Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #398, dear friends! We have so many hot features this week to match our summer weather… Let’s check ’em all out!
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!💜
I’m back to school this week and it promises to be a good year! I love what I do working in the library and I love seeing how our students grow throughout each year. I’m excited to see what this year will bring.
Here at French Ethereal, I am excited about seeing you here every week. 🙂 This week I’ve got a forgotten post, a look at the gardens at Versailles, which I started last year but never finished. I think I published a version of it, I’m not sure, but here is the post I should have written. I hope you will stop by to read it!
Here’s what I shared this past week atFrench Ethereal…
It’s a little early but that’s the life of a blogger, isn’t it? (Plus at this point, I think we are all hoping for a bit of fall weather!) DeeDee over at Clover House is sharing a sweet craft DIY ~ Revamp Your Dollar Store Pumpkin: Budget Friendly Makeover Ideas.
Grammy Dee from Grammy’s Grid brings us this funny post called appropriately… Huh, RVers Put Their Toilet Paper Where??! I love it! After four years living in two RVs, we went up to clean and reset our Prairie Home RV’s stabilizers a couple of weekends ago. Makes me laugh to read this!
If you are looking for a wonderful trip destination, check out Debbee from Debbee’s Buzz post ~ Aegean Cruise: Visiting Ancient Ephesus, Turkey. We all need places to visit, even if vicariously. 🙂
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 plus usually other photos from those posts to my boards.💜 Thanks so much!!! If you are new to French Ethereal, I hope you will think about subscribing to my blog.
Hello, friends! Summer heat is still with us and fall weather is still a ways off, so our friend Cindy from CountyRoad 407 has come up with a lovely wreath project for us to make and enjoy now here as we move into late summer. Of course, we always get to put our own spin on whatever we create for each month’s Pinterest Challenge ~ which makes each challenge super fun! My wreath will easily transition into autumn, and surprisingly, even beyond. Let’s make a wreath!
I want to say a big thank you to Cindy for creating this monthly Pinterest Challenge. It’s always a pleasure to create or decorate something new each month. If you are just coming over from Diane at South House Designs for the first time, welcome! Didn’t you just love Diane’s wreath decorating ideas? Soooo pretty!! I love the little wreath hung with all the creamware coffee mugs ~ perfection!!
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Our inspiration
Here is the boxwood wreath made by Courtenay from The Creek Line House. This wreath’s simple style of boxwood clippings works well with all types of decor and they look fresh for a really long time.
Courtenay has hung her wreath outside on her backdoor underneath a covered porch. She has decorated around her doorway with galvanized buckets of what looks like dahlias and dusty miller, adding a whitewashed lantern filled with more boxwood shaped into large balls, and standing a small wooden ladder up against an old grey shutter.
A lovely garden-styled look!
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A trip to Dollar Tree
I looked for some leftover pieces of a wire wreath form I had but I must have used it for another project a couple of years ago. So, off to our local Dollar Tree I went to see if I could find a wreath form there.
I found two choices. The one on the left above has a grapevine base so that is the one I chose to use.
I pulled off the styrofoam starfish and the little berries and corresponding greenery. I left the pieces which looked like boxwood as I thought I may need the “filler” if I didn’t collect enough boxwood trimmings to make my wreath.
So… Off to ask my neighbor if I could clip his big boxwood hedges! 🙂
To my surprise, his gorgeous bushes which looked like boxwood from the street weren’t boxwood bushes at all…They were hollies!
So, my “boxwood wreath” will easily transition to Christmas, as you can now see. 😉
Here I was halfway through clipping off the new growth and extra bits of overgrowth. Perfect to collect for my wreath-making project!
I felt a little like Red Riding Hood bringing a gift to her grandmother! I’m glad I got a full bag of holly clippings.
Our weather cooled off, so I sat outdoors to create. It was wonderful making little bundles of holly and wrapping them onto the grapevine with twine! (I couldn’t find my floral wire, but this worked better anyway. More natural.)
