Autumn Decor

For my birthday this year, my mother gave me a subscription to my favorite magazine - Victoria. 

It's my favorite because the homes featured in Victoria are always the most beautiful that I've seen!

Rich, elegant, and warm are the best words I can think of to describe the photographs within a Victoria's glossy pages.

They pull me in and I study each vignette, asking myself questions like, Now look how they paired that Japanese print along side a French toile - how'd they do that?

This month's edition arrived and I was unprepared for the inspiration that would strike me.

Up to that point I had felt unmotivated to begin any fall decorating, but a few minutes with my new issue gave me the fresh ideas I had been lacking.

I noticed a theme - blue and white dishes with red roses.

See? Here's an example...

(Page 38 of this month's issue...)

I felt a surge of hope because I realized this look was very attainable for me.

 I already had some blue and white pieces in my china cabinet, and faux roses in my Christmas decor bins. 

Although I had never before used them for fall, I thought, If Victoria can decorate with roses for the autumn months, than it's good enough for me!

So I set to work...

I pulled my fluffy fur pillow out of storage, and tucked a few red roses in here and there...

My living room hutch is mostly colorless - just English Ironstone and antique books, but I'm enjoying having a little red in it now. Not much, because too much would spoil it, like pouring too much salt on your dinner. 

 Just a pinch of red on the mantle... a little here... 

and a little there...

I continued my Victoria-inspired look into the dining room...

A blue an white pitcher holds some clippings from my yard along with the faux roses. Not all of them are red, however. That helps to round out the arrangement, and deepen the look...

I have no idea if that's an actual decorating rule. I can tend to make things up, haha!

 The blue and white with roses is continued into the kitchen...

Here's the view from another angle...

(I love sunbeams in a house! It's so warm and welcoming!)

The only autumn decorating I've done in our family room is place a few pumpkins on the mantle. 

But I do have a little blue and white in here as well.

Yes, that's Lawrence Welk on the T.V. haha...

Sometimes I turn it on and put the volume up to fill my house with the happy, old-fashioned music.

I like to pretend that I don't really live in 2018.

 I don't belong in this modern world, sigh...

I can't handle what our world is becoming. I remember life before things like technology and school shootings...

Were things not better then?!

But that's why I try to make my home a lovely and warm place.

Sort of like a cocoon from the world.

I have to get out in it at times, but I enjoy coming back here to an environment that embraces me with a feeling of home...

Isn't that why we decorate after all?

I enjoyed doing something different for my fall decorating this year.

I prefer an uncontrived look in my home anyway, so I don't mind that it isn't modern or forced. 

(Think large "It's Fall Ya'll!" signs from Hobby Lobby.)

Remember, the best authors don't tell their readers what they wish to convey, rather they show it instead.

To me, the best decorated homes have a way of showing warmth and love without all the fashionable hype.

I have no clue what outsiders think of my home when they enter here, but to my eyes it's warm and beautiful.

"The question is not what you look at, but what you see."

- Henry David Thoreau

How's your fall decorating going?

xo,

~ Courtney ~