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Share Your Style #408

Welcome back to another Share Your Style and this number is SYS #408! We had a great selection of posts to look at and narrowing down the features to just a few is sooo challenging… Let’s enjoy those features together, shall we?

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!💜 

French Ethereal: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest

It’s our Red Ribbon Week at school this week, which happens to coincide with our Book Fair, so this has been another busy week! At this fall’s fair, I found a pumpkin recipe cookbook for myself, and coincidentally, this all coincides with this month’s Recipe Pinterest Challenge. Yummmmmm!!!

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Here’s what I shared this past week at French Ethereal…

My entry for this month’s Recipe Pinterest Challenge is An Autumn Cranberry-Apple Crumble. There are soooo many good recipes to try! Do stop by, won’t you?

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And here are this week’s featured posts…

linen crop top and navy skirt
It is still so warm apart much of the world here late in October that it’s fun to share this summery outfit from Jennifer at Curated by Jennifer ~
Linen Crop Top and Navy Skirt. Cute!!!
Jeanie over at The Marmelade Gypsy brings us some pumpkin picking fun in her post ~
Postcards from the Lake: Entering the Autumn Zone. Love this!!!
Sandra from Dinner at Eight shares a lovely fall vignette with a leaf-edged silver tray ~
An Autumn Tray with Leaves, Acorns and Pumpkins. Love it!!!
Branch with faux fall leaves, green wreath around lamp
Cindy from County Road 407 popped over with this festive autumnal front porch post ~
How to Create an Autumn Porchette with Lively Fall Color. So pretty!!!
Michelle from K’Mich Wedding Blog shared this stunning fall table ~
Affordable Chic: The Most Beautiful Pumpkin Centerpiece Ideas to Steal! Wow!!!
Homemade gnome pilgrim with autumn leaves surrounding it
We are only a few days away from Halloween and just a month from Thanksgiving so I am happy to share this cute craft idea with you from newcomer Ann at Ann’s Entitled Life.
Ann delights us with this Pilgrim Gnome DIY – Thanksgiving Crafts Decorations. Welcome!!!
Fall Front Porch with Boxwood urns and bittersweet
Amber from Follow the Yellow Brick Home brings us her new home’s brightly decorated porch ~ Fall Front Porch with Boxwood Topiaries and Bittersweet. Beautiful!
Halloween candy jars
Emily from Hunny I’m Home DIY shares this sweet idea to give as gifts ~
Halloween Candy Mason Jars with Printable Gift Tag. Fun idea!!!
Halloween food idea! Mummy jalapeno poppers in oven. Baked jalapeno poppers are easy and this recipe uses healthier ingredients.
Our last feature for this week comes from newcomer Sarah from Must Have Mom who brings us these totally adorable Halloween Mummy Jalapeño Poppers in Oven Recipe. Yummy and cute!!!

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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Many fall blessings,

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Pinterest Challenge, Recipes

An Autumn Cranberry-Apple Crumble Recipe to Bake!

Welcome to this month’s Pinterest Challenge, dear friends! Our friend Cindy from County Road 407 came up with a yummy idea to share with y’all here in October (absolutely perfect for taking to all those upcoming holiday parties and for fall BBQ’s), and that is to create a simple recipe for you! I’ve come up with a Cranberry-Apple Crumble, which can be made any time of the the year, but is my new go-to here as we move into the holiday season…

If you are just stopping by from Diane from South House Designs for the first time, welcome! I am so happy you are here!! 🙂 Isn’t Diane’s Butter Cake recipe just delicious looking?? I’ve been drooling ever since… ;)’

Here’s what you need to make this recipe:

  • whole berry cranberries in sauce, 1 can
  • one or two apples for sweetness, chopped (I left the skin on) – these are Pink Ladies
  • make a crisp topping, of which I had some frozen in the freezer. I made more to round out the recipe. 🙂
  • chopped pecans – about 1/2 cup or so
  • flour
  • butter to melt into recipe and butter to butter your 8″ x 8″ pan
  • brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • add oats if you like! I do!!

This variation is my own recipe with cranberries and apples. The recipe above was my starting point. I used the whole cranberry in place of the raspberry preserves; however, both would be equally good in this crumble. 🙂

Butter your dish, of course. I decided to use real butter this time instead of spray butter. It really does add that extra flavor!

