Share Your Style #278

October 21, 2020 French Ethereal

Happy SYS Wednesday, y’all! Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #278! This link party is for home decor, DIY, crafts, recipes and the like, but you are more than welcome to share 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… 💜

My sites: French Ethereal Instagram Facebook Pinterest YouTube

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! 💜

Here’s what I shared this past week at

French Ethereal…

Funny you should ask… I have posts almost ready to go. They just need to be written up and photographs married to them. However, just like last winter…

I have the dreaded COVID-19 virus again… The doctor on Monday confirmed that what I had in January/February was indeed the virus (they had all my symptoms listed from this summer on a previous sheet). This time it is slightly milder, if there is such a thing. He said to take it really easy…

Our school district thankfully now has a separate category for this type of illness and it doesn’t count against our other sick days, for which I am very grateful!

I am still coughing and staying on my inhaler and just do a small chore or two before toddling back to bed. I am making this out lighter than it is but at least this time I have had the big pneumonia shot! Making a lot of difference overall! Today I began getting my sense of smell back when I ate a peach and rye crackers at lunchtime. 👌

This week’s

featured posts…

I’ll go back and pick up last week’s features and this week’s for next week, if that makes sense. I am just too worn out to wander around. Usually I can set the type and add links in about an hour. It goes quickly when you run a party all the time. 💝

Doc thought I was through the worst of it on the weekend though my lungs still get filled a bit with junk.

Thank you for all your support and prayers,

dear friends!

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Share Your Style #277

October 14, 2020 French Ethereal

Happy fall, y’all! Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #277! This link party is for home decor, DIY, crafts, recipes and the like, but you are more than welcome to share 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… 💜 This fall post is a bit of a mish-mash as there are soooo many interesting posts!!! I’ve picked some autumn post for you, some DIY, and more. Hope you enjoy visiting all of this week’s featured friends!

My sites: French Ethereal Instagram Facebook Pinterest YouTube

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! 💜

Here’s what I shared this past week at

French Ethereal…

A Fall Roses and Pumpkin Tablescape Redux… You know how for our monthly Pinterest Challenge we take inspiration from a photograph and recreate a scene in our own style? Well, this time I am taking insp. from one of my own…

And here are this week’s

featured posts…

Rita from Panopoly shares a really fun colorful fall tablescape with a view out at their cityline… October Skyline Table for Two. There is a part of me that wants to live in a city for a bit! How about you? Sooo beautiful…

Fabulous Fall Decorating, Interior Decor and Styling

Amber of Follow the Yellow Brick Home is back with a wooly warm tablescape in this fun post ~ Happy Plaidurday! Plaid Fall Decor Inspiration. Love the plaid!!!

Smith Mountain Lake, VA home with shoreline in need of new riprap

Paula of Sweet Pea discusses how to add rocks to your home on the water with this post ~ Smith Mountain Lake Riprap for Shoreline Protection. Good to know!

Newcomer LG Bernhard of Der Amateur Photograph (The Amateur Photographer; his byline says his blog is all about optics and photography ~ Water Lily Pond in Wilhelma. My kinda place and I’m sure yours, too! Since we all need good photography tips! LG shares his amazing garden photos from Stuttgart, Germany… Eine hertzlich Willkommen auf Herr Bernhard!!!

Looking for a cute fall craft idea and a great recipe? Look now further than Lisa of Fresh Vintage by Lisa’s post Easy Pumpkin Apple Butter and Pumpkin Spoon. Adorable and totally worth making!!!

Our second newcomer to SYS, Mary of Pots and Planes: A Collection of Recipes and Adventures brings us this delicious recipe for Apples Pie Scones… Welcome Mary and serious YUM!!!

Rachelle of My Hubbard Home brings us a little bit of spooky in this fun Who Dun It? post ~ Miss Habersham Regrets… Do stop by to see what happens next!!!

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.

***Please excuse where my name ended up… Has something to do where I entered the party and I don’t want to mess that up. 😉 Will work on fixing next time! Thx!!!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Enjoy the party!

