Please join me as I share each month, and a floral inspiration from each month from FrenchGardenHouse with you. Welcome to Monday Morning Blooms!
If you are new here, I hope you will cozy up with a cup of hot coffee or tea, and stay a while. It's a joy and a blessing to have you join me here! I hope to see you each time Mary, Pam, Shirley and I gather on the first and third Monday of the month to share our floral therapy.
Let's look back at 2020 shall we? The Year in Flowers. You can visit each post in its entirety by clicking on the link underneath the images.
JANUARY
There’s no getting around it. After the holidays, the winter blues can set in. You can beat the January blues by creating a flower arrangement to brighten your home. Outside, it may be cold and grey, but inside, you can warm up your home with one simple addition : blooms! It has been scientifically proven that flowers have the ability to elevate your mood.
To bring some early year cheer to our newly remodeled master bedroom, I added some bright flowers to the antique French mantel. I filled a French blue enamelware with the fresh flowers. No instructions needed, just snip, place in water, and done!
FEBRUARY
Style a Sweet Table for Valentine's Day
Whether you’re planning a romantic dinner à deux or having one or more of your best friends over, Valentine’s Day is the perfect excuse to go all out with romantic details when dressing a table. On our Monday Morning Blooms, I styled a sweet table for Valentine’s Day that celebrates love with antiques, and of course, flowers! Taking a cue from the antique gilt dinner plates with the bright floral centers, the flowers for this table mixed a happy bunch of colors. MARCH
This was an unusual time for all of us, with stay-at-home orders due to the pandemic going into place. As I was preparing for our family to stay out of harm’s way as much as possible, planned for meals, and other necessities, I also went all out and bought lots of flowers. I figured it would be the last time Mr. FGH would let me travel around to gather a big bunch of gorgeous blooms. {I was right.}
Part of what we all did, too, was making our home as lovely, as peaceful and as calming as possible. Especially during times like this, we were so grateful for home. This spring floral arrangement brought much needed beauty to our home during this time – I called it a Grateful for Home Spring arrangement.
APRIL
French Garden Planning Luncheon
Just before our Stay At Home order began, we started re-doing our back garden. Luckily, garden contractors could still work here in California, so our garden is actually in place by now. John and I planned our “new” garden at this French Garden planning luncheon for the two of us. MAY
This past year Mother’s Day might not have looked like it normally does for many, if not most, of us. But that didn't mean skipping Mother’s Day, a day which is traditionally the day to show our beloved maman how much we love them, appreciate them, and miss them! This lovely tea table, set to celebrate all the Moms in the garden, was crowned with a beautiful Mother’s Day Rose Arrangement nestled into an antique silver basket.
JUNE
Summer Entertaining French Style
Summer Entertaining, French Style with a beautiful and easy table setting. Since this is the season when we usually entertain in the garden, in this unusual year, eating outdoors allowed for social distancing. JULY
The Pleasure of Tea in the Garden
In July, our newly planted garden started to fill out a little, and I set a little tea table tucked into a quiet spot in the garden. A small table inspired by the floral beauty of the garden in summer. This joy-filled setting made it easy for us to enjoy an afternoon befitting the matchless beauty of mother nature and her floral creations. AUGUST
French Country Autumn Floral Inspiration
I'll be honest, this is one of my very favorites! Almost at the end of summer, this was an ode to my most beloved season, Autumn. I welcomed it with wide open arms, just as I did as a little girl growing up in Europe, walking in the orchard to pick figs and pears, or discovering moss, beautiful leaves and other natural delights in our family’s woods. This French Autumn Floral Inspiration was created using the jewel tones of this glorious season. SEPTEMBER
The Art of Small Flower Arrangements
Fresh flowers always do their magic, they really liven up any room. It doesn’t really matter much if the arrangement is big or small. It’s the colors, the textures and often the scent of real flowers that matter most. In September, I shared a trio of tiny vases, filled with left-over flowers from a large bouquet, and set a pretty simple table using our favorite white and blue linen napkins. OCTOBER
Fall Decorating in the Kitchen
There is a coziness and welcoming warmth in our kitchens when there is a nip in the air in October. Our kitchen is the heart of our home, and the place many of us spend so much time. In October I gave you a peek into our fall kitchen at FrenchGardenHouse. I set the farm table in the center, and filled up a huge antique French sardine pot with big flowers in all the colors of the season. NOVEMBER
Use What You Have Fall Centerpiece
It wasn't always that easy to go out and buy flowers this year. I was super excited to show you what you can do to create a beautiful fall centerpiece using what you have! Even though for many of us, Thanksgiving was not what we usually have, we celebrated our blessings at tables medium and small. This kind of centerpiece was perfect for this year. DECEMBER
White Christmas Flowers French Country Style
This arrangement of white Christmas flowers, French Country style was an elegant and easy way to create a flower arrangement with candles for the holidays. We were not as “decorated” as in other years, at FrenchGardenHouse, and there were no holiday parties and teas with friends and neighbors. But that didn't mean we didn't decorate or celebrate Christmas.
