Falling for Fall… I do this Every Year!

There is no doubt – fall is my favorite season. As Editor at Large with Southern Living, I have the privilege of contributing fun stories and ideas to the magazine as a whole, but my fall stories seem to always make the newsstands! I’ve said it over and over and this mantra of mine is worth repeating: “Fall is a Southerner’s reward for surviving summer.” I’ve even seen this printed on a cocktail napkin – thanks y’all for the advertising!

So as y’all peruse the pages of the October Southern Living, I’d love to walk y’all through some of the fun from behind the scenes that didn’t make the cut – as if me and my uber stylish outfit weren’t cute enough for the pages of SL… ha! From the cracker-jack team of my BFF Jess “Frou Frou” Margeson, Stacey and Laura Lyn from JFI to the senior stylist Mrs. Buffy Hargett Miller herself to editor Jen Kopf and photographer extraordinaire Helen Norman (who has photographed A Time to Cook and Porch Living), we managed to somehow not only set, style and shoot and amazing venue, but have an absolute blast doing so! Time certainly flies when you’re having fun, and I’m here to tell y’all it was a blast from start to finish!

Jen Kopf, Helen Norman, yours truly, Buffy Hargett Miller

The setting was a dear, sweet friend’s home in Cashiers. I was at her house one lovely summer day for cocktails before sunset and jokingly said I wanted to transform her immaculate, stunning, antique-filled, absolutely gorgeous home into an autumnal oasis to celebrate the season… and pitch the idea to my editors at Southern Living. This, y’all is never an easy task to ask, but thankfully, my adorable friend (and her family) obliged. I cannot thank my precious friend enough!

With unparallel views of Whiteside Mountain just beyond the tree line, the crisp autumn air glowed with the hues only fall can afford to lend the sky. My friend, an antiques dealer out of Atlanta, has treasure troves of l’objets d’art from her forays through Parisian flea markets, Portobello Road in London and scouring the French and English countryside for just the right barley-twist candlesticks. If ever there was a “set” to photograph a celebration of the season, this home was it. From the mountainsides and gardens and farmers markets, I gleaned the season’s best. Tables were set, flowers were arranged and mantels bedecked with the flair of fall. Give me a pumpkin, some leaves and bittersweet, and I’ll give you a mantel!

Dried hydrangeas, rose hips, beauty berry, dahlias, Free Spirit roses, bittersweet, magnolia, cabbage, apples, pumpkins, oak leaves, acorns, pecans and plumes upon plumes of grasses were all woven together to create a tableau as rich as the season could present.  I could go on and on and on about this shoot. From the feel, the textures, the scents, the sights, the hues, tones, arrays and luscious combinations my favorite season gives us, I am rejuvenated and invigorated for this time of year.

I hope y’all are inspired to kick off the holiday season with a fanfare for fall. I know I am! Enjoy these behind the scenes pics and be sure to check out the October issue on newsstands now!

Jess and I have just as much fun taking selfies as we do making outrageous pumpkin arrangements. Her work is phenomenal! Like her hair, her pumpkin creations are a work of art!!

I love antique crocks and pottery. Here, these fantastic old jars with a deep tobacco glaze. These jars are filled to the brim with nandina berries, sweet gum, dried hydrangea, celosia and viburnum for some fall fabulousness. 

A garland of oak leaves, maple leaves, magnolia and dried hydrangea cloaks one side of the massive stone mantel. I love symmetry but I love balance more. Though this mantel scene is not symmetrical per se, it is balanced. Of course I had to throw some pumpkins and ornamental cabbage for good measure. 

Give Ol' Jimmy a jug of sweet tea and I can decorate for hours. You can take the boy out of Perry, but... y'all know how it goes!

 I love to use dough bowls as centerpieces. They are long and set a table oh so well. Here, I mounded bunches of dried hydrangea, fall foliage, artichokes and even a few turtle shells for texture. The nandina berries just pop against the autumnal palette. I love too how this is so fall but not filled with orange pumpkins. The green 'Cinderella' ones make for a stylish departure for this set up. Plus, this arrangement will last all through the fall with the hydrangeas and leaves and berries drying and the pumpkins lasting for months if they're not carved. 

Don't forget your windowboxes! As for a fall display, I kept the ivy that was spilling out but planted ornamental cabbages that will last all through the winter in the the Deep South. Magnolia, a few pumpkins nestled in here and there, bittersweet winding its way throughout the scene and even an artichoke or two can be found alongside the cabbage. I added a few stems of millet for texture too - because it is fall and I can!

Is there anything better than working with a hydrangea as big as your head? As big as Jess' hair even? No. the answer is "no." Nothing better y'all! Ha!

As wonderful and fabulous as all this created fun is, nothing beats The Almighty's handiwork on an autumn day in Cashiers!

Happy fall, y’all!

Frou Frou to You!