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A Fall Roses and Pumpkins Tablescape Redux

October 13, 2020 French Ethereal

Several years ago when my blog was still brand new, I wrote a post called Playing with Light ~ A Fall Placesetting. The light was beautiful coming in the western-facing front window, spilling into the living and dining rooms. We had an 8′ sliding door with a long rectangular transom window above that in the dining area so the whole room was filled with light. It was the perfect place to be at dinner time…

I miss the play of light we had in that house but I am slowly falling in love with this new home. So, in honor of French Ethereal’s 6th anniversary (which really was in July), I thought I’d recreate this pretty placesetting since Mr. Ethereal sent us red and white roses for our anniversary this past weekend.

Of course it is not quite the same tablescape but a fun interpretation of it! The red and white roses are tea roses from a nursery and the roses in the original inspiration photo were English roses from our own backyard bushes, but none the less lovely.

I used the same white dinner plates that came from Marshalls (I think) and pulled out similar teacups. I thought it would be nice to bring out the pretty pheasant and bear transferware salad/dessert plates I found a couple of years ago at Cracker Barrel restaurant here in Denton, Texas.

I used the same blue Bell jars and wrapped them with jute twine just like in the original photograph. I also found the soft velvet brown pumpkin and brought it back along with some real Baby Boo pumpkins.

I used to have a square Shabby Chic tablecloth with ruffles but either I loaned it to one of the ladies in our tea group or perhaps it wasn’t mine and one left it at my home. I may have shot the original using her tablecloth and then given it back. 💝

So I pulled out the one I still have meant for several leaves in the table and canted it across the table similar to what I had done then. I love the draping effect! How about you?

I haven’t really decorated the buffet for fall yet but you can see the beginnings of that behind the table. I might toss up some artwork on the main wall, too, since I found the old farmhouse painting I’d bought back when we were first married and Mr. Ethereal was Captain Chapman.

I love the light coming in through the French door and window!

It’s amazing how the light changes so quickly this time of year in the span of just a few minutes… I had to really lighten up some of these photographs since my eye was seeing everything lighter than the camera was picking up.

So the lighting may not be exactly this anymore…

But it is just as beautiful in its own Texas way…

How are you enjoying your fall this year? Hopefully you are enjoying it immensely!

Big Texas hugs,

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Share Your Style #276

October 7, 2020 French Ethereal

Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #276! This link party is for home decor, DIY, crafts, recipes and the like, but you are more than welcome to share your family-friendly posts with us all. Please feel free to share this post and join my small but loyal band of followers.

I appreciate you! As always, I am glad that you are here… 💜

We have a bit of this and a bit of that this week and all fall related! I always love choosing weekly features and this time there was a ton of good things. Wish I could pick them all! Enjoy the party, sweet friends…

My sites: French Ethereal Instagram Facebook Pinterest YouTube

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! 💜

Here’s what I shared this past week at

French Ethereal…

Our Fall Garden and Potting Bench is the big post I worked on this past week. Mr. Ethereal and I have been out working in the garage and garden since the past few weekends have been blessedly cooler. Getting lots done!

And here are this week’s

featured posts…

Sandra from Dinner at Eight kicks this week off with great fall table decor ~ Inspiration for Fall Tables. Totally love them all!

Fabiana of Fabby’s Living shares her fall spirit in this tablescape post ~ A Simple Buffalo Check Tablescape. Love the big bold checks with the neutral dishware… ❤

Terrie of Decorate and More with Tip reveals her freshly made over entryway in a series of posts ~ Entryway Reveal – $100 Room Challenge. Nice changes!!!

Shelbee from Shelbee on the Edge shared her latest fashion styling in this fun trip to… Meet Me at the Pumpkin Patch!! So fun!!!

Liz from Howling at the Moon (Such a fun blog name!!!) shares this sweet elephant made for a young friend ~ Luisa Elephant. Adorable!”

Toootally cute and a wonderful idea! Penny of Penny’s Treasures/Penny’s Vintage Home shares her sweet Old Watering Trough Repurposed as a Buffet.

