Keep It Serene, Go Blue & Green, Casey’s Top Picks for Summer 2016
As you all know, I have a passion for gardening. What you may not have known, is that I have an even bigger passion for decorating and design. I am very passionate about this home since my husband and I designed it together from scratch. I definitely found that I have my own style. You may like it, you may not. All I know is that, no matter what your style is, I always have at least one thing that will make you say,”Where did you get that?”. Now, I don’t buy a lot of decorations. Pillows? Yes. I’m a pillow nut! I have a whole closet full of pillows for every season, and yet, I always feel I need more. I mainly like to decorate with naturals. By bringing the colors and textures from outside into your home, you get a whole new feeling of cozy.
This Summer, keep it serene, GO BLUE & GREEN.
Why blue and green?
Imagine yourself on the top of a hill. You are surrounded by big GREEN trees, and you are standing on the edge looking down at a big BLUE body of water. As you look up, on that sunny day, there is a beautiful BLUE sky. Looking past that BLUE water is a large field of tall GREEN grass blowing in the light summer breeze. Everything, as far as the eye can see, is blue and green on that sunny summer day. By bringing in those colors, and accenting with them, you now have the feeling of serenity in your home. You will feel a whole different kind of cozy you never felt before. Now, don’t go too crazy with these colors. Blue and green are just meant to be your accents amongst natural colors such as, white, beige, tan, brown, etc. Unless you are going for a very dramatic look, then accent your little heart out.
When using natural colors with blue and green, you can accent in any additional colors you want. Just remember, only use little bits of extra color here and there. For example, Green is my main color, so I use 60% green throughout my decorating. Blue is my secon
d color, so I use 40% throughout my decorating. Any other color you choose, should only be 10% throughout.
Here in this picture, I chose the color orange. I created an additional seating area on the floor with couch cushions and extra pillows. I replaced the couch cushions with green seat cushions on the couch. It brightened up the brown couch and tied it in more than I could have ever hoped for. This seating area is great for little ones, and also when you have extra guests. Sitting on the floor has never been more comfortable. This seating area on the floor also cozies up the room. Since I placed the orange pillows here, you will notice in full view pictures, that I only accented the color orange in a few other areas of the room, by using natural orange flowers. Click here to get your summertime pillows!
Hibiscus is my favorite flower to accent with.
An old palette cart with iron wheels acts as my coffee table. I found this gem in my Dad’s barn. I’m sure if I didn’t refurbish it, it would still be sitting in there just warping away. Due to how large this table is, I am able to dress it with some of my favorite things for summer time. The one thing sitting on the table that never moves, no matter what season it is, is my big lantern. In my big lantern I have a Luminara Candle
One thing I love to do on a good beach vacation, is go shell hunting. So I always have to display a few shells through out the house. Now, I’m not into a lot of shell items, only natural shells that have meaning and that were personally found. I like to stick with only the natural textures of the region for summertime, but what is summertime without a few shells lying around? I was lucky enough to find this huge shell bowl. I wouldn’t display it, because it wasn’t natural enough for me. Until I figured out that if I just planted succulents in it, then it would go with my decor a lot better. That way, the shell bowl only acts as an accent, therefore, it doesn’t overpower the area on the table. Succulents are the easiest thing to grow indoors. They require no maintenance other than a little water once in a great while. Even then, go easy on the water. They don’t like to be watered all the way through when they are indoors.
On my table I always like to switch out my fresh cut bouquet. I don’t like buying bouquets at the store. They always seem too uniform, too clean and uninteresting for my taste. I love cutting from my cut flower garden and finding anything that surrounds my house. In this bouquet I have broccoli leaves, tomato leaves, blue salvia, millet and snap dragons. When making a bouquet, it doesn’t have to be perfect. By using the textures and colors that you see outside your windows, you get that true feeling of bringing the outdoors, indoors. I use whatever comes into blossom. I love mixing weeds, wheat and old branches into my bouquets for added texture and more of a natural masculine feel. The masculine feel is needed in order to balance out all of the pillows and print. Below I have shared many of my arrangements that I have created and used throughout my house as decoration, and as a cheerful and natural accent.
I strategically placed my cut flower garden in the raised bed that is the most visible from inside the house. So when I cut flowers from that garden, it accents perfectly. You see the flowers on the table, but then you see them out the window as well. To the left of the window is a fake bouquet. Don’t be ashamed if you use fake flowers. The key is to just make sure that the fake flowers you use look very real. In this fake bouquet, I accented with my three colors, green, blue and orange. I always throw in other colors as well, but only keep it at my 10% accent rule! So in that bouquet you can see there is also a hint of lavender peeking out of the sides. Above the bouquet is a very cute sign that I happened to find on one of my many adventures to home decor stores. These days, you can’t get away with not using mason jar art, thanks to HGTV’s hit show, ‘Fixer Upper’.
Nothing is more in right now than palettes. Lucky for me, my dad has piles of these. I use palette art throughout my house, but in many different ways. Here I used a palette to accent fresh greenery and glowing candles for night time. I took the palette and cleaned it up and sanded the edges a bit. I drilled holes at the top to run a heavy duty rope through for hanging. 
I then took medium sized mason jars, and attached them to the palette with plumbing clamps. Using shredded brown paper, I stuffed the bottom of the jars so they wouldn’t feel too airy and plain. After that, I added the greens. 
