Happy Wednesday, y’all! Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #284! 

This link party is for home decor, DIY, crafts, recipes and the like, but you are more than welcome to share any of your family-friendly posts with us all. Please feel free to share this post too and join my small but loyal band of friends. I appreciate you!
 As always, I am glad that you are here… 💜

I am Barbara Chapman and I’d love it if you’d follow me here on my blog!

My sites:  French Ethereal  Instagram  Facebook  Pinterest  YouTube

Christmas crafts, recipes, and decor are bounding across the internet and it’s a White Christmas of goodies for our Featured Posts this week! Thank you for all the wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday posts you’ve been sharing these past few weeks. There are so many good ones to choose from!!

Here’s what I shared this past week at French Ethereal…

I took a short break last week but did do a lot of photographing and this post about Advent Wreaths and Thankfulness is my offering for Thanksgiving week.

Here are this week’s Featured Posts….

MaryJo at Master”Pieces” of My Life shared her holiday living room in this post ~ A Christmas Tree Tradition. Love all the gold and white!

CoCo at The Crowned Goat brings us her lovely dining room in her post about Adding Holiday Greenery to Chandeliers. Beautiful!!!

Penny of Penny’s Treasures shares her ethereal linen cabinet all decked out in winter finery ~ Christmas Table Linen Closet. Fun!!!

Niky from The House on Silverado brings us some holiday present ideas ~ Christmas Gift Ideas from Etsy. Really cool ideas, thank you!

Serious Yum! Gram’s Cornish Game Hens with Cranberry Orange Glaze (and Stuffing) are on the menu from Cindy’s Online Recipe Box.

Jean over at A Delightful Repast shared her delicious and super easy recipe for Melanzane alla Parmigiana or Egglplant Parmesan. Is your mouth watering yet? 😉

Our final feature for this week is Carol of Bluesky at Home‘s fun box upscale in this post ~ How to Style a Box for Christmas. Really fun to create! Love the different box ideas, too!!

A big Thank You to everyone who linked up this past week. A special thank you to y’all for always promoting Share Your Style on your blog and on your social media channels! I do see it when I stop by and I appreciate the love. 💜

If you have been featured here at Share Your Style… Here is a button to copy to your site and to share.

If you’d like to follow my Share Your Style board on Pinterest I’d appreciate it, thank you! I do post all of the featured posts from each week’s SYS there.

Let’s get this party started!

Hugs, Barb

Six years ago as I began writing French Ethereal, I wrote four posts leading up to Christmas inspired by the poem Love Came Down at Christmas by Christina Rossetti. They were published every Sunday culminating with the poem typed out in its entirety celebrating the birth of Jesus on that final day.

I have never belonged to a church which lit an Advent wreath, except maybe when I was very young when my parents still attended a Catholic church on base in Concord, Massachusetts. But I love the idea of lighting a candle in remembrance of Christ Jesus’ birth and for all that He did for us! So, this year I thought it would be nice to share our thrifted Advent wreath and light a candle each week as we move into this most special time of the year…

Advent wreaths have historically been made with bunches of evergreen branches creating the wreath, but I don’t have any pine trees or cedars growing in our yard, nor are there any close by that I can cut small pieces. I will have to go on a hunt for greenery as I drive around our city to surround our little wreath here. I do like the gilt leaves and the soft blush and deep lavender candles set in their small cup holders!

I am thankful for a wonderful Thanksgiving week off from school as I was able to be outside digging and planting in our sideyard. Mr. Ethereal and I spent a quiet Thanksgiving day by ourselves with a nice full breakfast. I was thankful for time to really cook throughout the day ~ completely unhurried.

I am also thankful for soft rains we had beginning late Saturday afternoon and continuing into the late evening. Our plants are all watered in and plants which needed to be planted are now in the ground. Our weather this week is supposed to drop right down below freezing, so all of our tender plants have been brought indoors until the cold spell breaks in a week or so. Here in our dining room is the coolest spot in the house, besides our bedroom. The flooring in here is tile, too, which makes it a nice place to bring plants inside.

This rosemary topiary really needs a good trimming, doesn’t it?? I didn’t dare give it a haircut as we moved into November, not knowing if we’d get an early cold snap. If it warms up again, I will trim it up.

