Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #343! 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!💜
Well, there are a lot of neat features this week to share with you! Really, all month long has been lots of fun! All of the Easter decorating and table setting ideas have been so pretty… I know all y’all will have loads of beautiful garden posts to share soon, and I am looking forward to seeing how your gardens have changed since last year.
I’ll be sharing more from mine, soon.
But, for this time, my posts are all indoors, so let’s begin there, shall we? Then we move onto spring projects for the home, fun fashions and healthy cooking ideas.
All good stuff!
Here’s what I shared this past week atFrench Ethereal…
Springtime in the Hutch ~ an offshoot from Tuesday’s Pinterest Challenge and sharing more of my Limoges tableware.
And here are this week’s featured posts…
Debra from Common Ground shares this good fix for any thrifted painting which needs a little TLC ~ Easy Repairs to a Vintage Oil Painting. Great ideas!!!
Shelbee from Shelbee on the Edge shares this month’s fun fashion challenge in her post ~ The Thrifty Six in Bold Monochrome. Totally loving these outfits for spring!!!
Lynn from Living Large in a Small House shares her secret to living well ~ What is In a Scratch Cook’s Kitchen. This is right up my alley this year as I wean myself (slowly) away from fast food trying to live a much healthier, less arthritic/less inflammation lifestyle.
Beauty abounds over at Lynne’s from Thrifting Wonderland in this gorgeous, blooming post ~ Sunday Flowers on Saturday. Love this!!!
Last up for this week is this sweet Tiny Rooster Stool project from Robin over at Junk is My Life. Great update!!!
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!!!
Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #336! 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 Wednesday, everyone! I hope you had a wonderful Valentine’s Day with your family or your love. Mr. Ethereal flew back to Georgia on Valentine’s Monday morning, but he sent a sweet treat of cookies along with a pair of heart-shaped earrings. Very sweet indeed!
I hope Cupid was good to you, too!
Now let’s see what we have in this week’s features and a quick look at what I posted this past week…
Here’s what I shared this past week atFrench Ethereal…
And thank you for stopping by my Pop-Up Tablescape Party the week before! I appreciate the people who came and linked up. I will try to do more pop-up parties for fun as time goes on. It’s good to do something new!
And here are this week’s featured posts…
First up this week is this sweet post about Romantic French Couples in the Holiday Cupboard by Debra of Common Ground. They are just precious and remind me of the pair I found a couple of years ago now… Debra also shared another post I loved ~ Vintage Botanical Valentine Entry. Do stop by!
Here’s a fun recipe to make for Mardi Gras! Quick and Easy King Cake Recipe posted by newcomer Alea from Premeditated Leftovers.Welcome, Alea!!!
Cindy from Reinvented Delaware shared a little of this and a little of that in her post (including painting her kitchen cabinets — a HUGE job!) at All Things Vintage #18.
The original painting is funny indeed! ~ Thought you’d enjoy seeing Shelbee and family’s rendition… 😉 Too funny!
💜
Michelle from K’Mich Wedding Soirée Blog shared this post about whether to have one or not ~ Is Anyone Doing a Honeymoon Anymore? Interesting thoughts as I know my new niece and nephew didn’t take a honeymoon right away, and another young friend and her husband left a few days after the wedding.
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 Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthday weekend (observed),
Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #334! Happy Thursday to you 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!💜
Well, hello there! We have a snow day here in North Texas today and it was a good call by our school district to close down for a couple of days… Nice gentle rains yesterday evening turning into snow early, early in the morning. But, by 5:00am, the snow changed into freezing rain… Just a bit hazardous for school buses and folks to be out driving in it! My head cold is still going strong, too, so I went to bed early last night and just didn’t have the energy to get this post out. (think: emoji w/ rolling eyes upward…) Today is a new day and I have been able to get things done!
