Once one of the most popular china patterns in the world, the china was widely used in the United States during the middle of the twentieth century. The term “blue-plate special” used by restaurants all over America is said to have originated from the common use of the Blue Willow pattern.

The design illustrates the Chinese legend of a romance between Koong-se, daughter of a wealthy mandarin, and Chang, the Mandarin’s secretary. To keep the two young lovers apart, Koong-se’s father erected a fence so they could not see each other. However, Koong-se found a way to contact Chang. She wrote a poem and placed it in a seashell, floating it downstream to Chang.

Koong-se’s father had promised her in marriage to a noble duke. Wearing a disguise, Chang crept into the palace during the wedding banquet and eloped with Koong-se. Only at the last minute, did the Mandarin see them crossing a bridge, Koong-se carrying a box of jewels that were to have been her wedding dowry.

The lovers found a hideout with a maid who protected them, and later they moved to a distant island to spend their lives together. But time did not stop the Mandarin’s search for the couple. Eventually he found the couple and put them to death.  According to the legend, God was so touched by their love that He immortalized Chang and Koong-se as two doves flying together in the sky.

In the Blue Willow pattern are illustrations of the story such as the palace, bridge, lovers running to safety, the distant island, and two doves flying together in the sky.

Excerpts from The Blue Willow Inn’s Bible of Southern Cooking by Louis and Billie Van Dyke

Your furniture can be shabby chic white or pastel painted and distressed DIY furniture, wicker rockers and chairs, wrought iron chairs, ornate carved wooden chairs, tables, and beds, floral, printed or solid fabric upholstered club chairs, curio cabinets, hutches, love seats, chaise loungers, room dividers, and any antique furniture (plain or ornate).

Shabby chic colors are mainly pastel. Keep a light palette.  Lots of floral accents are needed for a shabby chic look, especially roses. Pink, red and white roses play a dominant role in shabby chic settings.  They can be real roses or artificial silk roses in floral arrangements, printed or painted on china or porcelain vases and bowls, painted wooden trays, drapes, or decoupaged roses on furniture.  Lots of roses is the key.  Also, use lace adorned items like table linens, pillows, shams, table scarfs, crocheted and knitted afghans and shawls, vintage style chenille bedspreads, quilts, ruffled curtains, ruffled throw pillows and chair cushions, embroidered delicate handkerchiefs, velvety fabrics, framed old postcards, letters and valentines, silver, gold, or copper framed mirrors and photo frames, jewelry boxes, ornate chandeliers, table and standing lamps with delicate or ornate lampshades, candlesticks with candles,  a trunk used as a coffee table, old or new hat boxes, sewing kits with trims, buttons and spools of thread, cigar boxes, peacock and pheasant feathers, frilly parasols, wicker plant stands with ferns or ivy (real or faux), birdcages, dolls, teddy bears, mesh bags of multi-colored marbles, and other vintage memorabilia. Keeping that in mind, you can use a wide variety of décor items and mix old with new or add shabby chic to other design styles.

I personally like farmhouse décor for its country rustic simplicity and love to add touches of shabby chic for a softer vintage look and to create a note of yesteryear nostalgia. What you want to create is an interesting or beautiful shabby chic. Your arrangements and settings must look artful, and not just a clutter of curio shop or antique store objects. That is where your artful eye comes in. You must examine each grouping and see if it looks balanced, interesting and artistic! If you are pleased and enjoy the settings you create, then they will probably pass the test. You can always rearrange furniture and objects as long as you follow the design rules.

Shabby chic décor is sometimes viewed in displayed layers of similar articles carefully stacked like old quilts, throws, teacups and saucers, pillows tied together with silk ribbons, decorated stacked suitcases, or a stack of favorite books tied with ribbons or lace trim and adorned with a silk rose.  It is up to you how much, or how little, shabby chic you want to add. If you are a crafter; then you can save a ton of money on shabby chic décor by cleverly creating some of your items.  So get busy and have fun finding those special décor items you want by shopping in antique stores, curio shops, flea markets, yard sales, estate sales, and dollar stores, or create them yourself.  If shabby chic is your style, or if you want to add it to a different style, take the plunge, but go slow in decorating to see if each arrangement or setting appeals to you.