About halfway done… Did I mention that this grapevine wreath already has a round ring attached?
Oh! And it had a $5.00 price tag and I was okay with that price. However, when I got home and looked at the receipt…
Total cost: $1.09! That’s all that this project cost as I had everything else in my craft stash.
I finished it, hung it up, and thought it needed a ribbon or something… But we had to run over to my mother-in-law’s house and finish up her sprinkler retrofit/planting new bushes project there.
This was the first iteration as I had to come back and clip off the drooping “new growth” and hot glue in more of the older, sturdier holly trimmings.
That did the trick!
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Fast forward to the next day
I had completely forgotten what the original photograph had in it other than the wreath but I am happy that my version has the same garden-inspired feel.
And I hung my wreath outside our kitchen backdoor under our patio as well. 😉 This was totally a fluke as I just thought, “Oh, here’s a door I can hang this wreath on and it’ll be shaded most of the day.”
(There wasn’t any thought as to where to hang it, honestly. I’ve been on summer break from school too long, lol! My mind has turned to relaxation mush.)
Dappled sunlight invites you to come and sit a spell! Love the reflection of the farmhouse creamware vase with its sunflowers, purple eryngium bourgatii/Mediterranean sea holly and white heath asters.
I thought of using sunflowers as my floral inspiration in this transitional summer-to-fall wreath as they really are the perfect mid-to-late summer flower plus they really love the heat this time of year.
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Still simple to go with any decor and with very much of a boxwood-wreath-look, this impromptu holly wreath has just a touch of faux sunflowers and a creamy lace bow for a bright pop of late summer/early autumn color with lots of texture. 💜
Thank you for stopping by today and please subscribe if you enjoyed this post. Up next is our host Cindy from County Road 407 with her post sharing a bunch of ideas for decorating with boxwood wreaths (and this post doesn’t disappoint!). Be sure to follow the links below for more inspiration!
Hello y’all and welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #395! Summer heat has arrived and Amazon Prime Days (in case you haven’t heard, lol!). Since we all need a bit of cooling off, let’s check out this week’s cool features… 😉
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!💜
Oh, my goodness the weather has turned up!!! The furnace is going this afternoon and I don’t think our a/c has turned off since noon. It’s set at 78 degrees, too. Remember the good old days when we could set it at 72 degrees and that was the norm??
Mr. Ethereal and I have spent the past two weekends over at my mother-in-law’s fixing her sprinkler pipes in ground and finally getting to plant five Texas sage bushes (Barometer bush) for her. You should have seen the nasty roots winding around her sprinkler water pipes! It took Hubby literally 18-19 hours over two days to remove the set of HUGE roots from a crepe myrtle tree right up against the corner of her house. I know that tree is going to shock but it had to be done. Well, Gini’s pipes are redone and the plants are in. Gramma just needs to water daily in this nasty heat!
Let’s see what wonderful cool features we have this week!
Here’s what I shared this past week atFrench Ethereal…
First up this week we have Postcards from the Lake – Finally! by Jeanie from The Marmelade Gypsy. Jeanie always shares such beauty and all the wildlife, plus visits with friends, from this idyllic part of Michigan. Come for a visit!
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 plus usually other photos from those posts to my boards.💜 Thanks so much!!! If you are new to French Ethereal, I hope you will think about subscribing to my blog.
Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #393, dear friends! Happy almost July 4th!!!! I’m sorry SYS is up a day late. My daughter and her roommate drove up yesterday to attend a concert and we had an early dinner with my mother-in-law, her grandmother. Time got away from me with the girls over, but publishing today helps make up for it!
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!💜
Estelle from Homemade on a Weeknight brings us this yummy recipe to share over the holiday weekend ~ Spring Chicken Spaghetti. Delicious!!!!
Our final entry for this evening is this fun DIY craft idea from CoCo of The Crowned Goat ~ love this beautiful tribute to our nation’s birthday ~ Patriotic Inspired Grain Sack Table Runner.