Technically, rosemary can take the cold down to 20 degrees Fahrenheit, but I brought them all inside since the two newest aren’t planted yet.

The bougainvillea is blooming beautifully, just like our old one back at our last home did in late fall every year! I don’t know what I will do as this one grows into its adult form… They like to grow into large climbing hedges with large thorns, good for draping over sheds. Really it can’t take the down to 0 degrees F. cold here in North Texas…

Maybe I can train it to stay short in a larger pot?? 😉

Well let’s check out some other Advent wreaths, shall we??…

Advent Wreaths found on the web

A Little Advent Wreath History

According to Wikipedia, “the concept of an Advent wreath began among the German Lutherans in the 16th century.” In 1839, Johann Hinrich Wichern, a Protestant pastor in Germany whose life was spent working in urban missions, created a wooden wreath to help the children in a mission home, Rauhes Haus, to understand the time of Advent and how long it was until Christmas. He created a large wreath out of a wagon wheel and used six small red candles to be lit on each day of the week and then the large white one to be lit each Sunday.

This custom gained ground among German Protestant churches and later within the Roman Catholic church. “In medieval times Advent was seen as a time of fasting… as people looked to the Second Coming of Jesus,” but this older meaning has lost favor over time and now the Advent wreath is more a reminder of the Christmas feast and a reminder of his birth and later his sacrifice on the cross for us.

Well, friends, I hope you’ve enjoyed this first week of Advent wreath inspiration!

With Thanksgiving just passed, I am ever thankful for you, my friends! I appreciate your kindness and thoughtfulness throughout this crazy year and during my illnesses. Thankfulness is my mindfulness mantra this year. What all have you been thankful for this year? I bet it is many things!!!

“He has shown you kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.”

Acts 14:17, found in Wisdom for Each Day, Billy Graham

Blessings to you,

Barb

Welcome friends!

I’ve been busy this past weekend hanging up a few Christmas wreaths around the house and putting together a little crate display for you all. It was to be part of this month’s Pinterest Challenge with Cindy of County Road 407 and the gang, which was to feature everything crates decorated for Christmas, but… I missed the deadline.

But I thought about it, and… I decided to play along anyway! So, here is my Christmas crate all decked out with a Santa Woof-and-Poof and his helpers ~ a gingerbread man card holder and Ruddy the Reindeer.

Cindy picked a photo from Grace of The Grace House who created a sweet Christmas display a few years ago using a Magnolia Market crate. In it she added some pine boughs, white fir clippings and pretty red berry picks surrounding two carved wood trees.

I love the simplicity of the look! The greenery and berries really pop against all the neutrals of the wooden trees and the grey washed crate.

For my crate, I went digging around in our garage for a wine crate my father-in-law brought home from his job with Sam’s Club. He was a sample server for several years and he would bring home these wonderful wine crates! When we were back at my inlaws’ home this past summer, we brought a few back to our home. They are perfect for extra storage and for decorating.

How I put this Christmas crate together

Because this crate is pretty deep, I added flat styrofoam underneath everything to raise them above the top of the crate’s edge. Underneath the Gingerbread Man, I set a small wooden drawer for him to sit on and to prop his feet up. Over that hidden box, I draped a white and black checked napkin to bring in a country farmhouse look.

Around the Santa and the reindeer, to help hide the styrofoam and a packing pillow behind the rosemary, I added in a couple of tartan checked napkins.

The tartan napkins, the rosemary’s pot, and the soft sculptures add in their bright red pops of color just like the berries in Grace’s Christmas crate. The rosemary “Christmas tree” here is my take on the wooden trees in the inspiration photo.

I had so much fun making my crate that I decided to put in a whole vignette!

So here is our Christmas crate hanging out on the back porch in our wintery holiday display!

I picked up two dwarf Alberta spruce to plant out in the sideyard and the red bow now hanging on the outdoor light came off of one of those. The second is hanging behind me from this photo on the opposite light fixture.

And here is one wreath gracing our kitchen door… More to come!

One last look… Enjoy the holiday season!!!

If you’d like to visit this month’s Pinterest Challenge, please visit Cindy at the link at the top of the post. Everyone’s posts look wonderful!

