Uncategorized

Bringing Out Pretties for Springtime in the Kitchen

Welcome, friends to another fun Pinterest Challenge hosted by our friend Cindy of County Road 407! This month’s posts will be sharing everyone’s beautiful kitchens decorated for springtime. Some of us may just focus on countertops and others may share what’s up above, too. Today, I have a little of both for you…

Let them eat cake!

If you are stopping by from Rachel of The Ponds Farmhouse, welcome! Her kitchen was a dream, wasn’t it? Rustic and modern at the same time ~ I really love it!! Our kitchen inspiration photo comes from the talented Marly of Marly Dice.com. Her kitchen is ethereal with its bright white cabinets and the sunshine pouring in from the window over the sink…

Bright and airy in Marly’s beautiful kitchen ~ Fresh and Cheerful Spring Kitchen Tour.
I painted the kitchen walls a pretty turquoise which matched the color of our freeform pool’s water.

It makes me wish I still had my last kitchen in California…

The Big House kichen had lovely solid oak cabinets which the previous owner had painted white and I loved them! Here I was giving them a refresh repainting in 2014 as we knew we would be selling the next year.

Our inspiration kitchen’s look

I love the soft marble backsplash and the pretty granite countertops contrasted by all the white! Marly has just a few things out on display which really complement the main colors of white, a pinkish look to the backsplash marble, and the tan brought out in the granite counters:

  • a few wooden cutting boards
  • two vases of flowers bringing springtime indoors
  • pretty creamware dishes stacked near the sink
  • a wooden display trolley with more creamware soup mugs and more on it
  • a butcher block of knives ready for mealtime prepwork

I really like Marly’s quiet style! I am really a minimalist at heart, though you wouldn’t know it to see the usual stuff laying around our house, lol! But when our home is cleaned up, I love the quiet and calm that comes with cleared off counters, everything in its place, and I bet you do, too. 😉

My kitchen

Currently our kitchen has an Old World look to it with the darker cherry cabinets. I love the size of our kitchen, but they are just press-board. I wish the previous owner had left the 1990’s solid oak cabinets as they were better built.

For the immediate future, I am planning on painting the kitchen walls a soft grey this summer to lighten up the kitchen’s look, and I may tackle the upper cabinets painting them a creamy white, too. Depends on what I can realistically get done while off from school!

For this challenge, though, I thought about sharing more of my collection of baskets plus bringing out all of my glass cake plates and their covers. I like redoing the tops of my cabinets for the season, and the thought of bringing in some light colored items up above really sparked an idea for me! I began with:

  • Bringing in many of my baskets ~ most of my baskets are a natural wood color which brings in the soft tan color from the inspiration photo.
I moved the basket filled with pinecones here above the refrigerator and added a large bread basket and my bowed flower girl basket with this winter’s dried roses and lavender.
More thriftshop and Longaberger baskets ~ I have had the Longaberger baskets since the years 1989-1992. These were purchased during the 1980/1990’s heydey of home shopping parties. I bought these while we lived on base at Camp Pendleton.
  • One cutting board is out along with an Italian trivet I have near the stove. I set these out last fall and Mr. Ethereal likes having the salt and pepper shakers, olive oil and avocado oil out all the time next to the stove. We have a framed Italian restaurant print hanging on the wall to the left of the refrigerator from his trip to Italy in 1984.
  • Pretty potted plants instead of vases of flowers ~ I loved the inspiration photo’s pinks so I did bring that in with the faux flower arrangement up above under the glass cloche, as well as a potted plant from outside.
  • Bringing in the glass ~ adding in all the vintage and newer cake plates above and on the counters echoes the glass vase in our inspiration piece.
Loving the new spring look!
  • Display trolley ~ I found a two-tiered display piece at Target probably 10 years ago. Originally it was gilded and later I dry brushed white over top. I love that it has the two big sparrows on top! Today it shares my collection of vintage Haviland-Limoges and Austrian plates and small bowls with roses.
I made the “piece” of cake years ago (it is somewhere in a box, I’m sure) and displayed it on different plates and in three cute open display windows we had in our first home when I began having teas. It seemed fitting to finish the cake for this shoot!
  • Butcher block ~ our knife holder is always out on display, as is our toaster and one of two butter dishes. This time the Butter Lady is out; she is from Poland and matches a teapot and warmer I brought back from England about 15 years ago.

