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The Best Versatile Dress in a Feminine Classic Wardrobe
Ladies, “Variety is the spice of life” as the old saying goes and even though I enjoy variety in clothing I find myself increasingly more appreciative of the dresses in my wardrobe that do everything. Let me introduce you to the “Everything Dress” Do you have an “Everything Dress”? Mine is a navy blue and white polka dot dress that is for running errands, church, walking, housework, and nice evenings out! Yes it does it all. This one dress transforms to the occasion by the shoe paired with it, the jewelry worn with it, and the hairstyle. This is how to identify an Everything Dress for your Classic Feminine Wardrobe…
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Spring Cottage Garden The Best Roses & Wildflowers
Ladies, For all of the insects that plague the Southern garden, there are as many early blooms. The humidity is descending as the temperatures rise to the upper 80’s already as of May 1st. But as my favorite cool air is now relegated to the nights of enjoying it through the open window, my days are spent in floral bliss and breathing in the heavenly scent of flowers. Finally, flowers For the non-gardener, or the flippant garden-admirer, they may not realize how fleeting flowers can be. One might not realize how many months it takes to finally experience the blossoms and then how quickly they are gone. Our photographs preserve…
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The Best Feminine Fashion for Realistic Daily Style
Ladies, Feminine style does not have to be exclusive to a day when you feel up to wearing something fussier. Up until recent decades, women dressed in their feminine fashions daily and it was not seen as unusual. Our modern fabrics and styles have only become more comfortable, not less, so comfortable feminine style is more realistic than ever. Yet, so much of what we see as “feminine fashion” is not tailored to the outdoor life, a life with children or pets, or messes. I wonder at how clean people must be staying to wear the trendy outfits….white trousers….white button down blouse…towering heels…the truth is, I don’t want the life…
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The Best Decorating Advice & Tips to Your Authentic Style
Ladies, I love decorating advice so much that I enjoy decorating podcasts, blogs, home & garden books and magazines, and how about a good old cruise on Pinterest? But you know what I also love? I love just decorating with what I like. And guess what, I would even call the decorating advice that I go against helpful decorating advice. Why? Because different perspectives help us see something differently and different perspectives help us to analyze why we do or do not ultimately like something. What do you actually like? I want to encourage you to decorate in spite of the trends and current decorating advice but also in light…
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How to Shop & Style Realistic Faux Flower Arrangements & Houseplants
Ladies, The faux floral department is really a beautiful flower shop. The buckets of flowers and stems sing to my heart when they look so realistic. This spring I found some lovely faux stems at one of my favorite places to shop for them, Hobby Lobby, which you can see styled in my home here! Now days, our faux arrangements are not ivy draped out of a basket over kitchen cabinets collecting grease and dust. Not that there is even something “wrong” with that, but there are updated ways to decorate with faux items that make them look more natural, as well as the items looking more realistic now days…
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SPRING DECORATING with Realistic Faux Flowers & Plants from Hobby Lobby
Ladies, Even if you love real flowers and plants like I do, I advise you to not limit yourself by snubbing good faux florals and plants to decorate your interiors! It is an effortless way to decorate for year-round beauty indoors. They are never going to dry and crumble, wilt or die. Once purchased, your faux florals and plants are in your decor to be used again and again in fresh arrangements. Read my article here on identifying the most realistic faux flowers & plants to get your collection going. This spring at Hobby Lobby I bought four of the most realistic items they had (oh they had more good…
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Romantic Flower Garden Design for a Rental House on Budget
Ladies, The gardener must have a plan. But the plan can be “I am craving violas”. Yes, let the flowers romance your decisions. As winter suddenly turned into spring this year as of March, I found myself longing for a long-lost friend, those first blooms of spring during my childhood up North. Violas would appear and then we knew: spring was here. Yet for many years I valued them little. I didn’t think they were worth my time or attention in a romantic garden full of more saucy flowers, showy and brazenly gorgeous. Especially since they are the first blooms of spring and do not last long. But it was…
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Winter to Spring Garden Prep: the Hard Work of Beauty
Ladies, Making things beautiful is hard work. I stood in my winter garden yesterday in the February air looking at how beauty can degrade. None of the outcomes we enjoy happen as quickly as a scroll to it, or a page turned, or a video clicked. The truth of beauty is that it is sometimes hard to create, that it comes after long seasons of dormancy and tending, it can be fleeting, and then we go back to work to bring it about again. The daily borage of insects and mildew threatened to destroy my flowers daily last spring and summer. I went out to water plants in warm mornings…
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The Best Wedding Registry Ideas: Gifts for the Living Room
Ladies, This is just one article in a series entitled “The Best Wedding Registry”. Each article in the series focuses on different rooms of the house. The links to other parts in this series are found at the end of each article. Think about your wedding registry as a list of items for each room of the house. Your list should reflect the essential items and style of each room! With a list of living room items this lovely you will feel accomplished as a new wife running her home. Living rooms are meant for beauty as well as comfort. Emphasis on the comfort. Emphasis on the beauty. You can…
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The Best Wedding Registry: What to Register for the Bathroom
Ladies, This is just one article in a series entitled “The Best Wedding Registry”. Each article in the series focuses on different rooms of the house. The links to other parts in this series are found at the end of each article. As a new wife running a home for the first time, I had not learned yet that soap dispensers corrode at an alarming rate. No matter how expensive of soap dispensers I tried, they all corroded and required me to wipe green gooey gunk out of the nozzle. But the fact is, quality does matter with certain items in the bathroom. I always recommend high quality items for…
