Being a busy mother of three, I have found myself wanting to make every aspect of my life as simple as possible! I have taken all the clutter from my home and simplified each and every room to hold ONLY ITEMS THAT ARE USEFUL AND HAVE A PURPOSE. With that said, I still want a beautiful home that makes me feel good! So I make a few exceptions. Every room may have a few items in it that are just plain pretty and make me feel good. I allow 2 or 3 items, in 2 or 3 places, in each room that are purely decorative and make each space beautiful and special. About half of these items are things that I am personally connected to (like family photos, my great grandmother's vase, etc) and the other half are usually items that are very 'season specific' and are easily interchangeable throughout the year. They allow me to appreciate the beauty and special memories that come with the changing seasons and holidays of the year and I never get bored since I change them every 6 weeks or so. I know that sounds like a lot, but wait and see how simple it is! Here are my top 4 picks:
1. Find a handful of beautiful glass containers that you love. Choose whatever style fits your home or personality. Mason and canning jars give an old country feel, antique hand cut glass dishes and milk glass fit perfectly into a shabby sheik or cottage space, and apothecary jars and stemmed glassware are flexible enough to fit in a more formal space or can give a classic 'fits anywhere' feel. Place these dishes around your house and fill them with simple seasonal items. Some examples: Colored eggs at Easter, lemons or limes in the summer, acorns or apples in the fall, candy corns at Halloween, gourds for thanksgiving, small glass Christmas balls during the holidays. You get the picture. The possibilities are endless and it's a simple, inexpensive and fun way to decorate for the seasons. If you find items that don't spoil and can be saved from year to year, it's even more economical.
2. Pick up a few 4 1/2 x 6 1/2 inch frames or any size frame with a white matt and a 4 1/2 x 6 1/2 inch opening. Every season/holiday go to your local card/gift store and find the most beautiful greeting cards that represent your style for the season. Make sure there aren't any words on the front of the card. Just artwork or a photograph. I happen to love vintage decorations, so I look for vintage cards at flea markets and antique stores as well. Simply put them in the frames and display them here and there around your home, some hanging, some on shelves or tables. They look like framed prints and they bring out the season of the year (spring flowers, Easter eggs, 4th of July flags, fall foliage scene, Christmas stockings, etc) throughout your home in a style that suits you. This is a fantastic and inexpensive way to dress up your home and change things up all the time. If you have children, you can use more juvenile cards when they are young and more sophisticated cards as they get older. My children love to come home from school and see new pictures in the frames and ALWAYS notice and comment on them. Find a shoe box or drawer somewhere dedicated to storing your cards as you change them throughout the year.
3. Gather a few of your favorite vases or containers, both small and large, that can hold a nice arrangement. They can be new or old (my preference) and can be whatever color matches your decor. I use old crocks, bean pots, pitchers, creamers, etc. Each season fill them with a mix of dried and quality silk flowers for that season. The MIXING is the key. No one ever knows I use silk flowers because I always mix them in with real materials! A tip for buying silk/artificial stems is to stand back 5 to 10 feet in the store and look at them to see if at a glance they look real or fake. If you can't tell right off that they are fake from a bit of a distance, then you surely won't be able to tell when you mix them with some real materials at home! I have a big bag of dried items I have purchased and gathered in nature that I call 'filler' items. I use them to fill in around whatever silk items I use. These would be interesting dried pods, grasses, cat-o-nine tails, etc. Usually they are in neutral tan and brown colors so they go with everything. In the early Spring, I use pussy willows and silk forsythia. Late spring I like to use silk tulips, summer I usually have fresh flowers from my garden or the farmers market, fall I have a mixture of dried brown pods and grasses mixed with the cat-o-nine tails and either artificial bittersweet or Chinese lanterns, and in the winter I mix stems of artificial red berries with plain twigs. Again, you are bringing the natural items of the season into your home to celebrate the time of year in an easy and economical way. Couldn't be more simple!