Sometimes, when two folks meet, stars align and maybe even a supernova somewhere in space explodes. Immeasurable energy is created and it must be invested somewhere. That is the case when one Jess aka “Gup” Margeson and I met in Hawkinsville circa… well let’s just say we were children… and that supernova channeled its energy into our friendship.

I came in the house from a day of summer fun on our farm just out from town. Upon returning indoors, I found my mother propped up on the green and white cabana stripe wicker chaise in her room. Her toes were drying from a fresh coat of “Cajun Shrimp” having been recently applied. This was Mama’s color eleven months out of the year. “Big Apple Red” was applied at Christmas.

This scenario was not an odd one for my sisters and me to witness. Mama was pretty religious when it came to her nail color. As I passed by her bedroom door, she waved and woowhooed at me. “I just met the cutest, sweetest, precious, Christian girl. I think y’all should get married. If not, she’s gonna be your best friend I know. I already love her. She liked my nail polish and hair. She’s raised right!” That’s all it took for Jess to brand herself to Mama’s heart.

I was about eleven years old at the time and a SPCG (the acronym given in my family to such gals of merit) for me to be friends with let alone marry was not on my radar. Yet, as mamas do, they have these inklings and premonitions when it comes to their children. The “SPCG” in mention was none other than the former Miss Jessica Elizabeth Vinson. Nowadays she is better known as Jess “Frou Frou”  Mrs. Matt Margeson. Her family had just moved to town and serendipitously down the street from us. Fate and destiny are one thing, noting could asunder what my mama joined together.

Pretty soon, Jess and I were friends. We rode the bus together to our school in the next town and thus had plenty of time to bond. Then nicknames “Gup” and “Doodle’ formed, respectively, as in line with all good friendships boasting nicknames. There are stories to the nicknames but I shan’t digress. We survived middle school together. When high school came around, Jess moved to the big ol’ city of Macon. There we kept in touch by phone, met for our overalls donned dates at THE Fair (when you’re from my neck of the woods, the Georgia National Fair is simply know as THE Fair. There is no other fair in our minds) and I even abused her GAP employee discount all throughout high school proper and into college as well. Those were darker days in our friendship since a twenty-mile stretch of I-75 separated us. When you cannot drive yourself to or from Macon, that I-75 corridor might as well be the Atlantic.

College brought us back together into the same town proper. Auburn called and we answered. After announcing to our respective families that we were going to live together, we had to dissolve said scheme and live in proper boys and girls dorms due to the near coronaries we caused our Mamas. Those dorms were fun, but if only Gup and Doodle could have cohabitated collegiately, there would’ve been volumes more to share. We practically did spend every moment we could together at Auburn. Our dorms were literally across the street from one another. I even (excuse the bravado and boasting but this a collegiate accomplish of great aptitude at Auburn) was able to sneak past “Miss Minnie” the dorm mother and hide out past curfew in Jess’ dorm room. It may have been time by the dormitory’s rule book for “gentlemen callers to leave” but Jess and I were often not through crafting, scheming our next adventure or simply rehashing the same ol’ childhood funnies over and over. Somehow, the stories we tell get funnier with age and repetition of telling!

Jess set her sights on a KA pledge named Matt. He fit her specific bill for what she was looking for in a man. Matt fit the bill with me because he asked me to “please keep dating Jess” when they get married. “I think it is the only way this will work” he said.

I did the flowers for their wedding (with a 102 temp and the flu mind you… hey… what are friends for?) and Jess has accompanied and crafted with me on weddings, parties and events across The South. From Richmond to Montgomery, we’ve decorated and decked the halls in many a Confederate capital city. Her floral design business, Frou Frou is based in Opelika, Alabama, so she remains close to  the “Promised Land – the rolling plains of Dixie, ‘neath the sun kissed skies.”

For my latest story in Southern Living, I had to have Jess as my wingman. Celebrating Fall in Cashiers was enough to get me thrilled beyond repair, but having Jess alongside made it that much better. We cut beauty berry, leaves, branches and grasses all up and down the mountain highways and byways and loaded “Goldie” my suburban down with every heirloom pumpkin we could carry. What the two of us can do with a pumpkin is nothing short of magical! Ha! Jess is great at the small stuff and I like the big stuff. I tackled the mantels (mainly because I could reach them… I’m 6’4” and she’s a good 5’ and slight change) and she tackled the pumpkins. We meet in the middle at the table and the job gets done!

There is something so sound about doing what you love for a living. Jess and I have found our passions and created professions. We are fortunate enough that our businesses coincided and can collaborate regularly. Work isn’t so much work as it is a blast of fun! Having a friend like Jess is one of my life’s greatest blessings in general. Having a friend that I’ve known and loved and can rave about how much I love sheet moss is a precious gift.

