I have MISSED this! We were so tied up with real-life medical mysteries last fall that we never found the time to put together a spooky author display. This year with both kids officially finished with school I wasn't sure they would want to continue, but BOTH kids asked for another display! This is officially an autumn tradition in our home now, and no longer a school assignment.
This year we chose Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. We also chose to keep our vignette small and simple, as we are starting to downsize our possessions. This was QUITE fun to brainstorm, and the size constraint actually helped us streamline our choices!
To begin with, we cut out a silhouette of Sherlock Holmes, and used a page from my antique medical journal to create a luminary. It was less expensive than purchasing a deerstalker & pipe, and the light added something special.
We then took my grandmother's maple-leaf teacup, and added a Moriar-Tea embellished tea bag... because what other tea WOULD Sir Arthur sip? The little birds were from Target. I couldn't pass them up, because they LOOK like Sherlock and Watson! (They'll be returning next year as autumn decorations elsewhere in the house.)
The final pieces were a magnifying glass from the kids' science studies with a suspicious looking fingerprint, and of course the key to a certain famous London flat.
This was easily the quickest display we've done yet, but I'm more than pleased with how it turned out. I've enjoyed all of our previous years as well, but this one somehow looks as if it "belongs" in our dining room tucked into the corner of our Victorian secretary.
Who knows what next year's display will be?
