common ground : tureens

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Friday, December 15, 2023

Christmas Cheer in the Cupboard

Welcome Friends, to Christmas in the Holiday Cupboard! Each upcoming Christmas Season you'll find me playing in this old Pie Safe and transforming it to the Holiday Cupboard. It's one of my first decorating spots that I look forward to each Christmas. I love to bring out the red transferware, and this year some Tartan Plaid Christmas plates from Pottery Barn are added to the mix.

Gathered For Christmas in the Holiday Cupboard

This has been such a busy month that Im running behind (what else is new?) But it's not every Christmas that your first grandbaby arrives! Christmas will be here in a few days and I have to start getting ready for overnight guests and bake a few desserts.

Mid-Summer Entry with Blue and White Transferware Tureen

Hi Friends, I know many of you are "Blue and White" collectors with gorgeous dishware, ginger jars, and amazing decorative Chinoiserie pieces. I admire it and love that elegant and traditional design "look", but I've just never started a collection of it. I think it's gorgeous in the summer when I love using Blue and White accessories. I've stuck to the Browns, Reds and Green patterns in transferware, but I do have one piece that I totally stumbled upon years ago at a flea market for just a few dollars.

Flea Market Finds in the Dining Room

I've not been out to the fleas or antique malls for quite a while. Between the back problems and Covid and my autoimmune issues, I've had to put a lot of shopping on hold. I've really missed having the chance to get out and enjoy the fun of vintage and antique shopping. Let's just say it's always been a highlight of my week/month/year to get out and browse around. The added perk is that I always came home with not only fun finds, but also filled up with new creative ideas.

October on the Washstand

I've been having a little problem keeping myself focused on accomplishing decor tasks lately. I've called it DADD before, but I don't want to be callous or offend anyone who genuinely deals with ADD. I'm dealing with (Decorating) ADD. I just have more space to play in than I've had before, and a lot of fun Fall stuff to use.

Rainy Day Busy-ness

Hello, my friends...

This is a bit of a random post, but I wanted to share a few pics of what I've been up to around here. I felt the motivation to change out my Holiday Cupboard china from green transferware to my French Faience. And here in the Dining Room, I haven't shown you my sweet little ceramic rabbit tureen that I made many years ago, and has been here for Easter.

January Cupboard in Candlelight

For me, January is a month for settling in for Winter. Here in the lower Midwest we do have a few beautiful warmer days during Winter, but for the most part the days are gray and cold and spitting something wet. In January I'm all about staying warm and cozy indoors. To combat the short dreary days I like to have some spaces in the house that evoke a feeling of warmth and comfort.

Fall Sideboard and a few "Technical" Difficulties

This is one of those posts when I feel like starting out with a big "So..." which is always a telltale sign of frustration. This has been a few weeks of computer/blogging frustrations for me. We all use different computers and different software etc. I happen to like a desktop computer that has a big capability to house tons of photos and programs etc. But my tech skills are not particularly whippy. I freely admit it. I depend on my husband for his technical and computer expertise, so it's a PC not a Mac which I would be on my own with.

Layering Table Linens for a Thanksgiving Vignette

November is here; what I call, "Late Fall" and time to bring in some of the deeper colors and textures in decorating. It's hard to get into Fall when the temps are in the 80's, but now that it's cooler and we're past Halloween, Thanksgiving will be coming up before we know it.

Styling My Buffet for Fall

I've been trying to spread out my Fall decorating over the last few weeks. It's given me a chance to try out a few different ideas, and also taken the pressure off to get it all done in a couple of days. I used to make myself and my husband crazy by going into a marathon decor frenzy. Now I'm taking my time and looking for inspiration from Pinterest and Fall Magazines from my many year stash.

Summertime Seashell Vignette

Since it's still Summer, I wanted to try to use my antique Blue Willow Transferware Tureen here on the Entry Hall Console. I've had it out with some other "blues" for my Patriotic decor so, I hunted down some of my shells to replace the summertime potpourri.

Kitchen China Cabinet with a New Look

You've heard the old saying "It's got to get worse before it gets better." That's exactly what happened here at the new house this weekend. We rented a U-Haul trailer and made several trips from the 3 storage units back to the house with all kinds of boxes...kitchen dishes, decor, china, crystal, pillows...etc. Hubbs brought some of his fun stuff, and it all ended up opened and stacked on every flat surface available. After 6 loads of china and crystal going through the dishwasher, we started putting it all away.

Of course it took longer because I decided that I wanted to put my transferware into the kitchen china cabinet instead of my French Faience. (You can see this cabinet at the old house decorated for Christmas).That meant having some kind of a plan. I'm still missing some of my Old British Castles in Brown, but when they show up I'll just rearrange a little. Decorating can slow you down, you know...

And this morning before taking pics,

I knew I needed something on top of the cabinet

So I added a few pumpkins to the mix and some bittersweet.

This cupboard has glass doors that stay closed, but I opened them up so you could see inside without at bunch of glare. I'm having to figure out the best time of day for photos at this new house, because this room has south facing windows and the blinds cause a lot of issues for photographing.

This is a newer cabinet that we purchased when we moved into the other house 12 years ago. I went back and forth on this one or a hutch and top cupboard, but in the end I chose this one. It matches the kitchen table and chairs with a somewhat creamy distressed finish.

I really enjoyed putting this all together, it's just a mix of my brown and red random pieces. I'd had the Faience in it for a long time, so I wanted to change things up a little. In the Spring I may go back to the florals and pastel dishes, but for the Holidays I wanted to stick with predominately brown.

A few of my old friends are here too, like the cows and cottage ware teapots and sugar and creamers. I have more of these...somewhere. Oh, and good news...Hubbs found the Dining Room chair slips (YAY!!) and they are now waiting to be washed and ironed. We literally looked for that specific box for hours, and of course it was hiding at the very back behind my outdoor garden goodies. He had packed that last storage unit with all kinds of various random boxes, and he knew not to come back home without it.

If you noticed, a few pieces of wicker found a spot here in the kitchen dining area. It makes me feel a little better for not having a sunporch at this house. Now, if I can just not "over-decorate"...I don't know if that's possible.

I'll be a part of Sherry's (No Minimalist Here) Thanksgiving Vignette Blog Hop this week, starting Wednesday November 12 through Friday November 14. Please come visit us for some Thanksgiving fun and inspiration.