To go along with the soft pinks, and because I had so many cake plates up above, it seemed fitting that I finally create this faux 3/4 cake…

Not totally finished yet ~ I ran out of Queen Anne’s Lace faux flowerheads ~ I love the Flower Cake’s look! The moss is the “cake” and the flowers are the frostings, filling, and top.

These flower cakes were super popular to make about 30 years ago now. Maybe this will bring back a new trend??!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Here is a list of everyone on today’s Pinterest Challenge tour. If you are following along in order, or just going randomly, have fun clicking onward!

Up next is Niky from The House on Silverado who has such a pretty kitchen… How she decorated her kitchen for this challenge is perfect, too! I know you will be inspired by her springtime kitchen display…

Happy spring redecorating, friends!

Hugs, Barb 🙂

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Uncategorized

Share Your Style #294

Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #294, friends!!! Happy Wednesday to you all!

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

I am Barbara Chapman and I’d love it if you’d follow me here and/or on my other social media sites, thank you! 🙂

My sites:  French Ethereal  Instagram  Facebook  Pinterest  YouTube

And here are this week’s featured posts…

Debra from Common Ground shares this layered Easter time vignette in this post ~ A Touch of Spring in the Garden Room. Love it!!!
I just couldn’t decide so… I shared both! Here is another of Debra’s (Common Ground) fun creations/vignettes ~ Blooming ‘Brella and Friends!
How to repurpose a plastic mannequin and turn it into unique garden art. The tutorial includes how to create a faux concrete effect with craft paint. Love how it turned out. #Fauxconcrete #painteffects #mossmannequin #DIYTutorial #mosseffects #gardenart #acraftymix #recyclegardenart
Michelle over at A Crafty Mix shared how she made this incredible art piece (a lot of work went into this!) in her post ~ The Making of a Mosaic and Moss Mannequin. I just had to share! Wow…

Hand carved bird displayed with S. Allen Chambers Lynchburg an Architectural History book and Lynchburg, A Pictorial History Book
Paula of Virginia Sweet Pea shared her PC (Pinterest Challenge) coffee table decor in this nature-inspired post ~ Spring Coffee Table Decor. Love this hand-carved bird!
No description available.
Liz over at Howling at the Moon brings us her sweet crocheted Victoria the Swan. Just precious for any upcoming baby showers!!!
Apple  Recipe @ http://treatntrick.blogspot.com
Treat and Trick shares this delicious recipe for Eggless Apple Cake. Lovely presentation… <3
fall leaf plates
Rachelle of My Hubbard Home brings us her latest ~ Thrift Store Finds That Don’t Need Any Improvements. Love a great thrifting adventure, don’t you?!!
Last up for this week, y’all is Sandra of Dinner at Eight sharing her lovely dining table set with these sweeties in her post ~ Song of Winter…

And that’s it for this week, friends!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Happy linking, everyone!

Barb

Uncategorized

A Spring Mantel Blooming in White + How To

Our mantel was all abloom this past weekend, so… I just had to rearrange the mantel!!! I have been studying many other design influencers’ blogsites for just how one puts together a “good vignette,” so I thought I’d share that here today as well!

This all came about from last month’s Bunny Mantel, which I realized I wasn’t quite ready for… I moved the bunnies off to our tea table, which is now over in the family room area under our television. They look nice there and I’ll share them later on.

How to layer a mantel (or any vignette, really?)

Other than the mirror at the back, there were only two layers here and I think that was bugging me! That’s one of the reasons I decided to change-up our mantel display.

There is one problem here that I cannot change: the mantel is really thin on top, so everything has to be thin, or be able to hang off. A few things are hanging off but are heavy enough to stay on regardless. 🙂

So let’s check out some arrangements for details, shall we?

Layers, lots of layers:

So I went searching over on Follow the Yellow Brick Home for details… I love how rich Amber’s rooms always look so I’ve been studying how she does it. And it’s layers…

From back to front in each display Amber creates a mass of layers which gives each of her vignettes a really nice personality and 3-D effect.

Here in her Christmas Music Room she begins with what’s up on the wall: the garlands with a large rectangular mirror underneath.

An oval frame laid sideways infront of the mirror, then a large bust of Mozart (I think!) with a whole smattering of Christmas trees, other smaller busts, flowers in a vase and more…

Debra over at Common Ground creates her layers in this lovely photograph much the same way and she uses another technique…

Create a theme:

The china cabinet in the background creates the first layer; then the large ceramic rabbit and stacked upright platters is the second; with a third layer of spring teacups, a sweet birdie in a nest of moss and little eggs and two or three whorls of grapevines creating nest shapes; finally the fourth layer is the wooden trough itself holding all the springtime decor inside it. Of course her theme is springtime!

