CHIC AND YE SHALL FIND

Tuesday, May 31, 2022

WHO DOESN'T WANT TO GROW UP TO BE IRIS?

A New Look Without New Decor

I always come home to our Minneapolis home in the spring and immediately head for our "wardrobe" of white flowers. They include Tulips, white Hydrangeas and white Bleeding Hearts. This year I located some Lily of the Valley that we had, also white!

I try to arrange the decor differently without buying anything new. Of course that never works completely. I did order six small blue and white Chinoiserie ginger jars for next Christmas dinner and decided to use them on the mantel, after removing the packaging!

I fell in love with the mini ginger jars when I saw that Haderways (in the Scottsdale Market Place) had them sitting on plates at each individual place setting. It took me a while to find ones that were small enough. I had gotten one at the French Bee in Scottsdale, and a friend gave me another one from there, but I need eight! So, I found an importer and ordered six more. I tried to vary the designs, which inadvertently resulted in me getting two that are slightly larger than the others.

They go beautifully with my other blue and white pieces.

I reused our tulips on our kitchen island.

More blue and white accessories around the living room and dining room.

Below are some Tulip photos from past years. These are the same Tulips, used at Christmas time. They are mixed with evergreen branches.

More Christmas Tulips but from a different year. These have a green wreath at the top of the urn to corral the tulips.

This is an even older photo from the 90's. Yes, they are the same Tulips, year after year!

Springtime Tulips.

We have white and pink Tulips that I use in Arizona, too.

More photos of the Lily of the Valley.

Here they are in the primary bedroom in Arizona! It is great to drive back and forth, so I can change things up in the houses!

We have a Christmas wardrobe of white Amaryllis (also in red) in Minnesota.

We also have "wardrobes" of Delphiniums, Hydrangeas and Bleeding Hearts in Minnesota that rotate every year! But that is another story!

Tuesday, November 23, 2021

HAVE A PATRIOTIC THANKSGIVING!

Every American knows the origin of American Thanksgiving, but many don't know how it evolved.

Thanksgiving became a annual custom throughout New Elgland in the 17th century, and in 1777 the Continental Congress declared the first national American Thanksgiving following the Patriot victory at Saratoga.

In 1789, President George Washington became the first president to proclaim a Thanksgiving holiday when, at the request of Congress, he proclaimed November 26, a Thursday, as a day of national thanksgiving for the U.S. Constitution.

However, it was not until 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving to officially fall on the last Thursday of November, that the modern holiday was celebrated nationally.

I love the antique postcards from that era. I thought that they were expressing the patriotism of the times, but of course, they have a political bent! Read on.

Thomas Nast (the one who illustrated the likeness of our Santa Claus!) drew a political cartoon of Uncle Sam's Thanksgiving Dinner.

The cartoon also has the specific aim of endorsing ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was intended to guarantee the federal voting rights could not be denied on the basis of race. The 15th Amendment had been passed by Congress in February 1869 and was being debated in state legislatures when the featured cartoon was published.

I am sure that these post cards must date from around that time.

For more information, google: Uncle Sam's Thanksgiving Dinner!