Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Philippians 4:4
Our grandbaby wore this adorable outfit to our Mardi Birthday party!
Mardi Gras for my family is a big celebration because it is my husband’s birthday. He was born in a little parish right outside of New Orleans and his mother always loved to tell the story about how a fabulous Mardi Gras parade marched right outside of her hospital window. He had a front row view of his very first Mardi Gras before he even knew what it was! So every year on his birthday we have a fun party celebrating his wonderful life and the place that he was born!
This year we decorated a little feather tree for our celebration. Since this was the first year for the tree it doesn’t have many ornaments, but the ones we found are great! I bought several Mardi Gras canvases from Meg Francez, intending to have them all stitched and ready to go. Unfortunately, I only finished one of them. I got it back from the finisher in record time, but she didn’t do a very good job. I really have to learn to finish ornaments myself! I hope that you love the other ornaments. I can’t wait to collect more!
I stitched this little Mardi Gras canvas for our tree…the finisher didn’t do a good job finishing it at all. Be careful who you send your finishing to. Etsy finishers aren’t very good.I love a feather tree! It works for so many different seasons. I can’t believe that I found purple and green lights for Mardi Gras! Do you see the frog prince? He’s one of my favorites!The Roly Poly clown is another of my favorites! I was made by Old World Christmas, just like the Frog Prince! The Fleur de lis was an Amazon find.Another Amazon find, who can resist a dancing crawfish!!! So silly!!!Etsy bow
This year I went all out on our dining room table. I ordered beautiful bows off of Etsy. The ribbon was so colorful and fun! I tied big bows to a boxwood wreath and placed the wreath over a crystal hurricane candleholder. I place two large crystal pillar hurricane candleholders on either side of the wreath and put special Mardi Gras tapers in them. To top the whole thing off, I scattered little crown shaped votives around the table for a little extra fun!
Little purple votives in crown shaped holders give the table a little bit of whimsy!I absolutely love this bow I found on Etsy. It really makes your front door pop!In New Orleans there are lots of Mardi Gras beads stuck in trees after the parades. This is my favorite little feather tree pretending to be a “bead tree”!This is my all time favorite piece of Mardi Gras jewelry! It is a wonderful charm bracelet full of silver coins I collected mainly from EBay and other Mardi Gras collectors. Each coin represents a different Krewe and their Mardi Gras theme for that year. They are so fascinating! There are also charms that I collected on trips to New Orleans and some really special James Avery Charms that I thought fit the theme. I love a beautiful charm bracelet, I have several! The jingle makes me so happy!This is a new project that I just started. This pillow is covered in pins that were given out at different Mardi Gras balls to their guests. I have seen similar pillows absolutely covered in pins! I have a long way to go! I think that they are beautiful little works of art.Here are my latest ball pins.. One is a ladies pin from the Krewe of Rex and the other is a gentleman’s pin for the Krewe of Endymion. I love the ribbons!Decorating the table for our Mardi Gras bash is so much fun! This year we added a lot of purple. We also added some super fun Mardi Gras napkins rings. Purple is one of our favorite colorsWe didn’t had a traditional King Cake for the birthday boy, instead we served a wonderful cheesecake from Royer’s Pie Haven in Roundtop, Texas, Instead of a baby Jesus hidden in the cake, there was a Pocket Jesus. It was so much fun! Leave it to Royer’s to put such a fun twist on the King Cake baby tradition!I love this concrete head vase. She worked in perfectly with the Mardi Gras decor, especially once I added the Christmas cactus! She looks kind of like Medusa!My tried and true Mardi Gras Krewe! These fun figures came from Pier One many years ago.If you ever go to New Orleans make sure to visit the artists that set their paintings up in front of the Cathedral. These three paintings were purchased from the nicest man on a very cold day. The paint was still wet! I love them so much.
Now that Mardi Gras is behind us, it is time to start preparing for Easter. This copy of Victoria Magazine came today, just in time to get me motivated. Easter is such a lovely season of the year. I think it’s time to get ready for spring! Have a blessed Easter season!
