Let us be elegant or die....

  I'm snuggerising here.   This is a term I picked up from the a lovely friend, Helen, who posts on The Bluebirds are Nesting, and it's just stuck with me.   It's sort of like Spring Cleaning, but it's to make the house warm and welcoming for Winter.   I received the most beautiful copy of Little Women from my son for Mothers Day. Snuggerising sounds very much like something the March family would have done.   Here are two favourite quotes...   "Love is a great beautifier"   "Let us be elegant or die!"   I mentioned the first in a post on Mothers Day.   Everything my Mother touched with her hands and her love, was made more beautiful or elegant for her having done so. She had a way with making do that went beyond the merely functional.    Mending...dispatched with a ribbon here, a bit of lace there. A single rosebud from the garden in a tall slender vase on the kitchen bench or the divider that separated the living area from the dining area. A beautiful tea set acquired by inviting all the neighbours to a Tupperware party and exceeding sales of a certain dollar value, proudly displayed on the same divider. Home made icecream in our tiny freezer...the one made by whipping chilled tins of evaporated milk and adding other ingredients...the recipe appeared online some years ago, and I recognised it immediately. A longed for bedroom chair with an orange faux fur seat at my dressing table. Crepes with lemons from our own tree and caster sugar, for afternoon tea. Any wonder our friends wanted to come home with us!   So my lovely friends, let us beautify what we have with a loving touch, not an expensive one. Let us be elegant, no matter our circumstances as the March family were. Let's make the most of what we have. Let's do as a friend of mine is doing and refashion something no longer useful into something valued and treasured. She is turning polar fleece dressing gowns that her family have grown out of, into throw rugs. Gorgeous!   For me it means trimming my pillowcase with scraps of lace today. It means baking red velvet cupcakes for daughter to take to work experience. It means continuing to stitch sequins and crystals to my faux Moroccan wedding blanket. It means polishing everything with home made jasmine scented furniture polish.   I make my own furniture polish as I have lots of lovely antique or antique style wooden furniture in my home. I just melt a little coconut oil, and add several drops of jasmine or frangipani essential oil to it. I put this in a small container, and take just a dab on a soft cloth (not microfibre in this instance), wiping it on in horizontal strokes, then polishing it off the same way. Don't go round and round with it or you'll end up with swirls on your surfaces! You need to dust with a microfibre cloth first too, so the dust and grime doesn't get trapped in the polish. It's a little more labour intensive, but smells waaaaay better than spray on commercial stuff, and makes the house glow :)   It means remembering another beautiful quote from Little Women...   "Be comforted dear soul. There is always light behind the clouds".   Love to you all today...xxx