No, I’m not going to tell you how to get your kids to stop fighting or how to always smile when your husband’s annoying habits are getting under your skin.  I want wanted to share one of the lessons I learned in design school.  Harmony in design is bringing different parts together to create a whole.  It is balancing unity and variety into a pleasing arrangement.

If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you know how much I love black and white.  I have used this color combo all throughout my house.   Black and white goes with everything.  I can move one piece from room to room and mix it with the other black and white pieces.  So, each room can stand on it’s own but each room works together to make our house a whole.

Okay, I have unity with the use of the black and white color combo but how do I achieve variety?  I think the easiest way is to mix patterns.  If you do mix patterns a good rule of thumb is to have one large-scale, one medium, and one small-scale pattern.  I also think it’s easy and fun to mix shapes.  For instance, I would like to do a permanent mantelscape in my family room.  I would love to do a white ceramic Buddha head and some black candle holders, or maybe antique black gears, or maybe a white ceramic deer head, or maybe….  Well, I think you get the idea, just play around with your stuff.  If you don’t have enough stuff to bring a room or your house together you can go a long way with scrapbook paper or fabric.  They are often grouped together in coordinating colors and/or patterns in the store making harmony easy to achieve .

      It has been a full month of healthy eating for our family.   So far everything is going pretty well.  We are however missing some of our favorites, like Poptarts.  Who doesn’t love Poptarts?  They are warm, yummy, and quick to fix.  The only thing holding me back from buying cases of these is one, the price and two, they aren’t “clean enough” eating.  I think I found a way to make everyone pretty happy with this recipe.

     This first thing I did to make my homemade poptarts ”clean enough”  was to find an oil pie crust recipe.  You can click on the link for the recipe.  I used olive oil for the oil in this crust.  I put the oil in the freezer for 20 minutes before I mixed up the dough.  I also sifted the flour before measuring it.  Before I rolled out the dough, I refrigerated it for 15 minutes.  To make it easier to roll out and clean up I rolled the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap.

      I made my own template for the poptarts but you could just wing it too.  I used my fancy new wheeled cutter/crimper.

 Pumpkin poptarts.  I used store-bought pumpkin.

 Cherry poptarts.  I used canned cherry pie filling.

      Add a top.  You will have to seal the edges to keep the insides in.  I just wet the lower edge with water and pushed the top down into the bottom.  I poked a little hole in the middle for venting.  I baked these at 400 degrees for fifteen minutes.

      I finished these with a bit of glaze (store-bought, I’m all for easy if it’s not too unhealthy).  I know these aren’t really picture worthy but hey, they taste a lot better than they look (and better than the real thing, if I say so myself).  These poptarts did take some time to make.  I usually make a batch Sunday morning when we aren’t rushed.  But they are fairly guilt free and they are a heck of a lot cheaper than the real version.  The best thing though is you can make any kind of poptarts you can dream up.

     I say this is having fun with Fiestaware.  Handy Hubby says this is a little O.C.D.  I don’t know about that.  I may be obsessive about designing.  I may be compulsive about making every little thing pretty (even things people rarely, if ever see), but may I say one thing?  This was not my doing.  I opened the cabinet door to get a bowl and found this beautiful rainbow arrangement.  My daughter did this little bit of decorating (yes, the chore jar is still working, yeah!).  So, I guess whatever you want to call it runs in the family

      I have tried many different ways to get the kids to help out around the house for years.  Nothing has ever worked for more than a day or two.  My kids hate helping out (like I look forward to cleaning the toilet).   I think they honestly believe that I do what they do while they are home (watch tv and play on the computer), I guess they think we have little elves come in at night and do the laundry, clean out the fridge etc. 

      This is the chore jar. It is plain and simple.  I don’t have to keep track of who has (or hasn’t done what). 

 I typed all the chores I could think of that take five minutes tops to do.

      Then all I did was cut them up and put them in the jar.  The only hard thing about this system is getting the kids to pick a chore and actually do it.  What has worked so far is this, as soon as we walk in the door from school, everyone picks a chore.  We try to have a little fun with it and see who can finish first.  The kids are happy because it only takes them a few minutes and then they’re done.  I’m happy because it saves me about an hour of chores.  I know that four kids times five minutes worth of chores only equals 20 minutes, but those are Mom minutes, you know what I mean?  I can’t go for five minutes without “Mom, I need you!”.  What about you?  How do you get your kids to help out (and not complain the whole time)?

      I have wanted to do a tablescape with my soup tureen ever since I thrifted it last summer.  Last summer was so hot and went on for so long though it just didn’t feel right.  That is certainly not the case now.  January is the perfect time for soup. 

     I had been looking for a tureen for months and just happened upon this one that was exactly what I had in mind (Don’t you love it when that happens?) .  The kicker?  It was only $2.00.  Almost everything on this table was thrifted.  The only pieces that are marked are the little plates (Wedgwood)  and the bowls (Gibson).

      I had already thrifted these bowls and dishes before I found the tureen.  None of the match, but that’s fine by me.  I’m not a matchy-matchy girl anyway.  What I really like is the way all the different textures perks up the whites. 

      Since I was playing around with textures, I thought I would pull out my Grandmother’s hand-crocheted doilies and use them as placements.  I like the way they play off the burlap tablecloth. 

     I was lucky enough to talk my Mom into giving me a half-dozen of the doilies that she had inherited.  Not two of them match.  Most of them have little holes or rips in them but they are still priceless to me.

  I just had to get  closeups of all the different textures working together.

 I had way too much fun playing around with my new camera. 

 I was even able to get a couple of presentable candlelight pictures.

      Thanks for checking out my table and thanks for sticking with me through so many pictures.  I will be joining Susan at Between Naps on the Porch.