A Staffordshire Easter

“Be daring, be different, be impractical; be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers.”

- Cecil Beaton

Well it has been a while, hasn’t it?  Nothing like a holiday table to bring me out of blog hibernation.  My apologies for the radio silence - life, as it were, as well as some good things on the horizon so pardon my sporadic absences.  Never fear though, as an avid IGer, you can always catch me fancying about over there.

In the spirit of good ol’ Cecil, my Easter table this year is anything but practical and safe.  I sort of waited until the last minute, thinking that I would do a rerun of my blue Chinoiserie table from a few years ago.  But in a frenzy of inspiration yesterday, I switched gears entirely. Why not gather all my Staffordshire together in a riot of color to celebrate Easter?  Color me happy.

Happy Good Friday.  Hope your Easter weekend is colorfully happy.

All design, styling, and photos by Emily Vanderputten

kisses,  mrs. V   

 

A Rerun Of Our Chinoiserie Easter Table

With my kitchen all torn up because of The One Room Challenge™, I am not doing a beautiful Easter table this year.  But I am still so smitten with the table I set last year that I am sharing these images again.  I had so much fun making these eggs even though I set out to make pink ones at the outset.  Call it a happy accident that I ended up with these gorgeous deep blue beauties.  And as with all things in my life, all roads lead to Chinoiserie. It's like we are the ChinoiserVs with my mister as a reluctant but indulgent bystander.

Click here for more detailed info on how I actually made these.

An example of the pink color I was originally trying to achieve but I wasn't happy with the speckling and splotching.  That is when I shifted to the blue colorway but of course I could not resist slamming some gold on that pink.   Imma one trick pink and gold, chinoisy, animal printed pony.

Speaking of Chinoiserie, have you guys seen this goodness that Emilie is cooking up over at Shell & Chinoiserie for her ORC room in the link up? Living for these chintz chairs against that Imperial Trellis wallpaper!

via

Be sure to head over to Calling it Home to see what all the linking participants are up to this week.  So many great spaces coming together!

Have a good Friday on this Good Friday!

All photos, layouts, and styling by Emily Vanderputten unless otherwise noted

kisses,  mrs. V

A Very Chinoiser-V Easter

Would you believe me if I said I set out to make deep pink eggs? I really did.  Of course I was going to make hot pink eggs.  Hello?! #favoritecolor.  They were not too pretty.  Something to do with my pink gel food coloring – it was all grainy and stuff, leaving all sorts of speckled glop on the eggs.  My perfectionist brain fractured and I almost quit right there.  But I had promised my 4 yr old a day of messy Easter Egg dye.  I briefly considered resorting to a PAAS kit.  But that is such a lame punk out thing to do and the resultant colors are always so limp.  Really, the truth is I didn’t want to go to the store.  So I went back into my stash of gel food colorings and opted for a darker situation.  This go round I was going for a rich turquoise.  And on paper, the paper towels that is, it worked.  The eggs, not so much.  But I love the happy accident.  The blue reminded me of an Imperial Chinese blue.  And as with all roads, this one leads back to Chinoiserie.  So even though I declared I wanted to get away from my standard blue and white for Easter – well, I give you blue and white Easter eggs and a chinoiserie-inspired table.

As for the eggs themselves, this is what I did.  I drew some motifs on contact paper, cut them out, and adhered them to the cooled hard-boiled eggs.  Not surprisingly, some of the dye seeped under a few edges.  I have tried similar methods with electrical tape with similar seepage results so I wasn’t all that surprised.  To clean up the edges, I used white paint and a fine brush to touch up the silhouettes.  I am not worried about the paint on these eggs as they won’t be eaten.

I had to.  COULD. NOT. RESIST. a pink egg with gold accent.  I blame my DNA.  You can see the speckling here that happened with the first batch of botched pink ones – which I suppose is kind of cool if you are going for a speckled egg look but clearly I was not.

Have a good Friday on this Good Friday!

All photos and layouts by mrs. V unless otherwise noted

kisses,  mrs. V

My Blue and White needs some Coral and Mint

I am off in search of inspiration today.  While this classic blue and white is my go to combo, I am in need of some serious color right now.  With all the white on the ground, my blues need a lift.  Gonna get some Easter vibe up in this joint.  Back at ya tomorrow after I take care of my flower sitch and perhaps some baking.  Might as well add insult to injury.

Ahem, STILL Groundhog’s Day around here.

All photos and layouts by mrs. V

kisses,  mrs. V

Life at Chez V - Scenes from the Weekend

Scenes from the Weekend…

Hope ya’ll had a lovely Easter/Passover weekend.  Easter is next weekend for us Greeks, the explanation of why having to do with the Eastern Orthodox Church following the old Julian calendar and observing Easter after Passover.  So our big celebration is next Sunday at my mother’s house.

In the meantime, we enjoyed a family-filled weekend puttering around the yard, celebrating Western Easter with mr. V’s family, and playing with an Easter basket goody…

the V baskets in use

this is hysterical on so many levels

chicken souvlaki happened yesterday.  delicious.

All photos by me

kisses,  mrs. V