Easter family fun and my Estate Sale begins

 In just one week Spring has officially sprung.

The cherry tree in the front yard that hubs and I planted when we moved

in to this house 12 years ago is in full bloom and so beautiful!

 Tulips are popping up and the trees are just beginning to leaf 

out to provide privacy in our back and side yards.

Last Sunday we had all the "kids" over for Easter dinner and a new tradition that

we started two years ago:  The big kid Easter egg hunt!  It is a money hunt, where

the plastic eggs are filled with mostly one dollar bills, a couple of fives, tens and twenties.

However there is one golden egg, and that holds the grand prize of a hundred dollar bill!

This year Reeve's mom, Madison, won the grand prize!

The "kids" have to search our back yard carrying baskets of course, to find the eggs.

It is so much fun for me and Mr. Maison Decor to watch them scurrying around, and 

 Reeve watched along with us, quite confused about what was happening.

Next was Reeve's egg hunt, with eggs scattered in plain

site across my mother in laws green flat lawn (she lives next doors).

I filled her eggs with raisins and Teddy Grahams.

Reeve wasn't quite sure what this was about either, which

explains the perplexed facial expression. She had all of us following

behind her filming her, so it was much like a paparazzi moment, as her

mom and I coaxed her to pick up the eggs.

Building our family traditions continues, and I can't say enough

of how much I love doing things like this together as a family.

 She is the first of my grandchildren and I hope one day I will 

have many many more!

 There was egg dying too, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

Our menu included a ham and roast chicken along with all the trimmings and

topped off with one big decadent coconut cake!! OMG, so delicious.

I didn't gain one pound either, and I have to say I am quite pleased about that!

I only wish I had taken pictures of the dinner and all of us eating, but I forgot

all about it after starting to set up the table for a buffet style meal as we had a crew.

In other news around here, I have decided to start selling off some of my collections of vintage and antique belongings that I have gathered up over the years.  Two weeks ago I made an announcement that I would start to sell off things on Instagram. (I figure I have about a good year before we get serious about moving to the lake house we hope to build one day. ) I sold this big set of purple transfer ware to one of my Instagram followers, and she was thrilled to begin her collection in a BIG way!! I still have purple transfer ware (many have been asking) but I have amassed a collection to big to use at the lake house when we move.

 Next, two of my friends from bogland and Instagram drove all the way from North Carolina and 

New Jersey to shop my house!  Shirley, from Houspitality Designs, and Mary Alice, from Rare Corners, arrived at 5 pm and shopped for three hours!  It was a fun and memorable time, and both gals took home some of my treasures. ( I will plan on having a courtyard estate sale in May or June for local peeps who may be interested.  Please leave me your email address in comments or email me and I can notify you if you want to attend.)

 The next morning  Shirley and Mary Alice loaded their van and hit the road, 

carrying with them my gustavian bench, my Swedish chair, 

and a bunch of other things including some purple transferware!!

Hubs and I posed for a portrait the night before, with Piper and Sylvia in the courtyard.  

The corbels also ended up finding a new home from another follower of mine on Instagram, 

as well as the pink door seen behind Mr. Maison Decor.  This is just the beginning of my sell off,

and if you want to see more of when I will be selling follow me on Instagram @amymaisondecor

and you can purchase things that I can ship in the continental US.  

PS. A lot of folks will open an Instagram account to follow designers or people who inspire them, and they don't post their own pics, so if you want to open an account, and you don't want to post photos, you can certainly do that. 

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Grand Easter Basket Centerpiece

My fancy Easter Basket!

Set inside a silver pedestal punch bowl I bought last year at Brimfield,

I added various spring faux flowers, shredded easter grass and painted eggs.

I have had this twig style basket for several years now.

  I set it inside the punchbowl and then stuffed shredded paper

easter grass around the gap between the basket and the punchbowl.

They make this paper Easter grass in all kinds of colors so you can 

coordinate it with your home color palette. I used purple and green.

 Then I filled it with lots of different kinds of faux flowers I had 

in my storage bin. The more I added, the better it looked.  Fake lilac

sprigs, peonies, roses, ferns and berries on sticks.  

A garland of florals was draped around the mirror above to create a 

bigger statement featuring the basket.

 The effect was a whimsical woodland Easter.

 You could add little sheep or bunnies to the basket or the table top,

more eggs....more more more!!!

 On the table I made another vignette with a vintage centerpiece bowl. 

Filled with dried rose heads (that I have been collecting for the past several months)

I added pink blown eggs I made last year for another Easter craft project.

The eggs and roses make an easy and elegant centerpiece, with vintage style.

Mix your regular Easter decorations

with faux flowers, vines and eggs of all kinds.

using unusual containers in your cupboards. 

Its easy and fun, and best of all, it costs almost nothing to make!

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Gilt Louis XVI Music Chairs

Lovely old gilded French chairs. I have a weakness for them. 

