It's September and in the 60's...Let's Decorate for Fall!

Busy times from the last post to today. I've moved, started a new job, and so much more. The place is all set up and hopefully I can get some pictures of my two favorite rooms, the library/office and the guest room. I hate the paint colors in the rest of the house, but it's a rental so I can't change them. Enough complaining, let's get to the decorating!

If you'll remember, I've been on a simple kick. I'm still on one so the decorations are simple and as natural as possible. I added a gingham ribbon to a beautiful red candle that is mulled cider scented. I love my copper pepper grinder all year long, but it does look exceptionally nice in the fall and winter. 

 

It's not the best picture, but I've placed two of the artificial bittersweet vines on the mantle and filled the bottom of the hurricanes with the mini pumpkins. I added more of the gingham ribbon with an under layer of burnt orange to the grapevine pumpkin on the hearth. The upholstery really looks great this time of year.

 

My fall wreath. My friend Abby and I had a wreath making party. Sometimes I wish I lived in the days when ladies got together for a sewing circle...It's so therapeutic to craft with friends.

My ceramic gourds look great on the new/old dining room table. This is the dining room table that I grew up with. My father recently passed away so it's bittersweet that it's now in my possession.

 

I love my little iron squirrels. I like to put them in surprising places. One is on the foyer table (also from my dad's house.) Others are on the stair treads. Don't worry, they are friendly squirrels. 

 Happy Fall!!

Sending Grandma to the Garden in the Sky

My paternal grandmother passed away recently and her funeral was today. She was my last grandparent and the last of my father's side (he preceded her in death earlier this year) so it was extra sad. She would have been 91 on her birthday and was becoming more and more frail. It was her time so in many ways I was relieved to see her go. The picture below is of her at 18 and it's always been one of my favorites.

Grandma was a master gardener and she helped my dad in his flower shop back in the 70's so she was no stranger to flower arrangements herself. My mother and I wanted to do the flowers ourselves for her funeral. As usual we went to The Fresh Market, they have such a beautiful selection. Purple was grandma's favorite color. She had auburn hair and she liked the combination. I knew we had to do a combination of purple, green, and white. I also wanted to use roses because she grew beautiful roses. Some of which were grown from cuttings she "borrowed" from the Elizabethan Gardens. We used magenta gladiolus, purple and white limonium, white roses, baker fern, and acuba. We made two altar arrangements and one for the parish hall buffet table.

The church has a beautiful hand carved chancel surround from the 1800's. I love the painted heavens. That was done just a few years ago. 

I forgot to take a picture of the table, but here is the arrangement outside before I took it in to the parish hall. I used both the purple and the white limonium in this arrangement having only used the white in the church arrangements.

We left the altar arrangements for Sunday, but did bring home the parish hall arrangement. The building must have been quite warm last night because the roses were opened a little more than I would have liked. It took the arrangement apart for my house and put the flowers minus the greenery in a simple vase on my dining room table. Grandma grew up in the depression and in the Appalachians so she didn't waste anything. I think she would have approved of this repurposing. 

Debi and Dave's Wedding

I've been remiss in updating this blog. Life happens and blogs don't it seems. Easter has come and gone and I forgot to take a picture of my church arrangements. I've made a few arrangements for friends and housewarmings, but alas I forgot to take pictures of those as well. Thankfully, I remembered last week. My friend and colleague Debi married her longtime sweetheart Dave in a beautiful backyard ceremony on July 4th which is their favorite holiday. Dave proposed July 4th 2013 and if I remember correctly their first date was on July 4th. I may have made that up, but it sounds good. It was a simple ceremony with family and close friends.

They have a beautiful backyard. Hurricane Arthur came through the night before and thankfully gave us rain and no wind, so everything looked fresh and green. The weather was perfect! The patio below was a perfect spot for the ceremony. Debi wanted me to use tissue poms on shepherd hooks to bring a festive and fun element. She invited guests to come in flip flops and shorts and sundresses or whatever they wanted to feel comfortable.

Debi asked for a breakaway bouquet. It seemed as though she was holding one bouquet, but as she came down the aisle she gave a rose to her aunt who is like a mother to her, she gave another rose to her new mother-in-law, and a third rose to a niece who holds a special place in her heart. She wanted a red rose, a white rose, and a pink rose. The picture makes the pink and red rose look similar but there was a slight difference.

As guests arrived they were invited to complete cards with "well wishes" for the couple and to pick up a bottle of bubbles. The bouquet mimicked the pink, red, and white rose theme. For this beautiful yard I decided to go with a simple loose arrangement that looked as if it had just been picked from the garden.

The beautiful bride with her bouquet. The necklace was given to her by her husband and was his great-grandmother's.

The happy couple with Debi's niece and Dave's mother as witnesses. You can see each one holding the rose that Debi presented them with. Dave's shirt was a light aegean blue though my phone camera makes it appear white. The ribbons on the pom poms and flowers matched his shirt. Congratulations Debi and Dave!!

Sheila Turnage DAR Award and Book Signing

We are fortunate to have an award winning author in our area. Sheila Turnage is the author of several books including the entertaining Three Times Lucky and Ghosts of Tupelo Landing. If you haven't read them, check them out today. You will laugh your bottom off!

My local DAR chapter awarded Sheila with the DAR Woman in the Arts award in Literature in January and yesterday we had a celebration for that award and for her newest book Ghosts of Tupelo Landing. She graciously gave us a reading and signed books for all the attendees.