Our latest news: Yoda was quick about getting out and back in this morning, and he usually enjoys walking about in the snow. Coming up on 16 years old (I kept thinking he already was 16 last year; I was wrong.) this spring, he just doesn’t have the musculature to keep him warm anymore. I think the cold must really hurt his joints. He still comes inside all frisky for a few minutes each morning and evening, though! He is also enjoying having my mother-in-law here every day to let him out around noon-time and to give him more loving pets and cuddles throughout the day! 💜
Hubby and I have been house hunting with her on the weekends since New Year’s when they got back here from California, and even this past Monday evening we drove over to tour a home, so no posts again this past week for me. She did put in an offer on the home we saw on Monday night and hopefully she will hear back yea or nay soon. 🙂
This is all of my latest news, besides just going to work everyday, so let’s get this belated party started!!!
And here are this week’s featured posts…
Starting this Valentines themed SYS post, our friend Sujatha from Crystal Grandeur shared a beautiful tablescape perfect for “V day…” ~ An Evening Garden Setting. Lovely!!!
Gorgeous presentation abounds at the home of Lynne from Thrifting Wonderland who shared her post ~ Valentine’s Day Tea ~ part of a party of 20 tablescapes perfect for copying for your Valentine!
Of course we need something yummy to eat for Valentine’s… Jean of Delightful Repast shared her recipe for Banana Creme Pie: Best Crust Ever! Since I’m home for four days… How about you? Yum! ;)’
Jennifer from Wanderlust and Wellness brings us this beautiful Valentine Charcuterie Board… Simply beautiful!!!
Ringleader for that 20 blog party mentioned above is none other than our friend Rita from Panoply who shares her fun pinkalicious tablescape ~ I Only Have Ice for You, Valentine. (I’ve got to quit working so I can come play with everybody! I DO miss getting out there…)
Elizabeth from Pinecones and Acorns shared an easy trick for making this yummy Heart-Shaped Cake for Valentine’s Day. Stop by to find out what she did! ;)’
Cindy from Reinvented Delaware shared this fun DIY post ~ Old Step Ladder Upcycle. Great repurpose!!!
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. 💜
Thank you so much, dear friends! Happy linking to you all,
Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #333! Happy Wednesday to you 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!💜
Don’t you just love that Valentine’s Day is coming soon? I have a couple of Valentine’s posts but just haven’t put everything together yet. I found the battery charger for my Canon camera so happily I can shoot nice photos again, yeah!!! Now that Covid is waning, colds and flu seem to be back again… I’m down with a cold that wants to turn bad so this SYS might be a quick one.
I hope this finds you well and healthy! Now let’s check out this week’s featured posts…
And here are this week’s featured posts…
Let’s begin this party with Niky’s post from The House on Silverado ~ a Date Night: Dinner for Two ~ perfect for the Valentine in our lives!
Longtime friend Daniela from Sweetly Dreaming of the Past shared her beautiful post full of long-ago fashions to love again ~ History of Fashion: Civil War Fashion.
Lori from Walking on Sunshine Recipes brings us these yummy Strawberry Pudding Cups. Yeesssss!!!
Newcomer Sarah from Must Have Mom created these adorable DIY Valentine’s Day Gnomes. Really fun to make and give!!!
Laundry isn’t always fun but redoing our laundry rooms is definitely a Valentine to ourselves ~ Renae from Peacock Ridge Farm shared her’s in this post ~ Beautiful French Country Laundry Room Makeover.
Debra from Common Ground brings us her lovely post for winter decorating ~ Deer on the Winter Baker’s Rack. Really pretty!!!
Rita from Panoply is back with a wonderful post sharing her new home ~ First Winter in Our New Home: Bare Necessities. I’m sorry I couldn’t pick up any photos! It’s darling!!
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 #332! Happy Wednesday to you 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!💜
Well, it’s that cozy time of year when we just want to wrap ourselves under a comfy blanket and curl up on the couch with a good book, watch a wonderful old movie and drink something yummy and warm… With that in mind, I’ve picked a few good recipes and beautiful decor to inspire us. And… after an unexpected break last week from SYS, we are back! It has been an adjustment having my mother-in-law living with us, and I feel a bit like Ruth and Naomi at the moment. Hubby has been gone on so many business trips since September, he is hardly home.
