A Very Simple Fall Mantel

Decorating the mantel for each season has to be one of my favorite things. It is always unplanned, that is the way I like it, at least at home … grab a few things from around the house and put them together having a good time, enjoying the process and playing, the same way I used to play with barbies when I was a little girl and also later on, not so little. Decorating their houses, mostly made of cardboard boxes and dividers (I think evaporated milk came that way at the time, I think wine comes that way still now) was my favorite activity along with designing their wardrobe, and since we were eight brothers and sisters, there were always plenty empty boxes available to play with. Those dividers were a dream come true, I was able to change the rooms distribution any time I wanted! (designers dream!)

This year I wanted to keep things simple, made a promise to myself about not over thinking so stuff gets actually done!  The problem was when I thought about making a post about decorating the Mantel for Fall, I felt the need to “finish” it, to make it better.  Moving things around I “discovered” I needed to purchase a few items … I don’t want to buy more stuff, I really want to spend more time living and enjoying than trying to make things perfect…good is good enough, right? or at least it should be, so…I didn’t buy anything! (Who am I?!   I don’t know this woman!)

These are some pictures of the mantel with a few variations…couldn’t stop myself from playing with the things and broke one of the candle-holders!  I would had liked the moss balls to be bigger and some of the pumpkins to be smaller… oh well, what a surprise!  Isn’t that the way it always goes for everybody?

Taking pictures with my iPhone is not very professional, I know! the indoor photos look gloomy and colorless and the definition is not that good…This looks so greenish, yellowish, “horriblish”… it looks so much better in person. I promise! perhaps I should upgrade to an iphone 6, just never wanted to do it only because it came out, don’t understand the need to have the latest gadget when I know for sure I barely understand all I could do with the one I already have… that is at least my impression.

The two windows flanking the fireplace are facing north and this particular area between the two of them is a bit gloomy… There is a big mirror on top of the fireplace to bounce the light coming from other places and a light above it, but for some reason it isn’t enough…very unnatural and cold light!   I know I could do better, but since we’ve been almost moving several times… it wasn’t worth the hustle, or so I thought … it is always worth the hustle!

I’ve been in love with old silver forever and always have fun imagining where those old pieces could have been…I am a romantic, what can I say…the images in my head are pretty stunning… extremely handsome, elegant, well spoken gentlemen, walking around trying to capture the glance and imagination of  breathtakingly beautiful women exquisitely dressed and coiffed ….everybody is having a wonderful time, conversations are interesting, intelligent and passionate and ….nobody is texting!  The settings are old hotels with amazing architecture and furniture you only dream of  and old mansions full of history and romance, the kind we rarely see anymore …. and of course, All this VERY unlikely to have ANY relationship with my silver pieces found at second hand stores, flea markets or state sales!  No connection to reality whatsoever! … but hey! It is my imagination, right?! No need to be timid or frugal there… no budget restrains!

Coming back to reality I should say, I like freshly polished silver as well, occasionally I prepare a “special solution” to clean it, mostly around the holidays, you only have to line the sink with aluminum paper, fill it with hot water, add the non toxic ingredients I found on Pinterest and Voilà! Just submerge the pieces for a while and they all come out shining and reflecting light everywhere… brilliant!  (Specially when I didn’t have to polish it!)  Soon I will share the formula, it is like magic! I only want to make sure I know how to properly credit the source.  Did I mention that I have an obsession with light? I need it bad, I love spaces filled with natural light and a great lighting plan, that is a must ! You can lose almost everything you’ve accomplished, design wise if you don’t have the right illumination….

Don’t you think silver pumpkins are gorgeous?! I do, they are just so pretty and elegant!  It’s like they decided they didn’t want to be “loud” like their lovely, more common orange sisters!  These grayish pumpkins are the snobs of the family along white ones! Orange ones are the happy eternal teenagers… Too bad the light didn’t help me here and the gorgeous gray pumpkin  looks almost a shade of one of Pantone’s pastels for 2015…. I had yet to put a candle inside the orange goblet and it was and is bothering me immensely!  Candlelight is so pretty, romantic and soft…. I find it flirty and happy!  Few things can claim they can do for ambiance and mood what these little wonders do!….Contained fire…Do we even realized what we have with candles?! It literally is Contained Fire!!! anywhere we want them, whenever we want them! Awesome! Genius! Priceless! Brilliant! yes, very bright indeed, CANDLES bring magic to every space and make the ordinary look extraordinary!

