Hearth and Home: To Frame a Fire (Meaningful Spaces)

Meaningful Space

I started trying out new recipes (and inviting others to do the same) for Community Table, the first round of a blog series called Learning Hospitality.  And then moved onto Meaningful Spaces, challenging myself to add meaning to my home.

Last week, I made my own fabric in all my Project Runway glory. This week we’re onto burning things. ;)

The Fireplace Mantle

“There is no place more delightful than one’s own fireplace.” Not long ago, I ran into this quote from an Ancient Roman, Marcus Tullius. I’m a bit skeptical about attributing something that sounds like Martha Stewart or Rachael Ray to the glory days of Rome, but wherever the quote came from, I understand the sentiment.

Hence why I’ve been spending this week talking with my four year old about what objects (meaningful objects, mind you) might best occupy our mantle.

Handcrafted Goodness

We’re working on some handy little tokens inspired by these two designs. The first is a collection of printed art, crafts and photos from landeeseelandeedo.com

And the second are some origami flowers from Country Living that we ran across in a Google image search.

Our plan is to create a couple handcrafted pieces that capture some cherished values of our own, maybe something along the lines of these pieces from the People of the Second Chance store.

And maybe a few flowers. One of our favorite sunny day hobbies is picking flowers, both from our own yard and from the surrounding area. And I consider it a stroke of…well, blessing, I guess…that the region where we moved just happens to be peppered with wild orange lilies very much like the red ones in my backyard, the Asiatic ones once in my bridal bouquet and the ones engraved upon a piece of 1950’s silverware I recently fashioned into my very own spoon ring.

Cheers to a meaningful home!