Big hugs,

Barb

Happy Share Your Style Wednesday, y’all! Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #282! 

This link party is for home decor, DIY, crafts, recipes and the like, but you are more than welcome to share any of your family-friendly posts with us all. Please feel free to share this post too and join my small but loyal band of friends. I appreciate you!
 As always, I am glad that you are here… 💜

I am Barbara Chapman and I’d love it if you’d follow me here on my blog!

My sites:  French Ethereal  Instagram  Facebook  Pinterest  YouTube

I am beginning a “subscriber’s list” in Mail Chimp and of course, dear friends, I have to have you subscribe (give your okay/blessing!) in order for me to be able to send a newsletter to you.

I will probably only send emails on Wednesdays with Share Your Style as SYS tends to me my weekly newsletter as it is. 🙂

Here’s what I shared this past week at French Ethereal…

This past week I went by my favorite local thriftshop and found this beauty… My French Sweethearts Thriftshop Find. I just love this piece!

Warm and Cozy Texas-Sized Banana Bread Muffins + Recipe ~ Perfect cut in half with just a dollop of butter or cream cheese, these make a wonderful breakfast with yogurt!

And here are this week’s featured posts…

Friends, this is one for the tissues… With Veterans’ Day just this past week, I am proud to share this post from Debbee of Debbee’s Buzz ~ A Salute to a WWII POW Veteran.

Also sharing Debbee’s Thanksgiving Horn of Plenty Table which is just beautiful!!!

Coco of The Crowned Goat shared her One Room Challenge entry ~ Budget Friendly Shed Makeover Reveal.

Carol from Bluesky at Home shares two fun crafts to make for your Thanksgiving decorating ~ Two Easy Fall DIY Crafts for Your Home Decor.https://blueskyathome.com/2-easy-fall-diy-crafts-for-your-home-decor-2/

Sarah from Hyacinths for the Soul shared her fall decorating ideas in this autumn-beautiful post ~ Savoring the Colors of Autumn.

Penny of Penny’s Treasures shared her sweet sunroom decorations for Christmas… Christmas [in the] Sun Room Love it!!!

A big Thank You to everyone who linked up this past week. A special thank you to y’all for always promoting Share Your Style on your blog and on your social media channels! I do see it when I stop by and I appreciate the love. 💜

If you have been featured here at Share Your Style… Here is a button to copy to your site and to share.

If you’d like to follow my Share Your Style board on Pinterest I’d appreciate it, thank you! I do post all of the featured posts from each week’s SYS there.

https://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=9c9b10dbdecdfb9300b0

Let the party begin!

Barb

With Thanksgiving only a couple of weeks away, today for $10 on the 10th I am sharing my vision for two tablescapes. First our dining room table set for Thanksgiving, then with just 10 quick tweaks it will be refashioned into a table setting fashioned for Christmas. Grab a cup of coffee or tea, a little snack, and come along this journey with me!…

  

Welcome to $10 on the 10th and a big thank you to Terrie of Decorate and More with Tip and Ann of Apple Street Cottage for gathering all of us together! This time of year is a time to give thanks for the blessings in our life. 

Sharing our dining room table set for Thanksgiving is a perfect way to move into the holiday season. Mr. Ethereal enjoys sitting down to a lovely dinner with me but usually we use this table for Saturday and Sunday lunches. This is our time to relax and catch up from our busy work weeks.

I wish our family could all be here with us this year for Thanksgiving but this crazy year with a worldwide pandemic, it’s nice that all of us are just healthy. I’d love to have little Milo enjoy his first Thanksgiving with Grammy and Grampa Chapman, but 2020 will have just us at the table. Milo is getting really interested in our weekly FaceTime phone calls, though!

Happy Grammy to seven-month-old Milo! Look at those cheeks… 💞

Hopefully we can take a quick trip down to our daughter’s place to have Christmas dinner with her either before or after Christmas. We have driven down the past few years and she drove up last year for just a couple of days. If she has time, she may drive up, so these tables are inspired by having our family over in the future. 🦃

Last year’s Thanksgiving table was inspired by these beautiful flowers and was part of last year’s fall Pinterest Challenge.

10 on the 10th ideas