I’ll Drink to That

Are you looking for a festive adult beverage to serve your guests for the 4th of July?

This one will get some ohhhs and ahhhs and it’s tasty too!
Just three ingredients and a little patience and everyone will think you are sooo creative! Sorry I don’t have measurements but hopefully you can get an idea from the picture.
















The Red is Grenadine
The White is Lemonade, mixed as normal
The Blue is UV Blue, raspberry flavored vodka

We can usually get my son in law to mix these up for us every 4th.  The secret is you layer the liquids one at a time by very slowly pouring it down the side of the glass.

I love the 4th of July with all the flag waving colors and American traditions.  Almost always Mr. Brown Socks and I host our large, extended family.

  We make home made ice cream, play badminton in the backyard, eat ourselves silly all day and close the evening with a few fireworks.






This year for a variety of reasons it wasn’t working out for as many to gather here PLUS my aerobics instructor included us with a large group of people to their house next week.  Her husband is a chef so I’m happy to let someone else do the cooking this year! 
I decided to share a table I set a couple of years ago.  Since I’ve been a very neglectful blogger I’m quite sure few of you have seen this.

Let me know if you try this purdy drink!


Joining in on with these parties this week:
Between Naps on the Porch

Oh! There it is

Many changes have been going on in my house and with my business lately.  Those of you who might be new reading my blog, I have a home based business selling silk floral arrangements and accessories.  I have recently decided to turn my love of discovering great vintage pieces and decorative items found at market to my inventory.

 

 

Several days back I decided it was time to go through my numerous bins of thrifted finds to just see what I had collected in the past several months.  Truly I had forgotten some things.  Earlier this year my friend Beth and I had decided to open an “Occasional Sale” shop, just planning to open one long weekend out of the month.  Because we didn’t want to commit to a shop tying us down 6 days a week we knew in order to be successful our rent would have to be very low.  We wanted to stay in our little community.  We spent numerous hours searching for a spot to open our dream shop. It was all right there…a vision in our heads of what it would look like and how people were going to see it as a destination location!  After searching unsuccessfully for a good six months I have decided to continue doing shows in my home two or three times a year and foregoing a shop at least for the time being.

 

Being organizationally challenged I was sick of opening up this closet and not being able to find anything!

It was time to uncover my treasures

 

 

Now I have my whites together

 

 

A green shelf

 

Hidden before were these little salt and pepper shakers

The colorful birds on the right are a GW find with an Anthropology tag on bottom

My newer fruits are together

 

 

More fruits

 

 

 

 

A few veggies

 

A variety of orbs ordered from market

 

A partial view of my workroom

 

 

 

And a cute little memo holder for ideas and things to remember

 

 

I’m pretty sure God knew I had too many other things going on in my life to be a store owner right now.

 

More organizing in my future but for now it feels good to have this much done.

Thanks for stopping by Designs on 47th Street today!

Donna

 

Winter White and Blue

What color dishes do you go for in late winter?

 

A couple of weeks ago my daughter was going to be in town.  She is a flight attendant and her good friend (another flight attendant) was flying with her on the same trip.  So, I decided it would be fun to have a nice dinner for

Emily and her friend.

They eat so much airport food so I knew a home cooked meal would be appreciated on a cold January night.

 

 

Summer, Fall and of course Christmas are very easy to make a tablescape selection.  Being the dish junky I am

I have many choices.

It seems I don’t use my blue dishes often and there is very little blue in my house. 

BUT I am strongly drawn to these dishes and they made the cut for a special dinner for two tired

flight attendants.

 

 

It was a very busy day for me and time was short.  As I quickly started placing the plates around, my mind was racing~~~ thinking of a fast centerpiece.

 

Thanks to my handy dandy silk plant workroom, I hurriedly headed that way to see what I could come up with fast.

I wanted to leave it on the table and not have to worry about looking around it for the sake of easy conversation. 

This silver rubbed garden-y looking pot seemed to appeal to me with blue plates and silver chargers.

 

Who doesn’t love hydrangeas?

I grabbled white ones and a couple of green along with some green berries and proceeded to stuff them in the container.  This wasn’t going to be for sale so it didn’t have to be perfect!   ;-}

As I tell my customers, flowers and greenery DO make a difference in the feel of the room.

 

We had a delightful evening and Kristy was amazed at how much of my table came from thrifting.