That branch with the “caramel drops of Autumn” tilted the vase and went too low, wasn’t intentional… looks bad!

This is a small space so I should keep it simple… but Fall makes me feel warm and cozy inside and sometimes has me longing for the cluttered look of lived in spaces… I think it’s the same feeling we experiment during Fall and winter when we wrapped ourselves in soft blankets and cuddle in our favorite chair, sofa or bed (yes, more likely a bed..) and lose ourselves in a book or a movie, even a cheese one, a “chick” movie my boys used to call it … and then they watched it with me and even liked it!   (Omg… those sweet memories … I’m not going to cry!)

I took a couple of things out to create some breathing space, what it’s called negative space, it is as important as all the stuff you want to display, your eyes should be able to rest and travel from one thing to the other with ease, there should be a nice flow and harmony among all the pieces in the composition, here it works because your eyes can take all in without being overwhelmed with too much clutter… almost!

– Not so much here though!

So… this is my mantel for the season, sometimes you should go with your impulse and if you like the result, if it makes you happy, then that’s the right one for you at that particular moment,  if you get a pleasant feeling, go with it!

UPDATE -As the season progressed and the bright days of Fall got darker and bare, I felt the need to add color to the mantel and home to replace what we lost outside. Here are some pictures, that for some reason have better light than the previous ones that look so bad…

That poor pumpkin is dying!…. Hold on baby! Only a couple of weeks to go! You don’t want to be called rotten… do you?…

The leaves outside are almost gone… That makes me sad… everything is turning gray and dark so I needed to brighten up the mantel inside

And that makes me happy!

My entrance table

That was it, I didn’t mean to talk forever about so many different things…hopefully it doesn’t read that way…

AUTUMN CONFIDENTIAL – Fall Front Porch

I finished the front porch’s urn today.   Perhaps I should have waited to finish the door’s wreath to post this but I’m not sure I am going to make one.  The porch is kind of small and since I made the planter pretty big I don’t want it to look like too much for the space!

I’m not sure it’s going to stay like that, it might look too busy or too crowded for me tomorrow. I always need to step back and relax, rest my eyes and then I’m able to “edit” whatever I am doing.

First I added a few branches I cut from the field behind my house ( the next day they started to die and look bad!) So far for pretending to be Martha! I was feeling so proud and decisive, resourceful and assertive!  I was playing the role of Martha Stewart in my own movie, fake it until you make it! like I knew what I was doing!… Ha! those branches showed me! They bursted my buble.  I didn’t want the neighbors to see!!!  the same ones that approached me the day before enchanted with my creation! I took the compliments graciously!  The next day I was exposed! I’m just a city girl (Girl?… oh well!  why not! you can’t see me from there anyways and that’s the way I feel almost everyday. Almost.) A city girl that ended up living in the midwest, who admires those wonderful master gardeners with their beautiful lush gardens, (they seem to be everywhere here with their additional organic vegetable gardens!)  but who doesn’t know a thing about plants!  I know how to play with them, decorate with them, combine them, create pretty things with  them but It seems I also know how to kill them….Enough said.

I wish I had done something like this… When the kids were little I actually took the time and the money to do it, now I just want to be Martha or… why stop at that?! the amazing Carolyne Roehm! Walk graciously through my gardens selecting and picking, ( with no apparent effort and without breaking a sweat) the fruits of my crops and all nature’s bounty that appears to surround them at all times!

My gourds, (or little pumpkins thingies) look like duckies or swans! so cute 😉    You see? playing already!

This might look too busy or too crowded for me tomorrow.  It is important to always step back, take a moment or two to relax, rest your eyes, do something else and then you’ll be better able to edit and to judge what is working and what is not. At least that works for me.

Evergreen from the front yard added, check!

I didn’t wear gloves while cutting the evergreen … Oh boy, those needles are nasty and have a kind of glue that stick to your fingers and it’s difficult to clean… All worthy! I love the fresh smell of pine

So cute!

