Fall Mason Jars

I purchased the Marmalade Potpouri from Strawberry Hollow for Fall, and used it place of the beach glass.  Beautiful glow and the added bonus of having the scent as well.  The glass jar covers work to keep the scent strong when not in use.  Found inexpensive cinnamon scented tea lites at a big box store and I keep those needle nose plyers handy. 

Time to change over the candles and the mantle garland.

Indoor Easter Egg Trees

You know those houses you drive by at this time of year with the Easter Egg decorations hanging from the bare branches of a tree in the front yard?

Admit it, you love them.

Grace and I decided we wanted Easter Egg Trees, too.  Problem is, there are so many trees in front of our house you can't see us from the road.

We cut these little bushes before their leaves came out, and stuck them in pretty buckets filled with sand.

Then we got ambitious and attempted to blow out and color our own eggs.  After an entire afternoon, we had two eggs done.  They were not pretty.

Luckily, we found these lovely egg decorations at a craft store.

Green Glasses for Summer Beverages

Here are the results of my Green Glass mission.  To be fair, Chris bought me the etched stem glasses from Pottery Barn, and the butterfly etched tumblers I found at Home Goods.  The remainder were foraged all over The Shoreline, at countless shops, but none carrying the name "Antique" in them.

The Pink Champagne Flutes in the back come under the heading of Starbucks Habit. Several years ago my Financial Planner asked me if I had a "Starbucks Habit" meaning, do I spend $5 a day on coffee that I could be saving for retirement. 

I don't have a Starbucks Habit, thank you.  I make my own coffee.

I do, however, have a Chochkte Habit.  When I admitted this to him, he didn't know what Chochkties were, so I sent him this definition:

CHOCHKTE:  (CHOCH-KEE): Anything you find in discounts stores, import places, home decorating bargain stores, or the gift department of any major mall anchor store. Typically sells for $29.95, and five years later, you put them in your tag sale pile.

I was in a rather expensive establishment which specializes in upscale tropical clothing and home decorating when I spotted these glasses.  

I gasped, they were so beautiful.  

When I turned them upside down to see the price, I nearly fainted.  $70.  Each.  I put them back on the shelf and congratulated myself that I delayed gratification for the sake of my future retirement.

And then a very loving friend bought them for me as a going away present, when I moved back East, and I treasure them.  They are used exclusively for Easter Brunch.

The Flute Theory

Have you ever set a formal table with champagne flutes?  Neither have I.  For the most part, I use them as a pair with my hubby, or in large groups of friends standing at a cocktail party.  So, why buy eight of the same style when you can buy four pairs in different styles?  You could buy only one of a kind, but I have found that couples tend to choose the same pair and don’t mind if they get each others mixed up. Besides, it’s classier than those wine glass charms.  

I started doing this accidently, when I received a beautiful pair as a gift from friends when I first moved to CA.  By the time I left CA, I had made it my style to purchase two sets of flutes to commemorate an occasion,  giving one set to the commemoratee, and keeping one set for myself as a commemoration.  

Not to mention how much fun you can have shopping tag sales, antique shops, and consignment stores, which is where I have found the most interesting ones.  Here is the Fall lineup.  (Yes, of course I have them for different seasons, doesn't everyone?)

Market Day

I had hoped to find some interesting glassware in Italy, but it turns out we were in Ceramic-town, not Venice.  

We were inundated with shop after shop, all offering brightly colored ceramics, Limoncello, and pepperoncini.   You just get numb to it, because there is another shop selling the same thing just 10 yards down the street.

I was interested in going to Market Day, and arranged to go with the Chef, Angelo, to the Friday Market Day in Maiori. 

Can you say “Flea Market” in Italian?  It was more like the swap meet in Orange Country, or the Big Pine Key Flea Market in Florida.  Tents filled with tube socks, cheap Italian speedo underwear, sunglasses and plastic wallets.

But then we got to Ravello.  A charming, mountaintop town, centered on a perfect piazza of cafés, shops selling beautiful and unique Italian goods, and two magnificent ancient villas.  Villa Giobrani and Villa Rufulo. 

I managed to hobble all the way up the nearly ½ mile of stairs it takes to get to the Villa Giobrani, passing by some exquisite shops containing Italian knits and textiles, and ceramics.  You would think I would have been numb to the whole ceramic thing, but when you finally get to see something that is truly beautiful and very high quality, it practically jumps into your shopping cart.  At least it did to me. 

We passed by the shops on the way up to the Villa (why carry all that stuff both ways?).  By the time I got to the ristorante, it was time for my pain medication. 

Chris and I sat in the gardens, drinking beautiful drinks, until we got hungry, then made our way back to another ristorante we saw on the way up.  Much less fussy food, and much less expensive. 

Charming.  Outdoors.  Breathtaking views.  Simple food.

After lunch and vino, I now had to continue negotiating down the mountain steps.  However, with the pain medication taking hold, I was now in the perfect frame of mind to shop.  Inhibitions and judgment in low gear, I purchased a linen tablecloth the likes of which I have never seen in this country, and practically screaming to be included in my collection of antique and vintage tablecloths.

