A Heavenly Little Shop

Seasons greetings friends! One of my favorite rituals of the holidays is window shopping, and I'm guessing that it might be yours too! For me that mostly means vintage.

There is a wonderful little vintage boutique in Albuquerque that has so much of what I love under one roof that I had to start here.

If you're not already in the spirit, a visit to CIELO in Albuquerque will do it for you! Everything here is in such a pleasing collection of styles that it assures you will find something you love. I absolutely adore the soft color combination of this pretty little iron settee, for instance. All the graphics add so much too.

The hardest part is having to resist so many things. But I guess you can leave a nice list for Santa to choose from!

My big loves are chippy furniture and architectural salvage, and there are always lots of old windows and doors here to choose from.

I got a small pair of these wooden stocking stretchers at another market for the first time earlier this year. I've always wanted to decorate for Christmas with them.

And I love this chippy white hardware on an old door.

There are so many ways to decorate with old vintage, and there are loads of great ideas here. One of the things I love most about this shop is the beautiful simplicity in the way things are displayed. It leaves room for your own ideas to form.

I came away with that soulful old wicker bottle on top of this display to add to my collection. (I'm sure Santa can use the help this year! LOL!)

But somebody surely will ask for this amazingly exquisite hand-painted fireplace surround and mantel this Christmas!

I almost missed it tucked away among so many other wonderful things.

Another of the sweetest things I spied was this little twiggy doll furniture with these gorgeous old patchwork cushions in my favorite colors! Gah!!!

And beautiful little old postage stamp quilt to match.

But you already know how crazy I am for old textiles. And this adorable little baby dress is one of the most original examples that I have ever seen with its tatted details at the neck, sleeves, and hem.

Simply gorgeous!!!

Thank you to Celeste Walther for letting me showcase her wonderful little shop, CIELO, near Uptown shopping center in Albuquerque. The FB link is here:

 https://www.facebook.com/CieloHeavenlyHomeDecor

Happy shopping everyone! And be safe out there!

Joy to you and yours,

Jacqueline

 

Making Home Cozy With Vintage Linens

Hello friends! It's time to start thinking about how I will dress my Thanksgiving table. I am a linen lover, so I use more linen at home every day than the average person. Even when our children were small we enjoyed using cloth napkins for meals, and pretty embroidered pillowcases on beds. I loved and used quilts as much then as I do now. 

It's a wide world, and there are many ways to define what makes a home, but I wonder what warm memories of home the average child now takes forward as they grow into adults? But nice linens remain one of my personal family values.

In our throwaway culture, using cloth can be a real standout in making your home more homey. And it saves on using so many paper products! But aside from that, people feel more special somehow when they sit down to a table set with a cloth napkin and a tablecloth. Many dinner conversations with guests have begun with comments about the table dressing at our house. I even find it easier to toss a cloth into the washer than to scrub a table!

But I can't help myself anymore at any rate. When I found these four lovely tea towels together at the flea market for about a dollar each, all I could think of was what nice napkins they would make for a table setting.

Linens add to coziness, but when the cold weather starts, almost everything turns inward for me. I read more, go to bed earlier, stay in bed longer in the morning, and think more about drinks and food. Recently I have wanted even more than usual to enjoy good scents in the house too. When I came across these pine scented inscense sticks, nothing seemed more cozy to me! Too early for fires in the evening still, but a little smell of a camp fire is a comforting thought. A little goes a long way when it comes to this though. A few minutes of a candle burning can infuse a lot and last quite a while.  

There is still time for autumm forest walks and leaf gathering, which we have to go out of the way to do here. For now, my little wooden acorns will do. 

I have been adding to my wreath collection too, which I have out year round. They all segue right into the holiday season, which has us thinking, more than any other time of year, of all things homey, cozy, and snug.

Taken all together, maybe adding a little linen love can help you on your way to a more beautiful and cozy winter season too!

Time now for a snuggly afghan and a good book!

What's making things cozy for you?