So peruse the pages of the October Southern Living and see our work. What the pages don’t show are our selfies, our work “uniforms” and Jess stealing my Plainswear hat. You can keep it Gup!

Happy fall y’all. I hope y’all have a friend or two like I do – if so, I know you’ve a cornucopia of blessings!

What Does the Fox Say?

This age old question has beguiled our brains for centuries – what does the fox say? Thankfully, a brotherly duo from Norway has quelled this quandary – thank you Bård (the blonde one) and Vegard (brown hair).

Upon hearing their catchy tune, I thought about Friederich, the trophy fox my brother-in-law Zach had mounted earlier this year.  My sister Maggie adhered to the good ol’ Southern expression quoted in Steel Magnolias, “… either shoot it, stuff it or marry it.” Maggie happily stuck with the latter.

Just what was Friederich trying to tell me? What does he say? Well, leave it to me to translate his desires as the following: “I wish to be the Thanksgiving centerpiece!”

I granted Friederich his request and even placed him as the centerpiece on the grown-ups’ table – not the lowly kids’ table. Our family’s new rule of order is if you have issued a child, you are granted an elevation from the kids’ table to “big table.” Yet, Baby Napp sat at the “big table” and not with Brubbs, SissyMama and the other “chillrun”… how did he swing that? I digress… 

There is no denying my love for a taxidermy, or “taxidermy-chic” if you will. Antler mounts, stuffed trophies, turtle shells and feathers all find their way into my design schemes and tablescapes. Quite fortunately, I have a brother-in-law, cousins, uncles and friends who are mighty hunters and provide me with a gracious plenty for my designs. 

Y’all may have seen my Southern Living Thanksgiving spread last month, and so my Big Mama’s (Mimi’s grandmother, thus my great, great-grandmother) turkey plates are a mainstay at our family table. As Mimi always said, “We eat with our eyes first…” so I find it important for the table and food’s presentation to be the first feasting. With Friederich keeping watch over the flock of turkeys, I interspersed some of Aunt Kathy’s Italian painted plates depicting other woodland and water creatures. Upon our tables, one could find a raft, a brace and a flush of ducks; a skein, a gaggle, a herd and a corps of geese; a pack of wolves; and of course, an earth, a leash, a skulk or troop of foxes. I absolutely adore the nomenclature of animal groupings!

Pumpkins, Granny Smith apples, pine boughs and nandina berries scattered the table too, thus creating a Southern, autumnal plank of foliage and fruit for Friederich to pose. As for the candlesticks, I found a bunch of old spools from a textile factory to serve as the pillar candle bases on the “big table” and my trusty antler candelabra for the “kids’ table.” Yet, for the kids’ table, I veered away from the traditional autumnal palette and stuck to my all-time favorite color scheme – blue and white.

To me, blue and white is neutral. The sky is blue and white most of the time and I find this classic pairing bodes so well in any season, pattern, color scheme and setting. Mixing more of Aunt Kathy’s blue and white painted plates with some Blue Willow “blue plate specials” was an easy choice for me. If you’ve ever wondered where the “blue plate special” came from, well take a gander at these divided dinner plates and you’ll learn. Often, the special of the day at a restaurant was served on a blue plate, many times a Blue Willow plate mind you, and thus the term became synonymous with a dinner or lunch special. Like myself and my family, no one individual is perfect. We all have our scars, chips, dings and dents, so if your plates do too, then welcome them still to your table.

Blue plaid and blue striped linens, a mix of mine, Mama’s, Aunt Kathy’s, Mimi’s and Aunt Irene’s silver, amber hued tumblers and goblets, bubble glass tumblers and jelly jars all melded together with the dinnerware and décor to create a tableau of generational and aesthetic delight. This year we knew was going to be different and bittersweet without Mimi, yet we managed. We held Thanksgiving on Friday which gave us an extra day to set tables and cook and keep our minds busy more so.

Mimi, though was there. She is now like the silver, some of the plates and linens – not necessarily present as a whole but positively tarnished, chipped and frayed into the very fabric of each one of us. Thanks and giving – that is what the day is truly about; and, for me, setting the tables allows me to share the bits and pieces of my legacy, my heart really, at each place setting. From this Farmer’s table to yours, thanks for giving me the chance to share a little bit of my family with y’all. Maybe, just maybe, that’s what the fox is really saying after all.

Thanksgiving with Southern Living

Here is the Southern Living article featuring my traditional Thanksgiving table setting. And in case you missed my last post you can check out the accompanying video here.

Traditional Thanksgiving Table Setting

I had a blast shooting this video for Southern Living! Hope this gives you some inspiration for setting your Thanksgiving tableau.

Fall Outdoor Decorating Ideas - Southern Living Video

Check out this Southern Living Video 

where I share tips on how to turn the classic pumpkins and mums up a notch. 

These tips will have your front door, porch, and patio decked and ready for fabulous fall! 

Happy fall, y'all!