NumberNineteen

Caught My Fancy -- March

How is it the end of March?  This month has flown by!  I'm loving the beginning of spring.  A few of our bulbs have started to come up and the air smells just delicious.  I'm opening the windows at every opportunity to get that sweetness inside.

Here are a few things that have caught my fancy this month:

Starbucks To Donate Unsold Food - I love my Starbucks and love that they are a responsible corporate citizen.  Their newest action is to donate unsold food to local food pantries.  I believe that this may have been happening on a local level for awhile, but I love that they have decided to roll it out company-wide.

Kate Morton Novels - I picked up The Secret Keeper at a bookstore last November and picked it up a few weeks ago.  And, couldn't put it down.  The book literally has surprises up until the very last page.  A week or so after I finished The Secret Keeper, I noticed her new book, The Lake House, at the library.  Again, it was a so-good-can't-put-it-down type of book.  If you haven't read her books, go to the library and find them!

The Forsyte Saga - I'm still mourning the end of Downton Abbey (how will I get through next January without it, sniff, sniff), but I've found a another period drama that has loads of juicy Drama to take it's place.  It's the story of two branches of the upper class Forsyte family in England from the late 1800s until the early part of the 20th century.  Lots of drama, gorgeous sets and costumes -- it's got it all.  It's available for streaming on Amazon Prime and on DVD from Netflix.

Just those three things for today...I hope that you are enjoying the beginnings of spring in your world!

Easter 2016

Happy (belated) Easter everyone!  I hope that you had a wonderful day and that the bunny left some treats at your house.  Our day started off with an egg hunt for Hope and dinner for the three of us.

Dashing to find the next egg....

She uses her binoculars to help her find the eggs.

After our midday dinner, Glenn's aunt, uncle & cousins, who are visiting DC, came over for another egg hunt and to share our 4th annual Easter butterfly cake.

(please excuse the poor photo, taken with my phone)

Unfortunately, I didn't get any good photos of the second egg hunt, but it was nice to see everyone and share the holiday with them.  I hope that you had a very happy Easter!

Yellow and White Easter Tablescape

It's my favorite time of year to set the table -- the Easter dinner table.  I love picking out flowers, coordinating the napkins, choosing china and crystal -- it's the only time of the year that I do a "tablescape".  This year, I found inspiration early, in an email from Jenny Hobick, advertising her spring collection. 

Image from www.jennysteffens.com

I just love that centerpiece.  The crisp, fluffy white hydrangeas against the bright daffodils, along with the texture of the wicker wrapped vase.  Once I'd decided on the centerpiece, the rest fell into place.

After a few years of using some of my more casual dishes and vintage glasses, I decided to come back to our wedding china and crystal.  The white and silver look so pretty in contrast to the yellow. 

 

To balance out the formality of the china, I used my large glass hurricanes with chunky candles and a wire wrapped pottery container that I got years ago from Southern Living at Home (I miss that company.  Loved their stuff.) I also included (on Hope's advice :) ) the mossy mini chick and bunny that I picked up last year. 

For the final touch, I pulled out my Cricut and made placecards using their Tablescapes Spring & Summer images (free this week!) and a gorgeous calligraphy font that I found online.

We are having a very traditional Easter menu this year -- Ham, Scalloped Potatoes, Asparagus, Crescent Rolls and the Butterfly Cake that Hope & I make every year.  Glenn's aunt, uncle & cousins will be in town, so they are coming over in the afternoon for cake and an egg hunt. 

I hope that I'll be able to post more in the next few weeks. I have found some inexpensive sources for blue and white porcelain that I want to share and more!

 

Spring Break/Easter Brunch Crab Strata

I have been meaning to post so many things in the past few weeks and life has been crazy.  But, I'm on spring break now (yay!) and I can finally get all of those ideas posted. 

 

I've been putting out a few spring and Easter touches here and there, including Mr. Easter Bunny and the decoupaged eggs that I made last spring break. Hope and I are going shopping for her Easter dress tomorrow (better late than never!) and have to pick up dye so that we can dye eggs. 

I made a breakfast strata last weekend that was so good that I have to share it with you.  The original recipe is from Epicurious, but I made so many changes to the original, that I'm now claiming it as mine.  Crab meat, eggs, cheese, chunks of bread....soooo good. Every few bites, Glenn said, "I REALLY like this!".  Bonus: it's make-ahead, so you put it together the night before and pop it in the oven while the kiddos are egg hunting on Easter morning.