Sending warm thoughts your way, 

Jacqueline

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Still Fall

Hello friends! I haven't visited you here since summertime and I wanted to get in a fall post before everything turned into Christmas. Not quite everything has. 

My life has changed so much since I was a regular blogger. I'm not actively out buying for a shop these days, for one thing. I realize I always had something new to show you, and that makes a big difference.  

Now that I am passing on a lot of my own favorite possessions, it's more about rediscovering things and getting down to keeping only the most treasured. Old pitchers will always be on that list!

Old crocheted pieces continue to delight me too, especially if they feature unusual patterns. But let's face it. There are still millions of gorgeous works out there just waiting to be found. I love that little leaf pattern inside this one, for instance.

I am hoarding three of these.

I guess my bread board collection isn't big enough either because I still buy almost every single one I find!

This wonderful old towel just found it's way back to the top of one of the "save" baskets. It's a really large thick one. 

One of my more recent indulgences are tallow berries. I only have a few sprigs because they are priced so dear, and in addition we have to send away for them from here. They are a southern thing which I envied so much on all your Texas blogs when I started out!

They look good on everything!

I do have my sentimental favorites like this little leafy creamer for fall. It's on display all year, but is so cheery in November.

The berry details with the thorns enchant me like a fairytale.

So this is where I started out this morning. Sitting at my breakfast table, musing.

Flipping the pages of a new magazine, (Christmas, of course!) and feeling the old tug to share a few things.

After all, it is always time for being thankful, for spreading the bounty, for reaching deep into whatever it is that we have been holding on to, and sharing from the heart.

Thankful for your visits,

 and wishing you all the blessings of the season,

Jacqueline

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A Santa Fe Cafe

There is a tiny cafe on the square in the heart of old Santa Fe. Perhaps you know of it: The French Pastry Shop & Creperie. It has an authentic French menu, and is housed in the famous La Fonda Hotel. La Fonda means "the inn" in Spanish, and though the difference between an inn and a hotel may seem slight, the intimate character of an old country lodge here prevails.

There has been food and lodging at this corner for four hundred years, and a bakery with a delectable French twist for the last forty. History has seeped through the weathered brick and the hand formed plaster, the carved vigas, and the beams. It murmurs from each soft corner the echo of long past conversation. You feel it when you enter, and somehow know you will never forget.  

And yet, I don't actually recall when it was that I first came here, as though it was always. After persuading as many visitors as I can to come with me, I still have not had near enough of the timelessness commingled with the Croque Monsieur, the Mocha, or the strawberry jam Sables (lightly browned to utter perfection), let alone sufficient numbers of visits to venture far enough into the savory depths of the menu.

Sometimes the cafe is whisper quiet. Though Christmas always draws a huge crowd, as does summer, curiously we have never had to wait for a table. And at times we have needed more than one, for the sitting areas are very small, cozy, and convivial. (But hefty, made for lingering.)

This painting on the wall captures the scene perfectly.

The last time I visited the cafe on the square I made note that the majority of patrons were older. This is a tourist destination after all, and seniors have more of what it takes for discriminating cafe sitting. 

But locals, merchants, and artists of all stripes around the square also have gathering habits here. The cafe feeds one's inspiration as well as one's gustatory delights. The atmosphere fills as well as the food.

The gleam of copper warms in winter and welcomes in summer. This hearth makes me feel that I have wandered much farther than I have from my New Mexico outpost just an hour away.

I sometimes wonder what it would take to own a sample of the interior, as in another nice painting which hangs in here.

Or this evocative rendering of the storefront from the street.

Because you do want to take a piece of the place with you when you leave. Even if intangible. 

Fannie Flagg once said of her novel that the first character in Fried Green Tomatoes was the cafe. (The Whistle Stop Cafe in Juliette, GA is another nostalgic cafe that I have visited and that I love.) She thought that a place could be as much a charcter in a story as the people. The French Bakery on the square in Santa Fe would make a good candidate.

Best wishes from the Land of Enchantment.

Wishing you all many inspiring summer days ahead!

Jacqueline

A photo of the Saint Fancis Cathedral in Winter that hangs in the cafe.