Easter Around the House

My small but sweet collection of eggs shares a footed fruit bowl 

with some shells from our St. Helena Island vacation. 

And the wind-up peep perched on a piece of driftwood 

was a placecard from last year's Easter dinner.

My dog walker and his wife always get me holiday towels.

There isn't a holiday on the calendar that I don't have a towel for!

The two Easter towels I put into Harleigh's bathroom.

She truly appreciates these little touches when she comes home.

The flowers are all fake and tacky, and I love 'em.

My mom gave me this fuzzy peep a few years ago.

A little Easter color

I like trying new ways of dying Easter Eggs. With Pinterest (and a house no longer filled with a little girl who was quite enamored with the Paas box with the punch-out holes and fizzing tablets), there's a whole new world out there. In the past, I've done these Asian-inspired eggs, and then there were the silk-tie eggs (who would have ever thought?!?! wish I'd have done more). Natural dyes. And robin eggs. This year I tried the Hawaiian Punch eggs. Didn't have nearly the luck I'd seen online (not quite a fail, but not a home run either). I may have used too much water. But regardless, the eggs formed a film of color that rinsed off to reveal a much lighter, mottled color below. The blue egg was made using blue food coloring (the blue Hawaiian Punch packet was not a blue color powder, as I'd expected). I kept the eggs in the color for about an hour and a half. The colors may not have turned out as I'd have wanted, BUT the kitchen smelled wonderful. Sorta like a cotton candy/funnel cake stand at the fair.

 

Here is one that turned out especially pretty. I think the flavor was grape.

But look at the tiffany blue highlights.

Here are just some of the treasures I found on the beach at 

Saint Helena Island.

The foam buoy is covered in barnacles.

The purple coral.

Shells. Drift wood.

And this bleached stick wrapped in a lovely, gauzy 

robin's egg blue piece of cloth.

A pretty sea foam green piece of sea glass.

A horseshoe crab shell.

Love Birds

A friend asked me to help her with her May wedding.

This is a second marriage for both her and her fiancé.

There's a specialness to it 

that comes from two people living busy and established lives, nurturing careers, having raised kids, 

and then finding each other

and falling in love — a love infused with the joy and passion of

youth coupled with the wisdom, patience

and forgiveness of wise older souls.

It's an honor.

Julie came on Sunday to see the staging of ideas

I'd brainstormed, created and curated.

And, folks, we have us a wedding.

Here are a few snippets of what 

we looked at and discussed on Sunday while sipping champagne

and listening to Michael Buble. 

[Forgive the poor-quality images.]

Julie has gravitated toward a bird theme.

Her Pinterest wedding board is all about the birds.

The wedding invitation is so beautiful . . . 

birds on twigs.

I can do something quite lovely with birds.

A fifteen-pane window that gal pal Ali

salvaged from the roadside and handed off to me as an 

"I just knew you would put this to good use" piece, 

got a coat of Annie Sloan chalkpaint in the loveliest

of warm whites.

It's been put to use in a grand way for

Julie and Alan's big day.

I attempted a DIY mercury glass vase, which turned out beautifully.

And so easy to do!

For staging flowers, find a picture of the arrangement 

you want online and then print it out in color and cut it out.

This was a flower arrangement that Julie pinned. 

It's what I plan on doing for the table arrangements.

And for staging purposes,

a print out is way easier than purchasing the exact flowers.

I just glued a piece of foam core to the back, stuck a wooden skewer into the foam core,

then the other end of the skewer into floral foam in the vase.

Here's the tutorial that I used, but I think for the rest of the vases,

I'm going to try this one.