The Fabulous Helen Morris....

This is just one example of what can be done with high end stencils.......

All of the designs you see are available through stencil-library.

Helen Morris is the whirlwind behind the world's largest mail-order stencil collection. England based, they offer over 3500 stencils, many based on historical ornamentation.

Helen's blog Design Inspiration gives us a peek into her world. Nothing is too difficult or too unusual to stencil!

I met Helen about a year ago and follow her blog on a weekly basis. She has a wealth of ideas stored in photos here and browsing through the catalog of stencil library will make your mind reel! So much inspiration!

I would like to thank Helen for featuring me in her blog this week. She is a great friend with a fabulous mind! Check out her blog and stencil company .

over the top interiors....

Bergl, Duquette, Marchiori....sigh.....images of their work are always in my mind...

....influencing my own work and consultations I have with clients and decorators.

These first two images are from two rooms done by J W Bergl in the Schonbrunn Palace in Austria. Here is a link to see a panoramic view of the entire room.

This is the lacquered hall from the Hotel Claude in Paris....

Look at the scale of this classical motif salon....

...and the layers of trompe l'oeil fabric behind the bed....

Tony Duquette was synonymous with asian decor and high drama.

This is Duquette's drawing room at Dawnridge...

..more classic Duquette...

Carlo Marchiori, Venetian by birth, settled in California over a decade ago and brought with him the best of european decorative art.

Carlo not only built Ca 'Toga, but painted all interior murals as well....

His work stopped me in my tracks when I first saw it featured in a magazine I picked up in Venice.

Let me know who has influenced you with your decorating style..!

Road trip...

I have been working in south Texas for a few months with a client's home. The drive is between 8 and 9 hours long and includes a lot of what Texas has best...diversity!

There seems to be an imaginary line around Waco, Texas that once crossed, opens up into a network of small, diverse rural towns with lots of character and history.

Close to London, Texas is an outcrop of pink granite lining both sides of highway 377, the same granite that the state capital is built from.

Go further south on highway 83 to Crystal City, Texas and you will find incredible palm trees thriving in the "border town" warmer climate.

I was working just north of Crystal City on a ranch covered in flint, limestone and river rocks....

....forty miles south of the Frio River....

....... below the "hill country" near Kerrville....

...and where cactus is the main ornamental plant!

On my "paint breaks", I would head in to town (Uvalde)to shop. I found this souvenir pincushion from the 1906 New Orleans Mardi Gras in a local antique shop .....

...and rewarded myself with a piece of Virgins, Saints and Angels jewelry while visiting on each trip!

Shopping in Central and South Texas can be diversified as well! The Herb Farm in Fredericksburg, Texas provides 5 star meals and a gift shop full of candles, soaps and lotions made from herbs grown on the grounds.

I picked up this pretty brush holder from the Artisans at Rocky Hill gallery in Fredericksburg. They are under twenty dollars and have lots on hand if you want to contact them.

If you are in the area, the Hangar Hotel in Fredericksburg is a trip back in time. Located on the grounds of the actual airport, it is a new structure built to look like a quonset hut from WWII.

The hotel staff wear military uniforms, wool blankets are at the foot of each bed....

There is much attention to detail to create the illusion of the war era.

...and everything is painted in army green or battleship grey!

Jitterbug music plays in the lobby and you can ususally hear the billiards clicking in the Officer's Club a.k.a. clubroom.

Just outside of San Antonio is the small German town of Castroville. The Old Alsatian is worth the drive for black mussels in whiskey sauce or jaeger schnitzel.

I will close with a photo from Oktoberfest this past weekend in Fredericksburg....I had painted 12 hours the day before and five hours that morning and then made the three hour trip to Oktoberfest for the evening....the point is....grab life when you can and enjoy the ride!