I hope you've enjoyed a look back at the year in flowers here at FrenchGardenHouse. We will be sending out flower love and therapy to you every first and third Monday of this coming year. Thank you so much for your visits, they are so cherished by me. I'm praying for a healthy, joy filled year with many blessings for all of you!
Please visit my dear friends to see their flowers for the past year below:
Shirley at Housepitality Designs
and me, LIDY at FrenchGardenHouse
Finally, we're starting our new year off with a give away. We are giving away a bottle of this wonderful flower saver product, Floralife Crowning Glory. We were all introduced to it by our Mary {she actually generously gifted each one of us a bottle!} and it's a wonderful product to use when creating flower arrangements at home. You simply spray it on your flowers, and it helps them to last much longer than usual. Who doesn't love that? To enter the giveaway and a chance to win a bottle 32 oz. bottle of Floralife Clear Crowning Glory Solution, just leave a comment telling me what your favorite flower is. For a second entry, Pin a photo from this post to Pinterest and leave an additional comment telling me so. The Pin/Save button pops up on the upper left corner of each photo. Update: Congratulations to my winner - Gail K! Your spray will be on it's way to you soon. Happy Flowering!A BIENTOT
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26 comments
Thanks so much, Denise! Wishing you a beautiful and flower filled year ahead!
A rose is a rose always and forever, I love any color or style. (white being my favorite )This month’s Monday Morning Blooms has been a real treat. You 4 ladies are very talented and given all of us many hours of inspiration and pleasure. It’s been so fun being on this floral journey with you. Love starting out the new year with a opportunity to win a new to me product. Thanks again!
Denise
Your posts are so lovely and simply delightful! Thank you for moments of delight!
I love pale pink peonies but currently have a pink camellia
( ‘Nuccio’s Cameo’) in my garden that is capturing my heart!
What beauty to behold! Thank you for this beautiful reminder of 2020’s Monday Morning Blooms that always brighten my day and week!
Thank you Nancy! Sunflowers are such a great choice, once the petals are all gone, the heads are still so beautiful for floral arrangements, aren’t they?
Hi Hetty! Welcome! It’s a pleasure to see you here. No need to be confused…that part of our master bedroom is a sitting area, and is quite big, I can actually host a luncheon or even dinner there! I had a tea there for the holidays, it’s actually a fun place to have a good friend {or a few in normal years!} over, that part of the master has big sliding doors that open into the garden for a beautiful view. And yes, I don’t always have a dining table there, once the party is over, the table goes back to where it came from, and often a few French chairs are there with an ottoman and a smaller coffee sized table.
Hello Lidy. I’m new to your blog and am a bit confused after going on a blog binge. In your January 20, 2020 blog you show your newly refurbished master bedroom with an antique French mantel set between two bookcases. In the November 16, 2020 blog, the same mantel and bookcase are shown with a dining table. Are large furniture pieces moved for photographic purposes? Happy New Year
Dahlia’s are what I grow in my garden because they have a very long growing season in Raleigh, NC. However, my favorite is the Hydrangea, I grow them but the season is very short here. I love seeing your arrangements. I have also dried them following your instructions, It is wonderful to see my arrangement inspired by you of dried flowers from my garden. Happy New Year!
Lidy, I so enjoyed seeing again all your beautiful arrangements—what fun !
Beautiful arrangements. My favorite flower is Sunflower. Loved the August and December arrangements.