You can arrange one or more vignettes in your home. First, you must decide whether to place your décor items into a holder or on top of something. You may choose assorted metal, ceramic or wooden box trays, low woven baskets, decorative or utilitarian boards or cigar boxes. All shapes can be used. Experiment with different décor items you have around your home, in deciding how you want your vignette to look. Some suggestions I offer would be: tall vases filled with branches are twigs (real or faux), little jewelry boxes opened with strings of pearls flowing out, an old small or medium toy that your children played with (like an old baseball), pinecones, some decorative woven grapevine or other ornate balls, a pot of succulents (real or faux), flowers or plants in pots, candles (any type), a short stack of favorite books with a decorative item resting on top, like a little angel figurine, etc., an old watering can, pitcher with real or faux tall heather,  or daisies and sunflowers, inside, dolls, a pair of gloves that match your vignette theme, ornate paper weights, little figurines like birds, frogs, dogs, cats, etc., antique clocks, and teapots (old or new). The list goes on and on.

Place vignettes on coffee tables, bookshelves, foyer tables, buffet cabinets, fireplace mantles or hearths, kitchen tables, dining tables, bathroom cabinets, bedroom vanities, outdoor patio tables or wherever you have space to decorate. You will know if you like a certain arrangement by moving your items around and trying different positions.

You can have different levels of height to add interest, or have a color theme that harmonizes or vary the colored items with neutrals. Have fun with creating pleasing and artful vignettes that you, your family, and friends can enjoy. The vignettes should reflect your own personal tastes. Happy decorating!

Suggestions for some of the décor mentioned above:

Saving and using drying sheets that have already been through a drying cycle in your dryer and use for little flying ghosts by placing cotton balls for the head into the center of sheets, gathering the sheets just under the cotton ball head where the neck will be and slipping small rubber bands over the head, creating a little neck recess around the sheet there and then spread out the skirt. You can hang these anywhere you like with a length of white yarn, knotted at one end. With a large eye embroidery needle threaded with the length of yarn, pass it from underneath the sheet straight through the cotton ball head and tie  in rows, suspended from one long yarn thread, to form a garland of little flying ghosts, to  drape in a hall, on a staircase, drape across the front of a fireplace mantle, hang between posts on your front porch railing or wherever you select. (Kid Friendly)

Buy white medical paper tape (the kind used over gauze pads to bandage a wound) and wrap mummy style overlapping your tape around the outside of a quart size canning jar, being sure to leave spaces between wraps. Hot glue two artificial wiggle eyes between a crack near the neck of jar. Lastly, insert a dollar store glow stick inside of jar and close the lid. Make one or more for placing on shelves or in table arrangements. This idea came from https://blissfuldomestication.com . (Kid Friendly)

Using washable poster paints in green, red, orange, purple and black, pour the different colors in individual paper plates. Create eerie colored handprints on mirrors and doors in your home by wetting the palms of your hands, one color at a time (being careful not to spill on carpets and washing hands in-between each color). Do not place on upholstered furniture, cushions, tablecloths, etc.  This idea came from Everyday is a Hollyday With 4(Kid Friendly)

Drop a glow stick in the bottom of a tall, clear glass, cylinder vase. Fill with Spanish moss and little white skeleton heads. Layer in this manner:  glow stick, moss, head, glow stick, moss, head, on up to the top. Use with your other décor to form a Halloween centerpiece, or place alone on a shelf or tabletop. (Kid Friendly)

With a black marker, draw black, slightly curved, half- moon eyes and fill it in solid on a medium or large pumpkin and a wiggly line mouth with little stitch marks across mouth. Hot glue large wiggle eyes inside the half moon eye areas. Hot glue a black and white buffalo check bow on top with a large black spider added. Set pumpkin in center of a dining table with other fall décor, or on a fireplace hearth, mantle, foyer table or a large coffee table as a centerpiece, with faux fall leaves or small pinecones around and under it. (Kid Friendly) Let the kids join in making these scarecrow pumpkin faces on different size pumpkins. Use as a grouping on your front steps, around the front door  on your porch or sofa table.

