Monday, March 16, 2015

Seasonal Easter Dining Room Decor


Hi Friends!  I am so sorry I was not able to post my second post yesterday but as usual time has a way of slipping away on me lately.  I will have to make this post very brief so I do hope you will understand that this will be mostly show with very little tell.
The dining room has just a few touches as well this year.


 I kept it simple here adding my wired egg trio, some faux moss type grass and porcelain basket filled with sequined eggs.

I am hoping to added some real dyed eggs to this centerpiece come Easter afternoon.

Inside of my wired Eggs there are candles sitting in porcelain egg stands.

Here is a closeup of the porcelain bunny basket.

The hutch also got a bit of sprucing up with the sole addition of my melamine bird dishes.

I love how much of an impact the floral colorings make this time of year.




On the opposite side of the room I've set up another buffet style serving station.


How cute is this paper mache fishing bunny next to my porcelain duck?


Love him!



But I also love, love, love, this little hinged egg filled with new baby ducklings!

Oh, the joys of Spring!  

Thank you so much for returning or dropping in today.  I do hope you enjoyed your tour of the dining room in all its seasonal splendor.

Happy, Happy Easter Everyone!





Sunday, March 15, 2015

Easter Vignette in the Kitchen

Happy Sunday Friends!  I hope to share two posts with you today, maybe, if time permits with more of my Easter decorating.  I really hadn't meant to turn into a seasonal blogger but it sure does seem that way lately doesn't it? I have for the most part completed my Easter decorating inside and wanted to share a fiew vignettes with you.  This post is focused on the few Easter touches I did in the kitchen.

I took a queue from one of my favorite bloggers, Becca, at Adventures in Decorating and decided to create a vignette for the kitchen counter.

I have to agree with her this is one of the most enjoyable spots to feature a display and or decorative pieces.

I had a large black basket tray that I decided would pull it all together nice in here without taking away too much from the original decor of my kitchen.  I like really like how well it worked!

Of course I knew the first thing I was going to add was the centerpiece of my porcelain bunny purchased a few years back at Stein Mart.  I added the tulips a few years ago to his back basket and have decided they are the perfect bunch.

This year I decided to give him a little basket of his own to hold onto.  I can't remember where I got this little basket but I think it was a party favor from Easter at my Moms.  The little decorated eggs inside I've had for awhile now.  I think they were a dollar tree find one year.

I tucked in some greenery on the bottom of the basket and added another one of the decorative eggs to balance out the other side.  I love these eggs that open up and have little vignettes of their own inside.

In fact I love eggs with vignettes inside so much that I actually made some of my own many, many, many years ago when my boys were young. There is one egg for each of us in the family.  These were made from real egg shells that were painted and lightly decorated with little sequins and scrap booking decor.

Finally for this vignette I just had to add more lavender after tucking in it into a cute pottery pitcher.  A bit of new Easter egg ribbon gave it a festive touch.



The bakers rack has pretty much stayed the same but I did decide to pull out my cake plate and put it on a stand to add a little blast of spring color over here.  I just love the pattern on this serving piece so much.  Sure do wish I had purchased the dishes too when I bought this.   Oh well!

I usually keep this two tiered stand on the counter but I moved it because I wanted the bunny vignette in that spot instead.  I actually have quite enjoyed having it here on the table and it may well stay here this Easter to help serve up my families dishes when everyone comes over.  Since we eat Easter dinner in the dining room and den tables we won't need the kitchen table.  That's why I decided to pull in my silverware caddy here as well.  I added some ribbon over here along with some greenery and a pair of cheery bunnys and that's just enough for me.  Cute, cute, cute!



Well, that's it for the kitchen friends!  I am hoping to get the dining room decor up and posted sometime today as well if I can.  So if you enjoyed this, please come back again soon to see the rest.  Thanks so much for hopping by!  Have a blessed Sunday!


Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Frenchy Easter Foyer


Hey Again!
Yesterday was a beautiful day in here in South Carolina and I just couldn't help but get into the Easter spirit.  We have been very blessed here in SC with our weather this winter compared to the rest of the country.  Although we haven't had the snow it has been a loooong winter full of grey skies.  I cannot stand grey skies and my heart jumps leaps and bounds when the sun comes out!  Hard to believe Easter is already just around the corner.  I don't think I did much decorating last year so I was pretty happy to set a few goodies this year.  And sorry friends, but we are back in my Frenchy Foyer again today.  If you liked the look I shared with you the other day, you are going to love this!

I really didn't want to stray to far from my original color schme of whites, creams, silvers and bling.



I was thrilled to find these pewter bunnies in my stash of Easter decor.  I had forgotten all about them.  It didn't take me long to figure out which room they would look best in.

Because they are smaller in size I think they look better grouped together.

I just love the detail on them.  I purchased these when I worked at Stein Mart, and yes my friends I did see they do have them again this year.

I decided to use white easter grass so there would be no contrast to conflict with the pewter.

My eggs are a beautiful grayish white colored marble purchased this year at Home Goods.


I love how they have a bit of bling on the ends.  I was hoping to find some silver mercury eggs but could only find colored ones.  I guess that will just have to be something to keep a watch for.