Oops! 😉 I opened regular cranberry sauce first. This was take two!

Chop up your pecans and apple and add into a small mixing bowl with the whole berry cranberry sauce.

Mix up the crumble and add oats if you like to have them in your recipes. Melt the butter and add into the crumble mixture. Press about half of the mix into the bottom of the pan.

Pour in the cranberry mixture and spread out over all of the oat-sugar-flour mixture.

Then pour or spoon the rest of the crumble over the cranberry-apple spread. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 42 minutes.

Enjoy!!!

This was an easy recipe to make and goes together quickly. This is actually the first time I used whole berry cranberry sauce to make a recipe but it worked great in place of the preserves. I’d definitely make this again as I personally love cranberries!

Renae from Peacock Ridge Farm is up next and I know you’ll love the autumn-inspired charcuterie board she has created for you! Thanks for stopping by, consider subscribing and do enjoy visiting all of the ladies on today’s recipe tour. It’s a yum day!!!

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Happy fall hugs,

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Gardening

A Fall Garden Walkabout + Lunar Eclipse Photos

Happy fall, y’all! Acorns have been falling off our backyard oak trees since late August (just a few then, but still pretty early). So each Saturday morning since then, Mr. Ethereal begins mowing the lawns by blowing them off our back patio for me. Then, I go out and rake them all into a monster-size pile and scoop them into our waste bin to go to the dump.

A view from our living room windows after this Saturday’s acorn clean-up

FINALLY we are having cooler weather here in North Texas!! I have heard that this past August and September were the hottest months temperature-wise ever recorded in history, and I believe it. Once it got really hot in late July, I quit going outside pretty much at all during the day to weed in the garden, and just watered plants hoping they’d survive.

A view out our kitchen window of the neighbor’s lovely fall side garden. Do you see the monarch butterfly?

Thankfully, before we drove up to see our son and his family over the third weekend of June, we spent a few days building a drip irrigation system to keep things watered. It isn’t perfect, and needed tweaking, but it sure helped!

Most of the yards were watered once a day, but the southern side of the house got twice a day watering for some areas.

Let’s see how the garden fared… 🙂

Right outside of the kitchen and dining room windows, in two terracotta pots, are two climbers. This one is Claire Austin. At some point they will get planted in the ground.

We have to finish fixing the sprinkler lines before I can plant them, since we will be moving some lines around. The oak tree on the left grew so much (because someone was actually watering the lawn, that between its own girth and its roots, this oak tree has eaten our #2 valve and three water lines… Hubby isn’t too happy about it and has been working on the lines as he has time. We really need a professional. It’s on the docket for this fall. 🙂

Along the shed, I planted a couple of pink mums and a little trailing vine which can overwinter and is rated for zone 4 for cold (we are 8a here). The tradescantia pallida purpurea has really taken off with the cooler weather. It produces really pretty small purple flowers and hopefully will bloom once more before winter sets in.

Rosemary, a boxwood and more mums loving the 80 degree days… The mums replaced a few plants which died from overwatering. I’ll have to really figure out how to cut back on watering for some plants next season (less drip holes or use a valve to control water better).

Along the shady southern side of the shed, the climbing rose, one lavender and other plants made it. A hydrangea and another lavender were under and over-watered. Go figure! I bought the azalea, which likes more water, to plant in that dead lavender’s place. 😉

This holly is finally taking off and I am not going to clip any of it until next spring. However, did you know that hollies have an anti-freeze type ability? True. I won’t have to worry about wrapping this one anymore.

Last week I posted a video on Instagram of our backyard before I started weeding and the yard was looking really rough… It’s looking much better with just a couple of areas left to weed out. now for a good edging!

A hydrangea I thought didn’t make it is putting out new leaves, so I imagine it will do better next year. I will make sure to put more water lines around it (and closer to its roots) so it won’t freak out in the heat again.

The Lunar Eclipse

Hubby texted me from his mother’s yard at around 10:20 CST that the lunar eclipse was beginning (he drove over to mow her yard next ~ around 9:45am).

About 11am, all of a sudden it was slightly darker outback and then… I was encircled by all these beautiful horseshoes!!!!!

*I realized later that I was facing the wrong way to capture the moon crossing in front of the of the sun. This is photo #2.

