There's another fern. I got carried away making ferns and seem to have them everywhere.
There was a period in real life during my teaching days when I actually had two huge ferns growing in my living room, which amazed everybody around here because our air is so dry. I really nursed and petted and babied those ferns, but finally realized I was spending half my weekends taking care of them and all my other plants. Between them and grading papers I had no free time! Now I have artificial plants. Maybe that's the reason I have so many little ferns in my scenes - they remind me of those two lovely ferns that once graced my living room windows.
The sofa was originally red velvet; I recovered it and the corner chair seat with fabric from a small tapestry purse. There wasn't enough to cover the back, so it is still red. I noticed recently on the House & Garden channel that some top designers are mixing fabrics on upholstered furniture, so I was ahead of my time there! This is still my favorite sofa after all these years.
It used to be in one of the display cabinets over the antique loveseat in my living room. I switch it out with a plain white sofa, depending on the season and what I want to put on it.
The crocheted pillows on the sofa once covered metal soda bottle lids that had been sewed together to make a trivet that I found at a flea market.( I have a similar trivet in red and green that one of my students gave me in the 70's. The bottle caps form a poinsettia, and I use it on the table at every Christmas dinner.)
I made the books on the coffee table. (You can check out my WannaBook book covers here.) The metal box was once part of a heavy bracelet. The decorative egg sits on a jeweled base. It was a kit from the late Carolyn Gray. I never added all the jewels and trims for some reason, but I like it anyway.

I made the arrangement on the side table using dark red silk roses, dark blue straw flowers and white dried baby's breath. Some yellow flower pips are included to spark up the arrangement. The greenery is pepper grass. I guess I need to take it out of that lamp if I want a clearer picture.
That little tin box is English toffee. On the other side of the glass container is a small clock made from jewelry findings.

On the top shelf, the brass box on the left has an embroidered blue flower inset into its lid. The shoe is painted metal. It reminds me of my mother-in-law, who used to have an extensive shoe figurine collection.
The bowl on the second shelf of this curio cabinet was one of our gifts at a NAME show. It is almost paper thin and beautifully made, with a gilded rim. The porcelain vase next to it is a real beauty, too; the wisteria is raised.
Some of the pieces in this cabinet are quite inexpensive, like the little "ceramic" bouquet, but I like them because they remind me of the kinds of items that were in family curio cabinets when I was growing up. I made the box in the bottom of the cabinet from a piece of wood that I covered with snips from a perfume ad in a magazine. The latch is from a gold paper doily.
I started collecting miniature porcelain pieces in the early 80's. My good friend Pat's mother was a porcelain artist and I cherish several full-size pieces that she painted especially for me.

Here is one of a pair of lamps that she painted for me in a wild roses pattern.

You can see the base of the other lamp next to Anachronon the Wizard's cart on my sofa table. On the hallstand to the right you can see the base of a wonderful pitcher that she painted for that particular piece of furniture.

These two pitchers resemble full-size pieces that were in Pat's mother's collection.

Here is another miniature pitcher in the corner cabinet of Miss Minnie's house.
I bought these at NAME shows. I am not absolutely sure, but I think all are by Vince Stapleton. I keep looking for pitchers with pink roses but haven't found one that resembles the one on the hall tree.

I know these miniature Roseville pieces are by Vince Stapleton. I have some full-size Roseville pottery.

This is another Stapleton piece; I think it is Roseville, too.

Here on a shelf in my china cabinet is another pitcher that Babe painted. My friend Pat asked her mother to paint it for me as a birthday present. I would love to find one like it in miniature, as well.
See that little brown teapot? There's an interesting story about it, too, that I never knew until my husband's aunt told me after my mother-in-law had passed away.
Since I added these pages to my website, I have done a setting to go with the story of The Tetley Teapots. You can read it and see the setting here.
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