DIY-Brown-and-White-Transferware-Pumpkins-The-Crowned-Goat-2 Brown and White Transferware Pumpkins Crafts Fall Holidays

Last up this week is CoCo of The Crowned Goat with this really cool Brown and White Transferware Pumpkins!! Very unique and really pretty!

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.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Party on, friends!

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Our Fall Garden and Potting Bench

October 5, 2020 French Ethereal

Welcome to our autumn garden! Fall’s cooler days have brought about a renaissance of blooms on the roses and all of the plants have perked up. My joy this weekend has been photographing the season’s changes and a bit of decorating on the potting bench…

Friday after work, I stopped by Lowe’s garden center and picked up more cement pavers for the pathway to match the ones put in by previous owners. I also picked up more bricks to use around and under potted plants here in the back garden.

Hubby and I went out to lunch on Saturday and he found some much needed sneakers at our local sporting goods store. We then stopped by First United Methodist Church’s annual pumpkin patch, of which I totally forgot to put any pumpkins in the above display… 🎃

After two more trips to Lowe’s on Sunday, I was finally ready to decorate our potting bench for fall! Charles had seen some mini bales of hay (identical to these) last weekend so I looked for some to bring home. These are perfect for fall displays and will be useful for packing around plants as protection as the nights really begin to dip into the 30’s and below.

The Generous Gardener is just beginning its fall blooming… It is a soft

pink normally but is showing off as almost totally white. It is also the

lead photo of this post. In the middle of fighting white flies and

spider mites…

Seventy five degrees was the high on Sunday with Saturday’s high coming in at just over 80 degrees. It was an absolutely perfect weekend to be out of doors working in the yard!

Remember in the olden days when we called this Indian Summer? That cooler time between the heat of summer but not quite the cold of later fall?

It is still my absolute favorite time to garden… Not politically correct anymore to call it that anymore, but I still think of it this way.

I moved Sceptre d’Isle back to its usual spot near the brick wall and close to our Garden Maiden. I need to look for new plants to try here in this area since the two camellias, which did sooo well last year, croaked either from over-watering or just from the stress of summer’s savage heat and high humidity.

I lost one small rose, one of the new ones I had bought this past spring, also due to the summer heat. Thankfully, the older mature roses all made it just fine, other than spider mites (which I didn’t catch early enough).

We have been back building out in the garden as we move around the corner of the house out into the side garden. There is an area at the far back corner, which since the addition of the water softener unit last year, seems to me to be a perfect place for utilitarian uses.

I’ll share more of that area later this week as we finish up this newest project but here’s how the pathway is coming along. You can see how “new” the pavers I just purchased look in contrast to the other older ones which were sunk into the ground. Time and rain’s muddiness should even that up, though.

We moved the potting bench on Saturday to protect it from the coming rainstorms. Eventually it will go inside the new larger shed, when we finally decide which one we want.

As summer sales happened in August, I found a couple of chair cushions I liked so although they don’t exactly fit the bench, they are very comfortable and add a nice navy and white to the area. The colors repeat the colors in the weave of the bistro chairs, which looks smart.

It was fun to look around for items to place out on the potting bench to dress it up! I found the larger French pot at Hobby Lobby early in the summer and it matches another smaller white one I found several years ago.

So that’s how things are going in our neck of the woods. How is your fall gardening going? Anything new growing? Have you begun decorating for fall and/or Halloween? Let me know what you’ve been up to in the comments below. 💝

Happy gardening,

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Share Your Style #275

September 30, 2020 French Ethereal

Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #275! This link party is for home decor, DIY, crafts, recipes and the like, but you are more than welcome to share your family-friendly posts with us all. Please feel free to share this post and join my small but loyal band of followers.

