Summer's Floral Party

Up very early this morning and waiting on the light to come into the living room I was thinking about when the last office job I had (many years ago) was just a couple of minutes from our home.  I would go home for lunch and while there I would always immediately notice the colors in my home.  Now I had just left that morning but I worked in a very blah looking office.  Aren't they all?!  But coming home for just a little while and breathing in color always made me feel better.


The early part of the summer months seem to be the prettiest and most enjoyable.  We have some blooms from the yard I brought in.  Some were bought at a local big box store.  A couple of purple hydrangeas and yellow gladiolus along with mint are in this floral delight.




Layla is assisting this morning.  She is a plus size model now.



I love the abundance of flowers this time of year.  It's wonderful to be able to use something from your yard even if it's a small amount.



A garden is timeless and trendless.  That's how I love to decorate, in nature's pretty bounty.





The mint came back from my daughter's plantings, rose of Sharon, purple hydrangeas and butterfly bush help fill out the early Summer floral party. The mint has lasted two years outside!




She had chives, pineapple mint, thyme, catnip, lemon balm, purple basil, sweet mammoth basil, Genovese basil, apple mint, German chamomile, Russian tarragon, sage and fern leaf dill.  Chives, thyme, tarragon, sage and dill can be used in a variety of dishes to add great fresh flavor. You can add chopped dill or chives to butter to make herbed butter.


Catnip, lemon balm, lavender and chamomile can all be used to make herbal teas. They all have a gentle relaxing and calming effect and can be mixed together. Catnip and lemon balm also repel insects and can be used to make all natural homemade insect repellent.  I keep telling her to blog but she doesn't have the time.









The morning sun is shining bright now.  Time to go get some pretty color!



Jan

Sofa Table

We finally got sunshine today after two weeks of rain.  What a relief!  The yard is so wet I can't walk across it without getting bogged down.  So today I want to share with you a little rearranging I did.
You remember the armoire that lives in the dining room.  It has been sitting in this corner for years.  I decided to push it over a bit.




The sofa table that lives behind this sofa was brought into the dining room.  I brought the lamps as well.




Now I have great space for sharing whatever is the latest pretty.  I found a really nice green fabric and have a tablecloth from it.  It goes with the wallpaper so well.  This is the first arrangement I did for the new spot.




Today I have just a couple of the purple hydrangeas and paired them on a silver tray and mercury glass candleholders along with a glass candlestick.  The glass holding the hydrangeas with the fleur de lis was done by my talented sister-in-law years ago when we got a set from her.



What have you been up to lately?


Jan

Sarah Vanrenen

I love the English and their incredible eye for decorating.  Sarah Vanrenen would be included in that.  She hasn't turned her back on color as we in the U.S. seem to have.  She is bold and has a keen eye.  Designing for over fifteen years she doesn't believe everything has to match in her decors.  It's not surprising she has such talent when you learn her mother is textile and interior designer Penny Morrison, of Irving & Morrison, that is Carolina Irving & Penny Morrison.

From Sarah's site here   She has worked as an interior designer for over fifteen years.  She has a strong belief that homes should be lived in and not monuments.  Her style is architecturally modern and simple with clean lines, sturdy and practical.  A home should look as though it has been lived in and the things in it accumulated with love and time by the owner, but still have a sense of togetherness.

Sarah loves to find individual pieces of furniture, textiles, rugs, lamps, artworks and is constantly scouring markets, galleries, and little places off the beaten track to find that sometimes wacky, but always original, and special piece, so that each home looks completely unique, and not the same as the last house she decorated.  Sarah reads her clients and adapts her style to their character and their lifestyle, so that no one walk into their home and says "oh did so-and-so do this?"
We will visit three homes displaying Sarah's talent.


 Sarah has brought the colors and charm to her husband's Wiltshire farmhouse.  When Sarah married her husband she had much work to accomplish to her husbands' 300 year old farmhouse.  His grandmother had lived there and he had lived there all of his life.


Country Farmhouse












There is a thread of red running through the house.



















Master bedroom with an  embroidered linen bedspread bought at a flea market in France.



Decorated with green fabric, a sari fabric is one of the fabrics used and is used on the ottoman.



A lime and pink throw from India on the bed and a striped rug from Morrocco.


Chelsea Town House


This home is one of Sarah's longstanding clients.




























Sarah's London/North Kensington Town House


















For more about Sarah Vanrenen, visit vanrenendesigns.com



Jan

May Showers

The undeniable urge to put a tablescape together came over me and could not be denied.  Never mind it was raining, we are going to have rain on and off for several days and I knew some of the flowers outside would be knocked off if the rain is hard enough.




