My Botany Lesson

And the name of that plant is....drum roll.... ACANTHUS MOLLIS . The reason I mentioned it was a serendipitous moment, is the very evening I came home from seeing this plant in San Antonio, I checked in with one of my favorite local blogs, and saw a link on their site that sounded good... I'd never been to the site before. Vive Verde  so I clicked on it and there the plant was! It was on a list of strange plants.  Definitely going to put this one on a list of things I'd like to try somewhere. I appears it can be invasive in some climates. so would have to keep an eye on it. I don't think it would do well in Idaho, at least over the winter, so will have to plant it in Texas.

Road Trip to San Antonio

Wow, long time no stopping by, huh?  This had become my place to post Anthropologie photos for quite some time. I have still been going to Anthropologie, just not posting here.  I have  been putting them in my Flickr and the group I love Anthropologie.

Anyhow, took a road trip to San Antonio over the week-end for a wedding.  On Sunday before heading back to Austin, we went to the La Cantera mall for a visit to the Antropologie store there.

Entrance to the store

Balloon display from inside looking out towards mall.

 

We saw this gorgeous plant when we first came  in, there were several used as part of their display.  We asked an employee if she knew the name of it.  She sent over Chelsea, who offered to see if she could find out what it was.  She came back with several names of what it could be, but not quite.

Beautiful huge leaves

 

close-up of blooms



The lovely and helpful Chelsea. 
 



We had a very nice visit with Chelsea. I noticed her pear necklace right away. She collects them, as do I, so we talked about that, along with mine and hubbys' admiration for all things Anthropologie, and our travels and visits to all the Anthro stores.

 

 

A few shots of displays.  Notice how I am always drawn to the green and blue?

bamboo and reeds/cattails?

Giant clock display behind one of the desks

A few green ceramics

Mirrors hung from bamboo rod supported with metal hardware

The mirror I have

Lamp with rope base

 

Patient hubby

Check back for my next post regarding the Serendipity of my finding out the name of the mysterious plant above.  Since it has taken me all week to get this post done, I need to save the plant story for another post.

Little White Houses

Well, here are the last of the little white houses, the ones inspired by the Isle of Santorini.  This very small Anthropologie store in Boise, Idaho is fast becoming one of my favorite Anthropologies.   Boise is my old home town, and will hopefully, sooner than later, become my once again, where I live town.

From across the street.  This is in an old building in downtown Boise.

 

Some up, some down. With me, and other things, reflected.

 

 

Side view from inside the store.


A couple other shots from this store.

Rabbit and Deer ceramics.  I really liked both, but did not buy.  Just took a photo.

Me and the rearranged alphabet cups.

Remember the wall of mirrors from the last post, the store in St.Charles?  Well, Hubby bought me this one, with the braided rope strap, for my birthday.  He wants us to try and repeat this installation at home. Hopefully on a smaller scale.  Most of the mirrors I already have are square or rectangle, but I do have a couple of round ones, now this one.   I suppose this will start a quest to obtain a few more round ones.  I really like those hooks they have them hanging from as well.

That's it for Anthropologie for awhile. I suppose their next window displays will be for the Holidays.  Hopefully, I will get the call to come and help build the elements.

The Windows of Anthropologie

These may all look the same to some people, but I can tell the variations, using the same supplies, and I am always intrigued by it.

This store is just a few miles from the hotel we have stayed at the past few years, in St. Charles. We have been to this store before.  It is a big square building, rather plain looking from outside, but has a huge skylight in the middle of the store so the lighting is fantastic.  It's one of my favorite locations to visit.

Here they did not stack them, just kind of marched them across the expanse of the windows, all white, no blue roofs, and some white outlines on the blue backdrop.

A few displays from inside. Bedframe made of paperback books.

I'd seen this wall of canvas alphabets before, but not where they had extended the scene onto the actual wall.  It looked really great.

 We usually buy one drawer pull when we travel, but these were on sale so we chose 4. I could have gotten at least 10!

I find this appealing where they stacked and hung these mirrors.  Probably would just look junky if one tried it at home.  Besides, I don't have nearly that many mirrors.

 

 

 

Downtown Chicago. Store on State Street. Front window.  It was hard to get a good photo of the houses because of the constant foot traffic, and the reflection from traffic and across the street.  I like that the flags on the building across the street are reflected, plus look at the entrance to the subway right in the center of the photo.

Looking across the street at the building that houses Anthropologie, you can see the second story windows.