This is the photograph I took with my iPhone 12 and I think I captured the moon (dark round object up-left of the sun) coming towards the sun. This was around 10:20am from out front of our house (#1 in chronological order).

This angle clearly shows the moon is now crossing down past the mid-point of the sun’s path. This time I was facing the right way… 😉 – Photo #3

Fixing our backyard sprinkler lines

And here is the beautiful shady oak tree which is slightly notorious for eating our spinkler lines…

Here you can see where the three dug holes are:

  1. The one leading towards the front of the house is covered by a large concrete pot saucer (never used for the monster pot we had our mandarin orange tree sitting in in California, but somehow made it into our household goods in the storage unit).
  2. The water-filled hole under the oak tree which fills every time we water using the system with certain lines.
  3. The last hole is kind of obscured and is in the tree’s shadow to the right, next to the hose leading around the yard (hooked up to water along the back fence).

We purchased a new b-Hyve timer to run the six lines from inside the garage (two of which don’t work because of the valves eaten by this tree out back).

We liked it so much, we bought this second one to run the lines for all of the planter beds. One of the four hoses is set up just as a hose so I can hand-water. We can manually run each line if needed and that worked really well.

Some final images

Cooler temps have really benefitted the butterfly bushes the most as they are producing the prettiest lavender blooms. We have had bees and butterflies coming around so much more and the tomatoe plants are getting pollenated. I am hoping for winter tomatoes! (no photos)

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Enjoy your week, dear friends!

crafts, Home Decor

Share Your Style #405

Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #405, dear friends! There are soooo many good posts from two weeks ago that I’d love to share them all. Not always possible, but I do enjoy trying to put together a theme each week.

Right now, it’s all about fall and everything this season has to offer! Let’s take a look at what all we have to share…

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!💜 

French Ethereal: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest

Here’s what I shared this past week at French Ethereal…

Penning a Fall Tableau ~ part of this month’s Pinterest Challenge where we all took inspiration and created a table full of fall decor. Hope you will stop by!

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And here are this week’s featured posts…

Penny from Penny’s Treasures shared a beautiful post ~ Fall Designs with a Sprinkle of Halloween. Fun!!!
Lisa from Fresh Vintage by Lisa brings us this really unique idea for jewelry! ~ Making Beads from Vintage Silverware ~ You’ve GOT to go over and check out how Lisa made these necklaces. <3
Debbie from Debbie-Dabble Blog brings us a fall tour in her home ~ Elegant Autumn Vignettes in the Living Room. Love all the perky orange pumpkins!!!
Pumpkin spice donuts stacked.
So loving this easy recipe idea from Lois over at Walking on Sunshine ~
Pumpkin Spice Cake Mix Donuts. What recipe could be easier? YUM!!!
What to Plant in a Fall Vegetable Garden is perfect for all gardeners to check out for our gardens. From Sharlene over at The Secret Life of Homesteaders. Love this!!
champagne-cork-bride-groom-figures
Just adorable! Debbee over at Debbee’s Buzz shares these fun cork people in her post
Easy DIY Champagne Cork Wedding Party Figures. Definitely stop by and see the whole party! <3
vacation ideas to US National Parks in October
Jamie & Dave from PhotoJeepers takes us on a trip ~ Visiting US National Parks in October. I I am soooo ready… I might be stiff here in my early 60’s but camping is one of the most restful things in life to do. Let’s get out there, friends! <3
Nice to see Arun from Jaipur Gardening back over with this floral-filled post ~ Monsoon Revival. Isn’t it wonderful when the rains come? Our gardens just flourish!
Completed fox garland displayed on twine with wooden leaves and faux floral
Stephanie from Steph Creates DIY Home & Crafts shares this super cute Fall Fox Garland: Easy & Affordable DIY Decor with Dollar Tree Items. Love easy crafts ideas!!!
Our final post this week comes from Rita from Panoply who shares this massive antiquing center in her post Panoply Booth Spaces and Antiquing Lately. Love this!!!

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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.

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Enjoy the party, y’all,

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Home Decor, Pinterest Challenge, Tablescapes

Penning a Fall Tableau…

Welcome to this month’s Pinterest Challenge, dear friends! Our friend Cindy from County Road 407 finds a photo for us to use each month as our inspiration piece. This month we have been challenged to create a beautiful fall vignette…

If you are just coming over from Carol at Bluesky at Home to French Ethereal for the first time, welcome! I am so glad you are here and hope you consider following my blog and my other media channels.

