Wednesday, June 30, 2010

July 4th Tablescape

Yay!  It's time for Table Scape Thursday @ http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/ and time to reveal my 4th of July table scape!  I am so excited!  I have been working on this for weeks.  Some items I already had and some I have either bought or made just for the occasion.  I have lots of photos to share with you today.   I'll be keeping the narrative to a minimum...that's a big task for me.  LOL!


I hope you enjoy and I hope you get inspired.  Even though times are tough in our country, I'm always happy to celebrate living in the USA!  Can you tell?




I'd rather have set this up outside but with the heat and the rains lately you'll just have to imagine that part.

Let's start with the tablecloth!  It's actually a Waverly tab panel I had bought many years ago for one of my boys rooms.  I have several but we never ended up using them as curtains because he out grew the red, white, and blue theme.


The center runner was also purchased as a runner for his dresser but is actually a large dish towel.



     I am using my everyday white fruit serving pieces with my white dinner plates by Gibson in todays setting.




I chose several items for my centerpieces, starting with this metal sailboat we already had.


Then I added this candle under the cloche sitting on my new blue dish resting on the white milk glass candy dish.  I already had the candle too!  For some reason it reminds me of a firecracker!



Then I added my newest find this year from Ross!  Aren't these the cutest patriotic sailors you ever seen!




A nice spray of white Crepe Myrtle looks great in this cobalt blue crackle vase.



Let's look closer at my place setting!



Silver plated Stainless by Oneida, Louisiana pattern


Iridescent blue goblets, a yard sale purchase


White raised fruit pattern from Gibson


Red ceramic plates, Milano pattern, Tabletop Lifestyles,  from T.J. Maxx


Beautiful blue heavy napkins, handmade by me this year!  I already had the fabric too!


Cute anchor napkin ring, handmade by me, using anchor cutouts, clearance isle at Michael's and wired floral  jute from AC Moore!  I also painted the anchors with a white wash!


I added a couple of red votives in the cute red votive holders, only 50 cents from Walmart.


On the left side of my table I have one of my newest tin serving bowls and white pitcher.


Another large dish towel from my sons room that we had used as another runner.


On the right side of my table is the most exciting side!


I have my other newest tin serving bowl with serve ware


And this beautiful cobalt blue dish ready for dessert


However, this will not be just any dessert this is set for my husbands birthday that is Friday, the 2nd of July!
It will hold his very favorite yellow butter cake with chocolate icing!


Since my husbands birthday is so close to the fourth of July he has always had quite a celebration!  That's partly why I couldn't wait to do this table and chose the nautical theme for my nautical man!

Before you leave, I have one more thing to show you!  Speaking of birthdays and the fourth let me show you a picture I painted for my husband for his birthday many years ago!  It is a picture of one of our many fourth of July adventures on the lake.  If you go back one post to my Outdoor Wednesday post you will see the real life version of our dam on the lake.  Here is my version of our dam on July 4th!



He keeps this picture hanging in his office here at home!


Here's a few close ups of my painting, see the fireworks above.


I even added the cars lined up on the dam as often happens on July 4th!


I really enjoyed painting this picture for him as it represents so many memories for us!
Hope you enjoy it too!

Thanks soooo much for stopping by today!  Wishing each of you a very happy fourth of July!
God Bless America!

Tubing on the Lake

This past weekend was another scorcher!  To my sons delight the wind was dead so we decided to take the motor boat out.  Taking the motor boat out now basically means tubing!  My favorite thing to do is just cruise the lake leisurely and check out the beautiful homes and landscaping along the shores.  However,  we rarely spend anytime just cruising around and checking out the lake...it's all about the tubing or sailing! 


Currently our motor boat is a small 17ft Sea Ray.  This runabout is an older boat in very decent condition considering it's age.  I spent Saturday morning cleaning her up for the first time this season and getting her ready.  We have enjoyed this boat tremendously but do feel ourselves moving in the direction of a pontoon someday.  This year in particular with all the heat really has me dreaming of a bimini top!


Back to reality!  This is our motor boat.   Sorry, I forgot to pics with the cover off!  Maybe next time.





Now please don't laugh too hard!  We did not name this boat, it came with this name.  LOL!  We couldn't help but laugh every time we saw it so we decided to leave it and keep the smiles. 