 When I saw this sweet pair at an estate sale auction, 

I couldn't resist scooping them up.

Where they will end up in my house, I am not sure of yet, 

but I generally just buy things I love and they find a place somewhere.  

The details of the chairs just were so unusual with a backsplat depicting a violin and a cornucopia.  All the details are hand carved, and you can see the inconsistency that hand carved

 pieces have, when you look closely at the beaded details and other carved elements.

The chairs are so darling, and seem sturdy enough to sit on, 

but because of their age and diminutive size, 

I will use them as ornamentation rather that extra seating.  

In the meantime we are all suffering from cabin fever with the snow covering the ground after a blizzard dumped 18" on us in Boston.  Ugh.  I have a fierce desire to rearrange all the furniture in this room, and it happens every year when I can't stand the winter for much longer.

I know the dogs feel the same way. 

 Piper loves to pose for the camera, however Colby does not. 

 Many ask where is Colby?  Here he is, he gave me three seconds to snap the photo 

and then wandered off while Piper maintained her pose. 

 Colby was wondering why did I pull away the dog bed from the fireplace. 

 To take pics of course! I don't remember seeing the hearth since

 last fall as its been covered with a big old dog bed.

An Easter basket for Reeve sits on the music chair.

 Maybe after Easter, Spring will finally arrive!

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Tips for a beautiful Easter table, and the Pink Linen arrives

My Easter table is always a fun one for me, as I have lots of pastels

in my decor, which just goes with this holiday.  I wanted to share a few

 of my easy tips to creating a special looking table for your guests.

 Easy is the way to go, in my book, and this couldn't have been easier.

I used two colors for the setting, purple and blue.  The purple from my 

transferware dishes and the blue from my wine glasses.  Pick one or two

colors from your china cabinet and set the table on a white cloth.

Then take a soup tureen or a cache pot (decorative flower container) and

add pansies still in their six packs from the garden store in a color that goes

with your dishes or glassware.  Simply cut apart the six pack with kitchen scissors and

 place as many of the plastic encased pansies as you can.  Above you can see
some of the containers are empty, and that is because I used some outside in containers.
I bought enough to use for indoors and after Easter I will put them all outside.

A majolica pedestal bowl that matches my blue opaline stemware would be perfect
for the centerpiece, but many other types of bowl and pots could work as well.

 I found it antiquing for about $12 and I LOVE it!!

 Add some Easter grass from the supermarket as a cushion and filler in the bottom of the 

container.   It makes an instant Easter centerpiece and is very charming.  

Imagine this in a white bowl or soup tureen, choosing pansy colors that work
 with your tableware.  Then to make it a little more fun, 
I added little candy cups around the flower bowl.

 These little paper cups come in all kinds of colors and patterns.  

I found them at HomeGoods and they are so adorable and festive.

 Candies from packages or plastic tubs from the grocery store were used to fill the tiny cups. The blue striped cups looked best, and I will save the pink cups for an upcoming baby shower. These cup packages sell for $2 to $4, and they add a festive note.  You could fill them with pudding or mousse or tiramisu for a desert course at the end of the meal.

 Tiny golden bunnies bring to mind the tradition of Easter chocolate rabbits 

as the most popular thing a child would want to find in the Easter basket. 

 Use what you have, and build a table around your colors. 

 If you have darker colors, then perhaps adding a pink or pastel colored napkin

 on top of the plate will give you a nice result.

Many of you know I am an active collector of purple transferware.  

 One thing I had yet to find was egg cups in purple.  I finally found a pair, and so they 

will make their debut on the table holding Lindt chocolate carrot sticks.

 The table is all set, which leaves me to focus on the cooking part. 

 See something in the mirror?  The bolt of pink fabric....

Yup, its the pink linen I ordered online, and it soon will be made into

draperies for the dining room.  Its a beautiful soft pink, and it will 

be curtains for the spring and summer months.  So fun!

 Sunshine is prevailing this Easter Sunday, and so are warm temps!! 

We will be out in the courtyard for sure!

Wishing you all a very Happy Easter!

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Outdoor Boxwood Balls and our Easter Egg hunt for the big kids

The warm weather finally arrived this week, and it sent me heading out to

the garden nursery to pick up some pansies for the containers and urns.

A new ruffled variety of pansy is all the talk of the garden town, which 

I helped myself to a double twelve pack, and then threw in a six pack of tiny 

pink and purple violas.  They are the first thing I plant after our long New England 

winter is over, and if there is any cool weather to come, the pansies are hardy

enough to withstand the low temps.

But a few weeks ago, back when there was no sign of spring to be had,

I found myself redoing one of the boy's bedrooms so I popped into HomeGoods.

They didn't have the sheets I wanted, but they did have these amazing and large

faux boxwood balls.  My husband was tagging along, and while he was checking out

the mens section for more clothing that he doesn't need, I put two of the big

round green spheres into my cart. I walked back to the men's department and casually

announced that they didn't have the sheets I was looking for....I noticed his eyes 

go right for the green balls, and then, "WHAT are THOSE?" 