 I decided this table also needed one more cloche to balance out the post script vase so I added my smaller one with an older real nest with eggs.  Don't worry the eggs had small cracks in them had been abondoned and were empty when I found it outside several years ago.  

Okay, that turned out really well if I must say so myself!  I also did alot more Easter groupings around the house.  I will share those again soon, but for now I must scoot off to work.
Looks like it's going to be another beautiful day here.
I hope you also will be blessed with a fabulous day and week as well!


Sunday, March 8, 2015

Frenchy Foyer

Hey All!  Waaaay back in January I promised to share my shinys with you all so here they are!

I have been cultivating a new look in the foyer this year which all started when I moved my painted black sideboard from the dining room into the foyer.  

Please ignore the painted swatchs on the wall.  Remember I did say I was still cultivating this look.  I just can't decide what color I want in my entry way, but I wanted you to see the runner that I added on top of the sideboard.  I already had the runner when I bought the rooster one for the kitchen and was thrilled to see how inviting it looked here.


The next item I added was this wooden sign that carries three of my most favorite words of inspiration. I first bought one in unfinished wood and then when I got home realized the black would compliment the sideboard.  So, I finally made it back and swapped it out for the painted black sign, no work required.  LOL!


 Then the next additions to arrive were the matching pair of candlesticks.

Can you believe after all these years of working home decor retail this is my first pair of mercury glass candlesticks?  Well, they are!   I found these on the clearance isle at TJ Maxx after christmas and immediately fell in love with them though I had no clue where I would put them.  My guess is someone returned them after Christmas.    I was sold by the combination of bling around the edge on top of the mercury glass.  They are just beautiful!

One afternoon while at Hobby Lobby I came across these magnetic lamp shade crystals.  Now I just love crystal and shiny things, and they were on sale so I was sold.

And finally just this past week I purchased the faux lavender bush and postscript pitcher on sale at Michaels.  I was blown away by all the beautiful home decor groupings they have this year.  There sure is lots of cute stuff.  If you haven't dropped in to a Michaels dept. store lately this is a great time to do so.  You will be so excited!

I have been in love with lavender for so long.  I love real lavender, dried lavender, faux lavender, whatever!  I am glad to see it has become so popular and is easily found almost everywhere now.

When I saw this adorable postscript pitcher I knew I had to have it to be one of the final things to pull together the look I have been working on.  The bonus was I knew the lavender would work well inside of it.  The whole look combined with the fleur de lis runner, peacocks and mercury glass bling all just seem so frenchy to me.  Do you think so too?

I also have one more big thing to share with you.  After pulling this look together this past week I also entered a giveaway for a trip for two to Paris at Michaels.  When I was checking out I got a flier that told me about the giveaway.  You have to create a French inspired theme using there products and share your picture and they will pick a winner from those.  Wow!  Wouldn't that be a blast to win!  Even more cool for me because I really wasn't even trying to pull this together for the contest but was simply putting it together as I went.  

Well, regardless of the contest I love how the foyer has come together so far.  I am still not feeling the right decision on the foyer color yet but am leaning towards a pale watery sea blue of some sort.  Any ideas on that are greatly appreciated!

Thanks for stopping by friends!  
Have a great week!






Friday, January 2, 2015

Sailing into the New Year

Good Morning! Some of you may remember that I used to blog under the name of the blog Sailing Simply.   For those of you that remember I do apologize for using the same header that I used  today previously but it really seems befitting to my day yesterday.

I shared these photos on Facebook and they are enjoying them so much I thought I share them here with you.  Today was indeed a sparkly day on the water!

This is the photo everyone on FB loves.  I captioned it, "God is such a great artist!"  I love that I captured the reflection of the clouds on the water.  So glad I had my Iphone handy.

We (the hubbs and I ) spent our afternoon on the sailboat on the beautiful waters of Lake Murray yesterday and it was such a great way to ring in the new year.  We didn't get much sailing in though, only a small amount before the winds died but we continued to enjoy motoring about.   


 Some of you may recall our largest boat was a 27ft Ericson named The Viking 4.  We have had our hearts set on a larger boat for years now and I'm happy to say that finally came to pass late this november.  We are now the proud owners of a Catalina 30 sailboat, dubiously named Jabberwocky.  Our intentions are to change the name as soon as we find a better fit.  In this photo above you see just the handrail and throwable as you are looking out towards one of the other docks at the sailing club where our old boat sits awaiting it's new owners.

I promise to share the new boat on my blog here soon when I get a chance.  I am still tinkering with the inside decor as to what I most want to have aboard.  This is also why you may have noticed a few changes on the set up of my blog as we've had lots of changes in our life last year and I wanted this blog to reflect more of what is in store for this year.  

 I thought you might enjoy these photos as much as I do since they came out so well.  More gorgeous reflections shown on the water in the above photos, don't you think?

After we got back in and tied to the docks we hung around a bit longer as the sun went down and I was able to snap this shot of the moon as it was rising.
It was such a picture perfect day!

Loved starting out the New Year Sailing and I hope you too were able to start out the New Year doing the things you love the most as well!


Happy New Year Again Friends!


Thursday, January 1, 2015

A Sparkly New Year!

Welcome 2015!


I rarely ever do resolutions but am going to strive for one this year.

My one resolution; To SPARKLE all year long!

Happy New Year Friends!