Hang little skeletons from tree branches in your front yard or dangle them from unexpected places in the interior of your home. (Kid Friendly)

Get a black iron Dutch pot, a large flower urn, pasta pan, or whatever you have that will resemble a witch cauldron. If not black, then wrap and cover with black crepe paper. Crush a big wad of orange crepe paper and cover inside the pot for the brew.  For the fun part, take two saved paper towel rods and purchase some wild looking, striped socks to put over the paper rods.  Put on some type of black little shoes like a witch would wear on the ends. Place the witch’s legs upside down in the center of the pot, sticking out of the orange crepe paper like she had fallen in the cauldron. (Kid Friendly

On a more gruesome side, for older children or adult parties, try these suggestions:

At a dollar store, buy several white candles and only one red candle. Buy as many white candles as you want to make a grouping for a centerpiece. For bloody candles, just place a white candle on a paper plate. Light up the red candle and holding upside down, let it drip just on the edges of the white candle and let the red wax drip down to resemble blood. Repeat on all the candles. Place as a candle arrangement on a metal or wooden tray. This idea came from https://popsugar.com

Fill a quart jar with one half of a cauliflower head. Drop in a glow stick; fill with water and put 2 drops of red food dye in the water.  Seal the jar with a lid.   The jar will glow and look like a floating preserved brain. Do this also with different colors of food dye and with other foods or items. For instance, peel round red radishes just leaving little strips of narrow red peeling with white spaces between each strip just in a circle all around a radish, leaving only solid white on other sides.  These are to resemble eyeballs with bloody red veins.  Next cut green pimento olives in half and with wooden toothpicks, attach olive halves with red pimento centers showing, to the center of one white side of each radish eyeball to look like pupils.  Drop a glow stick in bottom of jar and carefully insert each radish eyeball.  Fill with water to the top of jar and put 1 drop of orange food dye and seal the jar.  In another jar, place a glow stick and alternate filling the jar with cotton balls and  artificial little black spiders.  Fill and color the water green and seal jar. This idea came from http://madsmemories.blogspot.com/

Another idea is to remove and decorate underneath white lampshades. Using a hot glue gun, glue little artificial spiders and drape a wispy section of cheese cloth to resemble a spider web over the lampshade or hot glue bats to the inside of a lampshade that are cut out of black construction paper. When the lamp is lit, the light will reveal the spiders or bats.

Treats can be part of your ornamental décor to set out, if it isn’t perishable food that needs to be refrigerated. Mix peanuts with candy corn and place in Mason jars with lids. Tie raffia straw or jute string bows around the neck of jars. Do the same with black, red, and orange twizzler stick candy, mixed in jars.

Happy October decorating and have fun “trick-or-treating”!

You can add black in multiple ways, from a minimalistic viewpoint by fewer, smaller or more simple items, or with less black color. If you prefer a little more drama on a medium scale, use more black décor items like black pillows or prints with black in the design, black wrought items, black furniture or black picture frames. For a fuller black application for the height of drama, add printed drapes with black in the design, with matching throw pillows or carpets with black in the design, tall black candlesticks, large black wrought iron décor, or whatever black items you like. There are so many different black décor items and furniture that will accessorize your home décor and give it that punch of drama you are needing.

Consider painting a wall, or walls, solid black if your rooms are large enough. Remember black darkens a room and makes it appear smaller. Black requires good lighting in overhead ceiling lights and lamps. You could add beautiful white, light gray, or ochre colored candle sconces to a black painted wall, to add a soft warm glow to that area and to accent the black wall more. When you apply black to your color schemes in whatever depth or ways you desire, you will notice how everything comes together and looks more defined. Strong colors always add more richness and depth to any color scheme. Just take into consideration the size of the area that you are decorating whether it is small or large, to determine how little or how much black you could add. Always remember, black decreases and light enlarges. With that rule of thumb, if you have some item or feature in your home that you want to not look as large or not to stand out, then use darker colors or black. If you want an item or feature to show more ,or enlarge it; then paint it a light color or white. Dark colors absorb light and light colors reflect light. Black is a neutral color, so it blends with any other colors.

Don’t be afraid to use black throughout your home, in any room and with any colors. Happy decorating to all our friends, visitors and customers!

