Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #344! Happy Wednesday to y’all, dear friends!!
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! I appreciate your subscribing, also. 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 and on any of my other social media sites, too. Thank you!💜
Good Wednesday evening, friends!! No new post this week but I do have a couple of photographs to share with you. I was out in the back garden last weekend, rototilling, raking and planting a couple of small trees…
Got the second Jane Magnolia planted near the left corner! This baby will only get to 15′ tall and about 10′ wide. The Thuja/Emerald Green Arborvitae will grow to about the same height but only about 3′ wide. Perfect for this corner spot and just adding color to the back fence!
The roses have been doing sooo well this year! Along the south house wall, all five roses are in bloom. Here is the Miranda Lambert deep pink rose in bloom just before a rainstorm last weekend. I quickly cut some of the roses and plunked them in a glass vase to save them from the incoming rain. So glad I did!!! Love them!!
Miranda Lambert ~ which has a lovely light scent!
We have some wonderful Mother’s Day features for you this week. So excited for Mother’s Day!! Hubby bought me some Ear Buds for this year’s MD so I’d be able to watch movies when I fly next (hopefully our trip to France this summer!).
Alright, let’s check out our features..
And here are this week’s featured posts…
Definitely flowers for Mother’s Day! Jeanie from The Marmelade Gypsy brings us around Michigan ~ Waking Up at Home and Beyond. Check out where she shot this… You’ll be surprised!
Jennifer from Curated by Jennifer collected some things here ~ Mother’s Day Gift Ideas #2. Fun choices!!!
Looking for a good movie to watch this weekend? Joanne from Aging with Ardor brings us ageing gracefully in this post ~ Andy and Red ~ from Shawshank Redemption with Tim Robbins as Andy and Morgan Freeman as Red (not sponsored, but my account).
If you are a painter, perk up your mother or mother-in-law’s dining room with this lovely idea ~ A Beautiful French Country Wall Mural ~ from Renae at Peacock Ridge Farm. Gorgeous!!!
Thank You so much to everyone who linked up this past week. A special thank you to everyone 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’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.💜 Thanks so much!!!
Hello, dear friends! Springtime baskets are on the menu for you in this month’s Pinterest Challenge. Thank you to Cindy from County Road 407 for hosting this hop and for giving us this basket challenge!
If you are stopping by from Michelle of Thistle Key Lane for the first time, welcome! Didn’t you just love what Michelle has created with her basket? Sooooo pretty!!
Well, our inspiration photograph this month comes from Emily at Le Cultivateur. I love her style and this centerpiece is just up my alley!
Love all the greenery with the whites and silver ~ which is what I picked up on!
When I first went over to view Emily’s post, I saw her Easter centerpiece version of this basket with it’s large white rabbit and it is still perfect (to me, anyway) for an after-Easter springtime table topper!
Here is the photograph I decided to copy:
This tableau just says, “Spring has sprung!”
What I loved about this basket
Whites everywhere! ~ a large white basket to hold spring plants, a large white rabbit with his adorable lace bow, the painted white raised board. A rumpled, white dresser scarf with lace around its edges added its softness.
Silver ~ I love silver candlesticks and they add just that touch of elegance!
Greenery ~ inside the large basket, live plants are nestled together with a grapevine hoop added as a “basket handle.”
What I put in my ethereal springtime basket
Whites ~ I looked at my handled baskets but they were too small, so I went with this whitewashed flat tobacco basket as my “board” and basket. I tried it with a white wood cake plate but it didn’t look right, so I just added my newer Lowe’s stone rabbit, a white paper mâché rabbit, a small white plant pot, white inside a clear tealight holder, plus a white birdhouse.
Silver ~ copying our inspiration, I chose two silver mercury glass candlesticks plus one white metal one to hold softly pink tapers. Depending upon the lighting, each of the rabbits and the basket take on a silvery glow.
Greenery ~ This lavender-pink amaryllis stalk is the first to bloom in our northern sideyard and was my inspiration for this laying out the table in month’s challenge! It’s simple beauty paired with a faux paperwhite in a white plant pot bring in some of the greenery from our inspiration piece.
Table runner lace ~ I have dresser scarves but would have had to wash the one from our bedroom, so I looked in my linen closet and found this sweet, tatted window curtain to use on my table instead! I love its French Country farmhouse look and the rumpling on either end adds just the right look to this tableau.
Not having any Spanish moss to add to my basket, I added a garden saucer with moss balls I made last year paired with a couple of woven grass balls. This helped bring in more greenery to my table’s look.
I love the simplicity of this basket centerpiece and for me it is simple, ethereal elegance! If you are looking for something to decorate your table for Mother’s Day, just replace the rabbits with a bowl of garden roses or other flowers. That will give you more greenery and less of an Easter look.
Welcome to this month’s Pinterest Challenge, dear friends, where a group of us gals gets together to put our own spin on an inspiration piece. I want to start today’s post with a big shout out to Cindy from County Road 409 for pulling us all together again ~ thank you, Cindy!!
