D E A R H E A R T
A true short story about love, marriage, family, commitment, service, and
getting priorities right.
Showing posts with label heart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heart. Show all posts
Inspiring Dear Heart Note
Thursday, March 1, 2018
Friends live in your heart forever.
A Paper Series Post
Paper is a versatile, inexpensive medium useful for wide-ranging projects. What better way to begin a new series than to celebrate friendship since this paper series post, and more to come, are offered as tokens of friendship to you, Botanic Bleu readers and followers.
Any gathering of friends for whatever the reason is a good time to share small hearts as tokens of friendship. Whether the gathering is for book club, a friend's birthday, a Bible study, a Valentine's party, a retirement luncheon, or a bloggers' luncheon, party favors with hearts are a good way to recognize special times together with friends.
I made these DIY envelope/place card party favors for friends who attended my retirement luncheon as an educator, but can be made
for any occasion celebrating Friendship
Today's post is a tutorial with templates for creating a beautiful glassine do-it-yourself (DIY) small envelope to use as a place card and to hold a party favor.
Wednesday, February 7, 2018
PARIS is on my mind in the midst of a dreary February day, overcast with a fine mist, and unfulfilled promises of much-needed rain. Just the kind of day that calls for hot chocolate, staring out the window at the drizzle, and flashing back to hot chocolate in France.
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
V A L E N T I N E ' S D A Y
table set in blue and white
Three things a Valentine's table does NOT have to have to be romantic.
❤ 1 Red or Pink Colors
White roses and blue ribbons create a romantic table for celebrating Valentine's Day with friends, family, or lovers. Romance does not require pink or red. Indeed, if blue is your true love's favorite color, then blue is more romantic than red.
Sunday, May 15, 2016
This Spring a large technology company has truly been testing my patience... and goodwill... and understanding... and pleasantness...
New purchases from the company came with promises of a good time in the year. The upgrades will make your life a movie life where parking places always appear right in front of where you are going.
No circling the block.
Your new services will be faster, better, C H E A P E R.
Yes, just a perfect movie life is coming my way.
However, the promised good time has been dampened by a series of mistakes by the company's employees. Was there a script rewrite in my movie life?
What have I learned from this?
4 Lessons of the Spirit of Christmas
In My Heart
Friday, February 12, 2016
Hearts of all kinds find their way to my house.
Wood hearts, carved hearts, paper hearts, metal hearts,
small hearts, large hearts, flower vase hearts ...
A few arrive as gifts, some come as travel souvenirs,
and many come from office supply or gift stores.
Even though the skies are bright blue, horizon to horizon,
and the temperatures are predicted to be in the 70s for the next three days,
it is February which calls for heart decorations.
The collection of hearts on the breakfast table includes many
French connections and inspiration.
Neutral Colors
While red and pink are the expected colors for February hearts,
neutral colored hearts in a white ceramic bowl give a French feel to the collection.
B*O*N*H*E*U*R
A natural-colored linen heart with bonheur (happiness) embroidered on it
is one of two hearts in the bowl that came from France.
While touring lavender fields in Provence,
our small tour group stopped for lunch at a hilltop village
that overlooked lavender fields we had just walked through that morning.
Handmade
With great bonheur, I found a small boutique de souvenirs (gift shop)
filled with items handmade in France and bought several hearts.
The hand-carved wooden angel wings peeking over the bonheur heart
came from the same boutique.
Distressed white-washed finish
The wooden white-washed heart is the second heart in the bowl
that came from the Provence area boutique.
A close-up shows the natural honey-colored wood grain that blends with the
pine posts and beams throughout our house and French country houses.
Blend of materials
The hearts on the table include linen, wood, metal, twine, and paper materials...
a wonderful mix of refined embroidery, rustic metal, carved wood, and modern paper.
A typical French approach to a collection is to include old and new,
rustic and refined, simple and elaborate, blending them together harmoniously.
Attention to details
A hallmark of French design is attention to details that lifts the ordinary to extraordinary,
making a common-place item elegant, setting it apart from other lackluster similar items.
While the white paper hearts may or may not be French,
their design reflects French inspiration.
The extra thickness of the paper, the tonal texture of the paper's pattern,
and the pinked edges of the heart elevate the paper heart far above the usual paper heart.
Hearts on the breakfast table fill me with happiness
and remind me of elegant French design.
Does French design appeal to you?
If yes, what do you like most about French design?
❦
Have you heard?
There is a new linking party that started
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Four of my friends who are also Texas bloggers
will be hosting
Thoughts of Home on Thursday
Everyone is invited.