Debra is really good with themes!

Color and texture:

Another designer who I really love her religious art pieces and the way she stacks color and texture is Cindy at Edith & Evelyn. Cindy uses beautiful European soft furniture colors with whites and neutrals to great effect. She also uses gold ~ gold as a main accent on picture frames, on many of her French and European-style furniture pieces.

a nighttime photo lightened for effect…
Future projects lying on the chair… 😉 I thought you’d like to see the living room, too.

For our mantel…

I looked at how these designers put their rooms or vignettes together and went for it!

I removed everything except the two hurricane lamps, which I kept flanking the mirror on either side. then I brought over the little lying down angel ~ I like how she is relaxing! Made me think she is out relaxing under the blooming pear tree and enjoying its shade.

I played around with where the angel fit best moving left or right, and also facing more forward or not (without making her fall off the mantel).

My main elements:

  • cement
  • nature
  • white
  • greenery
  • heights

Cement pieces were brought in with the capital (just found at Hobby Lobby)used as a riser for the ceramic pitcher (also earthen)holding the pear tree branches. The candlestick I made a couple of years ago also has a “cement look” with its layers of grey and green chalk paint. And another smaller cement wall angel lays down by the left hand hurricane lamp.

Nature of course was front and center with the gorgeous blooming pear branches!!! I am sooo happy that I remembered to share them with you. After last weekend’s rains, I looked over and there they were saying, “See me!” I am sooo glad they called me over so I could share them with y’all. 🙂 The books are mostly gardening books, too. I love the David Austin Rose booklets the company sends out each spring for gardeners to pick their next roses to try in their yards!!!

White was brought in with books, the pitcher, the flowers themselves, a small creamer and a small white flower pot holding a moss ball.

Greenery in the flowers, of course, plus several moss balls in a couple of sizes add their spring touches.

Heights which I forgot about originally but realized added impact! I have one moss ball on the candlestick (high), a second on the white flower pot (medium), and another ball on the mantel itself (low).

These blooms put off an odd scent, too, which my husband said he though he smelled a dead rat… NOT the best way to describe beautiful blooms! But he didn’t know how else to say what he was smelling. They do have an unusual scent and my guess it is to attract bees and pollinators.

I really love how this mantel turned out with it’s bits of green and a little pink here and there! For once, I have the mantel just the way I like it. Busy but happy!

Here I photographed the next afternoon when we had sun again… Love the whites and this is really my favorite way to decorate ~ the ethereal effect I am usually looking for in vignettes…

Hope this was fun for you, too!

Barb 🙂

Uncategorized

A Hopping Good Spring Mantel Display…

Happy almost spring, friends! (Or should I say Hoppy Spring?? Hee hee!) Today I am joining Terrie of Decorate and More With Tip and Cindy from The Crowned Goat in sharing a new blog hop called Seasonal Inspiration. This time Spring Mantels are on repeat for you!…

Welcome to everyone coming over from Rachel over at Junk to Gems! I love the pretty spring display Rachel has put together. 🙂

I have been having a lot of fun creating new mantel vignettes every couple of weeks over here since fall and this latest mantel styling you could just see in this week’s Spring Sofa Table post.

Our Spring Mantel

This spring display is a little more twee than the sofa table vignette, which was much more sophisticated. However, since I have a love of both styles, my mantel is lightheartedly decorated with coconut hair rabbits and a cute French script one I found down in Austin a couple of years ago. It was natural for me when I looked in my spring box to pull all the rabbits out this year for spring decor!

The branches in the Ball jar I cut off our large pear tree outfront a week ago and they are just beginning to bloom. I am really excited about them as I have never forced branches before!

Our fruitless pear tree out front was gorgeous last spring with all its white blossoms gently falling down and scattering on the ground below ~ like petals of snow…

I can’t remember if our pear tree bloomed right when we were moving in during 2019, or if we missed it (or I missed it because I was too busy unpacking), but it is very pretty! The tree had a huge branch fall off just about a month or two after we moved in, and Mr. Ethereal and a neighbor took an ax and chainsaw to it.