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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 plus usually other photos from those posts to my boards.💜 Thanks so much!!! If you are new to French Ethereal, I hope you will think about subscribing to my blog.
Hello, dear friends! Welcome back to Share Your Style #390!! My cataract eye surgery went well and I am a week out now. I went to the 2nd post-op yesterday and the right eye is doing well. The incision is healed and I am seeing very well already.
As you may know, I chose to go with multi-focal lenses, and even with the quirky “seeing the lens rings” around halogen lights, the rest of the vision is so exceptional, it’s fine. What I mean is that the eye actually “sees” a reflection of the lens’ circular configuration. I also see light refracting off the lens when light comes in sideways. You get used to it. So, if you are looking to have cataract surgery soon, I highly recommend the multi-focal lenses for vision like you had as a kid! It’s worth the extra money… 🙂
I see only one moon again and stars look normal ~ no more long tails and starbursts around them! Yeah!!! Driving at night is great and now I don’t have to wear glasses. There is a bit of scarring on my left eye, the first eye done, so that will be lasered off at the end of June.
***This is the Mayor of Paris’ office building ~ part of last year’s wonderful trip to France with my daughter. 🙂
Well, I literally took two full weeks off from all blogging, so no posts this week for me. Instead, you get a little insight as to WHY I haven’t blogged much this year. My biggest news is that my husband will be moving to a new position with a new company after the July 4th holiday.
We have known since two weeks before Christmas (really great timing!) that the entire division of 90 people would be “softly laid off.” The company is moving the Reverse Logistics group from Texas to California (go figure!). Hubby doesn’t want to move back, nor could we afford it anymore (we weren’t doing well financially there, as it was anyway). On Zillow, our first and second homes show at $513,000 and $620,000, respectively. (Now if we could have sold at either of those prices…)
A bit devastating to me, since the last time Hubby was out of work, he was out of his usual work for two full years. He continued coaching pole vault and the final year he also was the head coach at our grown children’s high school. We had to sell our second home, but as it turned out living at Lake Skinner for a year as a camp host turned out to be a wonderful way to slowly say goodbye to our “hometown” of Murrieta, California. This linked post shares some of that last home and a little of Riverside County Parks – Lake Skinner, Winchester, California.
So it is definitely a huge God thing, a wonderful blessing!, that we won’t have to sell another home under duress. (We have only been here in Texas 6 1/2 years!) Hubby will get to use his coaching talents in a new way. This was something one of the interviewers was interested in as Mr. Ethereal coached for eight years while working his other jobs as well.
So, happily, I can truly relax this summer, and get back to wandering about, photographing life, and to blogging… Posts coming soon! 🙂
Let’s get to your wonderful posts!!
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And here are this week’s featured posts…
First up this week we have Debbee of Debbee’s Buzz who shared a trip worthy of a lifetime ~ a visit to Sequoia National Park: Land of [America’s] Giants. Do check out her post! The trees are MASSIVE! <3
(*America added for our overseas friends!*)
It has been a few weeks now since Mother’s Day… I know you will tear up as you read this lovely post from Sujatha from Crystal Grandeur who reminisces about her mother ~ so heartfelt! Please enjoy this lovely table from her home in India ~ Mother’s Day Table with Lotus Flowers.
Published on Mother’s Day, this lovely tribute to the beauty of birds by Debra from Common Ground strikes a soft spot in my heart ~ Cottage Review: Vintage Birds. Lovely!
For a double-header this week, CoCo also brings us this perfect-way-to-relax post ~ Simple Ways to Elevate Your Morning, part of her Celebrating Life series.
***Sorry this wouldn’t post up! The photos are fun and Yucca Valley is beautiful and warm during the day in January/February for camping/hiking. If you get the chance to visit, please enjoy!
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 plus usually other photos from those posts to my boards.💜 Thanks so much!!! If you are new to French Ethereal, I hope you will think about subscribing to my blog.
