Spring Easter Decor

While most of the country is sheltering in place during the Covid-19 Pandemic, how are you keeping busy? I am a homebody by nature, but I admit…I’m getting bored and itching for a project. My kids realized yesterday how bored I was when I took all of the art off of the walls and started rearranging it. Something quirky that my “interior design” mind does after sitting in a room for a while, is that I start mentally rearranging the furniture. Full disclosure, if I’ve sat in your house for any amount of time, I’ve probably mentally rearranged your furniture, too. It’s like doing a puzzle in my head. (Teacher friends, I’ve rearranged your classrooms in my head. LOL) After sitting in our family room/breakfast room/kitchen for weeks on end now, I’ve decided I’m going to rearrange and paint. But I’m going to wait for projects until after the pandemic to buy supplies because it’s our civic duty to shelter in place. ❤

So this year my birthday falls on Easter. And Easter falls within the shelter in place order that my county is under. I’m not sad about being home for my birthday. I’m not a birthday person. I don’t care about presents at all. But I am a little bummed about Easter. No surprise if you’ve been reading my posts for a while, but I am HUGE on traditions. To me, traditions are like glue for a family. So I’m going to miss taking flowers to church and adding them to the cross, getting new church clothes, etc. If you want to know more about what our family does and eats for Easter, check out these posts here and here. (Sidenote: I think it is okay to feel bummed or even depressed about missing out on things during the pandemic. Won’t it make it all the more sweeter when life returns to normal?)

With all this time on my hands, and no where to go, I am using what we already have around the house to decorate for spring and Easter. I pulled out my Blue Willow egg cups (made by Allerton’s) and a blue and white platter (Yuan by Wood and Sons) to put on our mantel.

I had these tiny glass jars left over from some cold-pressed juice drinks. Glass recycling is not available in our area (which seems crazy to me in a major metropolitan area), so I try to reuse glass when I can. They were the perfect size to add a little ribbon and some Carolina Jessamine cuttings from our yard.

It turns out that Carolina Jessamine doesn’t do well as a cut flower and drops the flowers after a few hours, so I’ll be switching these flowers out for something else from the yard soon. One last picture for you – our Easter tablescape. These are all items we already had in our home. I bought these plates several years ago from Williams Sonoma, and I still love them!

How are you doing during this crazy time in our world? If you are sheltering in place, thank you. Thank you for putting the needs of others before yourself. If you are sheltering in place in a dangerous or abusive situation, I’m praying for you.

As I wrote on my Instagram page recently: This Easter there won’t be egg hunts, flowers on the cross, or sunrise church services. There won’t be ham and potato salad with extended family. Maybe this year Easter will just be about an empty tomb.

If I can pray for you, feel free to send me a DM on Instagram or email. You could even drop it in the comments below. Happy Easter, friends!

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Patriotic Summer Decor

Patriotic Summer Decor

Red, white, and blue can carry you Memorial Day through Labor Day.

One of the reasons I love decorating for the summer is I know that once I have my home all decorated I can leave it up for a long time. If you break out all of your red, white, and blue patriotic decor in May for Memorial Day, you can have your home decorated for flag day in June, Fourth of July, and all the way until Labor Day in September.
I have one storage bin with some Fourth of July and patriotic decorations. I will also “shop” my home for some other red, white, or blue items. I also like to include seashells, because they remind me of summer. I like to think of seashells as a neutral color. I even use them to check off the “white” if I am missing that in a red, white, and blue vignette.
Layer china patterns for a patriotic look. How cute are these Allerton’s Blue Willow individual butter pat dishes?
I like to use red Coca-Cola crates, vintage Pyrex bowls, books, and napkins for “red”. Blue canning jars, picture frames, and Blue Willow china are perfect for “blue”. White seashells, milk glass dishes, and anything silver will make your “white”.
Use seashells you picked up on the beach for filler.

Another tip I have is one that I use for every holiday. Shop the after-holiday clearance sale. I’ve had this bunting and these “fans” for a couple of years in my storage bin. I found them on clearance at Target a few years back.
Everyday items grouped together in red, white, and blue combinations suddenly turn into patriotic decor. I used a Blue Willow teapot, a red transferware platter, and some red & white flowers to make this grouping.
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Summer makes me so happy! I hope you find joy in this season as well.

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Our Easter Mantel


//assets.pinterest.com/js/pinit.jsI thought I’d share a few photos of our Easter mantel this year. If you’ve read my past posts then you know that I like to decorate by “shopping” my house for items I can use. I always gravitate towards shopping for items of specific color. This time I was on the hunt for blue.

To see the photo larger, just click on it!

I can’t for the life of me remember where I bought the banner, but I am certain that it was one year after Easter and on discount. Then it sat in a Rubbermaid bin for a couple of years before Samantha and I put it together last year. We stamped “Hoppy Easter” on it.

