Friday, February 17, 2012

BEAUTIFUL INSPIRATIONS......




Last fall, while visiting my daughter in California, I strolled into the fabulous store on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica known as Shabby Chic Couture! The store is beautiful, feminine, and full of lovely decorating pieces for sale. It is also a place to be inspired and calmed! I truly enjoyed my ooh and ahh moments there.....so much that now, I have visited the store two more times. Rachel Ashwell, the owner and designer has a philosophy that your home should be comfortable and beautiful. I love the lived in look of her rooms and promptly ordered her new book featured above. It is beautiful! The book and her work are both full of inspiration and she shares the places where she is inspired.....movies, music, and poetry and travel. It is an excellent resource book for a designer or just pleasurable reading. The bedrooms featured are dreamy and the furnishings are all so practicable.


Beautiful linens are the foundation of a beautiful bedroom! The store, Cologne and Cotton offers these lovely linens on their web site! I do have a passion for beautiful bed linens! Cologne and Cotton is a British store I hope to visit!


These feminine bed coverings and blankets are perfect for my taste found on their web site. I love everything about this room...the wallpaper, the French desk, the lamp, the curves of the bed and of course, the pot of tea! I wonder what is in that gift on the bed? Any ideas? I am thinking maybe a bar of wonderfully scented bath soap!


This adorable little English cottage is in Hyde Park in London and I snapped this photo there while wondering what it might look like on the inside. It has to be sooooo cute and comfortable! For me, when all the comforts of home are within reach, I am most happy. I want to savor the moments of life that are lovely and precious. Right now, my home is filled with special people that I love. It is decorated most beautifully with THEIR presence. These moments will not last long and I need to remember that.....NOW! The lovely rooms, the pretty linens, the soaps in pretty wrappers will not be the same if they are not in my home to use them. More than anything, I want the ones in my home to know and feel God's love. I want them to know the Heavenly Father welcomes them and He loves them inside and out. I desire to be this kind of example. God loves people and He loves them through us when we fill our spirits with His. Although He inspires creativity and gives us beautiful places and experiences to enjoy, His most magnificent creation is people. People like you and me. He made us with His holy hands. He embraces all of you and me, the good and the bad. He's been with you and me every moment of our lives. He knows where we are now and where we are going. He has covered you and me in the palm of His Hand. You are beautiful to Him and treasured. [I hope you remember that!] Let him decorate the walls of your heart......He promises to make it beautiful with His love and comfort and His joy! May this weekend be decorated with all kinds of lovely moments! Blessings to you!