Traditions And Harmony With Friends

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Sharing with you my hand painted signs with holiday greetings and some of my favorite holiday etsy shops! My "Merry Christmas" signs can be purchased in my peaceful Etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/BurlapLuxe

uncomplicated with simple beauty adds to a graceful holiday creating traditions and harmony all around you. The holidays are a great time to treasure hunt for gifting idea's, inspiring places to visit are your flea market vendors, tag sales, local thrift shops and etsy shops letting unique piece's reinvent themselves showing the love put into the found objects as well as the pieces the artist create for etsy.

I love embracing the imperfections in a find making it a perfect piece of history to gift. Seeing the passion in a hand crafted artistically created piece of art adds life to a European coastal cottage or a French farmhouse, gifting a piece hand crafted celebrates a holiday filled with love. Abandon the formal part of the holiday by waking up the spirit of your home with simpler soulful history with a carefree feel that works so well with wanting less and giving more from the heart of country living.

Hand painted and signed by artist Dore Callaway (Me)
Reclaimed vintage solid mahogany painted with exterior latex enamel paint then matte sealed for future heirloom history. Size 22" x 7" x 1" aged gray chain adds hanging length. It is painted in peaceful shades of white, gray and charcoal. The little hand painted sparrow sings Merry Christmas cheer.

Kerrie Sanderson SeaCottage.blogspot.com
A dear friend who's handmade coastal holiday gift tags can be purchased from her SeaWashed etsy http://www.etsy.com/shop/Seawashed They are hand created on white acid & lignin free paper tags (from the Paper company) stamped with London Fog gray dye ink... This tag set come with natural organic yarn ties. Kerrie's art is all hand created so no two tags are exactly alike, making them perfect gift tags for your coastal theme holiday packages and holiday garland. You may decided to even adorn your Christmas tree with them. The back side is blank for writing your own special greeting.

Hand painted by Kerrie, Kerrie's coastal water color paintings are soulfully seawashed on note cards, making for perfect greeting cards for your coastal holiday. You may choose to frame them as gifts, or use for your Christmas greetings as well as hanging them on the holiday tree. Seawashed and signed by the artist.


Another gift item from Kerrie's SeaWashed etsy is her original sand dollar watercolor print by artist Kerrie Sanderson in her trademark Sand dollar Series. This sand dollar-Lemoni is printed in the color fog gray on cold pressed acid free Strathmore watercolor paper size 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 print, framed in a
6 1/2 x 6 1/2 white shadow box under glass wired and ready to hang or may stand on its own.

She was inspired by her time spent sitting on 'sea's hem' along the Sonoma Coast of the Pacific Ocean over the past 20 years. she paints from her collection of sand dollars gathered from the shore in a soft seawash color to convey the quiet beauty she experience's at the sea.
This painting is named after the little girl in Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

Laurie Blaswich at bellainspirations.blogspot.com
A dear friend and her great holiday etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/lblaswich These hand made coastal stockings have a natural color burlap boot in the shade of a sand covered beach and a vintage inspired matlesse cuff as white as the hem of the sea. It is fully lined inside for heirloom quality, making for a beautifully natural coastal "Merry Christmas."


You will also find Ruffles on stockings in Laurie's etsy shop, they are perfect for every euro chic cottage and country living holiday with rustic relaxed elegance.

As featured in Better Homes & Gardens Christmas Ideas. Laurie's unique soft white matlesse tree skirt with cotton tea stained border with the words,"Oh holy night the stars are brightly shining." is finished with moss green silky ribbon intertwined around border. Completely lined with soft white cotton duck and cotton batting, all seams are professionally overlocked for long lasting durability, this vintage inspired tree skirt will become a family heirloom.
Designed by Laurie Blaswich a friend of Newbury Park California and her beloved mother Jean and her dear friend Jennifer Grey.