I appreciate you! As always, I am glad that you are here… 💜

The cooler weather we have had (up until today, that is) has inspired me and with it y’all have linked up some perfect fall recipes, porch decor and more! Do hop over and check out some of your friends’ posts that are linked up while you are here as well as this week’s featured posts… Two friends from Northern California (my home from age 12 – 26) are featured, MaryJo from Master”pieces” of My Life and Amber W. of The Hungry Mountaineer. I hope you will stop by and say hello!… And enjoy a little fall from California…

My sites: French Ethereal Instagram Facebook Pinterest YouTube

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! 💜

Here’s what I shared this past week at

French Ethereal…

Sunday Sentiments ~ Our September Garden and Fall’s To-Do List

And here are this week’s

featured posts…

Mary Jo of Master “Pieces” of My Life shares her quiet and fun sitting area in this post ~ Pretty Perch in the Garden. Such a great place to relax and unwind…

Rachelle of My Hubbard Home has brought us a wonderful fall recipe to try ~ Autumn Apple Crisp with Walnuts. A particular fall favorite with baking apples!!! Yum… 🍎

Cindy’s Online Recipe Box brings us these delicious-looking Glazed Lemon Ginger Scones… Tis the season to be baking, dear friends!

Terrie from Decorate More and Tip shares this fun tutorial on how to fashion a Dollar Tree Pumpkin Pillow Cover. Such a cute idea!

Create and Cr

Amber of Follow the Yellow Brick Home shares this favorite fall post ~ 40 Beautiful Ways to Decorate with Wheat. Lovely…

You get a two-for-one on this last entry of this week: Since the photo I tried to grab from Amber Woodyard of The Hungry Mountaineer just wouldn’t come over and link up so I could share her post ~ Carmel Cinnamon Apples ~ I used my photo from a couple of years ago. There are only a few places in California (that I know of) where you can grow really good apples: Apple Hill in Camino, above Placerville, in Northern California, and in Julian and Apple Valley, in Southern, California, so I know Amber lives somewhere close to where I lived during high school and early college. Do check out her own garden’s lovely apples! They are ripe right off the tree…

For my post about apple picking, check out ~ Places to Visit: Country Apple Orchard.

Thank you also 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 party, friends,

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Sunday Sentiments ~ Our September Garden and Fall’s To-Do List

September 27, 2020 French Ethereal

Fall is definitely falling around the North Texas/DFW area and with it Mr. Ethereal and I have been busy working on a list of projects to finish before the ground freezes, the air gets too nippy, and just some general clean-up. Our first project is the one he made for me ~ it is this lovely garden bench…

Using treated and untreated pine lumber, he built this as a special present while I was gone to California. This was his Labor Day weekend project and yes he labored! I love it and appreciate the love he put into it. 💏

Next up is the short pathway project I am noodling. This would be a transition area between the eventual artificial turf under the two backyard oak trees and the real grass out along the south side of the house.

I found this garden show on YouTube and this was a segment on some show, most likely ~~BBC’s Gardener’s World~~. (Watching YouTube again, I watched an episode of P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home the next day, it’s his pathway. Just saw the pathway again!)

I like this pathway for its wonkiness and odd lengths of stone in the pathway. I also like the way it “swoops” around! Ours will swoop around either side of the tree. (Did I already mention that? School brain…)

This past weekend Mr. Ethereal helped me snap a chalkline and paint a straight line across the yard as a guideline for laying stones. Previous owners had placed a number of these approx. 8″ x 16″ x 2″ cement pavers vertically in the ground creating a straight garden along the south side of the house.

I think it got too hot over there so the garden idea was abandoned. Hubby pulled these pavers up one day about a month ago and stacked them since he knew I’d probably reuse and repurpose them.

Here are three ideas of how I thought to lay this transition area out:

1) normal horizontal brick layout (middle upper left, along chalkline)

2) off at an angle on the left and right sides of the further oak tree (top of the layout)

3) herringbone pattern (bottom middle) ~ Mr. Ethereal says I ought to do this one as “payback” for making him lay our travertine on the diagonal at our Big House in Cali… Lol!

Which one do you like best? I kind of like the angled around the tree best, which really only has the left side shown (top section above the chalkline). On Linda Vater’s YouTube channel, if you ever watch her garden show you’ll see how she uses a mishmash of pavers and brick together and I really like the “found look.”

