Wednesday, July 7, 2010

"AMERICANA FOR SUMMER"


Around Memorial Day, Chris over at the Last Resort mentioned that she always decorates her house with Americana for the summer, taking in those patriotic holidays -- Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Labor Day. "I don't do that," I said to myself. Whereby the little inner voice replied, "Well, you might try!"

I don't have patriotic quilts and wallhangings, but I went to my cupboard to pull out some things that seemed to fit the bill. Then I made a trip to the Dollar Tree for artificial red, white, and blue flowers and to Jo-Ann where I purchased the little birdhouse and the flag-shaped heart in the bouquet -- also the "liberty" plaque for the wall. (You can't quite see it.) At Wal-Mart I bought bright red seat cushions and summer placemats.

The teapot, cream and sugar on the top shelf are souvenirs of Boston's Freedom Trail. My dad bought me the teapot from Paul Revere's shop when he and Mother visited me in 1973. The "bicycle shop" is Department 56 and just says "summer" to me. On the next shelf down, the red glass pitcher, or vase, is also a souvenir from Boston days. The other two were Grandma Ina's and were just the right color for my display. The two little silver bowls on the next shelf say "Paul Revere" on them. I bought them at a department store in Marshfield, MA, when I lived on Boston's south shore. The tray, very well worn, was my mother's -- has the initial "D" on it. Today it holds peppermint taffy -- red and white -- but often the tray serves to hold embroidery thread for an upcoming project. KW

9 comments:

Hallie said...

I think it's fun to have a festive little corner! It looks very nice.

Kathy said...

And I'll bet you didn't know where that stuff came from either.

I'm already thinking about decorating for fall. XO

Chris said...

Uh oh, I'm a bad blog reader. But here I am, and I'm so proud of you! Your corner is delightful and very patriotic and summery. I hope you had fun!

My strategy is Americana for summer; fall for, well, fall; Christmas for winter (after all red goes through Valentine's Day); and then, since we rarely have spring up here, it's back to Americana. Simple. And not too much work. I'm all about not too much work. :-)

Chris said...

Ooo, ooo, I just discovered a great thing on my google toolbar!! A spell checker for typing on the internet!!! Hopefully I'll no longer have to read and reread (and miss) errors! How long has that been there?!? Just wanted to tip you off.

Kathy said...

I think Google has been messing around with the blogs again. This is the third time I have attempted to put a comment on my own blog, no less!

Anyway, you aren't a bad blog reader, Chris. We just posted three in one day. I like to keep the posts somewhat timely and I was going to waste some pictures -- and some ideas -- if I didn't post. I figured that you and other good blog readers would find my posts under Mike's.

Sounds like your decorating strategy is simple and effective and doesn't keep you too busy. I've discovered a few things for instant festivity myself -- like stuffed animals and bright throws.

Toolbar? What toolbar? When Hallie and Nick come next month I'm going to have them help me update this blog. It needs a facelift -- maybe some other things -- like toolbars.

Chris said...

Yes, there have definitely been some Google problems! On my last post, one of my comments in response to one of yours disappeared, so I did it again later. Then the one you wrote disappeared!! Now they're all back including two identical ones of mine!!

The spell check isn't on the blog site, it's up on the top of my internet browser page, on my Google tool bar, the one where I type in things to search for. Maybe you don't have a Google toolbar? I love it but hadn't realized I could spell check when I write in these comment boxes. Too cool!

Kathy said...

Yeah -- In reading your response to my comment, I noticed that my comment was gone. I thought maybe you had deleted it for some reason but decided not to question it.

Yes, I know what you mean about the "header" at the top of the page. Still, I don't have anything like spell check. I'll work through that with people who show up in person.

Hallie said...

Mom uses the Firefox web browser, which will spell check for you no matter where you are on the Internet. Now, you'll still need to use your brain for the grammar stuff and punctuation placement, but it's pretty nice! Firefox also has an ad blocker, which prevents pop-ups and strips advertisements out of web pages you visit. Sort of a cleaner Internet experience, I think.

Kathy said...

Yeah, it's kinda embarrassing. I don't know what's going on with my computer even when they tell me. I'm a retired state worker, remember. That means my background of training is as follows: they give me a system, show me what I need to know, then tell me not to ask questions or in any way increase knowledge.

So, is it automatically spell checking with the red underlining? I'll bet that's it.

Kathy (already tired of cleaning)