The fleur-de-lis motif

This is the object that started it all. I bought this lamp last year already, at True Value Hardware in the Fairway center. I thought it was pretty and rustic, and I like the old European feel to a fleur-de-lis. It was actually the symbol of the monarchs of France. The English royalty use it too, because they used to claim a right to rule France.

(In the time of Henry II, they did rule most of it. The English monarchs were also the Dukes of Normandy, and then Henry II married Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was the heiress of about half of what is now France. I think their youngest son King John, aka "Evil Prince John," feckless younger brother of Richard the Lionhearted, lost it all. Henry V briefly won back a lot of it, but in spite of lots of wars with France they never got a firm grip on it again.)


I found this pretty little clay pot with a fleur-de-lis on it at the Barkley Haggen grocery store in Bellingham. I need to find the perfect little plant to go in it. I got the little table with metal legs and a slate table surface at Grandiflora in Lynden.


If you look carefully, you will see that there is also a fleur-de-lis in the decorations on this paving "stone." I got this at Timekeepers in the Fairway shopping center in Lynden. You can't tell from the picture, I guess, but it's in the barrel planter that has the honeysuckle and petunias.


Now I can't remember where I got this fleur-de-lis. I bought it this spring. It could have been at Haggen, or Hi Hoe Nursery, or Bakerview Nursery.


And this gazing ball-metal structure has a fleur-de-lis at the top. I got this at Timekeepers, too.


Nice, huh?