The blue books on the mantel were easy to collect throughout the house. And well, Ball mason jars are pretty common around here. Let’s just say that I’ve hoarded passionately collected them. I regret every one of them that I’ve sold!

You might recognize the little bunnies from this post HERE. They’re from World Market.

I keep meaning to spray paint that candle holder. Warmer temps are here, so now may be the time!

I am pretty sure the bunnies (one piece) came from Hobby Lobby. The wall color is Danville Tan by Benjamin Moore. It’s been our wall color since we moved in ten years ago, and I still love it as much as I did the first day. It looks different at night than in the day. It’s very calming in person. (P.S. This color looks great in person. It looks totally wonky on my cellphone screen, so keep an open mind!)

Do you remember the barn wood that Ken and I got off of a an old barn/army building HERE? And also used to make THIS?

We used some our favorite pieces to make some free wall art for our mantel. The color is all natural and original. All we did was cut it and attach it together.

The “S” is for our last name. 😉 The window was picked up on one of our Craig’s List adventures.

I had fun pulling everything together. Everything other than the fresh tulips and the tiny bunnies on top of the books are things we already had. My favorite kind of decorating…FREE!

If you want to save any of these pictures, just click on the Pin It button and you can save it to Pinterest.

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Natural Christmas Decorations

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Christmas decorations inspired by nature can be very beautiful! Whether simple or extravagant, using natural elements is something easily done. Some materials that you may want to consider are fruit, pine cones, acorns, nuts, raw cotton, twine, jute, burlap, wood, berries, branches, feathers, and dried or fresh flowers. Here are just a few examples to inspire your holiday decorating. Tip: You can link back to all of the sources by clicking on the names.

This one from Better Homes & Gardens (click for link) looks very doable! Apples, pine cones, and evergreen branches. Did you know that most Christmas tree retailers will give you the cuttings for free? If you wanted to add a little something extra to those apples, try spraying them with a sheer glitter spray paint. Red apples would create a completely different feel, too.

There are so many ways to use pine cones in Christmas decorating.

One of ours:

 From Make It & Love It:

Over on the The Lettered Cottage you can see how a poinsettia gets updated in a metal bin and the raw cotton looks marvelous nestled into Layla’s Christmas tree:

Another example of using raw cotton from Sophia’s Decor. Her whole post is a great example of using natural elements such as pine cones, branches, birds, and cotton.

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Classic and beautiful, check out this garland of dried oranges from Buckets of Burlap:

Here’s an example of a more detailed and sophisticated use of natural elements from Southern Living. 

Look around at what’s available outdoors (for free!) in your area. Simply filling a large clear vase with pecans, acorns, cranberries, or even evergreen stems will make a big impact.

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Mason Jar Lamp: Fall Re-Mix

I love making something that can be used in many different ways. Remember this guy?

 
Well, I pretty much got tired of the lamp shade. And I got sick of the corks. Truth be told, I probably won’t drink enough wine in my entire life to even get it half-full. (The craziest it usually gets around here is chocolate milk, folks.)
 
I love the lamp itself too much to sell it (collaborative groan from the masses), but I wanted to change it up. So it now sits on my mantle with a new brown shade ($5, Walmart) and some colorful autumn glass thingies. This was a super quick change! Remember, the top screws off.
 

 
 
By the way, I want to thank everyone for visiting and for your support. I now have well over 25,000 views in less than and year, and that makes me feel reeeeeealllll special. 😉
 
 
XOXO,
Abby

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Abby1 Comment

Patriotic Mantel Ideas

When I see stars and stripes, I think of summer: Fireworks and fireflies, Red stripes on flags and stripes of red ketchup on hot dogs. I love combining summer décor with patriotic décor in my house to create a look that lasts all season long.

Beginning with Memorial Day and then through Flag Day and Independence Day we can find red, white, and blue in everything from snow cones to beach towels. It only makes sense to bring those colors inside as well.
 
Flags and stars are obvious choices, but a patriotic feel can also be achieved by grouping red, white, and blue objects.

Antique red books, white seashells, and blue jars help create a more interesting take on the colors of our flag.

“Shop” your own home to find red, white, and blue objects to create a unique look. Once you have colors in mind, walk through the rooms of your house and objects will jump out at you. Don’t you just love this patriotic banner? I found it at World Market. (love them!)

I also love this clock from Kohl’s, don’t you?! 

 
 </div> <div style=”text-align: center;”>  </div> <div style=”text-align: center;”>  </div> <div style=”text-align: center;”> I’d love to your patriotic décor ideas!</div> <div style=”text-align: left;”> XOXO,</div> <div style=”text-align: left;”> Abby</div> <div style=”text-align: left;”> </div> <div style=”text-align: left;”> </div>

Abby2 Comments