Since it isn’t quite ready to bloom yet this year, winter is the perfect time for me to get out there and work on thinning out the tree’s branches. A lot should have been pruned off a long time ago. It needs a bunch more cut off for its overall health, but now it is waking up…

But back to our mantel and its springtime display!

Creating this fun spring mantel was just a matter of removing a few pieces from the mantel look I had up just before. I added in two hurricane lamps and a couple of small tea light holders for ambiance in the evenings.

The vintage tinted lithograph in its green chalk-painted frame is now hanging on the wall between the fireplace and the quarter-round display cabinet.

Many of the moss balls have moved off to the DVD cabinet/bookcase to the left, and the vintage Limoges plates are back stacked tidily in the kitchen cupboards!

And the mid-size frame is getting a new piece inside it very soon… But that is for another crafting day!

Today is all about these cute rabbits… And this bunny is “taking tea!” ;)’

Here are the links to my friends on today’s tour… Next up is Cindy of Cloches and Lavender and I know you will love her spring ideas!!!


		
		
			
			
		
	

CLOCHESANDLAVENDER | DECORATEANDMOREWITHTIP | DIYBEAUTIFY
THECROWNEDGOAT | THEHOUSEONSILVERADO | B4ANDAFTERS
BLESSINGSBYME | PATINAANDPAINT | JUNKTOGEMS
FRENCHETHEREAL

Happy almost spring!

Barb 🙂

Pinterest Challenge

Looking to Spring ~ A Sofa Table Vignette

Welcome to another monthly Pinterest Challenge, my friends! As always, a big thank-you to Cindy of County Road 407 for bringing us all together. This month we have a bunch of bright and cheery sofa table inspirations for you featuring springtime vignettes! After the crazy-cold 100-year-snowstorm we just had here in Texas (and across much of the USA), I am ready for spring!!! How about you??

Let’s hop on over and see what everyone is creating…

A big welcome to everyone who is just coming over from Rachel of The Ponds Farmhouse; I am happy to have you here!! I LOVED all three of Rachel’s ideas for her console table… Really pretty ideas! Well, if you like what you see on my blog, please consider following along. 🙂 To all of my friends old and new, I am glad you are here, safe and well. and able to visit!

Here is our inspiration photograph

Sincerely, Marie Home

Our inspiration piece comes to us from Amanda Marie from Sincerely, Marie Home. She is a young designer whose contemporary farmhouse style is warm and inviting! I like her mix of neutrals, small green checks, brick fireplace and warm painted woods with traditional English style furniture ~ beautiful!

What strikes me about the inspiration’s sofa table

On the sofa table itself are three tidy stacks of coffee table books

A natural woven basket full of white flowers and greenery ~ this arrangement is set inside a low white bowl with two sweet brass quail adding to the feeling of nature brought indoors.

a wicker candle holder on its own white plate, a small glass mister and a small statuette

What inspires me in the rest of the room

the bleached dropcloth slipcover on the sofa

the use of greens, creams and whites in the room with a garden or botanical theme to the room

a checked wing chair across from the sofa and next to the fireplace

a beautiful antique white fireplace surround with matching hurricane lamps flanking the built-in mirror on the mantel

more books and greenery up on the mantel echoing the sofa table vignette

two botanical prints up on the wall behind the wing chair

In my sofa table rendition

I brought in a couple of stacks of interior design books in whites to freshen up my sofa table’s look and to bring in more white to my room. Our living room is naturally pretty dark with these tan walls so I like to add a lot of white to my decor.

I sewed my sofa and settee’s bleached dropcloth slipcovers a number of years ago and they add in that bleached linen look from the original.

Where the inspiration piece had a grouping of four items on the sofa table’s right side ~ two book stacks offset with a small statue and the wicker candleholder in opposing corners, I went with a grouping of three.

My maiden statue, one stack of books, and a tall bubble glass candleholder on a vintage creamware saucer create my look.

Here I was testing out which basket I wanted to use for this challenge. I added a piece of pink granite rock brought back from Crazy Horse monument, South Dakota, to the bottom of thiswicker basket; it balances the weight all of the floral stems. I added in a balled up piece of chicken wire about 12″ x 18″ with the ends tucked under and inward after the picture was taken.

A large centerpiece of faux greenery and flowers set inside an old wicker basket, plus a second stack of books and another glass candleholder make up the left side of the sofa table arrangement.

The painted tray and the fluted creamware saucer serve as bases for both the floral arrangement and the soy candle.

