Precious Memories and Peeps Tables

Whew.....Easter snuck up on me this year!  Although I have been playing with my mantel and making some decorative eggs, I had not put out any Easter decor until yesterday!  So with the day fast approaching I put together a couple of tables.  Make sure to read all the way through the post for the story on Table 2, it is special to me.

 

Table 1 is in our eat in area of the kitchen and I am calling it "Gathering of Peeps" because this is where we gather to eat daily.  Since I wasn't adding anything new this table features the "Cherry Blossom Branches" I blogged about here and an old Easter bucket of Mini's as a centerpiece.

Has there ever been a better time to use colorful Fiesta plates?  I think not!  They are perfect with the brightly colored Easter eggs. 

We have been dragging the Easter bucket with the bunny and peep around for years while dying and hunting eggs.

The bright colors of these Fiesta glasses blend well with the fun colors of this table.  Love these....and they are special to us since they were a gift from our spare daughter Christmas before last.

 

Last year I made these adorable peep napkin rings and I love them!  They are just so darn cute...you can't help smiling when you take a seat and see this face.

 

 

Simple but serviceable and springy!

 

 

Now on to table 2.   This table was an excuse to drag out some pretty special dishes.  I recently inherited more of my grandmothers dishes.  These particular dishes sat in a corner china hutch in her kitchen my whole life.  On extra special occasions she would use these on the adult table....the kiddos could only view them from afar while we ate off mismatched dishes. 

 

This is a photo (circa 1975 or so) taken from behind the little table (that is what my grandmother called it) to the adult table. 

 

As you can see from the picture,  when sitting at the little table you can see those dishes in the hutch you can barely see in the left corner.  Below is a shot from the living room where you can better see the hutch (my grandmother is the lady nearest the hutch on the right of the pic) and you can see the dishes on the table.  This was my great grandmother's (forefront right) birthday so it was special enough for the dishes!

 

Fast forward many years and sadly both my grandmother and great grandmother have passed on.  I was fortunate to receive "the dishes" that I had looked at for so long. 

 

Before I show you the table, I wanted to share a little story.  I have NEVER been about brands.  If I like something I buy it.  Old, new, priceless or worthless it matters not if I like it.  Many times I will be using something and someone visiting will pick it up and be astounded when it is an expensive piece and I have no idea! 

Just a couple of years ago Wonder Hubby gave me several place settings of Fiestaware dishes for Christmas.  We/he became obsessed with collecting after that and now we have both old and new and continue to add to our collection.  He purchased it because he said it made him happy and thought I would like it.  He was right, I did like it and it does make me happy.

 

  We did a bit of research on Fiestaware and discovered Homer Laughlin Company.  I had no idea there were so many HLC patterns out there.  When my father delivered the dishes to me I flipped one over to see what they were.  They were HLC!  Wow, I knew I love HLC Fiestaware but I would have never dreamed I had been longingly staring at HLC china for years! 

The line of dishes is Skytone and had several patterns.  It appears that my grandmother had dishes for 12 in 1 pattern and additional serving pieces in the other patterns.  What I had loved about these dishes was the color.  It is such a pretty blue.  After a bit of research I discovered the color is not a color at all, it is the color of the clay.  After the piece is fired it is simply glazed. 

 

Any who....since I received these I have been stalking antique stores looking for more...so far no luck, but I am not giving up!  Here is a close up shot of one of the serving bowls.

This is my Easter table featuring my grandmother's special dishes. 

Last summer when car shopping for Mini in Lynchburg, I squeezed in a bit of antiquing and scored the tablecloth and gingham napkins.  I am amazed that it looks like it was made for these dishes! 

If you visit me on the blog you have seen these milk glass dishes often.  I can't help it I just love them.   They are always in use here for one thing or another and this time they are hard at work showcasing my dimensional eggs.

 

I used my blue Fostoria glasses from way back when Wonder Hubby and I were married and the Green Chantilly glasses he gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago.

 

I have been putting the Easter tree on our table since the kids were little...no matter what the color or decor it goes on without fail!

I added the little waving bunny (a recent GW score) to this Spring basket.  I think he likes it there, I certainly do.

The basket weave napkin rings were a GW steal for .99 and so versatile.

 

 

Dish detail.

 

 

I can't not show you some of the little houses and bunnies my mother has given the kids over the years.  They also always make it to the Easter table.  So sweet.

 

 

This sweet Easter tea set was a gift from my dad several years ago.  I love the soft coloring,

 

and this sweet little bunny atop the tea pot.

 

This is my Easter table, a table filled with wonderful, precious memories and mementos from special people in my life. 

 

Thank you for hopping along with me.  May you all enjoy a blessed Easter.

Words of Hope - Guest Post and Updates

Mini has been a busy girl.  So busy in fact that she still hasn't found the time to get her blog going!  So I wanted to share her latest column article.