 From the second floor looking back across the street. In the bottom left is the restaurant we had lunch at.  Every single item on the menu had "eggs" and none of it sounded too appealing to me.  I settled on a poached egg in a nest...which was spinach and it had a really nice dressing, and some very good croutons. Hubby had some kind of "Texas" hash with cornbread, and poached egg.  The waiter seemed thrilled that he liked it, since we were from Texas.  Both our meals were good, but we remarked later that we enjoyed the décor and watching the people more than the food. Always good to try new places though.

 

 

Inside this store, I didn't see anything that was much different than the other stores. The displays were nice , and the employees were extremely sweet to us.  They did not have a bed with books around it, but had these suspended shelves full of books, and sculptural books hanging from the ceiling. and a quote painted on an open book.

 

 

 

These were Reader's Digest Condensed books cut into alphabet shapes. I resisted the urge to buy a few.

 

Since this is such a long post, I will stop now, and show the last store in a day or two.  If you are not already totally bored with Anthropologie displays, please come back.  I may toss a few Lincoln Park Zoo shots in just for variety...or the Art Displays we saw in the parks. 

 

Who Knows Where the Time Goes

Remember that song by Judy Collins that those of us of a certain age listened to?    In reference to the fact that it has been a long time since I've shared my Anthropologie shots with you.  This blog has become mostly that.  But I did not realize how deeply I am feeling the sentiment of time passing, until I typed the title for this post.  That song must have been in my subconscious and there it popped out, so I went to listen to it. Just as beautiful as I remember it. I am reflecting a lot lately, having had my 70th birthday just a mere 10 days ago.  I don't usually think much about birthdays, but passing from one decade to another seems to be thought provoking.

Well, here's the news from the Anthropologie stores.. First in Austin, where I got to help build the houses.

There are always refreshments at the store workshops. 

 

 

Here we glued pre-cut cardboard shapes to build houses, then painted them and then added stucco to them.  It was a fun, messy good time.

 

The finished display in the windows. Front of store, with some houses outside, then close up of outside houses. Part of my head is in the lower corner.

 

Window on corner of 6th and Lamar St. Austin, TX

 

 

Next up, my travels to Idaho and Chicago, where I visited the other stores to see how they had done their displays, using the same theme.

Quick trip to Anthropologie

It's been awhile since I got to the store downtown, where I helped make peaches for the Earth Day displays.  Here is the finished peach tree in the window that faces 6th St.

 

 

 

Only took a few more photos on this visit.

 

 

 

lamp with stitched shade 

Woven paper installation

 

My Day at Anthropologie

Yesterday I was able to attend the Display workshop at my local Anthropologie store. About every quarter, they invite customers to come and help with the making of some of the things they use in their displays. This one is for Earth Day, and they are doing a big peach tree in one of the major windows. Peaches to celebrate our famous Texas peaches from Fredericksburg. The design team had already constructed the peach forms from masking tape and plastic bags. Everything they make is from ordinary materials, and becomes "upcycled" into amazing things. Those of us who came to help were given the task of gluing torn bits of coffee filters to the shapes, basically we were making papier mache'. They looked pretty odd as their naked selves, but we were shown the sample of how they would look when painted and having leaves attached. The tree will have about 100 peaches on it. A couple of the design team members were making the leaves from wire and green landscape cloth, or painters canvas, I can't recall which they said. We were all seated at a long table in the middle of the store and other customers kept stopping by to see what we were doing, some of them joining in on the fun. They had lemonade and snacks and lots of good conversation going on round the table. I always enjoy myself when I go, and it is so fun to connect with other like-minded people. Everyone has a story, and they are all interesting to me. A couple of ladies had come over on their lunch hour, made some peaches, then went back to work. I'll be going back in a couple of weeks for their actual Earth Day celebration, and will take photos of the finished windows.

You can see the peach sample hanging from the top of the small blackboard. They had also done these seed sprouters using toilet paper tubes cut in half. They can be planted as is. They take the place of the peat pots you would have to buy.

Sweet Little Basil Sprouts

 

Naked funny looking peaches,waiting for their blush.

 

While there, I did stroll around and take a few photos of other things that caught my eye. As you all know, I love those Anthropologie displays.

 

Different size painted birdhouses clustered together

 

White porcelain and driftwood

 

Love these coral bowls and spoons, they were too pale in the photo, so I Lomo-ed them to make them more vibrant. Would make great ice-cream dishes.

 

Flowers covering one wall, made of dyed and twisted muslin.

 

An entire shelf of lamps.

 

That's all the Anthropologie I have for now.