The added wonkiness of putting in a brick here or there to the longer pavers just really works with my repurpose style!

Not much is blooming right now and the little canteloupe plant that is bursting with small yellow flowers may not have enough time left in the season to produce fruit before frosts and winter set in, but it’s giving its best!

With two weeks of cooler weather (just into the mid- to upper-80’s today, but has been in the 70’s), the supertunias are back blooming. The roses are putting out buds and should have a nice fall showing soon.

For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.

Isaiah 61:11

Other September projects

Our side panels on the garage were rotted down at the bottom from years of rain, so after Charles watched a bunch of YouTube videos on insulating your basic garage door with heavy compacted styrofoam and got that project done, he moved onto fixing these. I picked up the two 8′ x 10″ x 2″ boards at Lowe’s about a month ago. We let them dry under a fan in the really hot garage (was still about 100 degrees out then), then painted them with the leftover outdoor trim from the previous homeowners’ stash).

I’ll probably share this in another post since I don’t have those photos pulled off my phone yet, but it turned out well! Now to fix the mess of a garage door… Previous homeowners, in order to sell the home, used cans of spray paint to repaint the big door. (Should have just left it white…)

Wall decor

Last week as we held this month’s Reading Nook Pinterest Challenge, you could just see a peek out the window at the newly installed iron wall decoration along the garage wall out back.

I picked up this pretty iron wall decor piece from H. Potter garden center actually over a year ago. I really wanted this piece as our backyard gate, but Mr. Ethereal informed me we really needed a 4′ gate to bring things in and out of the yard, so… This was a no-go for the gate idea… 😞

But then this year I thought of having a water fountain feature along this wall surrounded by plants and this would be perfect behind one!

Our sweet tall lady gets to stand here for now! 💝

H. Potter sent all the hanging brackets but it would have stood 4″ from the garage wall and I wanted it close to the wall since this area is pretty narrow, so Mr. Ethereal found some half-round silver brackets in his tool parts and I faux-painted those to match the hammered metal look of the wrought iron wall decor to use for hanging instead.

The boxing when this iron piece arrived was well packed and all the nuts and bolts were there with clear instructions on how to put it together. It also comes with a separate piece that attaches at the bottom to push it into the ground (looks like a pitchfork, actually), but the cement along the wall prevented my using that piece. I would definitely recommend buying any of H. Potter’s wall decor pieces and will look for more in the future! It is sturdily welded and well painted; I am quite pleased with it!!!

Totally loving how it looks with our Garden Lady in front of it! Time to make her a new head crown for fall…

Well, back to laying pavers in the yard… Been a busy month both at school and at home, and it’s not quite over yet. More to come… 🍂

Sharing with

Friday at the Fire Station ~ A Fireman’s Wife

Happy fall, y’all!

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Share Your Style #274

September 23, 2020 French Ethereal

Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #274! This link party is for home decor, DIY, crafts, recipes and the like, but you are more than welcome to share your family-friendly posts with us all. Please feel free to share this post and join my small but loyal band of followers.

I appreciate you! As always, I am glad that you are here… 💜

Sorry that SYS wasn’t fully ready by 6:00pm this evening, for everyone who came by early in the evening! I had an eye appointment and didn’t get home until just before launch time so it wasn’t quite populated… Often I work on finalizing just before “showtime” but this time I was really behind. Thanks for hanging in there with me! 😊

This week it’s all about fall as we step into the new season on the calendar. Mornings are definitely about 10-20 degrees cooler and rain is coming in about once a week here in North Texas. I’ve also updated the Share Your Style party banner to reflect the new season and I hope you will pin it to your boards to help publicize the party, thank you!

I am all the fall links and gathering some great ideas to use in my home. I hope you will, too… 💓

My sites: French Ethereal Instagram Facebook Pinterest YouTube

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! 💜

Here’s what I shared this past week at

French Ethereal…

Come Sit a Spell! ~ Create a Reading Nook is this month’s fun

Book Nook Pinterest Challenge.

And here are this week’s

featured posts…

Leanna of Faeries and Fauna linked up her sweet porch in this post ~ Pretty Fall Porch Decor and… Banner. Totally cute!!!