I just sat back and smiled.

 

I am anxious to see your tables this week.

Thanks to Susan at Between Naps on the Porch we have such fun peeking in at many tables.

 

Donna

Notes from Market

Hello, Hello????  Anyone there?  I KNOW it has been a very long time since I last blogged.  I’m pretty sure my sweet sister is the only one who noticed! haha… No excuses.  I do want to say every time I think about giving up blogging I think of all the nice people I have met in Blogland and it makes me want to get back up and start again.

 

 

 

 

A week or so ago I attended the Dallas Gift Market.  People are always saying to me, “Oh how fun!  I would love to go!”

 

Yes, we do have a lot of fun but I have to say it is also very draining. So much walking, so many showrooms and so many decisions to make.  After 23 years in the silk floral business I have recently made a decision.  As plans progress I will give you more details but when your 20 yr. old arrangements start appearing at the thrift store, it could be a sign it’s time to change things up a bit!  I took a picture of a very, very old floral arrangement of mine I spotted today at Goodwill:

 

probably around 1995, going price today…. $4.95!

 

Here’s what I discovered at market.  Color of the year is Tangerine Tango.

Paint colors if you are interested:
Benjamin Moore 2013-10 - Outrageous Orange                         
 Sherwin Williams Fireworks SW6867
 Valspar Richly Red WV36015
 Ralph Lauren Bold Orange IB63
 Behr Volcanic Blast S-G-210

 

I don’t think I’m ready to paint a room or even a wall with this color but looking around my home I see that over the past few years my reds have turned to a rusty and even a reddish orange.  My dining room which you have seen many times is actually called Cajun Red by Sherwin Williams.  I can see using a few accent pieces in Tangerine Tango.

 

 

What REALLY surprised us was all the VINTAGE shown in many, many, many showrooms.

Here are the windows which greeted us as we entered market:

 

 

 

 

 

Burlap was everywhere.  We saw lots of tartan plaid and owls.  Lanterns are still really hot too.

 

One thing I will tell you now is I plan to incorporate some decorative accessories along with my silk arrangements and

yes, maybe even a few thrifted finds!

I’m excited and I feel like God is leading me in this direction.  It’s a good feeling to be excited over a new twist with what I have done and enjoyed for so many years.

 

Thanks for stopping by 47th Street once again.  Nice to see you.  I hope you’ll say hi so I will know you were here!

 

Donna

Read All About It!!

Last week my friend Susan’s daughter was married. 

 

As all weddings are, everything was just beautiful.  I really loved the table decorations and thought you might enjoy seeing them too.  Susan’s daughter used to work in a library, loves to read and is in a field now where her words just flow.  The bride told her mother early on that she wanted the centerpieces to have “books and sticks”.  Susan and I were both scratching our heads wondering how this was going to flow.  Well, flow it did and I overhead many, many positive comments.

 

 

 

This was our starting point ~~

Table Seating

Don’t  you just love the card catalogs??

Names were alphabetized and placed in the right drawer by letter.  You would look and find your name.  I forgot to take a picture

but the last letter of our name was in a big font on the left side of the card.

Then our names were listed followed by:

Title:  Table #15

Subject: Wedded Bliss

Date Checked in: 11-11-11

 

 

 

 

Many, many,many old novels had their covers removed and were tea stained and bound with twine.

These were free romance novels, or 25 cent books from the thrift store. No one really looked at the pages.

Just look at the fancied up book with pages rolled and fluffed to perfection.

Lovely real flowers were inserted in the middle.

The “sticks” were beautifully arranged in a tall cylinder vase

with bookprint flowers attached.

You can see the cylinder held more of the coverless tea stained books.

 

Can you see tucked into each napkin was a salal leaf with a book page cut out to match the leaf and glued on?

 

 

Here are more twigs tied around cylinders for one table’s centerpiece.

 

The head table held the most ruffily and fancy, smashy book

 

There was so much detail. It was such fun walking around to look at all the variations of books at each table.

 

Susan really did her homework in research for discovering all the ways to make books wedding reception ready!  She and our FABULOUS floral designer friend Damon worked magic.

Just a beautiful reception it was.

Best wishes go out to the happy newlyweds!

Joining Marty at A Stroll Thru Life Tabletop Tuesday

The Shady Porch

Kim at Savvy Southern Style