Midnight Garden Candle Lamp

Gallery Of Light

$19.95

A glossy jet-black finish highlights every pretty curve and cutout of this six-panel lantern. Utterly enchanting when filled with golden candlelight this hurricane style lamp is an attractive accent even during the day!

Weight 1.3 lbs. Iron with glass. Candle not included. 5 3/4" x 4 3/4" x 9 3/4" high.

Quantity:

Add to Cart

Allure Candle Stand Trio

Gallery Of Light

$24.95

Three
lovely candle stands in three sizes pack a triple-powered punch of
style for any room. The black metal stands have curled flourishes and
the fluted clear candle cups will let the light of your favorite candles
shine brightly.

Item weight: 2.2 lbs.
Large: 4 3/4" x 4 1/2" x 9 1/4" high; medium: 4 1/2" x 4 1/2" x 7 3/4" high; small: 4 3/8" x 4 3/8" x 6 1/2" high.

Iron and glass.

Candles not included.

UPC: 849179020842.

Quantity:

Add to Cart

Let us start with the living areas of your home. Whether it be the classic living room, den, game room, or great room, these rooms will gain the most attention. They are most likely to be the room(s) you frequent the most. If you are fortunate enough to have a fireplace with a hearth and mantle, or a stove with pipe and hearth, you can make it your focal point. Place different sized pumpkins on the hearth, a decorative willow brush broom, a bale of hay with a straw scarecrow figure sitting on it or a basket of pinecones, natural or spray-painted different fall colors. On the mantle, drape a string garland of tiny faux pumpkins or fall leaves from end to end. Set a fall wreath in the center and anchor each end with tall items to balance the whole fireplace look with tall matching lamps or lanterns, or tall matching candlesticks with white or fall colored candles. These will anchor and bring a balance to your assortment of items.

Other ways to create a cozy autumn theme is with throw pillows and throws on your seating arrangements. A collection of pillows on a long sofa or couch that harmonize with your fall theme in colors and designs will work wonders. Some pillows could have words printed on them; for example, Blessed, Thanks, or Happy Harvest and some could have designs of pumpkins, fall leaves, turkey, basket of apples or mums, to name a few. Candles can be grouped on old silver, rustic wooden or galvanized aluminum trays and tied with ragged strips of gingham and have a sprinkling of faux fall colored leaves, acorns or small pinecones around the bottom. The decorated trays will look great on coffee tables or desks.

In your kitchen and dining room, hang fall printed towels and decorate your window or windows with small plain natural grapevine wreaths and hang them with ragged torn strips of gingham to look simple and rustic. In the dining room, use white, fall colored, or fall printed tablecloth with matching or coordinated napkins and dinnerware. Set up place settings with fall themed placemats, charger plates under your dinner plates and tie the napkins with a jute string bow for a country twist. Decorate any buffet or hutch cabinet with a basket of green and yellow apples, or a distressed milk jug filled with branches of cotton bolls or several tall pheasant feathers or feathery pampa grass plumes. You can mix old with new on your décor items. Any time you need more height, just place the item on a stack of books or old cigar boxes. You get the idea. Use whatever you think will look nice under your item. Have a low centerpiece for your dining table, like candles on a tray or a wooden bowl of unshelled walnuts, almonds, and pecans or a china bowl filled with clementine fruit. Add or change according to your wish.

Bathrooms need less clutter due to size, so keep it simple there with a candle or two, a floral basket or single vase with faux branches of colored fall leaves. You might like to use a fall themed shower curtain and matching mat through fall and the Thanksgiving holiday.

Porch and front door need a bright welcome. You can decorate with scarecrow figures, galvanized aluminum tubs or bushel baskets filled with different pumpkins, a faux fall leaves string garland around the door facing,  a large fall sign or fall wreath hanging on your front door and  pots of mums in different colors on your steps or in with the other décor. Put fall themed pillows on your porch swing, bench or chairs to continue a bright cheerful look or great curb appeal.

Remember these are ideas and suggestions for fall settings in and around your home to bring a love and joy during these beautiful and colorful months of the year to you, your family and guests. So, friends, go ahead and Fall in Love With Fall!