 

Before I share the article I wanted to brag on her a bit.  When I say she is a busy girl I'm not kidding!  In the last couple of months she has been inducted into the National Beta Club, had tons of activities stemming from her Youth Leadership Class (we got to sit in on municipal court yesterday....that is a post of its own, entertaining and yet so, so sad) as well as receiving notice that she was selected for Girl State in May, all while maintaining straight A's. 

 

  She even managed to work in writing an essay on what Safe Driving Means To Me sponsored by country singer Craig Morgan and our local Sheriff's Department.  She won the grand prize....a limo for 8 hours on prom night (she wasn't going to prom but I bet her she could win and she did! lol).  When they interviewed her on the radio she told them she lost a bet and won a limo!  You really never know what your kids will say. 

 

All this was done while working around her new hobby.  I blogged last fall about the new woman in Wonder Hubby's life.  Well that heifer has gotten her claws into Mini too!  That's right, Mini has discovered fishing.  As a matter of fact she has joined her high school's bass fishing club with Wonder Hubby as her coach!  She is fishing her first tournament tomorrow and it is important because she turned down a modeling job because she had to fish!

 

 So, I am cutting her some slack about not having her blog up and running because she really is super busy.

 

Hope you find something inspiring from this week's article.

 

Words of Hope

I know you’ve all heard it said before. “God makes all things work together for the good of those who love Him”. This is commonly heard when things aren’t going so well for someone or when tough times are ahead. The purpose of this phrase is to ease one’s mind and let them know that everything is going to turn into rainbows and sunshine because they know that God is working for them…. But what if it doesn’t? This is something very hard for Christians to grasp. The things in their lives didn’t turn out the way that they had imagined they would and now they’re asking God why He let these things happen to them, or are even questioning the presence of God. After all, it’s really hard to feel God’s presence when you’re not getting the exact things you’ve prayed about, am I right? Well, what if there’s a different outlook? God has really laid this subject on my heart recently. It was at a Wednesday night worship service that it began. I was singing my favorite worship song, “Your Love Never Fails”. Over and over again, we sing “You make all things work together for my good, no, You never leave me!” and my mind just wanders off. “What about those times when people DON’T get what they want and things go badly? How are things working for their good?”. And it’s like at that moment God tells me clear as day that we don’t know everything. I know, I know, this is a hard revelation. Ladies and gentlemen, as humans, we don’t know everything. We may think a situation NEEDS to turn out a certain way and if it doesn’t then God just doesn’t listen to our prayers. But what if that situation needed to turn out differently from how you imagined it in order for God’s overall plan for you to blossom into something beautiful? What if His plans are so much better than your plans could ever be? It’s kind of along the lines of the stories that go to the tune of “I was late for work, but if I had been running on time I would have been involved in that major wreck that happened 5 minutes prior”. We may not be able to see the benefits of our failures and heartaches immediately or maybe ever, but I choose to believe that they do exist. I believe there are about a million different paths our lives could take, but God chooses the one that leads to our happiness and His glory, but only if we choose to listen. If we get mad and deny God every single time something doesn’t go our way, we are not doing our jobs as Christians. Through the storms and the sunshine, we were made to know that God loves us and has a plan for us, if only we serve him with all of our hearts, minds, and souls. I will end with lyrics from the worship song previously mentioned. Let these sink in deep and praise God that He never changes.

            “You stay the same through the ages, Your love never changes. There may be pain in the night, but joy comes in the morning. And when the oceans rage I don’t have to be afraid, because I know that You love me. Your love never fails!”

Spring Mantel

I am soooo struggling with getting in the Spring swing.  I think it is our weather.  Last year at this time I had already been working outside and mowing the lawn. Could be because last year on this date we were in the 80's...today, a high of 43!  Tonight we are expecting some light accumulating snow and 24 hours later....severe storms, naturally! You have to love Tennessee weather.

Due to this lack of spring spunk I am late to the party on spring decor.  I have never "decorated" the mantel for Spring before, but after seeing so many beautiful examples on blogs, I wanted to do a little something.  So...here is my simple Spring mantel. 

I will tell you the layout of our living room makes getting decent photos impossible.  If I shoot the mantel, the glare from the front door makes everything washed out, if I shoot from the right to stay out of the shot, I am shooting into a full length door! Grrrr...  The other option is to try photos on overcast days (I have had tons of opportunity with that lately) but that leaves you with dark, dark photos.  Below you will find some examples of all of the above.

 

The mantel features the cherry blossoms I made recently....I have so enjoyed the bit of color on those grey days lately. 

There is only 1 new item on the mantel....the rest is found or thrifted or shopped for here at home.  Low, low cost....gotta love that!