But last week was missed because of an unexpected phone call I had to take for the IOOF of which I am a member. So, sometimes life just gets in the way… Today we are back and ready to share your latest posts. Thanks so much for sticking with me and I apologize if you stopped by and there was no notice. Please forgive me this omission.
Here’s what I shared this past week atFrench Ethereal…
Debra of Common Ground shared a bunch of great ideas for us to use at next year’s New Year’s Eve parties!! ~ New Year’s Eve Tablescape Inspiration ~ Love this!!!
MaryJo from Master “Pieces” of My Life shared her gorgeous tablescape also filled with NYE ideas ~ Mercury Glass Tabletop Ideas. So pretty!!!
Jeanie from The Marmelade Gypsy shared A December Visit to the Ditch. I love Jeanie’s walkabouts and visits around Michigan!!
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. 💜
What a great week of new ideas to start our year with a bang!! Thank you again to everyone who linked up and I can’t wait to see what all you bring this week to the SYS table…
Bonjour, mes amies! I am excited to share some pieces from the first china pattern I ever bought shortly after Mr. Ethereal and I were married… plus some exciting news!
Hubby and I moved to Southern California after he graduated from Officers Candidate School in Quantico, Virginia. His first duty station was aboard Camp Pendleton, so we drove the 2700 miles from Connecticut to Sacramento, visiting both parents before the big move.
When I was home in our apartment by myself, sometimes I’d take the bus and go into Oceanside, Carlsbad or Vista to eat lunch out and go shopping at the local mall or to go antiquing. One day I found an Ethan Allen furniture store and as I was walking around inside, I turned a corner and there was an entire set (48 pieces!) of Villeroy & BochBotanica staring back at me! I was ecstatic!!!
This is the same set of which I had collected a very few pieces while I was with my host family in Germany back in 1981. To find that Ethan Allen had brought over this lovely set of tableware, I was sooo happy!
I already owned a creamer & sugar bowl, a salt & pepper (behind the teapot here on the table) which I’d bought with my host mother at a tableware shop in a town along the Rhein River. Petja, my younger brother Gene’s exchange partner who came to our house three years later when Gene went on his own exchange program, later sent me the matching V&B Botanica china trivet.
A gifted trivet sits underneath the creamware teapot. I loved the feel and heft of this piece!
Today there are only five dinner plates unbroken, all eight salad plates and all the cups and saucers survive. My mother often bought me pieces from a shop out near where she lived in Connecticut after my parents moved there. She would send me pieces for my birthday or Christmas and sent a lovely covered butter dish, which could hold up to a pound of butter (two sticks side-by-side, double stacked tall). Our son was making something on our Big House’s kitchen island one day and pushed things back to make more room and sadly the butter dish crashed off onto the floor…
It had been so lovely with its pinks and purple sweetpeas all over the dish top. I would love to have added it here to this table for you!
Do you like the new carpet underneath the dining room table? We found it at Ikea when our kids were over for an early Christmas. Love the light blue florals!
The dining room is now an orangery with many of Mr. Ethereal’s mother’s plants inside as well as our mandarin orange tree. It’s fun to set a table in there now with so many plants!
“Croissant, anyone?”
For our European breakfast, I tried to recreate the breakfasts we would have at my host family’s home in Leverkusen. My host father’s grandmother lived with the family and they had a large round breakfast table off the kitchen. Every morning, fresh danishes and bread (bröt) were delivered to the house for the day’s meals.
“Erdbeeren” (or strawberry jam) and lingonberry jam were breakfast staples. Several years ago I found lingonberry jam at Ikea so this last time I picked up another jar.
If you can find some, lingonberry is a really nice, tart jam! It is a good substitute for strawberry, if someone can’t eat seeds in their jams and jellies.
Here the plates are unstacked so you can see the different flowers.
