Tablescape Thursday/ Robin's Egg Blue Tablescape

It's Thursday already, and time for another tablescape for Tablescape Thursday hostessed by Susan at Between Naps on the Porch. I had so much fun with this week's presentation! My sons got me the robin's egg blue plates for Mother's Day after all!

Here is the place setting. You can see that I kept the same tan placemats and chocolate brown tablecloth from last week. When I put the plates on the table, the ideas began to flow!


Here are a couple views of the whole table.




I bought cream colored napkins from Walmart, but thought they needed some color. I found the trio of cute buttons there also, and thought they would be perfect! I found the ribbon at Joann Fabric, and sewed the buttons on to create a napkin ring. Each button is topped with a brown button to tie it all together. I like that each button has a different pattern! I thought I still needed some more color, so bought some coordinating fabric at Joann's, and then took my little $15 craft sewing machine out of the box and used it for the first time to make napkins! Don't look too close or you will see the mistakes! I haven't sewn anything in decades, and this was not easy to control, but I love how these turned out!






Here is a closer look through the center of the table.


As you can see, I used the painted cheeseboard stands to display something new. The first is a bird nest that I bought at Joann Fabric last summer. It was perfect here!


Here is the other stand with a robin's egg that I got at Dollar Tree for a dollar! I added a tiny glass bluebird that had been a gift from a friend, and placed colored stones from Walmart around the edge. I also have these stones scattered on the table for added color.


Wondering what I did with the domes from the cheeseboards? I turned one upside down and places it into a votive cup filled with the decorative stones, then filled it with potpourri. You could also do this to serve a dessert in as well.


Here is another Big Lots buy that I purchased years ago. It sat in a box the last two years. I filled it's nest with eggs that I bought half price at Kroger after Easter.


Here is a close up of the fabric. Some of the fabric is draped across the table. Notice it is keeping with the bird theme. I am so happy with this fabric that I am thinking of making seat pad covers with it too.


At the head of the table, I added a white birdhouse that I've had for years, the bowl of potpourri with a cream candle in the middle, a porcelain bird, and a blue orb from the bag of potpourri.


Here is the close up of the bird. He usually sits on the shelf above my stack of trunks.


Here is the larger companion to my little bluebird, also a gift from the same friend who lives in Washington State where they make these birds! The white balls to the side were in the bag of potpourri.


I love candles on a table so added these tealights. The blue glass holders were from Walmart at only $.50 a piece. I places some of the clear stones on top for added interest and to tie them in with other elements in the tablescape.


The only thing this table is missing is some of those white bird salt and pepper shakers from Target! I don't live anywhere near one, but am hoping to get to Toledo in the next month. I hope they are still there!

It was so much fun to make this tablescape. I had been loving the combination of robin's egg blue and chocolate brown for a long time. However, there didn't seem any place in my last house where these colors would seem to fit, but now that I live with the Awful Blue and Tan Wallpaper in the kitchen, these seemed pretty closely related. And ever since I saw the Echo Point collection in this color scheme at Big Lots, I pined for some of it.

In this tablescape, you can see how taking last week's placemats and tablecloth were taken in a whole new direction. You don't have to use something completely different in your tablescapes. Use something you already have in a different way! I shopped the house for much of this arrangement. Anything new that I bought was very inexpensive, and I worked hard at being as frugal as possible. For example, instead of buying more new napkins, I bought a yard of fabric for $6.99 and not only had napkins, I was able to use the rest of the yard to add interest and to pull the arrangement in the back of the table into the center.

This tablescape also shows how you can mix patterns as long as you stay in the same colors. I mixed patterns with stripes and with another contrasting pattern, but it all works. Also, all of the blues are not the same. Some are robin's egg blues, and others are darker blues, but it all works. Forgot to add that the blue drinking glasses are from Goodwill at a dollar a piece!

I think that this tablescape is going to stay on my table for a long time.

Have a great Tablescape Thursday, and don't forget to go to Susan's blog to check out all of the other talented participants!

My Mom--I miss her so!

Happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers out in blog land, and for those who want to be mothers.

Recently, my brother was going through boxes of things in my parents' bedroom. Dad has been gone for almost 6 years, and it will be 28 years ago next month that we lost our dear mother. Anyhow, he found a box of my mother's photos. What a treat it was to have these passed to me! I saw pictures of her that I had never seen before, a time when she was in her 20s back in the 1950's.

Here is a picture of my mother with Mother's Day flowers that I sent her in 1980. I was in college at the time. Thirteen months later, she passed away. She was only 52 in this picture, two years older than I am now!

My mother was an amazing woman who survived many horrors in her life, things that I cannot imagine. However, she never let that stop her from going on in her life and being the best person she could be. She was a fantastic mother! She was strong, opinionated, loving, creative, and very social. She was also hilarious and one of my favorite memories is of her and me laughing hysterically at something we both found funny, just two days before she died.

On to the pictures:
It was so fascinating to see the young woman that she was. When I was at Wally World scanning these pictures, it took all I had to keep from bursting into tears. I don't think she ever realized just how beautiful she was! I love this picture of her in this beautiful dress with large dots. LOVE that dress!


