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Learn the Art of Floral Arranging with Cathy Graham

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn a commission on all qualifying purchases.

If you’ve ever wanted to learn more about the art of arranging flowers and create beautiful table designs your guests will admire, then Cathy Graham: Full Bloom: Joyful Designs for the Table, by Clinton Smith, will be an inspiring new resource.  An acclaimed artist, host and gardener, Cathy Graham approaches the world of flowers with playfulness and whimsy. Her floral designs are brilliant and surprising, and showcase her artistic skills with a variety of different media. Following her first volume, Second Bloom, Full Bloom is an impressive collection of colorful designs for the table, home, and party we can be inspired by, learn from, and even replicate.

Cathy Graham - floral arrangement
Photography by Quentin Bacon
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New Items in The Collected Home Shop

Good morning, friends! Hope your holiday preparations are going smoothly! In case you need some last minute gift ideas, we have added some beautiful new items to our Chairish shop, The Collected Home. All of the items have been sourced here in New England, and are one of a kind pieces – vintage or antique – that I’ve come across in my travels, at estate sales and antique fairs near or around Amherst and the Cape. Whenever I go shopping for antiques and uniques, I have two rules I follow: One, the item must be something that I fall for right there and then, and that visceral reaction you get when you find something you love in a place where everything competes for your attention is what makes me swipe my card, each and every time. (No lukewarm feelings allowed, it has to be love at first sight 🙂 ) Two, the item must be in great condition relative to its age. If it’s pottery and it’s old, then a few chips are fine, as long as the overall effect is beautiful patina. So, without further ado here are some of the items we’ve recently listed in our shop. Hope you see something you like!

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15 Design Books to Add to Your Library in 2021

“What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you.” Anne Lamott

Having had a chance to look back at last year’s bestselling design books, it’s time to turn the page and glance into the future. There are some exciting new titles to be released in 2021 that I think many of you will appreciate and enjoy. To explore these books in more detail, just click on a title you’d like to see more about.

You’ll probably notice by scrolling down through my list that I am slightly biased in my choices, with a slight English Country Style bend, but I hope you won’t mind. Ros Byam Shaw, prolific writer for design magazines across the pond and author of several volumes in the Perfect English series – Perfect English, Perfect English Cottage, Perfect English Farmhouse, Perfect English Townhouse – is having a fifth book in the series published this spring – Perfect English Style– and we couldn’t be happier, could we? 

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