Close-up.  Ain’t that pretty? Not bad for a city girl 😉

I know ! too many pictures of the same thing… my only excuse is that I’ve seen other bloggers doing the same ! It happens when they love what they do and they do it for themselves, just for the pure pleasure of creating something, knowing we are simple people enjoying simple things… and then, there is the Pros, the ones that really know what they are talking about and are here to teach, I admire them, I love them, I am not one of them.  It takes a lot, I should recognize, to get over yourself and just go for it, accepting your limitations, accepting your imperfections, it is ok to sing out of tune! What the heck… if we don’t, we’ll be missing the pleasure of the experience…. Is it worth it? Who do we want to impress? The only ones worth  the effort is our own selves and our families. That is a universal and eternal truth.   I must say, I’m not completely over my self, I still am self conscious and uncomfortable at times but less than expected. The joys of growing up, growing wiser, growing older and LIKING yourself, doing stuff for the pure pleasure of doing, experiencing, living, just because we can and loving the ride!

The big pumpkin on the left looks devastated! Like it had received the worst news and had gotten depressed… it looks like a flat tire, doesn’t it?! It has the same look my dog has when he knows I’m about to leave, a look of sadness beyond believe, all flat and deflated on the floor, a picture of devastation… he deserves an Oscar for breaking my heart everytime!     Have you noticed the more irregular a pumpkin is, the more imperfections it has, the more appreciated, coveted, sought after and expensive it is!…. I wonder… shouldn’t it be like that with humans too?!

I think I should stop right now and clean up, it’s starting to look like a mess here!

I STARTED EDITING, TAKING THINGS AWAY…I WANT TO HAVE MY HOUSE READY SOON.

SWEET MEMORIES FROM A LONG TIME AGO! HE IS 20 YEARS OLD NOW, ON HIS WAY TO BE AN ELECTRICAL ENGINEER DOUBLE MAJOR IN MATH AND A MARINE CORPS OFFICER!

Have a great weekend and go somewhere you can admire nature’s ever changing colours….

NEXT DAY

As predicted I wasn’t happy with the end result, the problem is that having a small space and it feels crowded right away. Pictures were taken with my iPhone kind of late in the afternoon so I didn’t have much light to begin with. Today the branches I added from the field behind my house had started to wilt …. I had to take them out of the picture literally. I decided NOT to make a wreath for the front door this year. I went to the basement to find a simple one I could work with, adding real branches and stuff like that, you know, anything that looks and feels autumn, like pine cones, cinnamon sticks, fall foliage, olive branches…. only to realized I had donated most of the stuff to the local thrift stores…. what to do?… so it hit me.  I don’t have to make everything just because I’m trying to write a blog, it is ok Not to want to work and just curl up with a book and a cup of cocoa and read!  Sounds good, right?  Sadly it only sounded good to me, I have homework to do, MATH homework… I hate math… but I have to do it…

Right then I decided it wasn’t bad to use a wreath I found from when my kids were little, who is going to say anything? and if so… who cares?  Simple, keep it simple… that is something I have to remind myself sometimes… it isn’t that I don’t know it, it’s just that sometimes I feel that I have to do everything from scratch and now I don’t want to. And it is ok.

Here are some pictures of my simpler front door urn. I edited a lot and I feel more comfortable with it. My house is way too simple and small for the first one I made.

I love Eucalyptus, everything about it.

Another one of the same thing… the evergreen is coming back, I know, I need to fill those gaps.

How pretty does that little urn look like?!  Those orange gourds, with long twisted necks and bumpy skin look like swans to me, don’t they?!!!  I feel like a proud mother…

I think I like it, it just needs more eucalyptus as a filler to bring the whole thing together… but that won’t be happening today! I’ll buy it when I get a chance!

Not to disappoint, I’m adding a couple of pictures of really pretty fall planters!

Why am I doing this to myself ?! This is gorgeous. Those master gardeners I was talking about… I’m telling you…

I hear the angels singing !

Awww!  Now my little display looks almost funny …. I’m done. Happy Harvest xx

Decorating For Fall ~ Entrance Urn and backyard half Whiskey Barrels

It is hard to let go of Summer’s long, sunny days, specially when here, in Wisconsin,  Winters are so long and cold.  Spring and Autumn are my absolute favorite seasons, sadly they never last long enough!

The flowers in my living room’s coffee table are still summer blooms and look as lovely as ever, but even though we are getting a few more beautiful sunny days here in this corner of the world, it is soon and almost suddenly going to change..