My living room is fresh and clean with the fall cleaning I began just a couple of weeks ago, and I’m happy to share a small corner of it with you today: our lovely library/tea table over by our western facing back windows which overlook our backyard. 🙂

So, let’s get to our inspiration!

Vintage inspiration

I totally love this fall-styled table from Katie Wood at The Cottage Journal magazine, who shared this vignette as part of homeowner Gloria Parker’s antique-filled home built in the 1830’s. There is sooo much autumnal goodness here!

Gloria’s table is artfully arranged with a double-handled olive oil jar, which I learned during this challenge is called a confit jar which is filled with orange winterberry vine. A stack of vintage books, a lovely autumn-colored soup tureen, plus several prettily framed portraits add to the scene! Oooh, I just noticed she copied the pot’s look in the shorter soup tureen with its double handles as I took in a second pass over her photograph. Don’t you just love “repeats” in decor?

Just brings everything together… 🙂

A bit more fall is woven into this vignette with several tiny cream pumpkins and a few fall leaves. Love the monochromatic look!

The orange winterberry branches definitely lend their fall touch to the vignette and set the color scheme. The pumpkins add a festive look and set the scene squarely around October and Halloween time, at least in my opinion.

My tableau

Our vignette begins with finding something along the lines of those winterberries…

I found faux ones at Hobby Lobby but they were a bit pricey so I opted instead for soft autumn flowers in peach and pale yellow paired with creamy pussy willows.

How to Make Your Own Fall Foliage Vase

I arranged these florals in a French vase to mimic the winterberries in the olive oil jar from our inspiration photograph.

A sheet of heavy paper packed around the stems keeps the florals upright (what the cashier wrapped these stems with). I would have used chicken wire but forgot that I had some out in the garden shed. 😉

Pieces of green moss tucked in around the top hide the paper edges and give the vase a finished look.

As you can see, creating a little area for penning a note to a loved one is really showcased with the soft fall colors in our floral bouquet!

I’ve added my signature maiden statue for added height and its soft chalkware hue, plus more whites in a vanilla-scented candle, then a creamware mug of hot tea, play up the creams of the sweetly soft pussy willows.

The little brown jug with its little friar or monk stopper is a prohibition piece which belonged to my father’s mother and father. It plays “How Dry I Am” and it still works! This jug is another nod to the beautiful olive oil jar from Katie’s stylings for the Cottage Journal.

To the other side of our library table, I’ve added a small stack of books in soft fall colors of russet, gold, cream and a pale sky blue. Two fabric pumpkins nestle into the scene just like in our inspiration piece and add more texture to this vignette.

One vintage framed card set inside a gilded frame I’ve had since high school helps complete the tableau. After I began photographing, I remembered this little pewter candle snuffer and added it to my tablescape.

I did indeed use it to put out the candle when I was done. 🙂

The rest of the story

And here is our full fall vignette ready for me to finish writing this notecard. An old favorite story about Hazel the rabbit and her many friends in Watership Down waits to be picked up and read some more. Not a bad recreation, is it? I’m happy with this fall styling.

Thanks for stopping by today, everyone! Up next is Kim from Cottage in the Mitten whose fall vignette is absolutely stunning with her signature blue books! Do stop by and check out all of the other wonderful fall tablescapes shared today… 🙂

Thank you to Cindy for gathering us all together again! Love being part of the Pinterest Challenge crew…

Past fall PC tours you might enjoy…

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Enjoy the tour, blessed friends,

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Home Decor

Share Your Style #404

Bonjour, mes amis! Bienvenue a Share Your Style #404!! I’m watching a new favorite vlog on YouTube called XO Macenna and she and her fiancé and mother over in Paris right now. Totally excited to see a flea market (brocante) on her channel since Amy and I didn’t get to any when we were there. We missed one by one weekend…. Next time!

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!💜 

French Ethereal: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest

Well, last weekend I was down in Corsicana, Texas, for an IOOF meeting. Was a good event but I am glad it is over! 😉 My mother-in-law went with me and she prepared the luncheon ~ which is her specialty and heart, really. We enjoyed eating out and an ice cream treat stop at Braum’s down there. I took Gini over to a women’s dress shop called Cato, and we had fun checking out all of the clothing there. I tried on a super cute blue jean jacket but it was too big. I did find a nice deep green long-sleeved shirt for fall and that came home with us. Oh! And we stopped by Buc-Ees in Ennis (about 20 miles north of Corsicana) and we found some fall Buc-Ees t-shirts for the season. I think that makes the 18th Buc-Ees t-shirt I own… 😉 TRUTH!

