Thursday, March 18, 2010

A Touch of Spring

I'm trying to bring a touch of spring into my house right now. My inspiration is a beautiful little bowl I found at Goodwill in an apple green or lemongrass color. Very pretty and very springy! I'm trying to take myself out of my comfort zone (aka, same old, same old!) and try some new things with my decor. Lemongrass definitely is a new color for me, but I'm really liking it a lot.

My inspiration for one of my recent projects is a faux flowerbox that Samster Mommy posted. I made the project my own, but she definitely planted the idea in my head.
I started with this empty tin pot I had out in the garage--it is leftover from some beautiful potted tulip bulbs I bought myself at the beginning of February.
I bought these ranunculus at JoAnn's where they were, of course, 40% off. They're a spring item and not part of the regular floral stock.
I bought floral foam at JoAnn's too and used a regular table knife to cut it into pieces that would fit into the bottom of my bucket. Then I used the wire snipping part on my husband's brand-new pliers to cut my flowers apart. I used only the blooms and skipped all the spiky and beaded things.
Voila! My new bucket of flowers! This vignette is sitting in my $5 Target tray from last year and the flower bucket is on the cake plate I made last March. My favorite things in this little display, however, are the books sitting under the glass hurricane.
Those books were my aunt's books when she was a girl--I love books with inscriptions! My grandma gave out all the old books years and years ago and eventually ended up giving out books only to the offspring of the original owners of the books, but she apparently slipped a few extra into my pile of vintage Nancy Drew and Dana Girls books. I love them and can't believe they were a gift 50 years ago!
This is another table in the same room. This arrangement still needs some tweaking--but that little bowl there is my inspiration for the room.
It is an ironstone bowl in the Emerald Isle color that I found at Goodwill--the only ironstone I have ever found there. Also on this table are some spring themed books that I pulled from around the house. I love pulling books for my children and putting them out on display--it seems to pique their curiosity a bit and entice them to revisit old favorites.
Speaking of inscriptions, this book was a gift to me on my 5th birthday by my preschool teachers. Love it!
And here is the whole room, ready for spring. On the right side of the armoire you can see the table with the chalkboard that I talked about yesterday. And yes, this room usually is quite clean as it is the first room you see when you open the front door. Our playroom (formally a dining room) is on the other side of the blue couch...which serves nicely to hide most of the mess on the floor back there!

7 comments:

Erin said...

Beautiful Spring arrangement! I LOVE green. :)

Carolyn said...

Thank you for sharing this! I found your blog a couple of weeks ago and keep coming back for more. These are some great ideas that I'm going to use in my living room!

Anna said...

I love your 'touch of spring', especially that floral arrangement

Anonymous said...

Your little spring vignette looks so great! I love the flowers. They are so pretty! :)

Stacey @ The Blessed Nest said...

What a very pretty Spring arrangement! :) I love it!! So fresh and lovely!
Blessings,
Stacey

Jenny @ Anything Pretty said...

Perfect spring arrangement! I love the seasonal touch to your space!

Niki Jolene said...

Okay. Wow. This is the first time I have ever visited your site and I keep reading posts that deal with stuff that came up in my life this last week.

I remembered that Pussy Willow book from MY childhood earlier this week and spent the rest of the week trying to find it to share with my preschool class. I loved it as a kid! Sadly I couldn't track down the same one. Seems when Little Golden books reprinted the title they went with another illustrator and it is just not the same.

So I was so excited to see it pictured in your blog. Walking to school in kindergarten with my mom and being fascinated with pussy willows in the spring is one of my earliest memories. I remember my mom bought be the book because I loved those little branches!