A matter of scale

I didn’t have a small statue or I would have used it here. I know the scale of the statue competes with the size of the floral arrangement, but when looked at from different directions ~ the statue is sometimes the centerpiece, and from the opposite viewing direction, the florals in their woven basket stands out.

Later on I added a small wood cut underneath the floral basket giving that arrangement a little more height. I think the flowers and the statue make a good combination together!

Adding a small pewter sugar bowl topped with a moss ball takes the place of the vintage plant mister.

The florals, moss ball and later a small sheep bring nature inside to my sofa table vignette. The greenery is repeated up on our mantel with more moss balls and some pear tree branches I am forcing.

Two hurricane candlesticks mimic those in the inspiration piece and the brass candleholder pieces copy the brass elements from the original.

My mantel almost always has a framed mirror above it and the mantel is decorated for spring. I’ll share more of that another day. 🙂

Completing the scene

The wing chair with its deep green and blue plaid placed next to the fireplace and draped with a vintage white linen runner over the back, combined with this vintage print in its green chalk-painted frame copies the inspiration’s look.

Thank you for visiting today and I hope you will stop by all of my friends who are on today’s tour. Next up is Niky from The House on Silverado and I know you will like her sofa table styling! Check out that cute end table’s French style… (I think it needs to come over here, lol!) Niky always creates such pretty vignettes… Swoonworthy!!!

Enjoy the tour, friends,

Barb 🙂

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Uncategorized

Share Your Style #251

Welcome to Share Your Style #250!  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!
💝

Lots of beautiful Easter posts this past week with bunnies and chicks galore! As always, I am glad that you are here…


I am Barbara Chapman your host and I’d love it if you’d follow me here on my blog and on any of my other social media sites, too. I appreciate you!  Thank you! 😉


Here’s what I shared this week at

French Ethereal…



An Easter Tea & Scone Recipe shares these cutie patootie bunnies plus our dining room table set for Easter supper. 




The bunny centerpiece just a quick 5 Minute Easter Bunny Basket project you can put together using things from around the home. Easy and fun to create with your kids and grandkids!

Here are this week’s featured posts…



How To Create DIY Decoupage Spring

Rachelle of My Hubbard Home starts us off with a fun garden pot idea with her Spring Planting Pots! She includes an easy recipe for sealing your pots, too, for indoor or outdoor use. Love these!!!


Beatrix-Potter-Easter-tablescape-centerpiece
Debbee of Debbee’s Buzz has got Peter Rabbit and all his friends plus many of the other characters from this classic children’s tale ~ Beatrix Potter Easter Egg Hunt in Mr. McGregor’s Garden.

*Not sure why Carol’s pics always turn out greyed but they do. Just won’t capture correctly… Ugh! Still cute but you’ll want to head over to see her post to see the actual coloring.

Carol of Bluesky at Home brings us this adorable bunny wreath to make in this post ~ Bunnies Blooms & Bows DIY Easter Wreath. Too cute!!!

Debra at Common Ground is back blogging and shared her lovely baker’s rack all decorated for spring in this post ~ Change in Plans. Stop by to see how she is doing!

Simple-Spring-Dough-Bowl-Centerpiece-The-Crowned-Goat-7 Simple Spring Dough Bowl Centerpiece Holidays Spring

CoCo of The Crowned Goat shared her beautiful Simple Spring Dough Bowl Centerpiece and had this cute starter pic, so this is the one I grabbed! Love this beautiful vignette!! You’ll have to stop by CoCo’s and check out the actual centerpiece. 😉

If you’ve ever been featured here at Share Your Style… 
Here is a button to copy to your site and your featured posts,
if you like!



If you’d like to follow my Share Your Style board on Pinterest I’d sure appreciate it, thank you! I do post the featured posts from each week there.


You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Happy Easter, sweet friends! 💝

Uncategorized

Springtime Around Texas… Blooming for you!

Every spring brings beautiful blooms around the globe and I think especially this spring we need some beauty to brighten our days. Here in Texas blue bonnets are popping up along the state’s highways and locally in neighbors’ gardens. Let’s check out Texas’ spring flowers…



Ethereal iris  bloom in my neighbor’s garden just next to their mailbox and the Bradford pear trees which grow so well in Texas bloom in our opening photograph (shooting upward at our local firehouse…).