I’m still working on painting and varnishing the buffet so no new posts yet for you. Still has a cigarette or old wood smell… Might be painting the whole thing. And that’s okay as I like white painted furniture anyway. Just this little update here. 🙂

Well, let’s get to the party!

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And here are this week’s featured posts…

Our first entry this week is all about snacking ~ Sunday Afternoon with Cookies from Lynne from Thrifting Wonderland are the perfect early fall treat (okay, any time of year, lol!). Yum!!!
No photo description available.
Michelle from Weddings by K’Mich shared this precious pup from her Facebook post and blog post ~ Dogs in Your Wedding Don’t Have to Be Hard. Adorable floral collars!!! Soooo happy Michelle figured out a way that allows me to share her photos (Facebook) and posts with you! <3
Niky from The House on Silverado shared her Cozy Fall Bedroom. Love the grey floral with the cream, tan and beautiful green headboard! Stunning!!!
summer-planter
Debbee from Debbee’s Buzz shares her lovely fall garden ~ Updated Curb Appeal: Landscape, Front Pad & Sidewalk. Looking just soooo pretty!!!
Lois from Walking on Sunshine Recipes, who is a newcomer to SYS, brings us these delicious looking Pumpkin Cheesecake in a Jar recipe… Seriously, I am in need of pumpkin spice yummies! How about you??? Welcome, Lois! Glad you are here!!
40 USA October Vacation Ideas
Dave and Jamie from Photo Jeepers shared 40+ October Vacation Ideas in the US by Region. I am sooooo there!!! Ready to get out of town for a real fall tour…
Completed set of homemade wands laying on a greenery.
Perfect to make with your kids and grands!! Newcomer Darcy from Darcy & Brian shared how she made these adorable wands for her little trick or treaters. 🙂
Welcome, Darcy and Brian!! Glad you are here. <3
How to Make a Wizard Wand Out of a Stick.
Fall front porch with fall tree, lanterns and pumpkins
Wendy from WM Design House brings us this luscious fall entryway in her post ~ 35 Fall Front Porch Decorating Ideas on a Budget. Is your porch all ready for the season? Or are you like me and you are just waiting for pumpkins to arrive at the local garden center and church bizarres. Pretty!
Our final entry for this week comes from Debra over at Common Ground who shares this fun post ~ Book Page Pumpkin {Fall} Candle Covers. Lovely!!!

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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.

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A bietôt, y’all!

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Home Decor

An Early Fall Buffet With a Move to the Living Room

Happy September, dear friends! We had slightly cooler temps this past week ~ down into the lower 90’s. With that, I’ve begun a little fall cleaning around the house. So nice to bring in a little fall color around the house.

When Gramma Gini and I brought the buffet home, it ended up under the kitchen bar in our dining room. Seemed like a good place for it at the time.

I began a post with this crystal bowl I inherited from my mother, who inherited it from her mother, my Grammy Helen. She inherited it from her mother who had a bunch of crystal pieces. Back in the 1930’s or so, Julia had to sell many of the pieces because back then you were taxed on the number of things you owned.

Sounds weird, but true! Kinda like when people were taxed on the number of windows they had in their houses. (I think that was in England.)

She kept four crystal pieces and each of her children were blessed to inherit one piece.

Anyway, I never finished the post. 😉 This simple bowl of dried hydrangea blooms looked good on the buffet!

Over the long weekend, I asked Mr. Ethereal if he would move the new buffet from the dining room into the living room for me.

Decorating the Buffet in the Living Room

I started with this fall table runner I found earlier in the summer at Home Goods. It is perfect with the soft cream pumpkins added around the hydrangea bowl.

An addition of a vanilla scented candle on a nubby clear glass candleholder was the perfect finishing touch.

And even though the rest of the living room is in cleaning chaos, it’s nice to have a bit of fall here on the buffet!

How is your fall decorating going?

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Happy September, everyone!

Holidays, Home Decor

Share Your Style #361

Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #361, friends! We have lots of great features to share with you.