Carol of Bluesky at Home shares with us 3 Quick Fall Projects in this colorful autumn post. Love all the craft projects this past week!

Rachelle of My Hubbard Home shared this lovely rust and roses look in The Softer Side of Autumn in a fall home tour. Gorgeous contrast of textures!

Uwe of My DIY OL and his wife share their 2020 harvest of chestnuts in this post Chestnuts – Not Just for Handicrafts and the amazing thing that can be made with chestnuts. Pretty cool! You’ll have to stop by to see what chestnuts can make…

d DIY

Amber of Follow the Yellow Brick Home brings us Part 1 of their newly renovated kitchen in this home tour post ~ A Kitchen Makeover with Touches of Fall. Love how it’s turning out with the brick flooring and tile backsplash…

Trick ‘n’ Treat makes us all hungry (lol!) with this wonderful fall recipe for Apples and Raisin Scones. Don’t you just love this time of year for cooking (and munching!)??!

Niki from The House on Silverado brings us her festive Early Fall Apples Themed Tray this past week. Gorgeous — love those sunflowers!!!

Our last feature this week comes from Jeanie at The Marmelade Gypsy who shared Postcards from the Lake: This is How We Do Weddings in Covid-Land. Beautiful and everyone can show up! 💒

Thank you also 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 sure appreciate it, thank you! I do post all of the featured posts from each week’s SYS there.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Happy fall, everyone!

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Come Sit a Spell! ~ Create a Reading Nook

September 22, 2020 French Ethereal

Welcome to this month’s Pinterest Challenge where my friend Cindy of County Road 407 sends a photograph to a group of us design influencers to use as inspiration to then recreate and make our own. September’s challenge is all about creating a Reading Nook! Of course, this is one of my most favorite places to be and I always have one wherever we live. Let’s jump right in…

If you are new here to French Ethereal, welcome! If you are just coming over from Michelle at Thistle Key Lane, I am happy to invite you into my home. 🌻 This time, Allison of Proverbs 31 Girl shares her beautifully renovated home with us and this reading nook in her casually cool, drop-cloth-loving, all-white style. Beautiful!

This particular post from Allison shows how her home has changed from before the renovation plus several reading areas throughout her home.

Allison hand-stenciled these drop cloth curtains!

My inspiration takeaway

a comfy chair with a drop cloth slipcover set near a window’s bright light for daytime reading
soft linen pillows for extra comfort
a nice nubby throw to snuggle under while reading
an ottoman to prop the feet on
a pretty basket with just one moss ball for decor
a standing lamp for evening reading

I do love all the textures here from nubby pillow covers and chunky knit throw blankets to creamy whites with touches of black as accents here and there!

Our home

During the summer months in our North Texas home, it is very bright and sunny in this living room now that the trees have been limbed up and some of the branches were taken out. Last year it was very dark in here hence our fall and winter project was to thin out our oak trees front and back.

It is much lighter inside now ~ perfect for enjoying the interplay of light throughout the day. Here in late summer/early fall a beautiful golden light comes in from these western windows which I love…

Iteration #1: I love to sit here with a cup of tea and while away an afternoon…The one pillow is turned sideways and is just where it needs to be for good back support.

Iteration #2: The first go-round I forgot all about having this knit throw and the pillows had been put away in our armoire. So glad I thought of them and pulled them out! Really love this spot now… You can see last month’s PC sharing a cloche here.

My reading spot and what I’ve done

slipcovers I already made dropcloth and matelassé slipcovers about six years ago for our two settees. You can find out how to make some for yourself in this five-part series beginning here.
pillows At the beginning of this year I found the nubby cream pillow (L) slipcover at a store going out of business for 75% off. Great buy!
a nubby knit throw this creamy knit throw came from the same store’s going out of business sale.
a second pillow The more patterned cream pillow with corner tassels is from Magnolia Market.
Bringing in color The bee skep pillow is from the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
basket with decor a round basket sits on our coffee table with its pop of green and pumpkin for fall.
a tall standing lamp is positioned behind the library table for evening and early morning reading.
nix the ottoman the coffee table takes the ottoman’s place and is ideal for putting one’s feet up to read or to enjoy candles or a gas fire in the fireplace.