Ceramics?  

I don’t have the space for every dish set I see, so I’ve learned to use white plates, and dress them up with different linens, flowers and different serving pieces to change the look of my table and countertop.   

Painted Black Pumpkin Cats

These were really very easy to do.  Just make sure you spray paint the pumpkins a few days in advance, and if you do two coats, give it time to dry.  We used Ultra Pro spray paint from Kimble Midwest, which you can order via their toll free number.

We used black felt cut into triangles and stick on rhinestones for the ears, orange grossgrain ribbon and stick on rhinestones fors the collars, and green glitter foam paper we found in the felt section, with more rhinestones for the eyes. 

Then we used florist tape to hold the pumpkins atop one another, hold the collars around the neck and to fix the eyes and ears to the heads.  The ears, eyes, collars and tails are easily removed for next year.

Without piercing the pumpkins themselves, no muss, no fuss, no fruitflies.  Grace took them home so they could keep her company since she had decided to pass out candy this year.  I'll bet they last until Christmas.

Mini Pumpkins: A quick little trick

  

I remember clearly thinking when I saw this in one of Ms. Stewart's magazines, "This can't be! What if it's a cruel joke?  What if it's a cash bar?"

It only had two items on the shopping list.  It only had one tool.  It only took five minutes.  But it was.  And it is this simple.

Materials:

Mini pumpkins
Tea Lite Candles

Tools:

Sharp paring knife

Instructions:

• With the paring knife, carve a hole into the top of the mini pumpkin roughly the size of the tea lite candle.
• Remove the top by it's stem.
• Push the tea lite candle into the top of the pumpkin.  No need to carve out the inside as it holds the tea lite candle in place should you carve the hole too big.
• Light.  Sorry about the fruitflies.

 

Nichols and Stone Rockers

  

Being the Queen of Rocking has its issues.  It started when I was a toddler, and someone (I’m pretty sure it was Rene, my fairy godmother), bought me a rocking horse.  I rocked it so hard, I tipped it over backwards, and my mother and father had to buy me a new one. 

Three rocking horses later, they said, “No more!” 

That didn’t stop me.  In the back seat of the car (my father thought the car was stalling), neighbors’ children’s rocking horses, and then eventually rocking chairs.

My mother bought my father a Lazy Boy recliner rocker one year for Christmas.  While it was his chair, for the most part, I commandeered it when he wasn’t around.  I rocked.  I rocked so hard, I broke the springs.  Lazy Boy sent new ones.  I broke those.  For almost 10 years, I broke the springs, and Lazy Boy sent new ones.  I think they had set up a regular shipment by the time the chair itself was ready to be retired.

After that, I spent the next few years coveting those dark, heavy pine rocking chairs that all my friends got with their new, heavy, dark pine, cannonball bedroom sets.   I wanted one so bad, but they were very expensive.  In the 70’s, a wooden rocking chair for $900 was a luxury I could not afford.

While I was out Antiquing several years ago, I happened upon one of those chairs.  At $150 dollars and in perfect condition, I snapped it up and brought it to my parent’s house.  I had two Brumby Porch Rockers (otherwise known as Kennedy Rockers) I had purchased just as the factory was going out of business, and they had gone with me from DC to CA.  But now I had a rocking chair in Connecticut. 

When I bought the house in Branford, one of the first pieces of furniture to get moved was the Pine Rocker.  It went right in front of the fireplace, and it got used.  So much so, that I would get chair envy whenever one of my guests dared to sit in it.  There was only one solution:  I needed another one.

I was on the hunt.  I had researched the chair itself (I turned it over, looked on the bottom and then Googled what I found, very extensive), and discovered it was made by the oldest furniture company in the United States, Nichols and Stone, out of Gardner, MA.  In fact, they still make rocking chairs, but not my precious pine version from the 70’s.

One afternoon I get a call from Chris (still dating at this point).

Him: “I think Grace and I found a rocking chair for you”

Me: “How much?”

Him:  “$20.00”

It was a perfect match.

After that, I became the Rocking Chair Hunter.  Every one of my guests who sat in that chair wanted one, and since then I have found four more, so if you think you are now going to find one, think again.

Inside Mason Jars

The Outside Mason Jars led me to thinking about using them inside the house as well.  I’ve gotten very cautious about having lit candles around, particularly when there are adult beverages involved.  I've had some close calls, so now I always use some type of votive enclosure for a lit candle. 

One of my favorite shops in the Summer, is Taken for Granite, in Stony Creek. This is the kind of place that you walk into, and you instantly want to go home, throw everything out, and start over. 

Chris, on the other hand, claims no man should go into this shop by himself.

I purchased beach glass by the scoop at this shop.  You want something in the jar to keep the votive holder level.  The beach glass is transparent and creates a glow when the candles are lit.  Shells, colored glass beads, all would work. 

Tea lites work best, rather than full size votives.  I just use needle-nose pliers to reach in and replace them.  They burn just about enough for an evening, and if you forget to blow them out, no real harm done.  The adult beverage theme can work against you here and I promised my husband I wouldn’t burn down the house.