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!💜 

French Ethereal: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest

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!💜 

French Ethereal: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest

It has been a week, friends. Yoda is feeling better, but we’ve had five days of off-and-on poopy messes in our kitchen and dining area. Thankfully, Yoda is getting better. After three different days of cleaning up, I am grateful for Yoda’s improvement.

Thank you for your well wishes! 🙂

Here’s what I shared this past week at French Ethereal…

Front Porch Fall Fix-Up ~ Two Ways! ~ This month’s Pinterest Challenge shares lots of good ideas to decorate your porches for fall!

And here are this week’s featured posts…

fall foyer styling
MaryJo from Master “Pieces” of My Life shared this ethereal post ~ Fall Foyer of Styling. Lovely!!!
purple-Halloween-table-black-bat-folded-napkin
Debbee from Debbee’s Buzz brings out a lovely tablescape for us in her post ~
Gone Batty: A Black, White and Purple Halloween Table. Love it!!!
From Common Ground, Debra shares this awesome autumnal basket ~ Vintage Laundry Basket for a Fall Centerpiece. Gorgeous!!!
One small crystal ball with a skull inside and two small ones mounted on terra cotta pots with small glitter skulls inside.
Niki from Life As a Leo Wife shared this Halloween tutorial in this post ~ Make Your Own Crystal Balls for Halloween.
Want to make some clever decorator pies?? Lisa from Fresh Vintage by Lisa shares this really creative decorative pie tutorial ~ Faux Mini Pie ~ So realistic, you’d want to eat it!
17 Tasty Bonfire Night Recipes Everyone Will Love
Claire Justine shares this post packed with 17 Bonfire Recipe Ideas ~ yum!!!!!
Jeanie from The Marmelade Gypsy shares a artistic post here ~ Postcards from the Lake: Road Trip to Harbor Springs. Check out what she writes about these beautiful draft horses… 🙂
Niky from The House on Silverado has a wonderful recipe to share in her post ~
Easy Whipped Ricotta Cheese Crostini with Honey and Walnuts. Looking delicious!!!
all about the hat, bohemian style, kimono over maxi dress, thrifted fashion
Shelbee from Shelbee on the Edge is the Mad Hatter in this chapeaux-filled post ~
All About Hats and Your Own Twist Link Up Party #48. Loving Shelbee’s here!!!
Wendy from WM Design House rounds out our features with this post sharing a
DIY Cornucopia. Pretty and fun to make!

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.

Happy linking,

Barb 🙂

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Click here to enter
Home Decor, Pinterest Challenge

Front Porch Fall Fix-Up ~ Two Ways!

Welcome to this month’s Pinterest Challenge, friends! Our host Cindy of County Road 407 has picked a wonderful porch for us to use as our inspiration. Our photograph comes from Rachel and Kevin Quenzer at Sugar Maple Farmhouse…

Fall front porch decor and inspiration

Fall Front Porch Decor Inspiration

If you are just coming over from Laura’s at Everyday Edits, isn’t her porch pretty with all of its pumpkins?? Love it!! I personally have been sooo looking forward to this one (PC) as even though our front porch is small, it’s big on heart! And with the end-of-season sales, Mr. Ethereal and I picked up a new set of all-weather wicker including two chairs with back pillows and cushions in a soft teal, matching ottomans, plus a small table to set in between.

But first let’s talk about today’s challenge, shall we?

Taking a good look at our inspiration photo, Rachel and Kevin have several pieces of:

  • warm wood-toned furniture
  • throw rugs and pillows with stripes and nubby textures
  • shocks of corn stalks and potted fall flowers
  • and, of course, a massive amount of cream and orange pumpkins!

Here is how our front porch looked the first fall after we had moved in. I’ve been feeling pumpkin stacks for a couple of years now, but this year I think we will change things up a bit!

Look #1 – Our Fall Front Porch

I’ve made a big change to our front porch wrought iron chair since last fall by painting it! So this is Look #1, with just a simple pumpkin displayed on this chair. Striking all on its own!

Loving this!

Here in North Texas, pumpkins are just becoming available, so I used only a sprinkling of Baby Boo pumpkins and the one big Connecticut Field pumpkin on our front porch. Mr. Ethereal picked this big guy up at Costco for me. He’s a keeper! <3

Here’s our first look in full! The basket of little Baby Boos wasn’t in place yet but you will see them in just a couple of photos… 🙂

These urns are planted with yellow lantana (2 plants this side, 3 in the other), blue lobelia (1 each planter) and three pink pentas in each. Loving this color combination!