– These came from my backyard

For a peruvian girl like me, who gets the Winter Blues bad, it doesn’t help if those darker, colder, shorter days… would find me still with a few tired summer planters looking sad and old… this week I decided to take action and start my Autumn decorations even little by little so I won’t feel sad when the cold gloomier days arrive…

This year I will keep it very simple, there are no kids at home any more and I still get emotional thinking about it.  It is a mixture of feelings, the sadness of letting go of spring’s fresh air, green grasses, soft rains and happy blooms … Summer’s long, bright, lazy days, full of bike rides, picnics, lake swims, bonfires, roasting marshmallows, making s’mores  … my kids’ childhoods and teenage years! … and the wonder and excitement of this new season to come with all the beauty and discovery it brings!  Gorgeous crisp, intensely colorful days full of magic, where you can walk endlessly admiring nature exploding on fire!  So much passion… so powerful … Just like summer’s colossal  thunderstorms!   New lives starting for my boys and myself… I have to work on Not letting the tears obstruct the view of all the blessings around me and all the fantastic things to come….

Thanksgiving, Christmas, Spring breaks and every special occasion just aquired a new brighter feeling about them and became more exciting and joyful than ever! The promise of the boys coming home makes everything wonderful and special!  Now I can just enjoy them and NOT clean after them! at least I don’t mind it anymore!   When they were still living at home, it was an absolute joy when my daughter and my two older boys, who live in Pennsylvania and Florida respectively at the time (everybody is moving now a days!) came home for the holidays, birthdays and graduations !!!  We were crazy excited and overjoyed for days before it happened!  but, being so far away made it difficult to make it home more often, therefore there were many sad moments and endless hours spent on the phone trying to fill in the blanks that their presence would have filled otherwise….

CHANGE … life sometimes doesn’t prepare us for THAT kind of change…. it’s wonderful, it’s good, it’s right… and like the seasons of the year and the seasons of our lives, IT’S ALWAYS GOING TO HAPPEN!  All seasons have their own beauty and purpose and definitely they bring their own JOY… It’s just taking me a little bit longer to adjust….

Oh, yes! I was writing this to share my attempts to start my Fall decorations with my entrance urn and the two half whiskey barrels I have in the backyard, even though they are not finish yet!  I still need to go find some branches to add!

I decided to spray paint the urn black, it was a greyish cement color before and was looking rather bla, specially against all the white outside my house. There is no need to buy a new planter each time, sometimes a little bit of elbow grease is all you need and some paint  goes a long way! Ahhhhh! the joys of spray paint!

I bought a few plants, it was hard to decide among all the pretty Kales available but it had to be done.   Doesn’t that grass look a lot like Cousin Itt in the Addam’s Family?!  Just buy something that makes you happy or all cozy and fluffy inside! Trust your instincts, doesn’t have to be perfect.

– Dog not included!

It’s not even necessary to use flowers, sometimes a combination of plants with pretty leaves, grasses in different heights, colors and textures,( vegetables are a beautiful thing to use too!) and some gourds and pumpkins make a gorgeous combination for your planters.

I love the hint of purple in the grass playing with the deep purple of the Kale

It was kind of hard to move it to the front of the house but I managed!   I really need to clean a lot around the house after spending three months in Perú this summer! Haven’t been able to catch up yet… In this case I did use mums in my arrangement.

One of my backyard’s half whiskey barrels. This time no flowers! It doesn’t mean it’s not going to change… I am always adding and switching things around and it is OK.

I have yet to bring back, throws and pillows and all the stuff we decorate with around these days, so I decided to grab anything to take this picture… Actually most of the books I read now are e-books and I haven’t read Killing Lincoln yet. I’ve read Killing Kennedy and Killing Jesus in my e-reader, this is a  book my husband read recently. Bill O’Reilly did an AMAZING JOB with this series!  So easy to read, so many things to learn… I think it’s gorgeous the way it is! those leaves are as pretty as it gets, all the colors of the fall in one convenient plant!

I added another pumpkin to the container for more color and layers, this is the other side planter… see what I meant about the leaves?  I can’t remember the name of the plant but I know I saved the plastic tag with it somewhere.

– Added another pumpkin to the right side planter too and it’s looking a little better each time.

– Look at the subtle changes in colors and textures! Perfection! That Kale is beyond pretty, can’t get over the hues!

