My Christmas Table

Obviously, from last year. (God knows I'm never that ahead of the game). I'm just starting to decorate for this holiday and thought I'd share. 

I've done all kinds of "themed" Christmas tables, but I always go back to super classic Christmas decor; poinsettias, plaid and all. It just has that warm, familiar traditional cheer.

I made place cards from white card stock (use ivory if your china is ivory) and marker. I'd considered watercoloring the holly leaves, but since I was days behind with the baking, I went for the quickie magic of layered marker.

These stuffed penguin ornaments were so adorable. I could just see them marching across the kids' table. 

So I had my daughter help me glue gun black foam core to the bottoms to make a base.

Voila! Kids' place cards/favor ornaments. Sorry they ravaged the kid table before I could snap photos.

I bought fresh boughs of holly, evergreens and ivy before I had a plan. Here I am the night before the night before Christmas. (I say, last minute pressure is the real mother of invention!) These crystal candelabras were a find years ago. I usually use their bowl shape for groups of pillar candles, but I lined them with moss before plopping in garden soil, poinsettias, ivy and spruce. That floral arrangement lasted for weeks. (Boy, I miss Bombay Company for cheap, classic-looking finds!)

  

My three favorite gifts of all time...

Hope you're enjoying your holiday decorating and wishing you and your loved ones the joy of the season!

Girl in the Abstract Bed

While sourcing things for a client's modern playroom, I came across the coolest book ever.  Originally published in 1954, The Girl in the Abstract Bed was written by Vance Bourjaily and Tobias Scheenbaum. It's a tongue and cheek story of Modernism and the (anti-art) reaction to it, Dadaism. The illustrations are to die for – all in a Cubist style, and tell the story of a little girl whose bed was made for her by her parents' modern artists friends.

Love this illustration, with her Danish Modern place setting

"There once was a girl
named Nicole Pennsylvania Snow
who, when she was ten months old,
slept in an abstract bed
designed and decorated for her by a famous artist."

It all plays out with a Reactionary grandmother tearing Nicole away from her modernist Danish tableware and Mother Proust stories. Grandmother then brings the girl into the sunshine where "Dada" and "jane" learn that "our baby is primitive after all!" Hilarious! (in a really art-geeky way.)

The gorgeous Modernist silk-screened illustrations by Tobias Scheenbaum mesmerized me. They would have made Braque, Picasso, or even Beckett smile. Unfortunately, the price of the recent reproductions is steep, and getting steeper. But, Godot willing, they just might end up in my space. ;)