The Dining Room Bay Window

Welcome! Last week, while rearranging, I brought this demilune table down stair to put in the dining room bay window. The half moon shape made it easy to push back into the bay window to fill that akward space. The curved front leaves room on the edges to easily walk around it.
A few favorite pieces add to the vignette.




In this close up picture are a MacKenzie-Childs dinner plate in the green Honeymoon pattern and a set of pot de creme dessert pots on a matching serving tray.

They are flanked by a pair of custom lamps.

This pair of romantic Staffordshire figurines came from Longton Hall, an antique shop, in Petoskey, Michigan. I am not sure if Longton Hall is still there but if it is you might want to stop by if you are in the area. They carry a beautiful selection of Staffordshire figurines, as well as furniture imported from England and Scotland.

When I worked for Patricia Woods & Co. in Harbor Springs Pat had these figurines made into lamps for me. I love the fabric she selected for the lamp shades. If I am not mistaken, I think that she hand painted the bases to coordinate with the shade.

Sadly, she closed the shop last year. Pat has her permanent home in Dallas and summered in Harbor Springs where her shop was located. It was such a privlige and honor to work for, and learn from her. This pair of lamps will forever remind me of the time I spent with her and all of the knowledge that she so generously shared.

Thanks for stopping by ladies.

Hugs,

Sue

~ MacKenzie-Child's Lamp ~

Thank you Cindy at My Romantic Home for hosting another fun Show & Tell Friday.

Today I thought you might like to see this table lamp in our living room. The crazy color of the lamp shade dictated the wild wall color of this room. This whimsical, novelty lamp by MacKenzie-Childs is a good size to fit between two chairs in our bay window.
This is the base that has four fantastically painted dogs supporting the lamp. We like the whimsical nature of this lamp with the juxtaposition against our mostly traditional furniture and accessories to personalize our home and give it a more casual fun feel. The grandchildren love it and have had many a tea party on it using my Mother's old pewter tea set for their toy.

Don't you love Cindy's picture that she uses to tag participants in her Show and Tell Friday party? I just think it is so pretty. It reminds me of photos by Toshi Otsuki in the old Victoria magazine.
So, to see more of Show and Tell Friday or join in you might want to stop by My Romantic Home and take a look around.

Thanks for coming by and visiting, it is always good to hear from you.

Hugs,
Sue

Majolica Morning ~ Happy Birthday Sheryl

Welcome to another Tablescape Thursday sponsored by Susan at Between Naps On The Porch.
In honor of my friend Sheryl at Friendship Cottage who is celebrating her birthday today I set up this breakfast table pretending that she and the girls were here celebrating after a sleep over.

Just a simple breakfast of some fruit, toast with jelly, juice, coffee and maybe some scrambled eggs if anybody is up to fixing them.

Ooops, I forgot the napkins! We are going to need them if we attempt cracking open that juicy pomegranate at the table.

To see more Tablescapes or join in on the fun you can visit Susan at Between Naps On The Porch.

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Happy Tablescape Thursday and Happy Birthday Sheryl.

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Hugs,

Sue

~Candi & Cindi Uncoorked's Giveaway~

One of my BFF's and her darlin' daughter publish a monthly magazine in the Central Michigan area that has turned out to be quite a hit.
One of the monthly features of the magazine that is fabulously popular is their feature 'Candi & Cindi UnCoorked'. They prepare and style an amazing meal and sample several varieties of wine with it to come up with the perfect pairing of food and wine.

Candi & Cindi have started a blog that you can visit here to sign up to win the beautiful iridescent wine glasses in the picture above. They have several items left over from their photo shoots that they will be giving away in the future too. By signing up to follow the girl's as they get their blog site up an running you will have access to the giveaways and links to all the great recipes and wine pairing results that they feature in their magazine Mt. Pleasant Monthly.

Another feature that has everyone in the area searching for a copy of Mt. Pleasant Monthly is the home section. In this section they go inside one of the lovely homes in the area each month for an up close and personal look and the homes and the people that have created them.
Hopefully in the future they will feature these lovely homes on their blog site too. The picture above is a mural that Jill Alverado, a local artist, painted in Cindi's powder room.

Mt. Pleasant is a beautiful little college town, the home of Central Michigan University. It still has a thriving downtown community center where residents park their cars in front of the shops and spend part of their mornings and afternoons visiting with shop owners and other residents that they run into along the way as they shop for their needs, stop for coffee at one of the shops, or meet friends for lunch.
The streets lined with the huge old maple trees that hang over the boulevards are reminiscent of the lovely towns of Provence in southern France where the plane trees abound. The homes are lovingly cared for by their owners. A walk from home to downtown can take a long time as you visit with neighbors that you meet on your way.

Mt Pleasant Monthly captures all the charm and character that Mt. Pleasant has to offer. Candi & Cindi capture the kind of entertaining hospitality that takes place there in Candi & Cindi Uncoorked. On any given evening we get on the phone an invite a group of friends over and more often than note we end up at Cindi's where she miraculously pulls things from her cupboard and whips up a meal fit for kings. That is just one of the reasons that we call her the Queen.