I just love how much those little pumpkins look like swans ! (Are those called pumpkins too? Are they gourds?) I’ll google it sometime…

Now I just need to add some birch branches or anything I can find … that “Cousin Itt” grass is looking a bit out of place in this vignette I think. but I don’t want to let go! It’s so awesome looking in person and makes me smile everytime I see it

Is it just me or those flowers are  really ridiculously pretty?!    – I guess it’s not going to be as hard to let go of my flowers… or my children’s childhoods and teenage years if I decide to start focusing on this new season of our lives and concentrate in all the beauty it is going to bring…. Just like Autumn!

And now what? Just being me…

I don’t know if there’s anybody out there that is ever going to read my words and I’m a bit scared of beginning this journey…. I’ve wanted to do this for a while and just postponed it over and over again …

After my youngest child of five left for college, I understood well the empty nester’s feelings!  Thirty-six years of being a full time mother!  I couldn’t figure out what to do with myself!   All that time I used to dream of having was now leaving me with an empty hole in the stomach and heart!  Oh the mixed feelings!!!… I was so used to being a mom that I wondered…. COULD I JUST BE ME?

What does it even mean being me?!  Who am I?!   What is left of the person I used to be? I hope I am a better version of my younger self, but who knows?!  We usually are, we are supposed to be …. Who doesn’t remember her younger self?  I do!   That girl full of passion who dreamt of being a lawyer, an interior designer, an artist, is still here, somewhere…  Why would I feel her so much otherwise if she wasn’t here, inside of me, kicking and screaming: Let me out of here!    It has become harder and harder to recognize the person in the mirror…

Where did time go?  Am I still on time to live my own life, experience my own dreams?!   –  I have loved being a mom, totally and completely and still do.  My best moments are when I visit my children or they visit me.  Now for example, I have three of them home for a week, two of them on their way back to school and one on her way back home, my daughter, and I have her, literally  on my butt, following me around, asking me to start this!

This is supposed to be a blog about Interior Design, art, travel, photography and all the lovely things that make life worth living…Actually, I don’t really know what is it going to be about, but I should share a little bit of who I am while trying to discover it myself…

One of the reasons I found it so difficult to start writing is that English is not my first language, and obviously I’m not a writer.    Does it matter?  They say not to sweat the small stuff! Isn’t the content more important than the vehicle?  I absolutely think it is.   Never liked perfect things, never will. I think they are boring, uncomfortable and unnatural. I like things that feel real and possible, unique in a way, unaffected and spontaneous !    What this first post is about is … Do I have something interesting enough to say? Don’t we all?   Thanks to the awesome Belgian designer Greet Lefèvre from Belgian Pearls, a wonderful blog about design and lifestyle, I decided to venture into this unknown territory…. (Greet is from Belgium and has never allowed the fact of English not being her first language stop her from writing and sharing all the beauty that surrounds her, inside her home and out!  Go visit her blog, http://www.belgianpearls.blogspot.com  if you haven’t done it yet, you’ll be happy you did!   Thank you Greet for being an inspiration.

While my youngest boys were finishing high school, I went back to school to study Interior Design, I had always loved decorating and everything related to design and art and frequently have helped family and friends with that.   It came so natural to me, but I needed the title to feel I could have my passion become my business.  Now it’s time to start…  How to start? Where to start? – While I was in school,  I received some  generous comments about my work, telling me I was an artist!  I didn’t know what to do with that, it was so good to hear, but so hard to believe…. I always wanted to paint but never did, I kept telling myself, I wasn’t an artist!  It seems like I was expecting to be given permission to dare to try …  What is art if not an honest expression of your soul? A higher and universal language of communication…  Life’s too short to waste just wondering “What if…”.   Thanks to the encouragement of people in my family, I finally started painting this summer while on a three month trip overseas!   …  Being in South America, looking at the Pacific Ocean every day, made me feel inspired, like I could accomplish many things,  I guess I’ll have to press forward and keep trying … So, what is it going to be?  Who am going to become?  Let’s find out, shall we? Well, not you, just me 😉

Hopefully you’ll find me in this magic cyber world and decide to keep me company for a while, perhaps you are in the same situation or going through a big change or discovery of your own? … If you happen to stumble by, please say hi!   Let me see if I can figure it out how to upload some pictures here.   …. AND IT WORKED! (These are some flower arrangement I made)  –  Just learning how to work this WordPress thing!

Next time this will be about something more interesting. Today I just needed to vent…