It all started with a Pier 1 fall catalog that arrived in the mail a few days ago. I should have known better than to open it (sometimes I do toss 'em sight unseen.)They might as well dangle a pork chop in front of a starving dog (I would be the starving dog in the metaphor.) I think I may have actually drooled on one of the pages. Companies like Homer Laughlin, Crate & Barrel, World Market and Pier 1 know where my weak spot is: brightly colored pottery and dishes. Of every shape, size, texture and color imaginable. I would need (yes, N.E.E.D!!!!) a dish pantry if I bought all the dishes I have seen and intensely coveted.
But this time I stiffened my resolve and flipped past the dishes to find...this.
Peacock blue, arrayed so artistically I practically swooned.Well, okay, it wasn't really a swoon. More like a squeaky little squeal of delight.
Because I had been mentally struggling to see my blue drapes and cocoa brown walls of my dining room mixing it up with traditional fall colors - it just wasn't happening, at least in my mind's eye.
But this.
This was the answer to all those niggling questions and pesky doubts.
It was a sign. I could practically hear Handel's Messiah (you know, the "Hallelujah Chorus?") playing.
I showed great restraint and waited a whole week before I allowed myself to even start down this path. My heart was still going pitter-pat when I hit the circuit: Stein Mart, Hobby Lobby, Old Time Pottery, revisit to Hobby Lobby. By the time I got to Pier 1, I was steady and steeled...until I found out they no longer had the owl-shaped pumpkin I had my heart set on - he's in this photo to the right Isn't he cute?
I'm still on the prowl for the owl, so if you spot one at your Pier 1, give me a hooty-hoot, please?
I can count on both hands (with some fingers left over) the items that transformed the dining room from its cool-as-a-cucumber summer look here:
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| view from the foyer |
to this new look, just in time for fall:
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| Same doorway view. And yes, those are new seat cushions. Thanks for noticing! |
In terms of cash outlay, it was a modest transformation:
1. Three glass candle holders on the table ($3.50 each - they were half-off at Hobby Lobby)
2. Two ceramic pumpkins (one white, one blue, also half-price from HobLob - $30 total)
3. Two peacock blue candles (on clearance for $3.50 each from Pier 1)
4. A new wood tray on the buffet (under $10 at Old Time Pottery)
5. A glass vase (well, two - the first one cracked, but Hobby Lobby graciously replaced it - $15)
6. A handful of foliage and peacock stems for about $12, also half-off at Hobby Lobby) and
7. One little woodland owl from Pier1 ($9 - he's my consolation stand-in for the one I wanted. Sniff.)
Seriously, that's it. If my math is correct, total damage was just under $100 with tax. Everything else I pulled out of my attic tubs of autumn stuff or from other places in the house Not bad, eh?
Oh wait...there is one more item; check out the new painting below. Does it count? It wasn't a deliberate acquisition, but the product of girls' night out last Saturday at Faithful Strokes. (And here I was giving my friends a hard time that I didn't know where I would hang this painting if I painted it. I'm glad they guilted me into going!)
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| See the little owl? He's cute - just not as big as the one I had my eye and heart set on |
I know we're barely one day into the official fall season, but I'm already envisioning these deeper blues paired with shimmery silver when it's time to decorate for the winter holidays. For the next several weeks, the peacock blue and orange theme will reign--all the way through Thanksgiving. It's always exciting to see the seasons unfold outdoors, and fall is definitely the season for colors to unfurl both indoors and out...much like a peacock proudly fanning out his iridescent plumage.
Happy fall!
