Spring started for me after Christmas; I need to plunge right ahead to lighter and brighter. Just a reminder of my caveat back at Christmas and how I have to be very creative about decorating with limited budget.
So, my first vignette started
back in January. I hung a painting I did over this garage sale find chest. I
painted this scene of a Victorian home in middle Georgia, the grounds of which remind
me of my beloved grandmother’s house, now demolished. The painting hangs
directly in my line of sight when I wake up in the morning―a good way to start
the day.
I bought a new pillow from T.J. Maxx and put it on this chair I recovered myself, so don’t look too closely. I am aware that I never got around to recovering that little patch on the arms. What is it the Nester says, “It doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.” Then, I roamed the house looking for things that would work with the artwork including this weird lamp I found a couple of years ago. Don't ask me why I love it, maybe because of the sculptural quality.
In the living room, where I have
my prayer time on this sofa many mornings, I made a little nest of shredded
Aspen wood. I’ve had the glass eggs for a while, but I thought they looked
pretty with the Aspen wood. The handmade pottery vase was a birthday present last
year from my kids. The laughing rabbit and his friend came to me as gifts from
the women I worked with during those ten years I spent as a fashion buyer.
I heard a designer on television once say, “We’ll fill the shelves with cute books.” I did look for books that went with this color palette, but they are all books we love for the words inside, not their covers alone. Finally, the painting I did is an illustration of a line in Sidney Lanier’s Marshes of Glynn poem but of a location where our family has spent many wonderful days on a coastal Georgia island. The title of the painting, “On the firm packed sand, Free.”
This French Country cupboard is
my favorite piece of furniture in the house―made by my dad. I found a picture
in a magazine and asked him if he would make it. I love it so much and having my
dad’s handiwork in the house makes me feel he is still with me in some way. This
piece has had many lives. It’s been traditional flow blue and transfer ware in
the past, but now I have my collection of American pottery on it, all scavenged
from garage and estate sales.
The big bird plates were a gift from a friend and play into a lifelong love I have for all things bird. However, I have probably reached my maximum capacity to display such things. I even pulled a few bird-ish items from this vignette thinking them too much. The wax rabbit sits in my mother’s bread bowl. A talented artist made the little church of reclaimed wood pulled from our church during a remodel.
Finally, I haven't decided exactly what my Easter table will be, but I know I'll use this cross as a centerpiece.
The big bird plates were a gift from a friend and play into a lifelong love I have for all things bird. However, I have probably reached my maximum capacity to display such things. I even pulled a few bird-ish items from this vignette thinking them too much. The wax rabbit sits in my mother’s bread bowl. A talented artist made the little church of reclaimed wood pulled from our church during a remodel.
Thanks for coming along on my brief vignette tour. This time of year is all about new life and new starts. Friends, I'm praying each of you are finding those possibilities in your own lives.
One of my favorite verses reads, " . . . just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life (Romans 6:4). I am so thankful for new beginnings.