Christine's Home and Travel Adventures: May 2016

Friday, May 27, 2016

A Bit of Provence on My Table

We just arrived from a 14 day Mediterranean cruise which ended with a 3 day land stay in Barcelona. I was part of a group of 58, which consisted of relatives and friends and some newly found friends. We all had a blast.

One of our stops was the port of Marseilles, which is what inspired me to create this tablescape.

Unless we take a tour specifically for shopping, tour guides never give us enough time for shopping. Luckily, they had booths selling stuff just outside the ship, so as soon as we got back on the ship, with a few hours to spare before the ship sails away, my sister and I went out again. I saw this tablecloth and bought it. It had "Provence" and its views stamped all over it.

Here is a picture taken at one of the places we visited. They gave us 20 minutes to walk around, eat and do our shopping. One advice I can give you is that if you see something you like in one of the stores, just buy it and never mind thinking about it, because there's not enough time for that. I saw a pair of sandals that I liked, tried it on and it was very comfy but did not buy it and kept walking. I wanted to go back to get it but before I knew it, it was time to get back to the tour bus so I lost my chance. Shucks! I am still kicking myself to this day.

Anyway, let's start tablescaping now. As you can see, I used the Provence table cloth as the topper.

Did you notice some changes in the dining and living area? I added the Persian rug that we moved from our MS home, under the table and you will see various furniture placed all over. John said nobody would ever think I could fit all the moved furniture in this house, which was already furnished to begin with, lol.

And my décor is turning back to traditional.

Since the table cloth was mostly lavender, I picked a set of vintage Bavarian china with that color that I found on Ebay a few years ago, as I was searching for purple transferware. They really aren't transferware but they came up so it must have been meant to be.

They are vintage and labeled with "Edelstein, Bavaria, made in Germany, Maria Theresa, Sunset" in the back of each plates.

It's hard to tell but my flatware are deep purple in color.

Olive colored stems for all the many olive trees all over Europe. I even planted 2 trees in big pots on our back porch. I love the color of their leaves and how they can be shaped into beautiful topiaries. I will just have to wait for the leaves to get fuller.

I was opening boxes in the garage when I spotted the faux topiaries and thought they would be perfect for my table. They are very frenchy, aren't they?

Notice my hall wall turned into a Salvador Dali gallery? I am out of wall space so under the beds in the guest rooms have become storage for frames, paintings and pictures. And this is after I sold and given away some. Someday, I will blog about how this area turned out.

The bust was already on the table, before I even started so I just worked around it.

I think she is very frenchy too.

I even managed to find a pair of olive salt and pepper shaker. I already had it and found it on the garage shelf.

I also found this tea set in one of the garage bins. It was labeled "Frenchy tea set" so what could be more perfect than that? Little by little , I am discovering and uncovering my table items. Now, if I could only have enough room in the house to store them!