... This building neighbors the antique store and I'm sharing a photo of it because I thought you'd all appreciate the architecture. Look at the date up top: 1883. Someone has kept this building in great shape. I looked up "Lamers Building" and found a bit of history provided by the Grove Gallery which now operates in this building: Lamers Building History

I'd remembered taking this light fixture photo about the same time I took the above pic. I'm not seeing this fixture anywhere on the building, though. I don't get it, because the brick and trim are the same. Where is this light hiding? Maybe there was a twin building next door that I forgot about. Anyway, pretty cool ironwork! Even the lightbulb looks twisty.

We visited the Layton Fruit Market on the way back. Like a lot of places now, it was decorated with a bit of fall and a bit of Christmas. I was happy to see some painted store windows, which I haven't seen in a while. 

How cute is this ghost? 

I'm feeling inspired by those planter designs, and might try something like that with some greenery and a bow this year.

In case you missed that toothy little pumpkin in the corner. :) 

This display has been inside the store for years. I wonder how old this horse and cart are? If anyone has any ideas about this in any way, I'd like to hear them. This is an Italian grocery store, so that's a bit of a clue. I'm going to assume this is an Italian antique. 

There's a mini horse and carriage at the bottom. I'm not sure if I even noticed that little guy while in the store. 

And I can't leave out these guys. :)

I hope you guys enjoyed the virtual antiquing! Maybe you even feel inspired to put together some similar displays? I'd be interested to know if you recognize any of the antiques. 

Old-Time Haunted House Makeovers

I spent this past Halloween doing something I had wanted to do for a long time. I'd been wanting to visit an older area of Milwaukee along Lake Michigan to see how the houses there look for Halloween. Some of them are probably over 100 years old. Part of what I like so much about this area is that the houses are all so different from one another. Photographing these houses on actual Halloween day was even more fun than expected!

These houses looked beautiful, especially with the colors of the fall leaves around them. Many of them are painted in blue and purple tones, which look great next to the orange leaves and pumpkins. You guys know I like those color combinations. So it was hard in a way to do what I had planned. But... I really wanted to change these photos from color to variations of black and white or sepia tone. I left just the tiniest bit of color in some of these. 

Now, the reasons I wanted to do this were: 

#1 The bare bones of these old houses look so sharp when you take the color away. The details really show up. 

#2 The houses look downright haunted in black and white or sepia 

#3 I wanted to imagine what earlier photos of these places looked like. Someone was bound to have taken a photo of their home back before color photography. 

#4 I wanted to do a combination of black and white and sepia for that antique store feel. If you've paged through a box of old photos in an antique store, you know what I mean. I wanted this blog post to feel like you found a box of old haunted house photos in an antique store and are paging through them.

Many of these places don't look super haunted in color, although a few do. I'm sure a few of the home owners would look at these photos and say "When did my house get so spooky?"

This one turned out more antique looking than most of the others. In part, because of all those white sun spots, dust particles, etc.

There will be some little Halloween details in some of these. Check out the front porch. I'd thought that was an actual woman at first.

I really like the wood gingerbread details on some of these houses. The more I look at this house, the more I'm seeing different shapes that I didn't see before. 

This may be one of my favorite houses out of the bunch. 

To add to the vintage feel, some of those large paper/cardstock cut-out monster heads are in the windows. You know, the ones that are variations on the Universal type monsters. They're probably from the 1980s. Those decorations are really new next to the houses, but they're still technically "vintage". 

After I took these next two photos, I was thinking how the houses were somewhat similar. But the more I look, the more I see a lot of differences. The first one reminds me of a stacked layer-cake. 

This one has more rounded features. 

Here's a close view of the porch on the house above. I liked that little bit of orange left in the pumpkins. I've never learned how to leave one element of a photo in color while the rest is in black and white. So the subtle orange is just a bit of luck as I was slowly desaturating this one of color.

How cool is this skull in black and white? 

Love, love, love this one. Those long pieces of drift wood (?) at the bottom are almost reaching up on the house like a hand.

This is a closer view of the house above, but it looks different since I left a bit of blue. 

This is one of a few photos that actually gave me the creeps. There's something funny about being scared by a photo you took yourself. Some of these gave me the chills as I watched the color slip away. Maybe it's the tree? I feel like this house has a personality and is looking back at me. Does this feel like a confrontational house to you too?

This looks like a pretty nice-sized balcony to hang out on!

I was so concentrating on getting some extreme angles with the hill leading up to this house, that I didn't even observe much of the house itself. Now that I'm looking at it, this place is pretty much all windows along the front. I bet the light inside is outstanding! Imagine all the plants you could be growing by those windows. Neat shaped windows too. I like this house. What do you think? 1920s or 30s?

A toothy doorway and a bunch of rambunctious skeletons playing on the railing.

Great sunroom on the second story, hey? I bet that's a warm, welcoming place to hang out on a winter day.

I like the super subtle blend of color on this one. I think that gargoyle is cute, at least at first. The more I'm staring at it, the more he's looking alive. 

This house was already pretty much black and gray, so I barely had to take the color away. Because of that, the few colorful details show up. How about that fake political sign? "There is no Dana, only Zuul"

This is another one of those houses that feels like it's giving eye connection, especially from that middle room on the second story.

I have a feeling this place used to be a corner store, or maybe even a restaurant or tavern. It definitely wasn't all living space, as it appears to be now. It might seem strange after seeing the others, but this is one of the few that gives me the creeps. I'm going to have to look up the address and see if I can find the original history of this building. I'd like to see some early photos of it, because I can see a number of recent updates have been made, like the windows and trim.

Here's a friendly house, and another lucky photo where the pumpkins stayed a little orange.

You can't beat this. It practically comes with a face!

I was really happy with a lot of the angles I captured. Some of these places look pretty imposing with the tilt of my camera. 

This reminds me of an old schoolhouse, but maybe that little free library in front is influencing me.

This is one of my favorite photos. Just add a few pumpkins to the fence post tops and it's perfect. :)

Do you think a dentist lives here? We have the teeth, one skeleton holding a toothbrush, and the other holding a dental pick. I get a kick out of the eyes in the window.

I like the way the reflections of the trees showed up in the windows. Those reflections weren't even that noticeable before I shifted this to black and white. As I slowly moved the color out of this, the windows began to pop.

Nice fade from black to curtains in those bottom windows!

I'll end with another gingerbread feature. This scrolled detail was actually bright orange, the house was purple, and the trim/roof was black. It was a beautiful Halloween house year-round. 

So what do you guys think? Do you have any favorite houses here or do any of them look particularly haunted to you? The more I stared at some of these photos, the more I decided I didn't need to be staring that long. If you know what I mean! 👀 I was freaking myself out.