She was quite the bathing beauty too! I was actually rather shocked to see her in a bikini, but wow, Mom was looking hot! I hope she isn't rolling over in her grave because I am posting these. Nah, she was the one who liked to run out to the front of the house in her bathing suits to kiss and hug guests goodbye just to give the neighbors something to talk about!




For a short time in her early 20s, my mother was married to a man (NOT my father!) who she thought was going to be a preacher. He turned out to be an abusive jerk who she divorced after he made threats to kill her. Back in the 50s, divorce was NOT common!

Anyhow, I think she had these pictures taken intending to send them to him while he was in the Army. At that time, she was living at a boarding house in Toledo for single women who were working or going to school. She had written on the backs of these pictures. Here is what they said.

"Writing to 'my man'."


"Thank you, I hope you liked the recital."


"I haven't heard from you in so long!" (Yep, I see divorce looming!)


"Time for tea."



"The housewife, relaxing." (Ugh, what ugly curtains here!)


"Just waiting - my baby's coming home"


"Do you like the perfume?" (Oh how I love this picture of her! Look at that tiny waist! I sure didn't inherit that from her.)


"Getting ready for work." (Because he didn't send her any money to pay the bills.)


"Bye now, see you later."


Mom had a lot of different jobs when she was in her 20s. She completed a degree in social work, but found that it really wasn't for her. She later went back to school to become a teacher. Here are some of the odd jobs she had along the way.

Mom was a camp counselor at Camp Friendly in Napoleon, Michigan. Here she is in front of one of the cabins. I think she OWNS these shorts!


Here she is at the camp playing a fortune teller, Madame Fifi, according to the back of the pic.


She put together this bulletin board. I think this may have been for Sunday school or maybe one of her very first classes.


I wonder if these are the kids she made the bulletin board for. They are so cute. Some of them remind me of the Little Rascals.


Here mom is ironing her apron for work. Can you imagine using those old irons? She was a waitress at a Kewpies. Not sure if this is that particular workplace, but she hated Kewpie's with a passion!




She had time for fun too. I love this picture of her in a rowboat. From the look on her face, I think that the photographer was someone that she was in love with. What do you think?


Here she is sitting on Santa's lap. Santa gives me the heebie jeebies in this pic though. He looks a bit like an evil clown. Although the caption on the pic says, "it sure is fun to sit on Santa's lap," she looks a little scared of him!


Gosh I sure do miss her! If you still have your mother, say a prayer of thanks that you still have her. Life never feels the same once she is gone. It was so hard for me at the time because I was only 22 and had a 6 month old baby. My youngest brother was still in high school. However, in the time she was on this earth, she was the best mother ever and taught me all the skills I needed to be successful in my life. She was loved by everyone who met her. I look forward to seeing her someday again in glory.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention my grandmothers!

This is my Grandma S. Here she is at age 31 (in 1922) holding my father! She was a warm and loving grandmother who passed from this earth far too soon. We lost her when I was only 7. She was a schoolteacher and a wonderful woman! I still get people (now elderly)coming up to me telling me how much they loved her. They do the same when talking about my mother. I take after my Grandma S a lot.


Here is my Grandma R, with my Grandpa. They took my mother into their home when she was 13 years old. My bio grandmother died when my mom was 8 years old. She went to an orphanage at age 9 and lived a hellish life there until my Grandma and Grandpa R took her in. They later officially adopted her. They gave her a good life. Grandpa ran a Mobil gas station and Grandma was also a teacher. While we didn't see them very often, and although Grandma was not a typically warm grandma, I did love her.


I hope all of you have a terrific Mother's Day surrounded by your loved ones.

Oh, my sons did give me the robin's egg blue plates! Yay! You'll get to see them on Tablescape Thursday.

Tablescape Thursday/ Golden Rhapsody setting

This is my third foray into Tablescape Thursday. This is a weekly event hostessed by the very talented Susan at Between Naps on the Porch. This week I am presenting my own tablescape.

Since I've been laid off, I have all kinds of time to do things to make my home pretty. I have always admired those women who had beautiful tables, always set with lovely dishes. My kitchen table has usually been a catch-all for our stuff. This is not a good thing. Well that has changed! It's so much easier to get my boys to avoid putting their things on the table when it is set! I came up with something I am very pleased with, and I did it on a very strict budget.


This is a pattern from Kayson's called Golden Rhapsody. I bought a set of four dishes for $.55 a piece at Goodwill. I love this pattern because it was the "good China" when I was growing up. My mother had a 12 place setting of this which was given to her by her adoptive father. He owned a Mobil gas station most of his life, and these were pieces that you could earn buying gas, if I remember correctly. It cost him practically nothing to give the whole set to my mother. Besides dishes, she also had all of the accessories. Well, now that my parents have passed, my brother asked if he could keep the set, and I had no problem with him keeping it. I found out that you can buy these at Goodwill too, and they have the pattern coming in there every so often. You know who else loves this pattern? Dot at Picket's Place!