Their button grabbed me right away... all that beautiful blue.
Hope to see you there.
Botanic Bleu will be....
celebrating friendship, decorating, recipes, gardening, and inspiration.
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Please join me at these inspiring sites...
SUNDAY
Table It @ Rustic and Refined
MONDAY
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Hearts are some of my favorite things and are scattered all around our house. February is the month of love... for both family and friends. Later this month I will host a friendship lunch for some good friends who volunteered to help work during the annual Regional Academic Decathlon Competition that I have been coordinating for the past six years, and I'm spotlighting the hearts to send some friendship love to all of them.
To go with the hearts on the white bookshelf in the sunspace... aka as my makeshift indoor potting table... I added a couple of small clay rose pots to the hearts, but the arrangement looked rather bland.
Remember the hand-stamped-with-gold French script feathers that I made? They are just the right size to fit into the rose clay pots and add a little flair to the arrangement. Stamping feathers is super easy to do and only takes a few minutes. Try it.... you will love it!
If you are decorating for February and don't have any hand-stamped French script feathers, a small 4-inch starter herb plant would be another great filler in a clay pot to add some zing to the grouping. A couple of years ago, fresh mint starter plants were what I planted in rose clay pots for the Friendship Luncheon that year. Each of the friendship honorees got to take home one of the mint plants. Yes, those are the very plants in the photo in my blog header.
Adding just that small cluster of feathers makes all the difference. Hmmm... perhaps the little feathers would be a nice touch to add to a small favor for each of this year's attendees.
Any suggestions for other things to put in the clay pots to give the arrangement of small hearts a special touch?
❦
Have you heard?
There is a new linking party that starts
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Four of my friends who are also Texas bloggers
will be hosting
Thoughts of Home on Thursday
Everyone is invited.
Their button grabbed me right away... all that beautiful blue.
Hope to see you there.
Botanic Bleu will be....
celebrating friendship, decorating, recipes, gardening, and inspiration.
~~~~❦~~~~
~~~~❦~~~~
Please join me at these inspiring sites...
SUNDAY
Table It @ Rustic and Refined
MONDAY
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
Sunday, February 7, 2016
February always brings out the urge in me to create hearts. Some years, making strawberry cakes in heart-shaped individual cupcake pans satisfies the urge for hearts. Other years, elaborate homemade Valentine cards with roses, glitter, embossing using rubber stamps, and attached heart-shaped buttons to send to friends fills that annual desire to create hearts. My sister has the same annual desires to create hearts. We both inherited some gene that drives us to make hearts in February, and sometimes we work together to create custom Valentine cards.
However, my sister has a special talent for working with flowers and her latest heart creation was this wild floral heart. Rustic wild vines create the heart shape with dried roses, grapevines, mossy twig vines, green reindeer moss, blue paper, and a tiny paper heart from scrap wrapping paper all layered on a thick wooden tree ring.
The heart shape is more suggested than rigidly defined which makes the rustic heart all the more beautiful to me. The hardest part in making this beauty is the vision for putting all the pieces together for the first time. Now that you have seen it, you probably can make a similar one to fill any February creative urge of your own to make hearts.
A surprise gift to me, the rustic heart hangs in my made-over mud room, but would be a wonderful February door hanging on a sheltered front door. Take a look at how it is constructed, beginning with a 3-4 inch thick circular tree slice as the foundation. No need to cut the wood base in the shape of a heart. The heart shape is created using vines.
From this close-up view, you can see how the vines are layered and are not flattened against the circular base. Rather, they swirl out with unkempt tendrils.
Rustic Wild Heart Layers in order of creation
- Circular 3-4" thick wood base about 7-8" in diameter
- Attach a picture hanging hook to the back of the wood base. Do this before creating the vine hearts to keep from smashing the hearts.
- Paper (color of your choice) glued onto the wood base
- Small paper heart folded with only one side glued to the wood, leaving one side standing up
- Large grapevines, twisted into large heart that extends beyond the wood base edges. Glue or nail to the wood base at 2-3 places leaving most of the heart form free
- Small vines clustered together to form the most recognizable heart shape. Glue to the large grapevines.
- Glue dried roses randomly to the small vine heart.
- Glue small clumps of green reindeer moss as shown
The rustic wild heart looks right at home hanging on a white-washed pine beadboard wall in my mud room.
French Country is the over-all look I love, but the rustic heart also goes very well with country, cottage, and shabby chic decorating styles. Can you see this rustic heart in your house?
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Please join me at these inspiring sites...
MONDAY
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
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