So what is the news?
A week ago, an invitation came to attend my niece’s wedding for this coming July. Her husband-to-be is from Venezuela and they both met as missionaries… They live in Grenoble, France!!!
So, after missing the opportunity as an exchange student as a young 19-year-old, I sure am NOT going to miss out this time! My daughter already has the time off from her work and I will be off for summer, so we will be going together.
So that’s my exciting news, dear friends!
So what can you tell me about going to France? Where do you recommend flying into? Charles De Gaulle airport, there in Paris? How do we get to Grenoble? Bus? Train?? Rent a car?
At least they drive on the same side of the road as we do here in the United States. 😉
And what about Air BnB’s?? How do I find out about this stuff?? After really not traveling for the last 35 years, I am pretty clueless, lol!
I thank you for all the tips in advance, Sweeties!!! <3
Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #331! Happy Wednesday to you 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 New Year, y’all! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas week and then New Year’s Eve with family and friends. I have really enjoyed these past two weeks at home. I finished the last bit of insulating in the shed, did a little painting, worked on laying pavers along the garden pathway, and planted some plants. Hubby began creating two small loft areas over each end of the shed for overhead storage, and that is coming along. I am back to school as of today and our kiddos show up tomorrow. Lots of concern about Covid since the Omicron is highly contagious, so hopefully all the vaccination shots do their thing!
On a happy note, my husband, after working in California since September and flying up from So. Cal to Northern California over six different weekends, Mr. Ethereal flew back one last time just after Christmas. He helped my mother-in-law meet the movers at her house and storage unit to get her household goods onto two trucks. Her house of 57 years sold and she is beginning a new chapter here in North Texas. A lot like us! 🙂
The first set of movers gets here this coming Friday. After the movers drove off, Mr. Ethereal and Mom drove the southern route to get here from the greater Sacramento area. She is staying with us until she finds a new place, but for now it’ll be cozy winter evenings watching movies and hanging out with Mr. Ethereal and Yoda and myself…
So that’s what I’ve been up to since last time! How about you? How were your Christmas and New Year’s?? Hope they were wonderful!!
Here’s what I shared this past week atFrench Ethereal…
Bridie from Heart, Hearth and Crafting shared a free pattern to make this warm and cozy Mariners Hat. Looks really easy to knit, too! Great gifting idea…💜
Parsimonious Decor Darling shared lovely Celtic tablescapes to copy in this post ~ Traditional Tartan Twofold. Totally in love with these flow blue zoological dinner plates!
Cindy from Cindy’s Recipe Box shared an oldie but goodie for any kind of holiday fête ~ Eggnog Pudding Shots. So delicious looking!
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. 💜
Thanks again, dear friends! Let’s get this party started,
Christmas day has just passed, the busy craziness of getting ready for the season is hopefully done for most of us, and now is a time of respite…
Here at The Manor, our door is still quietly surrounded with colorful twinkling fairy lights as well as a pretty lit wreath…
Hubby brought a bunch of poinsettias from a big box store’s Black Friday sales and some have gone to new homes as Christmas gifts. Such a nice way to say hello and I love you to friends so dear!!!
Come inside and enjoy our living room! Even not quite finished and late on a school night, it was fun to snap a few photographs as the Christmas decorations were brought out and the regular decor put away…
A tree skirt was fashioned from an old double bed bedskirt. An antique English child’s school chair pulled out for our soon-to-visit grandson… He did touch it but didn’t climb on it this time.
I love that now two generations of Chapmans have enjoyed this little chair!
He did sit in a very old one, though! Originally a handmade rocking chair from the 1870’s, I bought it in Carlsbad, California on one of my first antiquing expeditions when I had a day off from apartment managing, when we first moved to Southern California with the US Marine Corps. I think I bought this chair in 1989 and I immediately knew I’d weave a seat for it!
I found a spool of calico trim, which has some padding inside the length of it. I used the whole spool running the trim first one direction then back across perpendicularly. I made all kinds of home furnishings back then as a newlywed!
