Welcome to this month’s $10 on the 10th and this month is all about Blue and White decor. Decorating using wintertime blues and creamy white china is a favorite way to decorate for many people, but really it is almost a first for me!
How sweet to be a cloud floating in the blue.”
A. A. Milne
I’d like to thank our hosts Ann of Apple Street Cottage and Tammy of Patina and Paint for bringing us all together and for creating this month’s blue and white decor theme. Thank you, Ladies!! <3
Now let’s check out how we worked some magic here… 😉 And don’t you just love this sweet quote I found from A. A. Milne? A small thought from Winnie the Pooh on this wintery Sunday… Perfect for our blue and white theme!
How to begin
For this $10 on the 10th challenge, I began by pulling everything out that we had in blue and white then spreading it all out on our dining room table. I found this very old antique French soup plate (back) while thrift-shopping ($4.00) and have used it a few times in posts, so I set it in this cubby along with the German teacup my sister-in-law found on trash day when she and my brother were stationed there.
The three whiteware saucers ($2.00 for all three) are all thriftshop orphans with no cups and the pitcher came from HomeGoods several years ago. The sweet birdie I found at Michael’s, I think. (about $4.00) 😉
But this is what I started with: a big stack of dishes, a few tchotchkes and a set of three new pots for planting. The ceramic girl with flowers was a birthday present from my mom and dad when I was 7 years old, I think. It is a music box and used to sit on a wooden piece, which I think I pulled off… years and years ago. The piece was too small and she never stood up right, so I think that is why she doesn’t have her stand. Now she just sits on the metal turning piece and leans a bit because of this. Crazy what we do when we are young, huh?
*Well this week also was a birthday week and I’ll share the nice cookware piece Mr. Ethereal picked up for me later this week. I’ve just started cooking with it… 😉
Also in this picture, our Christmas cactus is loving its new home in this big pot and I am really happy with this blue and white pot set! You can find it on Amazon, and I am not sponsored but it was packaged really well and each is a little different. They come with the dotted saucer you see underneath the main pot, too ~ a good deal for the price, I thought.
By putting everything out on the table, it was fairly easy to then set a few things in the china cabinet and see what worked, and what didn’t. I like this approach because I am so visual and kinda have to “see” how something looks before a vignette is set in stone, and you may like this approach also.
Our china cabinet is really small and was handmade by a man in Riverside, California who would find pretty picture frames (during the late-1990’s/early 2000’s) and then build cabinets around them. I found this one at a cute antique/gift shop in Temecula when I first began having teas.
The hardest part for me to decorate is always this sweet angel-framed door area (because it is small), but it is perfect for dollhouse ideas especially at Christmas!
Someday I would like to find a larger dresser but this small china cabinet works well in this small dining room. And I do find it really fun to stack dishes upright along this long shelf! If you have never been over to visit Amber of Follow the Yellow Brick Home, she is a master at stacking… I love coming over and checking out everyone’s blog sites; it is where I get inspired, too!
Basically, just keep adding in and moving pieces around until you find an arrangement that you are happy with… I find that is what works best for me. Also, work in “heights” with ups and downs bringing visual interest. Groups of threes also add their pop of interest. Here you can see the “three” effect with the blue pieces in a triangle shape popping out…
So, that’s it for me today!
I’ll share some other photos later on, but this post would get really long… Please hop on by to visit the other ladies on today’s $10 on the 10th Blue and White Decor hop and check out their wintertime decorating ideas! You know that’s where I’m going. <3
Ann – The Apple Street Cottage
Allyson – Southern Sunflowers
Barb – French Ethereal
Patti – Pandora’s Box
Tammy – Patina & Paint
Happy decorating, friends!
Barb