The summer flowers make a pretty background for the table.  Lavender, jute, hollyhocks, blue hydrangeas, sweet potato vine, petunias are circling the table.  The centerpiece flowers were a happy from the mister.








This table actually started off inside and I thought what the heck am I doing?



Pretty salad plates from Ebay, Oriana in Teal sit on white dinner plates.  Teal blue glasses pick up the blue from the tablecloth and repeat from the salad plates.







Jan

Love Embodiments

I found this folded in her bible.

A story of Love, Duty and Moms

A mother has no need for praise, no more than spring has or a rose in bloom.

She is, above all else, love's embodiment, and love seeks no praise for it needs none: it desires only to do its lovely duty.



A mother is the vessel through which love's duty is performed, manifesting itself in the simplest chore as well as in the greatest sacrifice: the made-up bed to self-denial for others.

Love is a mother's instinct, her magnificent gift from nature which in turn becomes a measureless and an inexhaustible fount of giving.  It is the profound theme running the very width and breadth of nature.



I observed a mother recently performing her instinctive duties in a profound and graceful manner.  It seemed the grand symbol of the essence of motherhood.

From a window I watched as she busily brought in food to her three infants and hastily carried out the trash, and when this work was done for a while, she sat on guard nearby ready to defend to her death against any harm that came toward her kin.



Then thunder roared overhead and lighting streaked and rain began to pour, but fast as had been the lightning streak, the mother cardinal was in her nest hovered over her three babies not two weeks old and not a rain drop would touch them.

Turning upward her red-tipped beak as if in a show of pride, the mother bird puffed out her breast and spread her feathers, making a perfectly warm and dry embrace for her young.



The rain poured and splattered about her and a steady stream found its way through the leaves and limbs that cradled her nest, but she seemed not the least perturbed by it.

Even when the wind began wrenching the bush that held her and her young, the mother cardinal moved not a single feather.  She surely would have clung to the nest even if it had been blown to the ground where the flooding rain water likely would drowned her.



The next day the sun was bright and hot, and the mother puffed up  her feathers to allow the coolness  of a soft breeze to touch her young.

And as if she had a built in clock that signaled feeding time she would fly off and return with some morsel for hungry mouths, never gone long enough or far enough for the nest to be without ample protection.


It was a simple symphony of giving.

Love.  Duty.  A praise-worth performance that needs no praise.


Written by Joe L. McDonald/ The Daily Leader


Jan

Almost A Visit To The Past

Mama had told me early that morning to walk to the store for some things.  I am nine and walking to the store barefooted.  The rocks hurt but I am trying to toughen up my feet.  The store is way out in the country as are we.  The store has those old wood floors as all the stores in the country did at that time.  I couldn't get much for me but it was a sure highlight to have anything sweet.

Mama babysat across the lane.  I was a little jealous because they had air conditioning.  Meanwhile we had a fan and it was hot.  When I say hot, I am talking about Mississippi hot.  Humid and hot is a lot different from just hot.  But I was young and didn't notice the heat so much as I would when I got older.  We lived down from my grandparents, they had air condtioning too.  My grandmother always had the best desserts on Sunday afternoon.  I didn't dare go peek and see what it was.  She never fussed at me but I knew I better not go messing around in her kitchen.  She had an air of authority.  We were taught about Jesus and Hell but I wasn't ready to visit either one yet.

You can feel that this photo was taken early in the morning.  It also has the look of history, of remembering all those mornings long before. I love the morning light, do you?  I know you have seen many photos of outdoors where they still carry the night's fog.

It's a sliver of time to play with in my house before the sun moves toward the west.  I try to have things set up prior to taking a few photos.  This morning though I managed to get some shots that I considered a good representation of morning.  Blurry but bright and full of possibilites.















Almost a visit to the past.




Jan

Short and Sweet

I hope this post finds you doing well, it's a short and sweet post.  May has arrived and our gardenias smell wonderful.  The blue hydrangeas are growing everyday and putting on their blue.  Layla and Sonny will be getting  haircuts tomorrow.  The mister had eye surgery yesterday.  It went well and he is eager to get back to work.  He will have his other eye done soon.  He hates not being able to physically do what he wants, when he wants.  It makes him an unhappy camper.

My roses are on their way out.  They were so pretty I hate to see them go.  They came from the store and not my yard but they started out looking a little puny but turned into such beauties.  I was fortunate to be able to capture this with my cell phone.  Sometimes a cell phone just works better for me.  By the way, I am on Instagram as well.  Please come see me, I will be hanging out with all the other flower lovers!

May is a busy month for so many with graduations, engagements and weddings.  I hope your month of May is one that brings happy times and some happy memories.





Jan