Window Shopping

A Sunday walk through our local mall, (we call it the "Fancy Pants" mall because of all the high end retailers, Pottery Barn, Williams-Sonoma, Crate and Barrel...) is a great way to get inspired. The beautiful displays of expensive accessories and out of this world priced furniture leave me wondering, who can afford this stuff? Still I love to look, think about what I have at home to duplicate the fabulous displays, and I do come away inspired. I'm not totally immune from buying. I saw this lovely hand lotion and hand wash at Williams-Sonoma, it smelled so good, just like autumn, spicy. They wanted $29 for the set of two. In the same mall was Pier One. (I've loved Pier One since our very first apartment 34 years ago. We had a rattan headboard and chair in our bedroom, and many cool accessories from Pier One.) They had autumn candles with matching hand soap and lotion and room spray. The scent is called spice cake and is delicious, cloves and cinnamon with a hint of burning leaves. On sale at 25 percent off, I got all three for 1/2 the price of the other store. My guest bath will smell great, and I won't feel bad to use it everyday. Every retailer seemed to have the same ideas, following the trend of using natural materials in decorating. A old friend years ago used mixed nuts in the shell to surround candles, I thought that was beautiful and use that idea every year. This year I have a bag of acorns to use in my glass hurricanes, another idea I saw used in a few stores. One store had stacks of books covered in brown wrapping paper, so simple to recreate, and beautiful in it's simplicity.

I don't think that creativity is something you naturally have, I think it is a learned skill. If you are curious, and willing to experiment, you can take the things you see and make them your own. Window shopping becomes a exercise in creativity for me, and feeds my need to create, decorate and feather our nest. What inspires you?