If you are coming over from Kim at Shiplap and Shells and are here for the first time, welcome. I’m so glad y’all are here!! Wasn’t Kim’s table fun with her bunnies and I just love her flower-shaped woven placemats… Adorable!
Using a wooden tiered stand and a stack of plates as risers, Suzy brings in:
spring greens in the forms of plants, a bunny topiary in a pot, four salad plates and a sweet green water jug
earth tones in small pots, a small birdhouse, plus little candleholders, the tiered stand and the grass table runner and woven round placemats
bright whites in dinner plates, small candles, a ceramic bunny and bird eggs
textures both rough and smooth
There’s a lot going on here and a lot to recreate, so let’s get started!
Not having a tall wooden tiered tray, I improvised with my wood charcuterie board, a candlestick I made over topped with a wooden heart-shaped cutting board.
How I put together my centerpiece
In Suzy’s post, she talked about “raiding your own stash” so I’ve looked through my spring decorations box and at what I could tier and what tiered trays I do have first…
I have a lot of wooden pieces luckily and candles here and there…
I made a tiered tray since my other two are tiered cake plates and just didn’t have the right look. Then I rounded up various ceramic, paper mâché and coconut fiber bunnies from my stash to decorate my “trays.”
Peek-a-boo!
Next, I ran out to the garden shed in search of little terracotta pots to bring in their colors and textures to match those in our inspiration piece. The bulbous pot I found at that cute garden center I wrote about last year ~ The Greenhouse ~ in Oklahoma last year. The other banded pot I found at Ace Hardware (I think) in Carrolton, Texas.
No green tableware
Rats! if I didn’t just see some really cute lettuce-patterned majolica plates at Tuesday morning recently and I didn’t pick them up. Well, if you don’t have green salad plates to pick up the greens in your greenery, bring in the greens with what you do have!
I stacked my favorite white dinner plates (from Marshalls years ago) with my first set of tableware, Villeroy & Boch Botanica dessert/salad plates (adding my green), then added a WedgwoodSarah’s Garden* teacup to bring in more whites and smooth textures.
*I highlighted Sarah’s Garden in case you might like to read about my meeting Sarah, Duchess of York back in the early 2000’s when she was a spokesperson for Wedgwood.
I loved the spring greenery Suzy used in her centerpiece so I pulled in several moss balls I made and a couple of dried hydrangea heads I had. The hydrangea blossoms added the wooly plant texture I was looking for.
Lots of bunny love here!
And lastly, I also had the round, gilded and woven placemats like those in the inspiration photograph in my stash; they look perfect as “nests” for any place setting!
I didn’t find my bird’s eggs (they have been lost for several years since I found some…) and I forgot about the bird house, but I do have one! So I’ll share it here. 😉
Another Pinterest Challenge share from a year or two ago!!
Thank you so much for stopping by and I hope you will visit all of our friends on today’s centerpiece tour. Please think about subscribing to my blog if you haven’t done so already. I appreciate you!!!
Next up is my friend Niky from The House on Silverado. Her tablescape is just lovely with all her rabbits, and I know you’ll love it!!!
Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #338! Happy Wednesday to y’all, dear friends!!
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! I appreciate your subscribing, also. 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 and on any of my other social media sites, too. Thank you!💜
Happy almost spring to you! (Even if the cool temps outside say otherwise…) Sorry I am late getting SYS up again. I came home, laid down and promptly fell asleep for 1 1/2 hours. This past weekend was really busy helping unload Mr. Ethereal’s mom’s storage units and moving all those items and boxes into her house and garage. She is really happy with her new home but for now is still living with us while she “sets up shop.”
So needless to say, I didn’t get any posts done this past week but next week is spring vacation/Easter break so I’ll be back at it. Thanks for sticking around while I haven’t been up to much!
Speaking of Easter… this week’s Share Your Style is full of fun Easter ideas as well as St. Patrick’s Day ideas as well!
Also, in case you hadn’t heard, as I hadn’t until just a few days ago, I wanted to let you know two home decor bloggers you may know recently passed away: Paula from Virginia Sweet Pea and Michelle from The Unpainted Hinge. Please keep their families in your thoughts and prayers, won’t you? I’ve blogged with them for many years, as many of you have, and I hope you will stop by their blogs and enjoy their beautiful writings and photography in memory… 💜
Let’s check out this week’s featured posts, shall we?…
And here are this week’s featured posts…
Lois from Walking on Sunshine shared her recipe for Traditional Easter Bread. Sweet with the nested egg!
Jody from Premeditated Leftovers brings us a bit o’ the green in her post ~ Shamrock Rice Krispie Treats. Yummy!!!
Along those same lines, newcomers Dave and Jamie from Photojeepers shared their post for Visiting National Parks in April. I really need to get out there, how about you?? Welcome, Dave and Jamie!! 🙂
Thank You so much to everyone who linked up this past week. A special thank you to everyone 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. 💜
Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #337! Happy Wednesday to y’all, dear friends!!
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! I appreciate your subscribing, also. 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 and on any of my other social media sites, too. Thank you!💜
Welcome, everybody! Some of you may already know this, but mother-in-law found a house a week ago. Since it was a cash offer, she literally closed on the property a week later, which was this Monday! (yeah!!!) She is really happy that she found a home she can love and has been busy updating her address, getting her Texas driver’s license and new car tags. A great week!