The flowers I’ve used are both real and faux. From a YouTube gardener I follow, I learned a basic rule of thumb when gardening is to plant flowers, perennials and shrubs which bloom in blues, pinks, yellows and orange. I think I’ve ticked all the boxes here colorwise!

When I arrived home from work last Friday evening, a small Carpenter bee was hovering by my front door. Guess he liked this color combination, too!!

Look #2 – Our Fall Front Porch now

Just by changing out the chair, we have a whole new feel to the front porch! The teal of the pillow and cushion on the new all-weather wicker chairs brings out the blues in the two lobelias, making them much more visible now in the planters. We found this set of two wicker chairs (my Titanic chairs!), two matching ottomans and a small round table combination as a great end-of-season buy at Lowe’s! 🙂

Simply changing out the chair really gives a whole new look to our front porch. Adding a soft throw brings a little more of a fall look as well as a bit of the soft carpet look from our inspiration photo. That’s my fall front porch two ways, friends!!

Now let’s check out Carol’s from Bluesky at Home. I know you are going to love how her porch turned out! Thank you for visiting today and I hope you will visit everyone on today’s tour. <3

Happy fall, y’all,

Barb 🙂

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From Summer to Fall Hanging Basket

Happy Labor Day, y’all! Wasn’t it so nice to have an extra day off this weekend? Mr. Ethereal and I worked on several projects and did a little holiday sales shopping, too. Saturday morning, though, I worked on a little changeover in the shed with refreshing our hanging door basket…

I started with cleaning out this little wicker basket I’ve had since I was 16 years old. I got two of them from Cost-Plus (now World Market) when I was a new driver and was newly working. My daughter has the second one down at her apartment in Austin. They are great for holding hair things, brushes, anything!

I had put together a spring or summer bouquet about a year ago and decided it was time to clear it out. All the greenery got a nice rinse and dry, most was packed away into its tubs. But, then I thought about the hanging basket I’d made earlier this summer for the shed…

It still looked good but it is getting to be time for something for fall, so I pulled all of its florals out and gave them a good washing. I saved the little moss balls to reuse for this fall basket and tossed the now-really-falling-apart floral foam.

Got a spider bite in the process, too. 🙁 (The swelling went down by nightfall, so all is good!)

I reused the piece of scrunched-up chicken wire that I had placed last year into the little wicker basket (along with a piece of granite to keep that basket from falling over).

For this hanging basket, I loosened this chicken wire some to fit this basket better.

Then I tucked the chicken wire inside the wire basket and began adding the lime green moss balls back in between the two wire pieces. These little moss balls work great for hiding faux greenery wires behind it and add a nice pop of color to the overall basket!

Making an impromptu bouquet…

I chose some cream toned peony stems, even though technically they aren’t a fall flower. I like them for fall mainly because of their lovely, creamy color. Next, I added in some loose faux leaves for filler, then looked through the two tubs of florals for small sunflowers bunches and the one large sunflower I still have.

After having some of these stems for several years, the fuzz comes off of the sunflowers and new ones are needed from the dollar store or one of the craft stores.

I don’t know if I ever mentioned it, but I’ve been on a self-imposed No Spending on Craft Things or Thrift Shopping this year. The only time I broke that resolution was when I went browsing and found the little Colonial Patriotic Statuettes earlier this summer when my MIL was getting her Texas driver’s license.

The morning sunlight was beautiful for taking these early fall photographs, but I wanted to clean up the dead things in the pots outside of the shed before taking final photographs for you. 😉

A Labor Day evening photograph for you!

This weekend was perfect for cleaning out planters and pots and we had a 68 degree low this morning… WHAT change from the last two months of 100 degrees or more! This past week and weekend were wonderful weather for working in the garden and I took full advantage of playing with planting some of my potted roses, plus some of the new plants I will share soon.

And that’s all there is to creating a pretty fall hanging basket using florals already on hand!

I am pleased with how this turned out and I’ll swap out the peonies later in the season with faux orange leaves, berries and add a fall ribbon to take us to Thanksgiving.

Happy creating, friends!

Barb 🙂