Take a minute and skip over to Candi & Cindi's new blog, sign up to follow and leave them a comment to enter to win the beautiful wine glasses and welcome them to blogging. I'm sure once they get it all figured out they will delight you with their amazing talent and generosity.

Tablescape Thursday

Between Naps On The Porch has a Tablescape Thursday feature on her gorgeous blog that I thought I would join in. If you have not been to her blog you are missing out. Stop by and check her out and then visit the other participants in Tablescape Thursday.

Today I did a colorful table setting in the dining room. The dishes are MacKenzie-Childs Honeymoon in Blue and Green used alternately on each setting.

The stem ware is also various patterns of Mac-Kenzie-Childs for the small glasses and the tall cobalt blue wine glasses were a gift from my friend Sarah. I like the way they add height to the tablescape.

Here you can see some of the detail of the bases of the glasses.

The little white butter plates and salt cellars are old pieces from my white wedding ring china that another friend, Maurine got for me many years ago. The center arrangement placed on a gold frame mirror ties in the gold rims of the dishes and the gold silverware that John's Mom got us for a wedding preasant. The Tracey Porter candle sticks are from my old shop as is the whimsical puppy vase at one end of the center piece.

This ruffled bowl ties in with the ruffled edges of the dishes. I tipped it on it's side so you could see the pattern. The placemats and napkins, that I forgot to put on the table until after I had taken the photos, are green silk with pink, green and blue dragonflies


Thanks for hosting Tablescape Thursday. I hope you enjoy this crazy colorful tablescape. My text is not working right so please excuse the spelling and gramatical errors. Blogger won't let me go back in and fix them but I wanted to join in the party anyway ;)

I look forward to hearing from you and visiting other tablescapers.

Hugs,

Sue

Beautiful Blue

Some blue for you.
A robins egg blue candle nestled in moss on a silver candle stick.

Ruffled bowls, silver, and painted candle holders.

White French bowl on linen in blue and white checked kitchen.

A blue and white corner in the kitchen.

I noticed this morning that my first blog post was February 5, 2007 exactly two years ago today. I think that I really started blogging earlier but deleted some of my earliest posts. Time really flies by fast. Lately blogging has fallen by the wayside a bit. I still enjoy visiting blogs from time to time and love to see every ones decorating pictures but most of my free time is spent following the action taking place in Washington DC on the news and blogs. My reactions are not fit to post here so I haven't been doing much blogging.

Our new wireless set up here has somehow deleted all of my e-mail contacts. If any of my friends or family read this would you please drop me a note so I can get you back into my contacts.

We have a beautiful blue sky here this morning. I hope your sky is blue where ever you are.

~Ruffles~

Ever since I was little ruffles were one of my favorite things. Growing up in the 60's didn't allow many opportunities for expression of my ruffle passion, or really any thing very feminine, but now I take every opportunity to celebrate the lovely gift of femininity that God has blessed me with.

These pictures of my ruffled dishes collection were on my file and brought a smile to my face this morning when I was looking for something to write about. I hope they bring a smile to your pretty face as well.

Have a blessed Sunday,
Sue

~ The Pink Living Room ~

These are pictures of our little living room in the front of the house. This room is much less cluttered now but I have to admit that clutter suits me and I'm missing it a bit.


This little room has a southern exposure that lets in the prettiest light at almost all times of the day and allow for the use of this strong color. In a darker room this color would be over whelming but in here it works for me and there is plenty of white and neutral space to rest the eye.

Dana and I painted this room and the dining room on a whim one afternoon and all though it has been fun it may get lightened up a bit in the future. You can see by the bay window where we didn't even paint the beige area around the window but we did do a pretty good job of keeping the hot pink off the white trim don't you think? We choose this color to go with the MacKenzie-Child's lamp in the bay window. This lamp was in my store but I just couldn't part with it when we sold off all of our inventory so it ended up moving down here with me. This girly room is where I sit and read or where Sheryl sleeps when we have a full house and my grand's love to play house and use the coasters as little dishes. The white lamps with rose bud bases are now up in our bedroom and my more formal gold ones with chunky roses are now back in here and now that Christmas is only a memory now the bunny couple will come back up stairs after hibernating in the basement through the fall and early winter. The velvet and needlepoint pillow on the couch, as well as the plaid one on the other end with the needlepoint center medallion were show gifts from the Atlanta Gift Show that Dana & I used to go to twice a year. The top picture shows two green silk pillows that I use for summer but my first love for pillows is needlepoint because it lends such a hand made touch of texture to a room and I love the human touch.


This close up of my junk shop secretary shows some of my favorite things; little enamel boxes, ceramic fruit and vegetables, silky tassels, sparkly crystal, rose bud vases, pretty little books, French wall paper and pink and white roses~~~~~~~~~~