What is it that makes decorating so fun, so satisfying...when you get it right?  It's all about the details, the elements big and small, that is used in furnishings, fabrics, silver, books, hardware, dishes and server ware, art, crafty pieces, colors, patterns, collectibles... Using the same details and motifs over and over pulls a room or an entire home together... gives it life...makes it interesting... and makes it personal, if you use something that has a lot of meaning for you.  This post is the first of what I hope will be many posts about lovely, fun, pretty, beautiful, quirky, interesting details of all sorts used in decor that catch my eye and my heart---not just in my own home, but places I visit, as well as inspiring photos on the Internet.

Today, it's all about roses for me, thanks to a recent visit to the Huntington Library tea room and rose garden, not to mention the roses from my own garden.  



Rather than use a lot of words to explain each photo, I thought I'd let each image speak for itself and show how my favorite flower has made its way into the details of my home.  

Go ahead and look at each photo and see if you can find all the roses in each one.  Look beyond the obvious....there are real roses from my garden in almost every photo, but the rose is also repeated both literally and stylistically as a pattern, as decorative embellishments and flourishes, as a theme, or as a color in the things in almost every image.

There is nothing like fresh flowers and greenery to add life and loveliness to your home.  The scent, the color, the texture... all these things add that special element that makes a room come alive.  You can create a beautiful flower arrangement easily using what you have in your garden or by supplementing store-bought blooms by following a few simple steps.  Today I'm providing a quick tutorial for 'building' a pretty flower bouquet.

What you will need....

1. a pretty vase or container
2. foliage to create a framework
3. flowers for supporting color
4. starring blooms




Additionally, using 'wet' floral foam placed in your vase or container gives you more control over the placement and arrangement of your flowers and greenery-- this is handy for shorter, broader vases like the one I've used here.  You poke the stem into the foam and the flower stays put instead of flopping over or falling out of the vase all together.  Floral foam is available at craft stores such as Michaels or JoAnn  (this is not a sponsored post) and can be used multiple times.

For this flower arrangement, I used roses from my garden to supplement foliage and flowers I purchased from the floral section of a local grocery store.  I've let my garden go in recent years and only my roses seem to be flourishing with the minimal care that they get.... so this is a great way for me to create a fantastic looking arrangement without having to maintain a cutting garden.




First step... create a framework using a variety of greenery. The framework should include a mix of dense, fine/feathery, and tall/spiky foliage that adds that varied and textural backdrop that will showcase and complement the supporting and starring flowers.




Second step....add the supporting color that complements the starring flowers that will be the focal point of your arrangement.  I'm using purple and lavender colored flowers.. spider mums (I think), chrysanthemum, and statice.




Last step... add those special flowers that will have the starring role in your arrangement. In this case I used a mix of my favorite roses from my garden (all David Austin): 'Evelyn', 'Tamora', and 'English Garden'.... all in varying shades of peach and peachy-pink, which looks beautiful with the purples and lavenders of the supporting flowers, and the varying deep greens and chartreuse colors of the foliage.




And of course, once you are all done, set your arrangement where you can enjoy it.  In this case my flower arrangement sits happily in our front hall where we can enjoy its color and scent when we come and go throughout the day or go up and down the stairs.

• eliminating the frilly, fussy pink tulle
• using a tailored, simple lampshade that still has a bit of curvy-ness to it
• keeping the table-top vignette fairly simple and corralling the smaller things on a tarnished silver tray
• using a stack of old books in the background to provide some faded and tactile texture
• placing everything on a table with just enough decorative detail and painted in a pretty, but neutral color

Do you enjoy taking all the inspiration that's out there, whether it be in books, magazines, movies or TV shows (can you say 'Downton Abbey'?), or historical places, and recreating and interpreting that in your own home?  I certainly do-- and my Mom enjoys this kind of thing too, so I thought I would create a Mother's Day Tea for the two of us-- based on one of our favorite Mother's Day activities, which is to go to the Huntington Library Tea Room.  




High tea, low tea, cream tea, light tea... I've done a quick read-up on the history of traditional afternoon tea in preparation for our tea celebration, and found that here are many different types of teas.  




A tea-scones-jam-cream Tea ('Cream Tea'), a tea-scones-sweets Tea ('Light Tea'), a tea-savories-scones-sweets-dessert Tea ('Full Tea')-- according to this website, all of these are considered 'low' or afternoon teas if they are served in the afternoon on low tables (i.e. coffee tables) near sofas or chairs in drawing rooms.  




Note, 'savories' typically means little finger sandwiches.  I'm not sure what the distinction is between 'sweets' and 'dessert'--possibly one or the other includes trifle?  Sounds good to me, I love trifle-- although I did not make trifle for this post, since it is a time consuming dessert to prepare...anyways, back to the subject at hand...'High' Tea includes all the same things, but is served in the late afternoon or early evening on dining room tables (hence the term 'high').  




There is a long laundry list of rules and protocols for how to prepare tea, how to serve tea, how to hold the tea cup, what to do with your fingers (pinkies up and held at a tilted angle), how to stir tea, how to drink tea (never slurp)....In bygone days, ladies wore elegant tea gowns....People had gorgeous silver and fine bone china tea sets.... Tea was, and still is for many, an occasion.




Creating an 'occasion' is what I tried to do with the tea celebration I'm featuring here in this post.  I tried to incorporate many of the key elements that we look forward to every time we go to the Tea Room at the Huntington, including the beautiful setting (the Tea Room is located in a lovely little structure that overlooks the rose and herb gardens on the expansive grounds of the library/museum--click here to see what it looks like) and a yummy tea buffet.  If we are lucky, we get a table by one of the tall windows that looks out over the gardens, and for a little bit, I can imagine what it would be like to live on a grand estate surrounded by acres of rolling, pastoral landscape, peopled with Greek and Roman statuary....to sit in my rose garden...to enjoy a little tea celebration surrounded by my favorite pink roses.....

I tried to recreate some of this in my own home....









I made these shortbread sandwiches using store-bought shortbread and ganache (so simple and easy make, click here for the recipe)....
















The advantage of creating this kind of celebration at home is the opportunity to make it personal with your own things and photos......this is my Mom as a young woman...this photo was taken in 1943, when she was 18 or 19.