I shot these photographs as the sun was rapidly going down so I’ve brightened some of these photos up a bit for you. I left the top one purposely darker to share the view out the back window: A bit of the garden beyond with a new garden trellis Mr. Ethereal just hung for me this past weekend ~ part of our fall house projects. Our tall lady statue is now sitting infront and can just be seen in an upcoming photo.

Past reading nooks…

Of course we have had various reading nooks over the years depending upon where we lived. In our Prairie Home (our big RV) our kitchen window sill was often a reading “library” as was a small plant stand, which was also in the trailer.

This post about creating a library in small spaces can be found here.

Under the slipcover, this is what that settee looks like.

One of my favorite photographs is of my daughter Amy as we were enjoying an evening of reading with candlelight at our last home in California. It is definitely my favorite reading spot photo! 💝

She is all grown up now and looking to buy her first house soon which makes me excited to help her decorate when she is ready!

I am last this month so swing on back up to Cindy at County Road 407 to continue our Pinterest Challenge Book Nook tour. I know you will love the reading spot she has created for you… Do check out everyone’s reading nooks and bookmark this post to come back to for future inspiration! 📚

Happy reading, dear friends,

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Share Your Style #273

September 16, 2020 French Ethereal

Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #273! This link party is for home decor, DIY, crafts, recipes and the like, but you are more than welcome to share your family-friendly posts with us all. Please feel free to share this post and join my small but loyal band of followers.

I appreciate you! As always, I am glad that you are here… 💜

With fall beginning to show its lovely seasonal colors across the country, I’ve picked a smattering of fun and inspirational fall-style posts for you this week. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have picking them! 🍎 😊

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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! 💜

Here’s what I shared this past week at

French Ethereal…

This past week I did manage to get one quick new post up for you sharing my mother-in-law’s collection of Rebekah Tableware while concentrating on all the things we are learning to do for teaching school this year.

Gini presented me with one place setting of this specially-made china for my Noble Grand leadership role within our Rebekah lodge (part of the International Order of Odd Fellows [IOOF], a philanthropic organization like the Masons and other groups). Normally she would have presented this as I leave the position, but… since I was home in June it was a good time to send this lovely china home! Thanks, Mom!! 💝

And here are this week’s

featured posts…

Penny of Penny’s Treasures brings us a pretty post sharing the corner shelving unit her husband made her ~ Fall Farmhouse Kitchen Shelving. Love the soft fall colors and look at those velvet pumkins!!

Liz from the blog Howling at the Moon shares her sweet kitty James in this lovely post about making this Hydrangea Wreath. Just a short post but she also shares her pretty naked cake! Do stop over to check out both…

Debbee of Debbee’s Buzz shares her wreath in this step-by-step guide on making a Wine Cork Wreath DIY Tutorial. Great idea for repurposing all those leftover corks many of us collect!

Rita over at Panoply shares her incredibly beautiful tableware in this bright and cheerful post ~ Celebrating a Fruitful Fall with St. Clement Faience Tablescape. And check out the quilted tablerunner and matching placemats!!! Rita, nice sewing!

Debbie of Debbie-Dabble Blog shared her fall cleaning and clearing out in this post ~ One Project Off My To Do List. Great title and I am sure we are all there with you, Debbie! Time for the big fall clean sweep around our homes!!

Shelbee on the Edge brings us her fun fashion of the week: Band T-Shirts and #SpreadtheKindness Link Up in this great post talking about ways we can support local entertainers during this pandemic time. Loving the shirt and great idea, Shelbee!!!

Well, that’s all the features for this week, folks. Do take some time as you link up today to visit a few of the other party-goers and enjoy their posts! Thank you, sweet friends! 💖

Thank you also 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 sure appreciate it, thank you! I do post all of the featured posts from each week’s SYS there.

Happy almost fall, y’all!