Crab Breakfast Strata

7 large eggs

2 1/4 cups milk

1 T. butter

1 cup chopped onion

1 clove garlic, minced

2 green onions, chopped

2 T. chopped fresh parsley

1 t. chopped fresh thyme

3 cans of crabmeat or 1 pound fresh crabmeat

1 1/2 cups shredded swiss cheese or gruyere

1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese

8 cups 1 inch bread cubes from a loaf of french bread

1 t. salt

3/4 t. freshly ground black pepper

 

Butter 10 inch casserole or 8x11 inch baking dish & put aside.  Wisk eggs and milk together in a bowl and put aside. Melt butter in a skillet over medium high heat.  Add onions and garlic and saute for 3-4 minutes.  Remove from heat and add green onions, parsley and thyme.  Mix the cooked mixture with the egg mixture, crab meat, cheeses, bread cubes, salt and pepper in the bowl.  Pour the mixture into the buttered dish.  Cover and place in the refrigerator overnight.  When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Bake for about 1 hour, until the strata is browned & puffy.  Cool for about 15 minutes before serving.

I hope that you enjoy!  I'll be back later this week with more Easter ideas.

 

Guest Room Decorating Plans

There are two we've-just-got-to-get-it-done-already projects in our house this year -- our bedroom and the guest room.  The bedroom just needs the finishing touches, as I mentioned here.  The guest room, however, is a blank state, a true "before", if you will.  The guest room now:

Old bedding, no window coverings, white walls, mis-matched furniture.  I feel badly for our guests (mostly my parents) who have had to stay in this blah room for so long. 

The plan for the guest room is really inspired by our stay in Cape Cod last year. The cottage that we stayed in had a collected and classic feel, but with a clean, seaside vibe.  I want simple and fresh but old fashioned at the same time.  How is that for a decorating oxymoron?  Here is my inspiration:

sources, clockwise from top left: Country Curtains, Rare and Beautiful Treasures, Valspar Paint, Great Windsor Chairs, 1st Dibs, The Retired Quilt, Pottery Barn

We are going to put board and batten on the walls to about 2/3 of the way to the ceiling.  Above that will be a fresh light yellow paint.  The furniture (which I have already found) will be black painted wood, including the cannonball style headboard that is already there.  I found a great pair of alabaster lamps in a charity shop last summer, which are going to perfect.  I'm going to get a fresh white quilt and shams and those adorable dotted swiss curtains from Country Curtains. 

The final, and most beautiful, piece is a cathedral window quilt that Glenn's grandmother hand made, which will be placed at the foot of the bed.  Grandma Fleming was a prolific quilter and the cathedral window was her crowing achievement.  I am so glad to finally have a spot to display her work.

I'm really excited to get started on the room, as well as the master bedroom.  The only hold up, to be quite honest, is that my husband works for a government contracting company and is currently between contracts.  Once that whole pesky thing is settled, we can get back to our house projects.

 

 

Traditional Design on a Dime - Personal Art

When I'm someone's home for the first time, I'm always compelled to take a look around, fascinated to get a glimpse into what I think of as their true world.  The world that they created for themselves.  The items that I'm drawn to are always the highly personal ones -- pictures of themselves as children, an antique table that they inherited from their mother, their favorite books on the shelf.  This is why I love the idea of personal art on the walls.  Not paintings that you've done yourself (though if you are talented enough to do it, I'm jealous!), but art or mementos that have great meaning.  The bonus is that personal art is usually very inexpensive or free!

I personally love anything that displays a loved ones' handwriting, especially ancestors that are no longer with us.  In my kitchen, I matted and framed copies of handwritten recipes from both Glenn and my grandmother.

 

I found this enlarged framed letter at Southern Living. Isn't that a wonderful look?  Staples will blow up an image to poster size for around $15 and you can grab a standard sized poster frame with a 40% off coupon at Michaels.

I was once in a model home in which they framed the back of postcards and hung them in a bathroom.  I loved reading the messages and thought that it was such a clever idea, especially if you used old family postcards.  I found a similar look at Bellacor, pictured above.  To re-create this look, I would buy a set of standard sized frames (IKEA has simple frames that are perfect for this project for $3-$5 each) and mount the postcard on a piece of white cardstock inside of the frame. 

I love framed quotes...but what about framed songs?  Scout and Nimble shows how you can create art out of your wedding song. What a beautiful but unusual memory of your wedding...and, so inexpensive to make.

Finally, what is more sentimental and surprisingly stylish than your child's art?  In this photo fingerpaint takes on the sophistication of modern art when framed in simple white.

Hope's homage to Kandinsky holds a place of honor in her bathroom. 

I'm always looking for unusual ways to have our home tell our story. I love these ideas for being both personal and thrifty :)