Me: "Oh those are for the urns outside.  They are faux boxwood spheres, and 

normally they are pretty expensive.  I just saw them in a catalogue and I think

they wanted about $100 for each one!!"

Hubs: " How much are THOSE?"  Me: "$16.99"

And off we went to the register....

I forgot to mention, I also bought a pair of lilac wreaths at Joanns the week

before, trying to will Spring to come. But it was pointless.  However 

I am glad I bought them with one of their great coupons, because now that

it is Springlike I was happy to hang them on the French doors, and I thought

they looked really great with the boxwoods.  We won't even talk about that thing

that is next to the urn, and that it has been there for four days now.

My idea about these boxwoods, is that they will likely go in different urns,

either by the front door, or up by the little garden shed.  The front door gets

full sun, and no matter what I plant out there, it won't survive the summer.

But these are the answer, in a very chic way!! So if you have a tricky spot, and you

have some empty urns, run to HomeGoods to get yourself these things.  They won't last,

because like I said, they are featured in all the fancy outdoor living catalogues.

Colby and I spent the morning in the yard filling up various planters 

and in this one you can see the ruffled variety in the back.

The entire yard has no greenery yet, and not a leaf on a tree.

Piles of leaves are wedged into spaces and we need a group effort to 

get the spring clean up done.  But for now, I am loving these pansies.

Since there are no young kids at home anymore, my son Colin asked me

to please do an egg hunt for him and his little bro.  After thinking of 

the traditional egg hunt, where the eggs are filled with candy, we decided to do 

an egg hunt that has eggs filled with money!  I found this great set of 47 white eggs

and one GOLDEN egg!! The golden egg will have the big prize, and the white eggs will

have coins or smaller bills.  It will be a lot of fun to watch the "boys" scurrying around looking

for the eggs that their dad and I will be hiding in the backyard.

And that big cross on the table?  That was hand carved two generations ago for the 

little church my husband grew up attending, and the one where we married.  

Mr. Maison Decor's grandfather carved it by hand!! 

It was recently found in the basement by the current

minister, who asked me if I could refurbish it, give it's gilding a little touch up.  

We will bring it back to church this Easter, making this year's service a little bit more special.

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Easter ideas from yesteryear, Silver baby cups and its a Girl!

A few years back, an Easter table set with my favorite blue opaline glasses and 

little silver baby cups at each table setting, on top of an old embroidered cloth 

I was given from my mom and dad.

One of my favorite Easter ideas was to reinvent baby cups into

 a mini Easter baskets at each table setting.  I had cups for my sons, and then

started collecting them over the years, and they are good for so many things.

Filling them with garden herbs for the kitchen window is another way I use

these cups year round.   The cup above has my son Justin's monogram.

He was my first born, and I am beyond excited to announce that he and Madison

will be having their first baby in June, making me a grandmother! 

 After they married, I bought a tiny sterling baby cup at auction, hoping one

day they would start a family.  

Well it is almost that time, and I cannot wait

to meet this little girl.  Yes, its a girl!!  More to come on this front, and in 

particular, I will be hosting a cozy baby shower in the French Courtyard.

Speaking of the courtyard, I was just sent a preview copy of the

 UPSTYLED HOME OUTDOORS edition, 

by Lifestyle Guru and pal, Matthew Mead.  My name is even on the cover!! 

It will be available on April 25, 2017 on news stands and in book stores, 

and let me tell you, it should be on your must have list if you are

 an outdoor lifestyler and gardener, as I am.  

Spectacular is the word!!

 Now I want to share some other simple Easter ideas from years past. 

 How about a bunch of carrots from the supermarket for a table centerpiece? 

 This had a happy garden style about it.

 A more elegant take on Easter involves a white table cloth and a simpler color palette.

An arrangement of white tulips and some moss and ivy also brings fancy garden style.

 This centerpiece was cobbled together using some spring hyacinth 

and painted blown eggs put in a bark log trough.  

Any pastels make things feel "Eastery", 

and the blue opaline and nesting hen did just that.

French style paper cocktail napkins were decoupaged onto a store bought wreath to give it

 that French flair I prefer.  That was a two minute DIY and the possibilities are endless.

Vintage type of decorations and these whimsical egg garlands can be found in 

so many shops these days.  I remember my dad used to pick up paper decorations at

the local gift card shop selling Hallmark products.  Year after year, we would set up the same

paper decorations on our table, and it was always something I looked forward to doing, setting

up those few decorations.   These days, people are bombarded with clever and pretty ideas to make each year a little more  special and unique.  But I will always remember how dad and mom did 

things, and that is what family traditions are all about.  It may be time to hand over Justin's baby cup so he can start his own collection and his own traditions with little girl baby on the way.

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