Here is a closeup of the plates. The silverware is my everyday stuff that I have had for years.

Not long ago, I found those pretty tan placemats at Big Lots for $3 a piece. They are by Echo Point, and were originally $10 each! That's a lot, even for Big Lots. Recently they marked all of their Echo Point line down by 70%. So I splurged and got four. I also found the brown tablecloth there for $7. I had been wanting a tablecloth which would look nice in my kitchen with the ugly wallpaper and dark brown cupboards, and this really works! The pink drinking glasses were purchased from Goodwill for $.35 each.

I wish I had a set of these napkins. I found them at Pier One Imports. Years ago, I bought two of them to serve as a covering for a coffee table, and they were in a box the last couple years.

When I was unpacking, I found this pretty green teacup. I can't believe that I didn't remember owning it, and I don't remember where I got it.

You might remember this bowl from the top of my painted black end table. I bought it and the fake green apples from Pier One years ago. I had it sitting on the table as the centerpiece before I painted the end table. I put a spray of faux flowers that I had purchased from Home Interior Parties years ago at the base. Since I moved the bowl to the end table, my painted cheesboards are now serving as a centerpiece.


I never thought that I would like a brown tablecloth so much! It's going to allow me to be very versatile. I am now pining for some of the robin's egg blue plates by Echo Point which are still marked down at Big Lots. I have let my sons know that they would be a perfect Mother's Day gift! We will see if they listened. If I do get them, I can do another tablescape!

Have a great Tablescape Thursday everyone!

Met Monday/ Goodwill Finds Transformed

Welcome to my first Metamorphosis Monday, sponsored by the talented and lovely Susan at Between Naps on the Porch. Met Monday is where you show how you have transformed something or a space or a room.

I have been a busy little bee lately with all this time on my hands. I am finally getting around to craft projects that I have been putting off for months...or years. This first idea was inspired by Sherry at Edie Marie's Attic. She did a project just like this, so I thought that I could do it too!

First of all, I went to Goodwill and snatched up as many of those old cheese boards with domes that I could find. They weren't expensive at all with the cheapest being $1 and the most expensive at $4. I then searched for some interesting bases, anything from a wood candle holder to a wine glass, to a shallow stemmed bowl.

Here they are placed together. I didn't actually glue them together until after they were painted, but I used wood glue on all of these and it held pretty well. I painted three of them Heirloom White from Rustoleum, and one of them a pink shade from Krylon.

How do you like the finished product?

You have probably noticed that one is missing. I'll get to that in a minute.

My next project was to transform an old end table that I have had for almost 20 years. I had bought a bedroom set from a friend, and she had owned the set for a year. I'm not sure why there was just one night stand. Anyhow, it was looking pretty worn out and I was thinking about putting it on Freecycle. This picture is not the night stand itself as I forgot to take a before pic, but it's a matching dresser. It's next on the list for painting.

There was a spot between my chairs though that was just screaming out for an end table. Since I am unemployed, there was no buying something, not even something thrifted. Might as well use what I have! My biggest decision was whether to paint it a creamy white or black.

Since I have some black shelves on the wall behind, I decided to paint it a flat black. I love how it turned out! I painted the handle creamy white, and bought the white knobs at Wally World for $4.50, since the old ones were missing. Hee hee, with the knobs and the handle, it looks like my end table is smiling.

I used a battenburg lace curtain as a table scarf, and topped it with a bowl I own with my green apples. I like apple green and black together.

I had one more thing to add. It wasn't until I first took my cheese boards out of the bag that I realized one of the domes was plastic and a smoky gray color. This wasn't going to work. My new end table was also crying out for something extra too.

After I painted all the cheese boards, I thought of something. I took sticky garage sales tags and stuck them all over, then painted it black. After the paint dried, I pulled off the tags and voila! Polka dots! Here it is on top of my new end table.


I was very happy with the way everything turned out! I swear, I would probably never have thought to do any of this without the inspiration of all my blogging friends. I get so many good ideas from everyone, and it has helped me see things in a new way and look at them as what they could be instead of what they are at the moment.

Happy Met Monday everyone!

Pink Saturday/ Pink Ribbon Campaign Tablescape

Welcome to Pink Saturday! This week I have a lovely pink tablescape for you.

Here is a close up.


If you haven't seen my previous post, please check it out, and you will get more information about the event that I attended where a variety of beautiful tablescapes were featured. I was especially struck by this tablescape with the theme of breast cancer research. The hostess for the table said that all of the guests that were going to be seated here were breast cancer survivors. I not only loved all the pinkness, I thought the theme was fantastic!

I really enjoyed looking at the cake decorated with frosting pink ribbons, and the packet of pink tea. Each guest received a gift which were placed in bags decorated with pink ribbons and pink tissue. I don't know what the gift was though. She said that she took clear plates and attached paper to the bottom to come up with plates in keeping with the theme. I thought they were just beautiful!

Please go to the blog of our hostess Beverly at How Sweet the Sound to see a list of other Pink Saturday participants.

Have a Happy Pink Saturday!