  Here's a few shots from our Saturday fun time on the lake with our youngest son, Shane!



Preparing the tube!


Getting the goggles ready!


Deciding against the goggles after all!


And we're off!




Just look at that grin on his face!



He rode this tube so long he literally wore himself out!  Whew!


This is a photo of the Lake Murray Dam!



Close up of the towers!



This bridge will be filled with spectators this Saturday to watch the fireworks.  Every 4th we have a huge fireworks display on two of the lake islands that can be seen from several vantage points.  It's a very large display and broadcast with music on a local radio station as well!  It's quite spectacular!
We also have a large boat parade in the afternoon!  Very fun to see!


I was only able to get a few shots of some pretty homes!  These are some of the more modest homes!  Literally!  I really hope I can get the Mr. to take me on a tour to do some serious photo shoots soon! You would love it!

This is Pine Island Club and Clubhouse.  It is owned by SCE&G Power Co.  It is for employees and their guests only.  We are members here too because my husband works for SCE&G.  We rarely use the facilities since it is further from our home by land then water.  When motoring we like to scoot by here to see who's around.




That's all the photos I could get in this weekend.  I hope you enjoyed them!  I guess you kinda figured I'm joining http://www.asoutherndaydreamer.blogspot.com/ for Outdoor Wednesday.  Please be sure and visit this site for more exciting and beautiful outdoor adventures.

Be sure and leave me a comment if you visit, I'd love to hear from ya!

Monday, June 28, 2010

Rearranging the China

If your one of my followers you know I recently purchased some new dishes.  To be honest, I've actually added quite a bit of dishes lately to my cabinets this year.  I've added several sets of salad plates, dinner plates and outdoor plates too!  All this plate buying has led me to do some rearranging! 


Since it is time for Table Top Tuesday I thought I'd share my kitchen china cabinet.  I still have several other sets of dishes in my other cabinets but I tried to put some prettier ones in here that would show well together!  I hope you don't mind seeing real china mixed with earthenware, stoneware, and plastic!  If you do, you may want to skip down to some of my other vignettes I'm sharing today also.


Here's my built in kitchen cabinet and it's new look.



Let's take a peek inside!


On the top shelf I have a mixture of my grandmother, Nana's china, and serving pieces from her china and my china.  I also have a mixture of coffee cups from her china, my china, and my stoneware.


On the middle shelf I have my china plates to the left, Nana's china plates to the right and my new Franciscan Ivy serving pieces.  I also have my beautiful melamine bird plates in the back.


I just love how the bird plates look near the Ivy pieces.


Then on the bottom shelf I have plates, plates and more plates!  I have more of Nana's china plates on both the left and right side.  I have a huge amount of her china!


Then shown in the middle, I have my white fruit plates, moved into this cabinet from other shelves in the kitchen.  This freed up space to put some other plates that don't coordinate as well with these, on the shelves.  I also have some pretty green plates I got this year from a church sale and my new ivy plates and finally more plastic plates.

This was fun rearranging this cabinet and I'm very pleased with the results.  Now, if I can just get the rest of my family to remember where everything goes!  LOL!

Don't leave yet, I want to show you a few other vignettes today as well!
Remember my newest rooster, well, here's where he ended up, in the kitchen.


 I thought you might also like to see this vignette on my side table in the dining room.



 Since I was working on something else in the dining room today I thought I'd show you this one too!  Don't peek in the mirror now, I'll  be sharing that this week also, I promise!


Looks like a case of the blurries today...sorry!




Oh and one more thing I just have to share!  I have had these purple wired beads that go around a candle for years.  For some reason I have never like them on a candlestick.  Recently I was cleaning out a kitchen drawer and saw them and put them on the top of these lamps!  In case you didn't know I love me some bling, so this was super exciting!  I just love it!  Try it if you like too!  I love sharing ideas!


Well, that's it for today, Hope you enjoyed peeking at a few of my vignettes.  I really love looking at everyone else's, they are always so inspiring!  Be sure and click on the link below to see more if you enjoy looking at vignettes as much as I do.  You will love it!
for Table Top Tuesday

Leave a comment if you please, I'd love to hear what you think!