I had no idea how emotional I was going to get writing this SYS post for you today… I have said to Charles several times that I just couldn’t go through losing another home… I loved the four years we lived in our two RV’s, but the walls are very thin and RV’s move in the wind and storms. There is something about a solid house which I personally need. It’s a deep longing and may have a lot to do with being a military child and living in 42 different homes over the years. Funny how this didn’t hit me until I was long grown!
It has taken a while but I have fallen in love with our little brick home, our manor house. <3
Thanks again, friends, for hanging in there with me! I truly appreciate your friendship and I do hope we can meet in person one day…
Happy Pinterest Challenge Tuesday, friends! I missed the cutoff for this month’s official Pinterest Challenge with Cindy of County Road 407 and friends, but I thought I’d share my post with you as if I were with the main group anyway…
The challenge this month was to create a spring door basket and I immediately thought of creating one for our shed’s entry door. I love its nine lights ~ so similar to the window panes here from the post Simple Front Door Decorating Ideas by Karen from Sanctuary Home Decor.
The basket Karen created here has blush peonies combined with deeper pink tulips, dusty miller and what looks to be fresh eucalyptus leaves ~ really beautiful!
Realistic faux blooms
For this basket arrangement, I chose four soft pink rose buds in place of the inspiration photo’s tulips. For the peonies, I used several shades of faux pink rose blooms plus dried baby’s breath and eucalyptus sprays.
These realistic blooms came from Ralph’s, a local grocery store near where we lived in Murrieta, California. These blossoms even have realistic thorns which are poky just like the real thing along their stems! They were the perfect choice to take the place of peonies, plus, they fit in with my style.
Adding a sweet sign was the cherry on the top. 🙂
Just planted ~ one Proven Winners Supertunia Vista Bubblegum! Eventually, it will more than take over this pot.
That’s my version of this month’s challenge!
I wish we hadn’t been so busy with car troubles, two IOOF meetings last week, a dog who wakes up every night (seven times last night… 2 1/2 hours I was awake) making me a groggy human during the day… I would have remembered to shoot these photos a lot sooner and make the cut-off! Oh, well! Next time. 😉
Enjoy the big tour, friends. I’ll link over to Cindy’s blog for everyone on the tour. <3
No features from me this week! Last weekend was all about cleaning up the yard, clearing piles of leftover oak leaves and nuts (which have been in big piles for a couple of weeks), and laundry… ugh! Hubby was up in the attic looking to block where the evil rats had been getting into over winter. He vacuumed (while wearing protective gear) in the attic cleaning up “that yucky stuff.” Looking better! 🙂
Elizabeth from Pinecones & Acorns shared this wonderful recipe for Dulce de Leche Brownies… I love recipes with dulce de leche and this looks just delicious!!!
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 plus usually other photos from those posts to my boards.💜 Thanks so much!!! If you are new to French Ethereal, I hope you will think about subscribing to my blog.
Welcome everyone to this week’s Share Your Style #381! A little bunny fun to brighten our Easter month as we check out this week’s featured posts… 😉
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!💜
Claire Justine shared this beautiful tribute for all mothers as we approach the holiday soon ~ Homemade Mother’s Day Treat Ideas. Delicious!!
Penny from Penny’s Treasures shared her sweet entryway all decked out in spring decor ~ Simple Easter Entry & 1st Spring Blooms. Soooo pretty!!! (Love pinks…)
And doing a fun double-header, here is Penny’s massive storage solution for How I Store My Spring & Easter Decor. I am totally impressed!! Question: How many bunnies do you think she has??? Love ’em all!!! 😉
CoCo from The Crowned Goat wows with this festive feast of florals in her post ~ Cottage Inspired Spring Porch Tour. Look at those hydrangeas!!!
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 plus usually other photos from those posts to my boards.💜 Thanks so much!!! If you are new to French Ethereal, I hope you will think about subscribing to my blog.
Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #378, dear friends!! Since Valentine’s Day has just passed, we will still have Valentine ideas for you plus some fun springtime ideas to whet our whistles! Come along and let’s check out this week’s features…
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!💜
We had a very nice Valentine’s Day at school this week. Some teachers and students dressed up in their cutest Valentines-ey outfits. I’ve been wearing pink sweaters all month, so I wore a newer Buc-Ees Valentine shirt. It was fun to pass out ID’s to students (our machine was broken for almost a month) and ask them if they’d like a candy, too.
Today it’s back to normal; a bit of a letdown. But now we move on towards spring! I am already planting seeds. I found two pink PeeGee hydrangeas at the end of January at a Big Box store and I got those planted in large plastic pots yesterday afternoon. Our temps are supposed to drop again this coming weekend, so they will be nice and portable to go inside the shed. It’s filling up nicely and my little tomatoe plants are growing!!!
Well, let’s get to those features…
Here’s what I shared this past week atFrench Ethereal…
Valentine Beauty in the Hutch ~ I hope you’ll come see my post! It took a long time to get this ready to post since I was busy painting the dining room. It’s looking good and you’ll see a peek at that. 🙂
Curated by Jennifer shared this fun fashion post ~ French Girl Winter Shoes ~ to give us all an idea of what’s in style in footwear. Love the stacked loafters and riding boots (though I have neither… shoe bucket list!). How about you?
Debbie from Debbie-Dabble Blog shared this adorable Valentine’s Dessert & Hot Cocoa Bar. I’m in-love with all the “cupcakes” real and faux!! Very cute set-up!!
Jeanie over at The Marmelade Gypsy shared what’s going on up in Michigan here in February. Love this gorgeous bird (woodpecker? Ours looked different in California but we do have similar striped birds here in North Texas.)
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 plus usually other photos from those posts to my boards.💜 Thanks so much!!! If you are new to French Ethereal, I hope you will think about subscribing to my blog.
Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #377, dear friends!! Oh my goodness! There are so many ideas for sharing with family & friends for Valentine’s Day… Let’s take a look!
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!💜
As I finish up painting in our dining room, I wanted to thank all of you who shared your thoughts on how I should paint the lower wall and picture moulding below our chair rail. In the end, after going back and looking at pics from Versailles, I decided I really did love the Comet Dust grey wall color, so I carried it down below and used off-the-shelf Valspar Ultra-White on the mouldings. It’s looking good!
Since then, I’ve been dealing with sick dog… Lots of mopping in the kitchen and laundry room, carpet cleaning & laundry. He has had multiple baths, too. I think the extreme fluctuation in temps didn’t do him any good since he has to go outside to use the restroom. Plus I was painting indoors, where he is close to during the day… So, maybe that whole combination was the issue. He seems better now but I’ve held off finishing painting until later in the week, and only in small amounts. 🙂
So let’s look at this week’s features! I hope you will stop by and visit a few people while you are here. Everyone works soooo hard! 💜
Have a great week!
Here’s what I shared this past week atFrench Ethereal…
An Inspiration Challenge ~ Styling a Vintage Valentine’s Cloche ~ This is a link party if you’d like to come aboard and add ONLY CLOCHE posts with VALENTINE’S DAY DECOR IN THE CLOCHE. I’ve had to removed several posts which didn’t read the link up through. Thanks!!! 💜
And here are this week’s featured posts…
Karin from Karin’s Cottage shared a blast-to-the-past with her post ~ How Do You Style Velvet Pants? Yep, I had a whole pantsuit outfit. 😉
Lynne of Thrifting Wonderland has us sighing over her entryway in Two Flower Vignettes. Love the sweet petals dripped along the table runner!
Kathryn from The Dedicated House shared her Dining Room Paint Refresh. Looks great! 💜 Been there AND still painting ours. 💜
CoCo from The Crowned Goat shared this fun DIY project ~ DIY Valentine’s Mailbox. Adorable!!!
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 plus usually other photos from those posts to my boards.💜 Thanks so much!!! If you are new to French Ethereal, I hope you will think about subscribing to my blog.
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