Smitten with half dolls

These little ladies beguile me! So fetching dressed in their finery and with their hair up or fancy! What do they do while sitting on your dressing table-- I imagine them chatting or comparing their outfits. Sometimes they are pin cushions or the handle for a powder puff. Many of these ladies are French or German.  My half doll needs a friend so I am looking on Etsy and Ebay for the proper lady. 

I hate boring pin cushions and powder puff make them pretty with a half doll!

Have a Pink day!

Vanity can be fun

 Dressing table items

 Rococo style powder box

 Pommade pot

 Powder blower

 Miles Redd vanity via Chinoiserie Chic

 Boucher painting

Vanity tables

I am sure you have seen the two paintings at the bottom-- one of Madame de Pompadour and the other by Boucher titled The Milliner.  I saw the pink Miles Redd chinoiserie style vanity table/powder room on the Chinoiserie Chic blog last week and loved it. 

That got me thinking about some other photos I have of items that may have been on a woman't vanity table. Women of the nobility used the time at their vanity tables to meet with people, choose clothing items, seduce and gossip. It was a setting that usually showed a woman's best attributes. Even 200 years later we still have the feminine vanity table. Some of the items on it are different but idea and the prettiness of it endures.

Have a Pink day!

Every girl needs a puff even Marie Antoinette

Even Marie Antoinette had a swans down powder puff, bien sur!

I found this delightful photo on the Caron Perfumes web site. They sell in New York and Paris too of course. If you are in Paris the Caron shop off the Champs Elysees is a very pretty one.

Swans down puffs are the height of extravagance, I think, they make a little fun treat for yourself.

I used to have a full dressing table in the bedroom and now have a small desk. I miss the dressing table. I have moved all my little bits and bobs to the top of my lingerie chest--another thing a girl should always have -- a neatly sorted storage area for the various lingerie one needs.

Have a Pink day!

Longing for Peonies

Sadly, no more fresh peonies till late April or early May 2010. I've planted new ones in September to delight us in a few years. I am lucky to be able to grown them this far South. The big, full, double ones are my favorites--all in shades of pink or white. I carry my pink preference into the garden.

This lovely peony sachet is on my little dressing table to cheer me during the many peony barren months. I have always loved peonies and sweet peas and consider it a blessing to be able to grow them in my tiny garden. All the little things on my dressing table have meaning to me .

Peonies ,for some reason, seem to be much more decadent than the rose or any other flower. Perhaps it is their brief bloom time and the fullness of the flower petals.

I had a dream not long ago that my garden was blooming with peonies and it snowed it looked so beautiful. In real life that would be awful but in dreams it was a beautiful image.

My first Hermes scarf has peonies on it.I bought in Paris in late 80's It was such a decadent treat but over the course of years it has actually been a frugal purchase considering how often I wear it.

If I can't wear peonies all the time I can enjoy the flowers in the spring and try to spend as much time with my peonies as possible.