More neighbors’ yards clothed in whites…

Were would we be without spring’s first roses??
Moving down to Central Texas a flock of 20 Canadian geese begin our tour of Corsicana and Ennis’ “French bleus”…
March means bluebonnets!!!

Taken from inside my car.
Drifts and drifts…
I pulled off the highway and traveled the side road a bit until finding these beauties. The highway department doesn’t really even have to reseed as all the wildflowers seed themselves year after year.
Just lovely! 


Then back to my own backyard…
Wildflowers at our neighboring elementary school…
And I leave you with a look through my front window…
Inherited azaleas in my favorite color!!!
💞
Even if these are uncertain crazy times ~ a little of God’s beauty that we can still enjoy all around us. 😊
Sharing with


Happy spring! 

Uncategorized

A Spring Mantel Style Vignette ~ A Pinterest Challenge

Welcome to this month’s Pinterest Challenge and this time it is all about creating a springtime mantel project! I am honored to be working again with Cindy of County Road 407 who has picked out a really gorgeous inspiration piece for us this month…

Deborah of Hip and Humble Style (H and H) graciously lent us her beautiful rustic springtime mantel for us to use as our inspiration this month. I love how beefy but elegant her mantel is!

Here is a breakdown on what I took away from her vignette:

  • large round transitional black-edged mirror ~ perfect for reflecting light around the room and also for reflecting the beauty of the objects placed infront of it.
  • a soft living plant in a creamware tureen
  • branches of faux cherry blossoms ~ a tutorial in her post!
  • black candlesticks for height and scale to balance the branches’ height
Cindy’s latest Pinterest Challenge logo… Love it!!! {Of course, pink is my color!}

If you are coming over from Carol at Bluesky at Home and it is your first time visiting me here at French Ethereal, welcome! For all of my returning friends, I am happy you are back for a visit!! I wish to thank all of you for coming and to Cindy our fearless leader in all of these Pinterest Challenges. If you missed any, just click on my sidebar and scroll through the past months to see more inspiration.
🙂


I have just put up a number of mantel decor posts recently so I thought I’d do something a little different today…

Using the beauty of Deborah’s wood mantel as a starting point, I would like to share my Country French desk from the late 1940’s/1950’s made by Drexel Heritage with all of you. I found it years ago in Orange, California in the antique district. 

If you are familiar with that area of Orange County in Southern California off the 91 Freeway, you know that is the area around the main circle roundabout where the trees are lit each year at Christmastime and also where you can find a really cool 1950’s diner to eat at for lunchtime. Yum!!!

But I digress… ;)’

My mantel idea uses the same principles as our inspiration piece in that:

  • I have a large wooden piece on which to display my spring vignette.
  • A large mirror hangs behind my display desk and reflects light and everything in my vignette.
  • In place of candlesticks, I chose to display a spring message on the chalkboard I shared in a Valentine’s Pinterest Challenge last year and in this post.
  • A large bouquet of roses and florals fit nicely in this French style tin flower bucket in place of those in Deborah’s photograph.
  • A little spring rabbit found recently at Hobby Lobby on sale adds a little whimsy to this otherwise more formal French-style vignette.
A view looking outside our front door.
The best thing about an inspiration piece is how will it inspire you?

I hope you will leave me a message and let me know how this post helps you move into springtime in your own home decor. 

Thanks!
💚



Next up on our PC tour is Julie of My Wee Abode who has the cutest spring mantel display! I always love whatever Julie creates. 
I hope you will take a few moments to visit the other ladies on today’s tour too as you have time. 

Please stop back by to pick up the tour as needed, and you’ll find these same links at the end of each of our posts if you’d just like to hop from one post to the next… 😉








You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Happy touring, friends!


Uncategorized

Garden Shows to Watch and My Own Petite Jardin

This week as I have been thinking much about our new gardens what I’d like to plant and how to do all this, I have been drawn to gardens old and new…

                      Watch Rome. Episode 1 of Season 1.

Netflix has given me a wealth of programs to study and recently this one was recommended for me: Monty Don’s Italian Gardens. Monty begins his tour of Italian gardens in Rome with a study of classical Renaissance gardens. The series moves through the ages since the 15th century with gardens originally created by different Catholic cardinals all competing hopefully to be chosen as the future pope ~ their gardens created to impress and show their wealth and ability to rule the Catholic church.

As the series goes on, Monty shares how styles of gardens have changed and I am up to the Romantic garden style ending in episode 3.