Also featured in Better Homes And Gardens Christmas Ideas Magazine! is Laurie's holiday pillows, the perfect decoration for the holidays. Reproduction vintage muslin sack once used by farmers in Eastern Europe for transporting grains to the mill. Her stunning monogrammed pillows are hand sewn with washed cotton, they include a unique detail of "Oh holy night the stars are brightly shining." perfectly sized for a living room or even a bedroom. Use this sack case with king size pillow inserts. This pillow will be one of your favorite seasonal accessories for many years to come.
Let "etsy" Inspire Your Holiday Gifting!

Rural French Washed In Grey

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My friends who know me would say that their is a tool in one hand and a paint brush in the other altering the well lived life of a piece creating a piece to treasure. I took this overly loved chest of drawers with hidden charm and gave it intense practicality. I took and removed all drawers and added shelves to it like the chest of drawers I altered in my older posting, but this one I removed the scalloped wood base trim work and cut new trim base from an old step ladder, it's functioning now as a storage cabinet filled with objects for everyday use rural French in style.

The kitchen inspired this piece by using natural materials I had on hand, it's designed to play a part with each object that speaks for itself, French textiles and linens, pottery as well as sliver in a palette of hues ranging from creams, greys and whites. I am passionate about rural French pieces that wildly call out to you, gathering and collected that come together to make a unique and passionate home appreciating the pieces for their soul (rather than value.)

Mixing eras is the easy part to a great display of French flea market brocante, yet keep it organized with an understanding of your own vision. My vision is staying within a colour palette of smokey grey's, dingy whites and well worn creams a back drop to live peacefully with giving the eyes a soft place to land on with rural French living washed in grey.


I knew I had to then paint this piece adding to it's charm of rural French and distressing it as if time got the best of it letting the little dings and fractures shadow through the layers of paint.

Pictured is the base trim I cut from the side legs of this ladder by removing the scalloped trim and adding the ladder trim to the base I was able to create a less recognizable dated piece adding rural charm to this piece was a plus.





The "Seawashed" note cards are created by a dear friend Kerrie at seacottage.blogspot.com they can be purchased from her artful etsy. I fell in love with Kerrie's sketched and seawashed shells and so will you. I used Kerrie's note cards as invites to a luncheon using my imagination for a South of France themed luncheon. The shell art was perfect and Kerrie's artful hands made them unique and so very personal. If you have not visited her site please do as often as your heart can take it.


Let the piece tell you what it wants to be.

Living With... And Loving The Find

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Having a soulful hand in what we live with making it informal, cozy you don't have to worry about making it perfect. What inspires most about country living is the pieces and colour we surround ourselves with. My kind of country, rural French living and loving the find. French country has always been a influence across Europe soulfully living with pieces that encourage and influence a French country life. I never look at the surface of what it is, I find the hidden depth in the piece while taking and redefining its use reflecting a passion for all things aged with history.


I try not to be sentimental about a new find, "I've let go of many beautiful soulful pieces over the years in my interior design business and shop that's just the nature of this business. Sometimes there is just that one inspiring piece that pulls you in questioning that it just may have to live with you for awhile. This galvanized zinc drawer that made no sense to someone else, made all the sense in the world to me.

I love the find that adds to an atmosphere for lost pieces that get over looked in what it is, to what it can become. Most important arranging them as though someone lives among them, adding truly a beauty to its life.

If a zinc galvanized drawer or crusty wire baskets and buckets inspire you then let it find its way into your home decor. I was inspired by this drawer and instantly knew it had to come home with me using it with a whole new function holding useful objects of interest reflecting the passion of its owner giving it a gathered and collected European flea market feel seeing the full potential of the piece.


Flea Montreuil-Bellay they have my kind of French country.

Letting all things galvanize inspire what I love most.

A Peaceful Piece That Inspires

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This piece altered and painted by Dore (ME)

Letting the piece define its French rural style, it started out as a six drawer chest and none of the drawers were in any shape anyone wanted to take on. I on the other hand saw the possibilities considering it's unsightly appearance, I had to alter it into a piece that would demand rustic attention while allowing it to hold onto it's history letting it tell me what it wanted to be.