I made the little birdhouse years ago by updating a plain Michael's birdhouse with homemade clay elements. The ceramic basket in the center is a Goodwill special.  As is the adorable wreath behind it.  The little bird is the new item.  I had purchased him a while back and did not realize until after I put everything on the mantel he has dimension almost like my eggs, weird but cool.

 

The urn on the right is a found treasure...found in my dad's garage!  I just spruced it up a bit with paint.

 

 

The ceramic basket and urn are filled with moss balls.  I have been seeing these everywhere and had to try my hand at making them.  I purchased sheet moss with a 40% off coupon at Michael's and some Styrofoam balls at Dollar Tree and went at it.  Making them was super easy but SUPER messy. I love how they turned out.

Topping off my moss ball filled ceramic find are the dimensional eggs I blogged about here . 

 

The bunny in the terrarium is also a GW thrifted find....I love that he is waving :)

 

So, that is my ode to Spring mantel.  Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great weekend!

 

Spring Craft Projects

I am smack dab in the middle of a raging case of Spring fever!  I have been be-bopping around blog land seeing Spring things for weeks, but our weather just wasn't making me feel it yet.  Finally, in the last couple of weeks we have been being teased with some Spring feeling weather, so I have been piddling with a few Spring crafts.

Last week I had a sick puppy that required way more hands on attention that my kids ever did!  Since she demanded that I pretty much sit with her constantly, I found a couple of projects that I could pull off while playing doggie nurse.

 

First up, cherry blossom branches.  I have been seeing cut branches with beautiful blooms showing up on tables and mantels and buffets.  They just seem to shout SPRING IS HERE!  I am not fortunate to have anything that I could snip branches from here in my corner of the South and since I was home-bound with the puppy, I had to create my own. 

 

I trolled Pinterest and saw several tissue paper versions that looked nice so I decided to give it a try.  Thanks to what seems to be never ending wind here anymore, my yard was littered with sticks that I hadn't picked up yet (finally, vindication for procrastinating!).  I picked up a handful of those and rooted through some of the tissue paper I had packed away in the attic from my old gift basket business and found two shades of pink paper.  Perfect for some cherry blossoms. 

 

The biggest (most time consuming part) was cutting all the tissue paper!  After that a bit of folding and a little snip here and there and my "blossoms" were ready to attach to the branches.

 

Figuring out the best way to snip and twist took a bit of trial and error but in the end I think they turned out just fine.  Even with doggie duties the time this project takes is about an hour and the cost...maybe $1.00!

 

I will be posting my Spring mantel in the next few days but here is a little sneak peak at my Cherry Blossoms.

 

Next up, a little Easter craft.  I have seen some of the prettiest Easter eggs lately on blogs and Pinterest.  Unfortunately, all seemed to need one thing or the other that I didn't have.  Finally, I saw an egg that sparked my creative side.  This is big ya'll.....I recently had thought that my creativity might be tied directly to estrogen levels (thanks to my MIL who pointed out that I only seemed to like to mow and work in the yard and might be turning into a man..bless her heart).  Scary stuff since as of late my estrogen levels seem as up and down as a roller coaster ride.  So any spark of desire to create anything was a welcome sign.

 

To start this craft I needed some eggs.  I initially thought I would remake some of the 2,000 plastic beauties residing in my attic, but the paint didn't want to grab on the way I wanted it to for this project.  Hopefully, I will figure out how to make them work at some point because using real eggs has been an experience.

 

Getting a hole in without crushing the egg was dicey...thankfully I manged to figure it out and have now improved on the idea by using a Dremel tool. 

 

 

 I seriously strained my cheeks blowing out the insides and have had a headache for a week. I knew at some point in my life all that hot air would come in handy!  Mini just couldn't help herself....what a flattering shot! Gee thanks.

 

 

Now we are getting somewhere.

 

After blowing and blowing and blowing...then washing the eggs out and then nuking for 15 seconds to dry, I got down to business.  I gather my supplies (okay I threw everything on some old  newspaper, dug a pencil out of Wonder Hubby's tool belt and used same uber chic paper ) and semi-sketched out a design.  I also found some dimensional paint that wasn't dried up....whew thank goodness or it would have been another, I don't have the supplies so no go project.

 

Okay, enough of that "designing" I do better by just doing, so I penciled a design on my eggs. Then I "traced" over the design with dimensional paint.

After that it is literally a waiting game......

 

 

A piece of PVC pipe was an eggcellent holder!

 

 

After they were all dry I simple painted them with white craft paint.  TA DA...this is the 1st one

 

 

I have several different designs I want to try as soon as I have feeling in my face again, but I love how they turned out.

 

 

Thanks for stopping in to see what I have been playing with lately!  Have a great day.


I am joining the party at 320 Sycamore....for my Blossoms under $10.00 under an hour!


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