Monty Don's French Gardens

He tours around a few properties on a Marconi bicycle which I found charming and the gardens are absolutely stunning! Do look up this series and afterwards check out Monty Don’s French Gardens (which is where I will head next!).

Image result for a little chaos
A Little Chaos ~ Also seen this week twice as I absolutely fell in-love with this story about a widow who is bestowed with the gift of gardening. This film from 2014 stars Kate Winslet and Alan Rickman plus features the every funny Stanley Tucci as the brother of France’s Sun King Louis Dieudonné, Louis XIV. 

As Sabine De Barra, Winslet is wonderfully understated and humble working in a time when very few women held jobs let alone one as out in the public as a landscape artist. Very good film and I highly recommend it!

Sceptre d’Isle blooming in all its glory.
Then of course I have been over to the David Austin Roses website as I wanted to study which roses would work as climbers on our south wall which is all brick but would look fantastic with an enormous rose climbing its walls! 
Sigh… 
🙂



Sceptre d’Isle is a rose I had back at our last home in California and I am so glad I bought another here for our Texas garden! It is loving its new home and looks stunning in its pot.

These pictures don’t do it justice and I need to find a better spot for it where it can really shine but this year is its second or third year planted and it is blooming madly and I shared a couple of pics on my Instagram.




It is absolutely loving its normal 5 hours of sunlight but being shaded from the really hot afternoon sun.  This area where I was thinking of planting it and the other roses is just under our bedroom window and two very large oak trees provide lovely afternoon shade.

The iris having been blooming too and all seem to be a yellow with some brown bits ~ pretty and soft with their pale yellow blooms.

We need some defined pathways and this past weekend Mr. Ethereal and I went to a friend’s open house party ~ check out his lovely backyard walkway and the sweet Texas paver!

Love love love brick pathways!
And I am thinking about a semi-circular stacked stone small planter wall for the roses and a matching one around the first oak tree, which will then be underplanted with some of these iris and some vining plants. Love these that Yoda and I found out locally on our weekend walkabout.
*Here’s a link to a cement pathway I laid out at our last house (this was the redo after fixing the pool equipment).


But right now it’s all about removing baby oak trees… They are everywhere in back and outfront! 

Planted either by the local squirrels (whom I love anyway!) or buried by the massive water gushing off the roof eaves during storms (hence the mud splatters here and there) we are working on drainage and gutter fixing next.

So I leave this post as it is ~ a bit mud spattered but real life.
😉


Coming up next is Share Your Style so stop back over to link up and to find some inspiration!


Sharing with


A bientôt,
Uncategorized

Share Your Style #203

Welcome once again to Share Your Style and this week is #203… I am Barb Chapman and welcome to French Ethereal if you are new here! For everyone else who is already a friend, welcome back!
🙂


This week I shared a couple of posts, one a really quick tip I figured out accidentally and that is… 

A first look at our dining room with a bright and cheerful Easter tablescape for 10 on the 10th for under $10 using many tableware pieces we already have plus my secret under $10 item.
😉

Now let’s get to this week’s wonderful features!

First up this week are these adorable Easy Sheep Cupcakes shared by Jaime at Coupon and Freebies Mom. If you’ve never seen the British claymation films about Wallace and Grommet, these sheep look exactly like the sheep in several of their episodes.

Totally cute and they begin with a boxed chocolate cake mix! 


Next we have an ethereal Wedding Seating Chart frame created by Jeanette of Snazzy Little Things. I love wedding ideas being a diehard romantic and I do have a Wedding Ideas board on Pinterest in case you need some for an upcoming nuptials. (shameless plug)
😉

I cracked up hard at the title to Tara‘s post at Stilettos and Shiplap ~ When Your Kitchen Starts to Renovate Itself You’d Better Pay Attention!  This is Part 1 as the kitchen is still talking to her so you know there’s more. Too Funny, but seriously, she repurposed these gorgeous granite countertops! Check out her post for the full story.

Next is Lori at Dining Delight with this cute as a bunny-button Tiered-Tray with its Easter decor.  I just love how it’s styled!!!

Lastly we have an Easter Styled Table with Tulips and Birds from Fabiana at Fabby’s Living who creates lovely tablescapes. Aren’t
those bird plates so realistic, and beautiful?!

Thank you to all of last week’s participants ~ I appreciate your linking up.
🙂


Now let’s see what you are sharing this week!





You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

https://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=76159bd4ca438d83f080