I used fake greens, because I didn’t want to be up on a ladder all the time switching out real greens. In between the medium greenery mason jars, I added small mason jars. In those, I placed battery operated tea light candles. At night time, the palette glows on the wall and creates such a beautiful accent piece at all times of the day. Click here to get your canning jars, and start your project today!
On shelving I use all natural materials, accenting the color blue and adding just a touch of personalization with a photo. Your house is lived in, so you are going to want to add pictures of your family. Be sure to accent with photos for the seasons. This photos was taken on the beach with the blue water and white sands. I also like to add lighting to my shelving for a beautiful effect at night.
Nothing is more beautiful than adding natural accents into glass jars. Just be creative. What is so great about using glass containers, is you can use them for every season. Just switch out what is in them. For example, this picture shows greenery and a flower in my glass jar for my summer time decor. For Christmas, I may add a pine bow with a pine cone dangling from a red ribbon tied around it. Or for the Fall season, I may put an old bare branch in the glass jar and hot glue on orange fall leaves so it mimics the trees during the Fall season. Click here to get your novelty glass bottles like this one!
I know most of you are thinking, it’s summertime, you don’t need your fireplace on. Yes you do! You aren’t using it for heat during the summer season, you are using it for the effect of mimicking a bonfire. On summer nights, I love cranking open the windows and turning my fans on high. You can hear the frogs and insects making their nightly noises. That cooler summer breeze is sneaking in, and just then, it is the perfect time to flip the switch for your glowing fire. My mantle isn’t very wide, and I have a TV above, so I can only do so much in this spot. I like to use taller items on the sides, and one low item throughout the whole middle. During one of our family adventures on the beach, we found an amazing piece of drift wood that just fit perfectly on the mantle. The sides are dressed with glass, sticks, greens, binoculars, shells and old weedy branches. Next to my fireplace I have a storage box that I most likely may never move. I love it for accenting and storing extra pillows and blankets for those nights we crank open the windows.
This is my favorite sign of the season that I created. This old piece of wood was once new, only a week before I started this project. I love distressing wood and using it throughout the house for signs that switch as quickly as the seasons. This was specifically made to fit and make this corner feel a bit more dressed up. It felt bare before this sign was added. I distressed the wood, then drilled holes for my rope hanger. I found a really cute sign and knobs, and just attached them to the distressed piece of wood. Luckily, I happened to be out one day and ran into these beautiful tools that were just too pretty to work with. I knew their spot was in my house and not in my garden. I will go into more detail on how to distress wood the way I do it, in a future article.
My kitchen table is kept simple, but always dressed. I accented just a touch of blue and green to tie in both spaces. As you can see, I love natural textures. The blue napkins, for the place settings, adds just the right amount of blue on the table. 
I snuck in just a small piece of greenery through the napkin ring just to tease you with a touch of green. Now my centerpiece is my pride and joy. So simple and natural. Each piece of wood has it’s own story. They each came from a different locations at different times. By adding the greenery amongst it, it makes it feel like we are on the beach, but on a beach here in the midwest. The logs were found on the beach, and the branches were found on our, over a century old farm. What I like about placing these bulky natural pieces into a huge glass vase, is that you get to see the beauty of them all the way through. At night time, my table glows from the Luminara Candlesticks
that stand on each side of my centerpiece. The best thing throughout this entire room, is the glow it takes on, starting at dusk, through the evening hours. With all of the natural decor, you have to add that glow. To add coziness with the tall ceilings, I strung garden lights across the whole room. It was the perfect touch to our indoor oasis.
Click here to get your garden lights so you can light up your indoor oasis tonight!
Even the toy/family room changes with the season. As a family, we spend a lot of time playing in this room, so it has to feel special too. I, once again, used a palette for a playroom sign and strung it with lights. Since I have two girls, I accented with the color pink, while still carrying on the same theme of natural decor. Since it’s summertime, I added pink flamingos and pink peonies. The peonies are sitting in a glass vase that is filled, almost to the top, with stones. Every time we look at those stones, we are reminded of the fun time we had at the beach collecting them. The log that sits upon the mantle, was an old log sitting in my dads burn pile. I immediately rescued it, sanded it and then displayed it. To him, it is unrecognizable.
When walking into my house, it is no different than the rest. It has to be switched up for the season. The foyer is a large area, so it can easily feel cold. To warm it up, I added seating and storage areas.
I refurbished an old dresser that I knew would help anchor my foyer, not only with its size, but also with it’s custom color, iron accents and charm. This area glows at night by a Luminara Candle
Having some type of a drop zone for your guests is always a bonus. Here I did it very simple and natural. The piece of wood that is the home to five iron hooks, was another gem that I had found in my dad’s burn pile. It is a very old piece of wood and it just so happened to be the perfect size. Adding this area created the foyer to finally be functional in it’s true purpose. For summertime, I like to stage it with a few of my favorite summer items such as a camera, hat and gardening shovel.
Even the foyer is dressed up in living plants, glasses vases with logs, tree branches and best of all, my famous wild bouquets. This one I kept very simple and just used shrub greeneries with a touch of old branches, ribbon grass and weeds.
I hope you enjoyed this article, and are able to take some of these ideas and implement them into your own style of decorating throughout your home. If you loved this article, and want more just like this one, feel free to subscribe. You will receive a new article every 1-2 weeks. Thank you for visiting caseylynnlawrence.com. Want to find out what is going on in my Garden and Home at all times? Follow me on Facebook.