Mario Buatta inspirational bows

till inside with the AC on, as it heats up to 108 here in Phoenix so organizing, purging and indoor decorating is on the agenda – and I don’t hate it! I love my house and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be (than maybe in Europe somewhere exploring but that lifestyle will come again soon), but this time inside forces me to get things done around here because I’ve been busy all spring playing outside in the garden.

I redecorated the stacked stone mantel – made of flagstone and added the silhouettes, ours, above. They were scattered around the room before but it occurred to me to just clump them all together – obviously need to find my other facing silhouette to make them all match. Anyway, you may all know my love for the late designer Mario Buatta (buy his book here!) and I have always loved his silk bows. The bows were inspired by John Fowler (another book recommendation here).

The light is intense because the garage door went up when Benjamin came in and it was reflecting off the white and I was like well, I’m going to keep taking a picture.

The dried topiaries are real and from a local Home Goods I dropped into orchid planters. The sunburst style leaf mirror looks more expensive than it was. I ordered the real silk ribbon from an Indian store online but I took a month to get over and it didn’t arrive the color I thought so I’m not going to link it because I almost disputed the charge on PayPal because I wasn’t sure if it would even arrive! It’s hard to tell what colors will be but I’ll tell you it was definitely not the color that arrived, but – as you can see I rolled with it anyway!

I didn’t do any sewing I just messily folded it over and used this permanent adhesive fabric tape and made the bows over breakfast. Then I pulled and fluffed it and voila, it’s done!

You can check out the other flat formal bows I made on this post.

The larger silhouettes are from my 40th soiree when I hired a silhouette artist! Best investment ever as a party favor to my special guests. The younger ones of us I made from a large silhouette Benjamin had from a class project and mine I made myself after taking the best side profile photo I could find and just made it up!

The other two were from our Disney World family trip many years ago when I huffed and puffed that I wasn’t getting my $20 silhouette and finally Benjamin and my mom walked us back to get it done. Oh also did you know my silhouette artist I hired was asked to work at Disney and she said no because she wouldn’t be able to sign her name at the bottom of the images, she would have to sign Disney?

If you want a silhouette done, hire silhouette artist Judith Housel – you should call her and you can Venmo her the cost and she will send it over to you from anywhere! Tell her I sent you (and that she did my big 40th backyard French birthday party if she forgets). She is darling and her sweet husband helped so much too!

Well that wraps up another indoor project I did. I didn’t do a reels, I didn’t “make content” for the social media but I guess after I decided to take a photo and share it with you :) Thanks for being here. I sometimes wonder why I still blog but I guess it’s just something I enjoy doing and being here and also documenting my projects as I go.

---

Diana Elizabeth has been going to personal training after her back injury that left her on the couch for three days – you know the one that happened 2-3 weeks before the big birthday bash. She’s enjoying working out a lot!