This year’s decor all began with the mantel… Quiet decor with just woodland animals and little Christmas trees, it was perfect with simple greenery tucked in and around each little figure!
Setting the tone for the rest of the room’s decorations:
the aforementioned woodland animals up on the fireplace mantel and soft sculpture animals I’ve collected since high school sitting along the hearth and around the Christmas tree
the little children’s chairs
coloring books and story books for gifts
a very simply decorated tree with lights and just a very few non-breakable ornaments
Mr. Ethereal enjoyed our early family Christmas, too! New stockings welcomed everyone home!
My original plan to bring down all the boxes of family ornaments went awry… Hubby has travelled since late September almost every week to California on business, so… I didn’t have anyone to help me bring down the boxes. Our son and I talked about his helping me the week before they drove down. But when it came down to it, the tree was pretty just with the very few paper houses and churches, a Nordic Christmas star with a little straw reindeer inside it, and one snowflake garland placed casually across the tree’s midsection.
Sometimes simple is best. 🙂
And what do you think of my husband’s creative gift wrapping?? That’s my Christmas surprise inside that red throw and two belts…
More about that another day. ;)’
But for now…
The Chapman family ~ Amy, Peter, Justine and Milo, me and Charles
Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #330! Happy Wednesday to you 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 New Year’s Eve, friends!!! Can you believe that another year has just flown by? I am grateful for the Covid vaccines that have come out, for surviving two rounds of Covid-19 during 2020, and for finally getting to really meet my grandson, Milo!
Milo loved how huge the oak trees were and enjoyed picking up acorns big and small.
The kids came for an early Christmas and we went down to Sea Life Park Aquarium in Grapevine, Texas, then a couple of days later we went to the Fort Worth Zoo. Both were excellent and the latter reminded me so much of the San Diego Wild Life Park in Escondido, California. Just the whole safari theme, the way the grounds were laid out… I really felt at home and I believe my daughter Amy and son Peter felt the same. 💜
Well, I’m back working on the pavers heading from the backyard oak tree towards the entryway to the south garden. Hubby worked hard on the shed as he had time in between working during the Christmas week and these past two days. So… the shed is CLOSE but not quite finished. I did share a little on my YouTube channel today about what I’ve been doing and I’ll probably post there again tomorrow. It’s not pretty with lovely additions but I hope to learn how to do all that in the coming year! (My New Year’s resolution… 😉 )
So let’s get this party started…
And here are this week’s featured posts…
Welcome newcomer Tilden from To Be Bright blog with the third part of her wedding story ~ The Brunch. And can you get over the views from Central Park??!!! Only been there once but it’s gorgeous from any vantage point… Do stop by and say hello! What a great way to say goodbye to 2021 and hello to 2022!!! Congratulations, Tilden and Thomas!!! 💜
Debra from Common Ground brings us her lovely story ~ Christmas on a Vintage Silver Tray. It must be the year to polish our silver! Will share some of mine in the new year… Love Debra’s tray and coffee set!!!
Looking for something fun to wear this winter? Look no further than Shelbee’s blog: Shelbee on the Edge and her post ~ Style Imitating Art: Snow Shadows by Tom Thomson. Love this grey plaid jacket!!!
Amy from A Day of Small Things shared her visit downtown with daughter Amy and a look at her bedroom sanctuary decked out with Christmas… A Restful Christmas ~ A perfect respite from the world!
Lynne over at Thrifting Wonderland brings us this beautiful table setting… Holly, Holly Table Setting. Love the bird plates and the gorgeous Santa and his sack!!!
A beautiful crêche… Niky from The House on Silverado shared her Christmas craft project ~ DIY Nativity Stable. Really complements her wooden figures. A beautiful gift for Baby Jesus!
CoCo also shared this lovely story about making a special ornament for a beloved aunt going through cancer treatments… Bring the tissues, Ladies! ~ Simple Vintage Inspired Ornaments.
