Nearly Natural Floral Arrangement In Our Refreshed Bedroom

Hi, Friends,

How are you? I hope you are staying well and encouraged. 

If you have been following, you will know that we bought a new place out in the country. It was very brown/yellow/tan. Except for the guest room, I painted the whole house white and I love it more with each visit.  In fact, I love our room out there so much that our room at home looked dingy. It looked yellow. 

It seemed crazy to me that every shade of beige had to be eradicated from the new house but those colors were okay dokey here. It was taunting me. 

Confession time. On Christmas Eve in 2014, I scraped the popcorn from our ceiling. The ceiling needed to be painted after that but painting ceilings is not fun so it didn't happen. 

Our room was white when we bought the house. It's been blue, cream, linen and now it is white once again. 

When the painting urge strikes, there is really no stopping me. 

Walmart came through with an online order by 4:30 one afternoon. When it showed up at the door, Bill said, "I'll sleep in the guest room." He knew that a painting fest would begin and that it would last late into the night. He's a keeper. The color is Glidden High Endurance Plus Flat Interior Paint and Primer. It has great coverage. 

You may think that white is boring. Comments on YouTube videos seem indicate that white is out. 

 Not for me. 

I love pops of color in a white room. Most of my white rooms have a pop of an accent color. I let Bill know that he should be prepared for some pink this month because of Valentine's Day. 

Once the mantel was refreshed with Snowbound by Sherwin Williams, the room began to feel like a Paris apartment. Something with a modern shape needed to be added to the vignette on the mantel.  

Nearly Natural contacted me at just the right time. They asked if I'd like to review a faux floral in time for Valentine's Day. I jumped at the chance to order an arrangement of roses and hydrangeas in a soft pink. The square glass vase gives the arrangement a contemporary feel. You can see it here. The cream hydrangeas offer a pretty and muted contrast to the pink roses. They are having a special if you hurry. 

My order arrived within a few days. Nearly Natural knows how to package items so that they arrive in pristine condition. I found that true with the Christmas garland and wreath that they sent me last fall.

These stems are in resin so that the arrangement looks more realistic. The raffia tie around the bouquet is a darling touch. My florist does that. The roses and the hydrangeas have variation throughout the petals to simulate natural flowers. That's important to me when choosing faux florals. I love these. 

I love how they look with our vintage oil painting. Those apricot and pink tones jump off of the antique canvas.

These are beautiful. 

That is about all for now. Thank you so much for stopping by. 

Thank you, Nearly Natural, for the lovely flowers. 

I hope you stop by and see if they have something pretty for spring or for Valentine's Day .

 Katie 

Removing Gold Detail From Ceramics With Bar Keeper's Friend

The pitcher on the coffee table in the living room was getting some fresh flowers. 

I looked at my white ironstone pitcher and thought it was perfect. 

It was perfect except for one detail. 

It had gold trim around the top, bottom, middle and on the handle.

I have had a "festivus" of copper cleaning around here and Bar Keeper's Friend is my "go to" copper cleaning product. It literally melts the tarnish away. 

Some of the gold was worn away on my pitcher. 

The bottom of the pitcher had a maker's mark but it also had a gold artist's mark which meant the gold was applied after the piece was fired.  

I decided to see if my beloved Bar Keeper's Friend would remove the gold. 

It did. If gold is applied before firing or glazing, removing it won't work. 

Some of you may think that this piece was better with the gold but the simple look of white ironstone appeals to me. We don't have a huge collection even though I've been collecting it for seven years.  

White ironstone is getting very difficult to find in my area. The prices for it are exorbitant. 

Yesterday, I saw a small square bowl with a chip. It was $15.00. Nope! 

I'm not paying that much for something with a chip. 

You know by now that I make weekly trips to the thrift store. 

My thrift store raises money for expectant mothers. A subject that is very important to me. 

I never feel bad about shopping at my thrift store. 

My "un-golding" project caused me to take a second look at a little cream pitcher that I saw. 

It was only $1.40 so it came home with me.  

The gold came off with the Bar Keeper's Friend and a scrubbing sponge. 

It was added to my collection of little white creamers.

There has been a lot of chatter lately about color. 

 It seems that home decor aficionados are ready for color instead of all the monochromatic tones of Farmhouse style.

I've always added a pop of color with my neutrals. The couch usually gets a new seasonal pillow. This spring, I picked up some very 90s looking pillows from IKEA.

 They had the LEIKNY cushion covers for only $6.99 each. They also had a couch in this pattern. 

It was darling! 

 I made the little blue and white pillow out of a ELLY dish towel. Those are $3.99 for four dish towels.  

This was our color scheme the year we moved into this house.  

A vintage Nippon dish coordinates with the pillows perfectly. 

I like it. 

I'm on the look out for more ironstone to "un-gold." 

The weather is beginning to warm up and some trees are budding out.
Yahoo. 

Katie