I don’t know about you, but I just don’t think summer would be complete without some sunshiny-lemony goodness! Lemons are certainly a quintessential summer fruit! Most everyone loves sipping on old-fashioned lemonade, enjoying a lemon-flavored dessert, or brightening a spot in their home with a simple bowl of lemons. 

 

 

Today I am excited to be joining my friend Cindy of County Road 407 and several blogging friends for our monthly Pinterest Challenge! As you have probably guessed, the theme is lemons. More specifially, we have been challenged to create our own lemons and flowers arrangement using the beautiful Pinterest inspiration photo below by Mary of Home is Where the Boat Is. We all just loved her “All Abuzz: Lemons and Bees Vase Arrangement and Tablescape.”

 

I love Mary’s gorgeous, sunshiny design where she used lemon slices as a vase filler and beautiful fresh flowers and lemons for the arrangement. Before moving foward, let’s take a look at the design elements in this photo:

• A glass vase full of lemon slices (Mary actually used two vases. See her full post for the details).
• Fresh flowers and greenery
• Lemons on picks tucked into the arrangement
• A natural material/neutral round place mat
• Lemon plate/saucer

 

Using Mary’s photo as a guide, I created a pretty lemon slices bouquet in a vintage mason jar. I used flowers and herbs straight from my garden (hydrangeas, oregano, thyme, mint and dill.)  Two faux lemons are tucked down in with the flowers.

 

The inside of our house is a disaster due to our kitchen renovation, so I styled my bouquet out on the potting bench. The weather has been rainy this week, so the lemons bring a happy dose of sunshine to the garden!

 

I honestly can’t believe this is the first time I have used lemon slices as a vase filler. I just love the look, especially for a simple summer bouquet in an old mason jar. I will definitely be doing this more often in the future.

 

 

When I visited Mary’s post to see more of her beautiful lemons tablescape, I realized that I had used many similar design elements in my French FarmhouseLemons and Sunflowers Tablescape last year.  Today I would also like to use my centerpiece and tablescape from last year for comparison.

 

 I am happy to have this opportunity to revisit my lemons and sunflowers tablescape and to share some of the photos from that post with you. I  posted it in mid-August last year, and I am not sure many of my readers actually saw it.

 

I soon realized after posting that most everyone was already more interested in pumpkins instead of lemons by that time, so I started transitioning to early fall on the blog shortly after that. Other than the tablescape hop, the post really didn’t get too much attention which I think mostly had to do with the time of year. 

 

 

My lemons tablescape and centerpiece had many similar design elements to Mary’s BEE-you-tee-full tablescape full of bright summer color. She incorporated gorgeous dishes featuring a lemon motif, French looking linens, neutral placemats, fresh flowers,  fresh lemons, and bee accents. I used many of those same elements.

 

Mary’s featured Maxcera lemon dishes that she purchased at Homegoods.

 

 

 

My lemon dishes were scored at DOLLAR TREE!!!!

 

Royal Norfolk Lemon Plate

Dollar Trees everywhere quickly sold out of the lemon dishes last year. I later found nearly the exact same pattern by Royal Norfolk on Amazon.

 

Mary’s  dishes had little bees on them and she also used a few other bee-themed accents on her table, like these pretty napkins rings.

 

My ode to bees was in this little $1 thrifted bee skep that I scored just a day or two before setting up my tablescape.

 

 

As in Mary’s arrangement, I also used lemons on picks tucked down in among the sunflowers and faux thyme in my centerpiece.

 

 

 

While I didn’t use a glass vase full of lemons for my centerpiece arrangement, I did place a carafe on the table filled with water and lemons slices. Each vintage-style drinking glass was also filled with water and lemon slices. 

 

 

 

Mary’s beautiful bowls were topped off with lemons and flowers. 

 

 

My bowls were also filled with lemons. A small olive bucket next to the bowls held sunflowers and faux herbs.

 

 

Instead of neutral or woven/round placemats like Mary’s, I used my favorite no-sew DIY vintage botanical lemon placemats. My natural and neutral texture was in the form of the burlap charger.

 

 

This table setting was truly one of my favorites for summer! I will definitely be using lemon slices in a vase as part of my centerpiece arrangement for the next lemons tablescape I style. I loved the vintage style drinking glasses I used, but I hope to find 3 more Citron glasses like the one below to use in my future lemons-themed tablescapes.

 

More Ideas for Summer Decorating with Lemons

 

This French lemon “Citron” glass is actually my favorite summer glass. You might recalling seeing it on the styled tray that I set up in my “Beinvenue Summer: French Cottage and Garden Style Summer Porch Tour” in 2019.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As mentioned above, this summer we are in the middle of a huge kitchen renovation, which means that I have needed to keep the dining room table simple and uncluttered for everyone’s sanity.  As of right now there is nothing on our farm table because we have the kitchen torn up and we need a place to sit down to eat without a mess. Back in June I did come up with this super simple table styling for my Early Summer Home Tour. 

 

I filled a Boho belly basket with a live fern and placed a whitewashed dough bowl full of lemons beside it for a pop of sunshine. Simple woven jute placemats added an organic, summer look. For someone who is obvioulsy not a minimalist, I actually loved the simplicity! I have found myself gravitating more toward simplicity lately, especially amidst the current troubles in our world (and the kitchen makeover mess!)

 

 

 

 

 

Before closing this post, I want to share a look back at how I used a lemon theme in our kitchen corner “breakfast nook” in An Early Summer Tour of My Old Kentucky Home back in 2018, and some kitchen makeover news…

 

“A Sweet and Sour Farewell to the Kitchen Corner Nook”

Since I was already gathering up photos of my summer lemon decor for this post, I thought I might as well go with that same theme and share some “sweet and sour” news regarding our kitchen makeover (sweet and sour, ya know, like lemonade.) 

 

 I have honestly been dreading this moment, the time when I would break the news to my beloved readers and closest bloggy friends—-that this adorable, cozy corner nook no longer exists as of a couple of days ago… (that’s sour).  Everyone in blogland and on social media has definitely shown me the love on every breakfast nook share over the years, no matter the season! All my IG squares featuring the nook by far have the highest engagement.

 

I was going to share the whole “sweet and sour farewell” story as part of this post, but I decided that would go too far off topic from the Pinterest challenge. Instead, this is just a last look at the nook when it was decorated for summer with a lemons theme.

 

 

 

 

To read more about our decision to take out the nook, what will go in its place, and all the details of the kitchen changes so far, check out the post I shared yesterday: Kitchen Makeover Update: A Sweet and Sour Farewell to the Corner Breakfast Nook.

 

Even though I am a bit sour about losing the nook,  we have moved on with some exciting new changes in the kitchen that I think will be even more beautiful than the nook! (That’s sweet!)  By next month’s Pinterest challenge time we should be nearing the completion of the renovation! (Even sweeter!)

 

 

 

 

I hope you have enjoyed seeing my interpretation of this month’s challenge including my lemons slices arrangement and how my Sunflowers and Lemons tablescape styling and centerpiece was similar in design to Mary’s “All Abuzz” table. There are many more photos in my tablecape post, so if you missed it last year I hope you will get a chance to check it out soon.

 

 

Now this bright and sunny hop continues on with Marty over at A Stroll Thru Life! Don’t forget to check out all of the other beautiful posts via the links below.

Thanks for visiting!

Amber

 

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