This coming weekend we will begin helping her get her things moved out of storage and into her new home. Should be a busy weekend. 😉
Again, I know I wrote about missing last week’s SYS in my post on Sunday, but again I would like to apologize for missing due to exhaustion from work. This is a better week and this students are behaving better.
This week we have a smattering of really pretty features: tablescapes, recipes, home decor, furniture updates and bits of porcelain…
So let’s get to this week’s features, shall we?
Here’s what I shared this past week atFrench Ethereal…
Daniella (Dani) from Sweetly Dreaming of the Past shared this wonderful post about Regency Dessert Recipes for Your Tea. Perfect for all of us Jane Austen-ites!!!
And also this one (a tug after my own heart!) as Dani shares her orangerie ~ Sheltered for Winter.
Last up for this week is this post about A Beginner’s Guide to Chair Upholstery by Coco from The Crowned Goat. With a visit to her parent’s home, Loblolly Manor. Fun!!!
Thank You so much to everyone who linked up this past week. A special thank you to everyone 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. 💜
Happy almost Valentine’s Day to you all! Today we have a Valentine’s table set for tea. This post is inspired by all the pretty tablescapes shared in posts across the internet this week…
Bringing out my favorite Limoges dessert plates paired with newer teacups and teapot.
Getting ready for summer travel
As I was ironing this sweetheart tablecloth and napkins I’d sewed a few years ago, I thought about what I’d like to decorate this tablescape. My daughter and I are still planning on going to France this summer for my niece’s wedding. Inspired by that thought: I brought out this small trunk with its Eiffel Tower and roses, my favorite chalkware maiden (an antique find written about in this post), and a clear glass pedestal cake plate given to us as a wedding present.
A photograph taken when we lived in our Prairie Home ~ our Heartland Charleston 365 RV.
Inspiration also came from this week’s Share Your Style #334 with a couple of inked posts by Lynne from Thrifting Wonderland who joined a group of bloggers hosted by Rita from Panoply (your post might be in this blog party, too!).
I am not part of this blog hop but thought you might like to visit and enjoy some pretty tablescapes over these wintery days!
So all these lovely tables and home decor were my inspiration…
Travel inspiration abounds with items displayed with ties to France (the original bust created by Grinam Niam, English and French tableware and trunk.
Sew your own table linens
Do you create your own table linens? Or do you enjoy the hunt for linens while out looking through thrift shops and home decor stores? I’ve had good luck with both but for this tabletop display I wanted to use my homemade pretties…
This 45″ red tablecloth fabric was found online at Joanne Fabrics several years ago. The napkins I made a few years before while we were still in our Big House in Murrieta, California.
Square and rectangular linens are really easy to make out of straight-off-the-bolt fabric and all it requires is a sewing machine and thread, the fabric itself and an iron!
I’ve linked to the instructions here above in case you are new to sewing and would like to whip some table linens up for your Valentine’s table this year.
I’ve set the table for two for an early Valentine’s tea. It’s just my mother-in-law Gini and I here at home this week. Mr. Ethereal is away on business and will be staying in Georgia with the Artic storms hitting all over the South and Mid-West.
We shared an afternoon of cake and conversation over a few cups of tea…
Usually we are over in the family room plunked down on the red L-shaped sofa “taking tea” while watching YouTube or movies in the evening, so this was a nice change!
The snow was bright outdoors with snowbirds in from the North ~ visiting black-capped chickadees, local sparrows and mourning doves ~ and our resident squirrels.
Taken earlier in the morning… You can see plants covered over against the freezing rain. I scattered seeds several times yesterday for hungry feathered and furry friends.
A pair of blackbirds came by in the late afternoon and I caught one on film. He was wondering what I was doing…
What’s up?
An unexpected day off from work is a nice and welcome change of pace! I love teaching our students but it is nice to just be able to be at home and rest…
One of my favorite furry buddies
And having cake after dinner was really a special treat! With the cold creeping through these older window frames, we drank tea all day long…
A few of my favorite things!
“Constant Comment” was the perfect tea to have with this carrot cake… I go through boxes and boxes of it during the winter!
I used these Ecko heart-shaped pans. I found a similar one on Amazon.com by Wilton, if you are looking for some. (not sponsored)
Yummy!!!
Both cake sections turned out light and fluffy and I used some leftover buttercream frosting in between the layers.
I tried using a piece of lace to make a pretty design on the cake top and dusting it with powdered sugar, but… Epic fail! That just turned out ugly.
So I did the next best thing: just dust the whole top with the powdered sugar and carefully adding small colored candy pieces in a heart shape in the middle. 😉
And here is our table all set for tea! Inside was bright and cheery with the sweetheart tablecloth and late afternoon sunlight bouncing off the snow from outside.
Thoughts of romance in the air…
A pop-up blog hop
So… For a little fun, link up your favorite Valentine’s Day tablescapes and we can have a little party together! Just an impromptu blog hop… Hope you will join the fun!