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. 💜
Thank you to you all for a wonderful year! In 2022, I hope you all are blessed with good health, enough money to take care of your bills and to put away as well as some to bless others, and much love from friends and especially family,
Welcome, friends! Today we are taking a Christmas trip to see Judith Stringham at her lovely French-styled home in Mansfield, Texas…
On the first weekend in December, I drove down to visit Judith at the annual Christmas Sales Event she has hosted for 12 years. Each year I see new and inspiring ways we can use to decorate in a French Nordic style…
Love this sweet girl! She reminds me so much of our Stuffy and Tigger, from my high school and early college years.
Her sweet calico cat greeted me as I stepped out of the car and kindly showed me the way back to the potting shed outback. Here Kitty is up on the front walkway to the family home’s front door.
A weird FYI
Notice the *Arc du Bois fruits used as Christmas ornament balls in these urns… Lovely in their limey green skins, these 2-5 lbs. fruits can and do break car windshields when they fall. Here in North Texas, these seed pods can be turned into a petroleum-type product and there was a man near the last trailer park we lived in who bought 50 gal. barrels-full for $10.
*also called horse apples
But I digress…
Down the garden path
Walking around the side and into Judith’s garden, tufts of mondo grass edge the paved walkway guiding us through the park. Old oak trees give the garden really nice structure!
Pink and white lantana (?) or maybe a dwarf butterfly bush decorate this pretty hayrack.
Taking a peek up onto the south-east facing front porch, one can see Judith’s love of French blue, brilliant pops of color brightening up the wintertime porch… She told me she loves blue pansies this time of year!
I love all the conical topiaries she has!!! Tall ivy clamors up a trefoil topped trellis.
Back out along the pathway, an enormous butterfly bush is still blooming in December! Our weather has been so warm, much warmer than usual for North Texas, so many annuals are still going strong coming into the winter season.
The Stringhams have kept much of their acreage as Texas forest which adds a nice layer of privacy from close neighbors.
Judith’s Christmas Potting Shed
Doorways and trim painted a pretty French blue, the double doors welcome us into Judith’s world, Botanic Bleu… I personally love the contrast of textures outdoors! The potting shed’s white limestone walls, the rustic wood decking contrast nicely with the brick pathways. Fallen leaves nestle into cracks and crevices, adding their own brand of texture to the scene…
Let’s check out what’s for sale!
This pretty bowl filled with juniper greenery caught my eye. I loved the pretty gilded cage topper. Of course this came home with me along with six horse apples to decorate the inside. The pretty birdcage to the right also came home. 😉
Stepping inside, a tiny office is set up snugged underneath this hanging area. As I write this, I just noticed the silver urn with a little bird on top along the front wall shelf… Always so much to see!
Looking further right, large scrolls of sheet music lend their beautiful backdrop behind Pêre Nöels…
A lovely nativity scene decorated the middle of the room with a deeper French blue…
Judith creates this large wall hangings with her signature fleur de lis in the background.
This year she has added English boxwood hearts to her collection of boxwood for sale. Last year she had large and small round boxwood wreaths, and I bought one then. This day, I picked up one more to decorate our hallway.
Airy glass ornaments and icicles hang from the rafters, on Christmas trees and in front of some windows. Judith has candles and Old World style candleholders, mini narcissus bulbs, and more gilded wire garden cloches for sale.
Out in the Garden
Back outside, Kitty is back for another pet. She is just a beauty!
This year, this outdoor patio hosts a collection of potted plants. I love the basket weave pot! Judith’s sister helps take care of the garden, her special gift.
Here I think Judith “planted” some of the faux narcissus bulbs… Pretty!!!
Love this urn! I believe the little garden shed in the background is her husband’s workshop.
Well, friends, I hope you’ve enjoyed these Christmas visits with Judith and seeing her pretty French country home! She is very gracious and I always wish there’d be time to just sit and visit (we do, but it’s while shopping). 🙂 Hopefully soon!
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