Trying to not offend the pieces original purpose I removed all six drawers, then cutting out the six divided drawer supports and by leaving the main center support to the chest it allowed me to add random, less then perfect, plank boards across the center support and the bottom creating a salvaged feel to this now new chest of storage, giving the piece breathing space.

Colour was important in keeping with a piece that would lie firmly in a country side home. I knew at first glance of completion this piece had to be grey, a colour that would quietly complement any French room with a sense of calm.

It was on it's way to being that perfect piece but, I had to give it that weather-beaten look showing off the different layers of pealing paints. It had to show distressing that matures over time that looks as if it were clinging onto its history it acquired on its soulful journey with a worn-out softness of a darker white.


In my garage I select which chest of drawer get to continue being what they are and which ones move onto a new goal of proudly displaying, rather then being hidden away in a drawer. This piece achieved my goal for a simple French home that proudly displays a French life.



Decorating a home with recycled and up-cycled pieces and objects of desire make a home feel good, promoting individuality and a peaceful place that inspires.

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I would like to think a French artist painted this amature oil painting on stretched canvas and I think I will due to the fact that it is not an artist signed piece.
The fishing boat art 16" x 20" was a treasured find at my local thrift shop for less then it deserves, I was happy to have rescued it for $1.49 yes a dollar and forty nine cents, a perfect French flea market brocante piece and I am pleased to become its new guardian, a keeper of lost pieces.

One thing painted in this artful piece that just did not make sense was that the artist painted a perfectly round quarter size bright tangerine coloured moon or sun in the center of the clouds, I took it upon myself to remove it and paint a glow of it in it's place leaving this peace hauntingly beautiful and a peace that tugs at you soulfully.

A couple of days later I was able to pick up this outdoor house lantern at the same thrift for a bit more then the painting at the price of $5.45 I loved that it had a patina of rust and lots of weather-beaten grey to it and the dome glass panels were seed glass pitted perfectly. I knew it would be a perfect fit to my new painting arranging a vignette around the two pieces while letting it speak French as if they were treasured finds from the south of France.


"Creating and inspiring French country living"

Inspiring Hands That Create Opera

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Turn up volume, enjoy the music

Hands that have created French opera, I am taking ownership to the deed of my own opera theatre. I became a creator of an opera theatre that nudged me to feel something deep in my soul while tugging at desire to create with all the passion I could find, letting the opera theatre sing its own story.

Another set of hands that created opera are the hands of a dear friend Anita, at http://wwwcastlescrownscottages.blogspot.com her opera theatre leads to la piece d'inspiration (the piece that inspired) After then seeing Anita's beautiful opera shows and her grand stage of opera it was all I could think about creating next.

I artfully created paper doll mice who sing opera beautifully.


In my hands a perfect thrift find, a crumbling old mantle clock concealed what beauty it could be. I then took this empty box with a broken door to my home studio where fragments and pieces with history find themselves allowing me to give new life to an overly tired box that once held a clock. It was a perfect piece of French brocante, not valuable but not worthless, altering what it was, to what I envisioned it to become, giving it a life to treasure.

Opera lessons in creating rustic European romantic history, I then added theatre drapes for the last curtain call across the stage made from vintage ephemera book pages adhered to scalloped trim and by twisting wire and beaded pearls together I was able to create a grand theatre chandelier. Painting with plaster and paint I gave the walls centuries of historical decay and neglect making it a magical theatre that performs operatically romancing a heart.


My daughter Hannah now in college, inspired the role the mice would play in being included in the opera. She had a doll house that I created for her when she was 4 where people did not live, but small sweet mice did at her request. It only seemed fitting that village mice would play a roll in singing the opera in their new opera theatre. You know what they say, "It's not over until the fat mouse sings"

Inspiring hands that create opera with French brocante. I added all the embellishments from my salvaged brocante pieces to a plain nothing box. After it was given opera life my daughter Hannah had a request that I gift it to her, so someday she can pass it on to her child (tear) For now it has found a perfect place as part of the French flea market decor in her bedroom.