Summer Foxgloves

For winter's rains and ruins are over

And all the season of snows and sins;

The days dividing lover and lover,

The light that loses, the night that wins;

And time remembered is grief forgotten,

And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,

And in green underwood and cover

Blossom by blossom the spring begins. 

Algernon Charles Swinburne, 1890 

I'm loving foxgloves (digitalis).  Tossing ripe seed heads around the garden yields more next year.  Love lazy self-seeded gardening!

I've been accepted into Southern New Hampshire University's online MBA program.  Sometimes, I think the only way I can to do it is because I haven't been in school for years and I don't remember how hard it can be!

‘Till next time, stay shabby!

Sharing with:

White Wednesday at Faded Charm 

What's It Wednesday at Ivy & Elephants 

Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style  

Favorite Things Thursday at Katherine's Corner 

Creative Things Thursday at The Vintage Farmhouse  

Transformation Thursday at The Shabby Creek Cottage 

Feathered Nest Friday at The French Country Cottage  

Farmhouse Friday at LaurieAnna's Vintage Home 

Vintage Inspiration Friday at Common Ground 

Show & Tell Friday at My Romantic Home

Come enjoy all the pretty entries!

Conclusion: Nina Hartmann Says “Have A Thread”

Orderliness

Listing my life
making an inventory
that's the way to perfection
no disorderliness
all of it lined up on the shelf
nothing lacking
except what was sold
put on exhibit and sold in a sale
gone forever at a cheap price

E.C.

Nina suggests to "have a thread" -- a theme -- going on in your decor. 

There’s a thin line between having a collection and a flea market. 

Group like with like, color with color.

This is critical in small spaces.

Less is more.

Declutter.

I hope you enjoyed this series!

Until next time, stay shabby!

Sharing with:

White Wednesday at Faded Charm 

What's It Wednesday at Ivy & Elephants 

Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style  

Favorite Things Thursday at Katherine's Corner 

Creative Things Thursday at The Vintage Farmhouse  

Transformation Thursday at The Shabby Creek Cottage 

Feathered Nest Friday at The French Country Cottage  

Farmhouse Friday at LaurieAnna's Vintage Home 

Vintage Inspiration Friday at Common Ground 

Show & Tell Friday at My Romantic Home 

Decorating Tips from Nina Part V: French Mirrors

Photo:  Maria-Isabel Hansson 

Posted by Atelier de Champagne

Pre-Order Vintage by Nina in English 

Life, like a mirror, never gives back more than what we put into it.

Anonymous

Admittedly, these are a very tall order here in the U.S.  Affordable Louis Phillippe style mirrors just don’t seem to exist.  I rounded the top ends of two lovely chippy yard sale mirrors (one I bought for $2, one I had), and it’s not the same.   But I tried.  I think of them as anorexic French mirrors.

Want to learn more tips and where to shop?  

Pre-order the English version of Nina’s book Vintage by Nina.

Until next time, stay shabby!

Sharing with:

White Wednesday at Faded Charm 

What's It Wednesday at Ivy & Elephants 

Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style  

Favorite Things Thursday at Katherine's Corner 

Creative Things Thursday at The Vintage Farmhouse  

Transformation Thursday at The Shabby Creek Cottage 

Feathered Nest Friday at The French Country Cottage  

Farmhouse Friday at LaurieAnna's Vintage Home 

Vintage Inspiration Friday at Common Ground 

Show & Tell Friday at My Romantic Home 

Decorating Tips from Nina Part IV: Chandeliers

Glass

Words of a poem should be glass
But glass so simple-subtle its shape
Is nothing but the shape of what it holds.

A glass spun for itself is empty,
Brittle, at best Venetian trinket.
Embossed glass hides the poem of its absence.

Words should be looked through, should be windows.
The best word were invisible.
The poem is the thing the poet thinks.

If the impossible were not,
And if the glass, only the glass,
Could be removed, the poem would remain. 

Robert Francis

It’s very hard to get a ‘shabby chic’ room without a chandelier.  As I said on The Nate Show, a room is a volume, not just four walls.  Think about filling the ceiling void with a double-duty item like a crystal chandelier, which gives light and intense beauty.  Up the romantic charm with a candlelight model. 

Can’t afford or find an antique chandelier?   Supplement the prisms on a new model with vintage crystal prisms hunted down at flea markets and ‘rust & dust’ antique centers.  Yard sale finds from the 1950s – 1970s can be tarnished to “Scandinavian black” with a treatment of Jax Pewter Black metal tarnish (sticker shock warning: hazmat delivery fee of $50).  Pictured above are just my old white chandys, updated by stripping, patinating, and adding $14 new glass ‘necks’ from online lamp suppliers for that ‘Nina Nordic’ look.

Until next time, stay shabby!

Sharing with:

White Wednesday at Faded Charm 

What's It Wednesday at Ivy & Elephants 

Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style  

Favorite Things Thursday at Katherine's Corner 

Creative Things Thursday at The Vintage Farmhouse  

Transformation Thursday at The Shabby Creek Cottage 

Feathered Nest Friday at The French Country Cottage  

Farmhouse Friday at LaurieAnna's Vintage Home

Vintage Inspiration Friday at Common Ground 

Show & Tell Friday at My Romantic Home