When I took down my “everyday” decorations last fall to decorate for autumn, I finally took apart an old arrangement on my windowsill that had dried flowers and a bird and nest and had just gotten dusty and unkempt. After putting autumn and Christmas decorations away and getting back to everyday, I pondered what to put in that empty spot. I hadn’t seen or come up with anything until the spring issue of Kelli’s beautiful Seasonal Delights magazine came out and I saw the Hidden Nest Centerpiece. A smaller version of that would be just perfect!

So I assembled the materials this week, with a 5″ pot instead of the 8″. I originally wanted to paint the flower pot a cream color and the eggs blue, but the windowsill this would be on is white, so I thought a bit of color would be better with a blue flower pot. These kinds of decisions can stall a project for me for days, but I decided since all of these materials were reusable I could disassemble it and change it if I wanted, so I went ahead with painting the flower pot blue and using cream and brown eggs I found at Michael’s.

I had a bit of a problem, though, with the garland: mine was so bushy that it lost its “arch” shape almost completely (probably because the pot was smaller, so the arch was smaller — I am sure it would have done fine with the bigger pot size Kelli’s centerpiece had called for), and then I had trouble getting the wire to stick to the flower pot with hot glue. I remembered some variegated green picks I had and got a few of them and stuck them directly in the moss, then tucked the nest under the leaves. This is finally what I came up with:

I love it. When I am working at the sink I can see the little nest and eggs peeking out through the leaves. We often have little birds build nests in our hanging plants outside that I can see from my kitchen window, so this reminds me of that and fits right in with the scene.

I do still want to try Kelli’s idea with the garland shaped as an arch some time!

On the other side of my windowsill is this:

It’s just a couple of spring floral picks I got years ago at a Home Interiors party, stuffed into a small creamer pitcher, but it has been a long-time favorite window sill brightener. It’s getting old, too, but I keep dusting it off.

This is the whole windowsill, cheery even on a gloomy day outside:

I also wanted to share a couple of things I was delighted to find while out shopping this week.

It’s very hard to find kitchen towels and such with pink — apparently that’s not “in” as a decorator color just now. But I was delighted to find these at Kohl’s — I was shopping in the men’s department for my husband’s birthday and investigated the housewares and decorating section while I was there. I was glad I did!

They’re almost too pretty to use — almost. But I will use them!

I was also thrilled to find these chair pads on clearance. I had been needing new ones and wanted to find the kind with the non-skid surface on the bottom rather than ties (which always seem to pull out after much use at my house). I had seen some blue ones at another store that I thought were too expensive. But these were not only less, they had little pink and cream flecks in them that matched mt kitchen/dining area:

And I love the non-skid underside!! It works much better than the ties at the back.

Isn’t it funny how little things can brighten an area?

Kelli at There’s No Place Like Home hosts “Show and Tell Friday” asking “Do you have a something special to share with us? It could be a trinket from grade school, a piece of jewelry, an antique find. Your show and tell can be old or new. Use your imagination and dig through those old boxes in your closet if you have to! Feel free to share pictures and if there’s a story behind your special something, that’s even better! If you would like to join in, all you have to do is post your “Show and Tell” on your blog, copy the post link, come over here and add it to Mr. Linky. Guidelines are here