Five Ways To Welcome Change In The New Year

New Year Resolutions!!
Raise your hand if you've had a crazy year with lots of changes--good, bad, or otherwise. OK! Just as I thought; we're all in this together.

"Five Ways to Welcome Change in the New Year" Happy New Year!

1. Make time for change, than Jump right into it.
2. Become a grateful person for change.
3. When change is the "thing" to do, than do it.
4. Encourage someone when you feel like no one encourages you,
it has a changing effect.
5. The biggest change is to reinvent yourself nothing is predictable, easy or always peaceful, leave behind a fearful heart and ask what makes you come alive and go do it.
"Inspiring change"

To all my blogging friends who have shared another year inspiring one another in countless hours of friendship, encouragement and inspiration deeply influenced by each and everyone of you, Bonne Année (French New Year)...Good Health, Good Year!

Nothing Is Perfect...But Everything Is Perfect

Red muddy holiday cowboy boots (Hannah's)

It was her wish (My daughter) Hannah Bailey Callaway to have me paint her chest of drawers for a Joyeux Noël gift.


Before and afters:

A few years back an Ethan Allen Christmas catalog was delivered to our post box it barely made it through the door of our home before Hannah swooned and sighed over this chest of drawers on page 7.

Now that she has lived with it for a few years she had a holiday wish for a room filled with white, her only Joyeux Noël wish was for me to set aside time to uncover the tired creams and age it with whites. It was her wish for me to paint it giving it the impression that it has evolved over time. Taking a dated pricey piece and letting it take on a French brocante flea market style, a look that measures up to a piece so perfect, but out does any mass produced piece with authentic euro chic-ness that awakens her soul.

"Click on photos to enlarge detail"

We often over look making over a piece that may have been a pricey investment. I always feel if it is just not right anymore then add the rightness it needs. Inspiring Hannah’s room that evokes French Nordic peacefulness she can live with soulfully while adding Frenchness.



Nordic-French and a Branch from the tree.


It is our wish to inspire you to paint taking the time to sit in the quiet and create. We are inspiring the art work and hand work in our home.




Another piece I painted from dark tiger oak to used and white in her room.




I often hear a young child ask her Mom if they can help! When my daughter was young she came up to me while I was painting and said "mommy can I paint too? Do I know how to paint?" she asked. My heart dropped and while catching my breath I said in a soft whisper, thank you God for giving her my passion. This is the piece she created at 8½ years old. I set up a space she could call her own where she could create at and this is what she surprised me with. (Frame not included)

We often forget young creative minds are rarely cluttered free, the artist in a child has a unique and rare ability to capture everything they remember and love. She loved her cat, mind I tell you that the cat was a boy and she named him Rose, this may explain why she painted white rose’s in the back ground.

Now that my Hannah is in her second year of college she is still finding time to create. I would like to think it was because she could paint. It is one of my most favorite pieces in our home of creation.

Like her holiday red cowboy boots covered in mud, nothing is perfect and nothing is meant to be.

Inspiring how intense young love is when they are so passionate over small requests. Fulfilling her holiday wish list by painting it old and white.

Noël Nordique..."French-Nordic"

"click on photos to enlarge details"

All chandeliers and ornaments hand created by "Dore" Burlap Luxe.

The sway of winter branches and the beauty of bare wooded trees where the frost of grey rest on its limbs lit up from unexpected chandeliers that celebrate a Nordic-French Noël.

This winters branches has become the quintessential tree of Noël inspiring French Nordic with rural rustic charm few can resist.


The character in this tree has been carefully preserved by nature and its beauty enhanced with original pieces of artful ornaments and garland all created with salvage by "Dore" Burlap Luxe. Silver beads from an old necklace and wire for the making of the crusty painted with age chandeliers and crystal prisms that originally hung from a vintage chandelier now coated with handmade old a patina used throughout the rooms grayish and dull.


I share an endearing passion for living small with my daughter Hannah finding joy with the simple things of the season creating handmade and working on projects that include unfinished pieces adding weathered Nordic and living comfortable with French collective soul.


This tree has been fashioned with formal elements, but created informally giving it a sense of peace on earth.

Adding Nordic serenity to our home for the holidays.

Noël et le Théâtre français...Christmas

Le musée de l'opéra de jute Luxe.
I have tickets for front row seating...Tickets sold at the door for each and everyone of you.

(All Théâtres Built By Dore Callaway, Burlap Luxe)

"Click on photos to enlarge details"

I am taking to the stage as the artist director with an entertainment venue of unforgettable dance and song.



In the quiet I have been creating theatres like a French toy maker in Paris and it's here where magical French opera and theatres come to life with salvaged vintage woods, fragments of old, along with wire and paints inspiring imaginative artful play in a "Joyeux Noël" production.

Wire Chandeliers created by me, "Dore" adds aged glamour to their stages, with a little bending, twisting and stringing of mini pearls, this is one of the many I have created.





So many ideas swirl around my desk where scraps of papers host plans and measurements in all I create. It's a place that inspires the magic of the stage and the art it performs.

I look at each one carefully...listening to what it wants to become. By adding architectural salvage, the small, impressive facade and columns create grand enchantment. Handmade wire chandeliers with layers of old light up on aged, grey wood floors where paper doll mice and snow angels take to the stage. I love the snow-filled trees and the tiny flurries that cling to the bare branches determined to stay, making for merriment and wonder in a performance.






A paper cut-out of the snow angel shadow dances her reflection on the stage wall.




Inspired by all things French with history, toy opera theatres appeared in Paris department store Etrennes catalog, "Christmas Catalog", circa 1875. They were created to entertain a child's imagination where children can write and produce their own stage play or a performance of the opera. These small wonders were intended for children but adults enjoyed them as well. Early 1800's toy theatres are rare and if found they carry a pricey tag.



Linking holiday theatres with my dear friend "Anita Rivera" at http://wwwcastlescrownscottages.blogspot.com About a year ago I was taken with the charm of her opera theatre. I knew halfway through her performance that I had to have one. Anita's opera theatre was full of wonderment where little mice appeared in a shadow performance behind a curtain; it was a performance that touched the edges of my heart. Anita inspired my first building of one. I knew then I had to create more, ones with historical French charm that fuse the romance of a decayed opera theatre with a stage where one creates.


Inspired by knowing that a 100+ years from now my theatres will still be part of someones play in a theatre performance. Size: 19" height 12" depth 21" length.

Théâtres to appear in my "etsy shop" this week.