Wednesday, May 14, 2008

What's Under the Cloche? (1)

I had been admiring cloches (or bell jars as they're sometimes called) for quite some time. I was seeing them in decorating magazines and I liked the way they brought a sense of importance to whatever was placed under them. I was finally moved to buy a cloche after looking through Decorating Cottage Style, by Neva Scott, a Lark/Chapelle book. The vignettes presented in their books are so often my style and this title was no exception. Bell jars appeared throughout the book, but there was even a section called "Books, Buttons and Bell Jars." Stacks of blue and white china, a bird's nest, old books and even silverware looked lovely displayed under glass. Of course, it would have been wonderful to find an antique cloche with old bubbled glass, but I am not known for my patience. Mine came from a discount department store called Gordman's and I recently saw some very pretty tall ones with a bit of cut glass ornamentation at Tuesday Morning. What's under my cloche? This spring it was a dried pussy willow branch which echoes the ones in the vintage Raphael Tuck Easter postcard. The branches and postcard are supported by an old pin-style flower frog. Propped up against that is a little Whitman's candy tin, added for its pretty blue color. I know there's a trend in magazines lately to decorate with French chocolate boxes, but I'm fond of using Whitman's tins in my vignettes. I'll show you more of my decorating with Whitman's in a future post. So tell me, what's under your cloche?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Love the china linen paired with your teacup lamp -- how very clever! Thanks for sharing!

Hugs,

Rosalyn-Sue