My friend Ashley of Little Sister Cakes provided the delicious "map cake". Some of the attendees had two slices it was so delicious! 

In the first book, Three Times Lucky, Mo and her friend Dale come to her family's cafe and find that both of her adoptive parents are not there. One of the very wise rules is to not operate the oven so the daily special is Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches and organic vegetable soup (this can be microwaved). We took this scene in the book as inspiration for our menu and decor. The arrangements were a vegetable bowl and a vase of sunflowers and peacock feathers.

The vegetables were in a bowl that was made from a magnolia tree that was struck by lightning. The tree stood in the chapter house front yard for generations before it met it's demise. The ladies wanted to maintain some of the memory and found a talented artist who honed the wood and hollowed it out. I wish I had a better picture of the bowl. It is beautiful. The vegetables I used were bell peppers, potatoes, mushrooms, brussel sprouts, squash, zucchini, corn, eggplant, artichoke, string beans, and carrots.

The menu included peanuts, fudge, chex mix, ritz crackers with peanut butter and jelly, and...

...delicious peanut butter and jelly bars. The bars on the right were made with grape jelly and the bars on the left were made with strawberry jelly.

Beans and rice were in mason jars as were tea lights. I love mason jars and have a collection of sizes and colors that we use for everything from food, to markers/pens, to flowers and candles. They are so versatile!

With a projected attendance number of anywhere from 30 to 100 (we had 91!) I felt it was important to have separate beverage and food stations to prevent bottlenecks. The beverages were lemon/lime infused water and Mountain Dew punch. Mountain Dew was also on the menu at Miss Lana's cafe. We were fortunate to have old coca-cola crates, soda bottles and a coca-cola cooler from the 1930's. All of these were used for decor. Visit my cooking blog to get some recipes from the event. Also go out and buy both of these delightful books!

DAR Hostessing

I was head hostess for the first time for our March chapter meeting for my local Daughters of the American Revolution chapter. The program was on the "real" Edenton Tea Party. We learned a lot about what really happened and who was really there. The oral history passed along had a lot of errors, but historians believe they have determined the truth. For the event we decided to have a tea party with no tea to honor the pledge that the Edenton residents made in solidarity with their Boston brethren. For the decor I took advantage of the spring like day to use white, cream, and pink.

I used my childhood tea set as part of the decor. The set has lots of chips from being well-loved but with light pink roses, baby's breath, and white lisianthus it really shines.

The main centerpiece was a large airy arrangement of light pink roses, white lisianthus, and baby's breath. I used my grandmother's tea pitcher. We no longer use it for tea because of it's age, but we do use it for flowers. It's the pitcher that my mother remembers as always having tea ready for the family.

We had lemonade instead of tea, Edenton Tea Party cookies, Sally Lunn bread with jam and butter, cucumber sandwiches, and pimento cheese sandwiches for our menu. Check out my cooking blog for recipes.

Christmas Decorations 2013

I realize that I only took a few pictures of Thanksgiving decorations but I promise we did celebrate ye old Turkey Day and we did have decorations :-). I guess in my declaration of simplification, I included not taking pictures. Oh well...but back to the declaration of simplification. I decided that life needed to be simpler so this year the decorations were natural when possible and much more streamlined. Boy was it enjoyable! No stress about making elaborate garlands, no budget busting, just simple natural pieces that were put up (and taken down!) easily.

The sled in the middle of the bookshelf was something that my grandmother always put out, she passed away several years ago and all of her 5 children got a few decorations from their childhood collection. It's nice to look up and think of the fun Christmas times that we had at Grandma's house.

The mantle is one place that really is simplified compared to years past. I found these gold reindeer at a warehouse sale in town. I got them for a steal and they are perfect for the mantle. The wreath is a simple greenery wreath. I had a ribbon on it, but decided I liked it better plain.

The holly tree came from the warehouse sale as well. I was able to get two of these as well. The pot is terra cotta, I may spray it gold in the future.

On the front door I had another simple green wreath, but I did add a bow to this one. The wreaths were so fresh that they lasted from Thanksgiving weekend to Epiphany. We get our wreaths and tree from the same stand every year and they have never failed.

The flash washes this out a bit, but on top of the Have yourself a merry little Christmas sign is a cute little pin. A few years ago JCPenney had a contest where people went to the store and got pins each day, then entered a code from the back to try to win items. My sister and I were more concerned with getting as many pins as possible, because the collection was great. There were funny pins, beautiful pins, and sweet pins. I wish they would bring the contest or at the very least the pins back.

Again no garland on the stairs this year, but of course we hung the stockings with care!

At a different warehouse sale (yes there's a theme going it seems) I found this cute ice scoop perfect for the holidays.

In middle school, my English teacher read us the book A Cup of Christmas Tea. I fell in love with it. My mother bought me the book and two tea cups and an adorable little tea pot. Her goal was to get me a set that I could use with company, but Hallmark only produced them for two years. Maybe I need to add thrift stores and barns to my warehouse sale trips.

Finally, a picture of the tree. This is the best, most perfect, most beautiful tree we've ever had. Of course we say that every year. The star on top is another item from my Grandmother's house.

This is the dining room table ready for Christmas Morning Brunch. The meal was delicious. I made my first cheese soufflé and it was delicious! The Fresh Market had and always has beautiful roses. Red roses aren't my favorite, but these were such a deep rich red and they were loose buds. Gorgeous! For New Year's Eve (Of course no pic!) I used cream roses and holly in the same vase.

Merry Christmas!!