My Finds at the Country Living Fair

I got this awesome old rusty gate there and right now it's sitting on my outdoor mantle. I am going to add a wreath or sign to it, but haven't decided yet.... The other idea I had for it is to mount it between two wood posts in the backyard somewhere and plant some flowers around it and make it a "secret garden" gate. I love this "gate to nowhere" look. We will see where it ends up, but I love it!

I also snagged this old metal typewriter table. I have been looking for a cute metal table like this one for awhile now, and was so excited when I spotted this one. I will paint her a pretty shade of blue and she will live in my sunroom. "After" pics to come...

I picked up a few more blue jars because I love them and this bird ornament made out of beadboard. I also got these enamel numbers to go on the jars or on some baskets in my bathroom. The 95 is for the year we got married and the 73 is when my hubby was born.

I just love me some feedsacks! I picked up two of these burlap potato sacks. I will make some pillows out of these mixed with some softer fabrics. I don't know if I will keep the pillows or sell them. We will see how they turn out.

And that broke my Country Living Fair budget, but I picked up so many ideas at no charge and my wheels are still spinning...

Now off to paint that table!

Country Living Fair Inspiration

I was so inspired at the Country Living Fair on Friday. The day started with getting to meet Sue Whitney, one of the junk market ladies. She was so nice and is the editor of Country Gardens magazine now. I must start getting that one. I love her style!

She did a demonstration on setting a harvest table "junk market style". This is her table that she was working on.

The booths were amazing and filled with inspiration. Sit back and enjoy some of them...

I am loving this cool, unique lighting!

These chairs sold for around $1200 and were flying out of this booth. No, I did not get one.

It was such a fun day and I hope they come back to the South next year. I will show you my finds later. I am so excited about them! Happy Monday.

I am linking up to Life Made Lovely Monday at Blessed Little Nest. Go over and check out all the other lovely inspiration!

A budget staircase makeover

This is not the budget staircase I am referring to; this is an inspriation picture of what I would like my stairs to look like. I love painted wood stairs and I love the look of a runner. The runner would also add a little padding for kid's falls every now and then. I want to add some board and batten to the wall though and then hang my kids artwork going all the way up the stairs. This is the 5 year plan...

This is the plan for now. There is no time or money for the stair makover project right now, so I disguised my staircase with a $19.95 wood screen door from Home Depot (I got it for $15 because it was a little damaged). I then painted it black and added a crystal knob from Hobby Lobby. This "quick fix" has worked so well!

The carpet on these stairs needs changed, the walls need painted, and there are constantly piles of toys/clothes etc. that kids are supposed to take up with them (but they rarely do). Now that the door is on, I get to enjoy the look and sound of the slamming screen door and forget about that ugly staircase. Someday I will get to have my wood stairs, but for now, I'm loving my new screen door! I might never take it down!

The inspiration for the screen door came from Layla at The Lettered Cottage. I love how they used an old screen door in their dining room. It adds so much character.

Some Simple Fall Touches

I told you that I have not had much luck finding any white pumpkins this year, but I did pick up a few green ones, and quite a few orange ones (those are everywhere!) and grouped them outside in front of my black cart with some bright yellow mums.

The kids added faces to theirs.

Have you seen those lighted grapevine pumpkins at Pottery Barn? I just love them! I was lucky enough to snag this one at a garage sale this summer for $2. It is so pretty and sparkly at night.

I painted a thrift store silver tray with chalkboard paint and added a halloween "eek!" I like to use things that I don't have to pack away after fall is over. My goal this year was to simplify. I am still changing and decorating my house in general since we have been here for just 2 years. I didn't want to create much more work for myself by having to pack and unpack a lot more stuff, so I pared down and kept it simple. Having 3 kids with different schedules has also inspired simplicity!

My simple, orange-free fall mantle. Oh yeah, I painted my bricks white this summer and painted my mantle "Contented" by Sherwin Williams. I like how it lightened up the space and added a little color. It took lots of color testing to come to this mantle color. I might add a glaze to it. We will see...

I love me some crows!

The spider is a vinyl decal and is easy to remove.

I found this wood crate at a garage sale for $2, so I filled it with pumpkins (wish they were white), pine cones, indian corn, a few leaves, and put some blue glass jars in the center. I lined the bottom with burlap. This is my simple dining room centerpiece that will last through Thanksgiving. I am hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year, so I have a jumpstart on the table decorating...

Fall goodness...

I did not sell my tiered stand at the barn sale last month, so I added some fall berries, and glittery pumpkins and gourds to it in my kitchen. My friend Elise and I made the book page bird using this tutorial. They are intended for Christmas use and the link is to a book page ornament (so cute!), but I use mine all year round.

Hope I inspired you to keep it simple and relax this fall! Happy Decorating!

Enjoying Fall

I haven't blogged in awhile, so I thought I would do one post (it's a long one) to show you what I've been up to. Our fall always starts with this little guy's birthday. He turned 2 on Sept. 30th. Happy Birthday Brayden!

He loves Bob the Builder so I made him this cake. I got the idea from my favorite cake website, http://www.coolest-birthday-cakes.com/ . This was a pretty easy one to make.

The gifts consisted of a lawn mower, weed eater, tool set, and some guns. He is the third child, so he has to keep up with his big brother and sister. I would never have bought my first son a gun for his second birthday. Things change people!

Brayden is our most spirited child, and most strong willed, but he adds so much fun and joy to our family. He is really starting to talk and even say sentences like, "Bryce pushed me" and "I love you mommy". It is fun to hear his new words and little ideas. He really makes himself known in our family. He does have a case of the terrible two's already, but is also such a sweet kid, that he melts my heart daily. You are special Brayden and I love you very much! You will go far in life!

He loves his Grandma and Grandpa. He actually would rather be at their house than our's most days. He calls them "paw paw" and "ge ma". I am very thankful that they are in his life!

I did my first sprint triathlon Oct. 3rd. The race consisted of a 1/4 mile swim, 13 mile bike, and 3 mile run. I did it with a few of my favorite girls. Here is my sister and I before the swim.

She was my toughest trainer preparing for this!

My good friend and training partner, Amy talked me into doing the tri. I was not really a strong swimmer or biker before this. We meet early two mornings a week to run or bike. We have some great girl talk while we run. As you can imagine, it was COLD that morning on the beach! Finishing up the bike ride...Finishing the run....almost there!

Our families came out to support us which made it so much more fun. Our hubbys had to have the kids up and out the door by 6:30 to make it in time. Very impressive guys! It meant a lot that they were there. I look forward to doing another one. It was so much fun!
We have enjoyed some time outside using Brayden's new finger paints.

The other two love it just as much.

We've made a few trips to the pumpkin patch, but not as a family yet... I have discovered that white pumpkins are hard to find in the south and those are my favorite.

We have become friends with a horse that lives near us and have been bringing him snacks of apples and carrots. Brayden asks to feed him just about every day. Bryce stepped in an ant bed this day and had to lose his shoe.

Makenna took her first school field trip to the pumpkin patch. I actually learned a lot about growing pumpkins too. I might try planting some this summer and see what happens...

We just returned from a camping trip too. We had some good laughs around the fire and ate lots of smores, one of my favorite things about fall!

Played some games...

Drank lots of hot cider and hot chocolate...

Played on the rocks by the lake for hours...

And did some hiking through the woods... Lots of memories were made that I will never forget and hopefully the kid's won't either. Some highlights of our trip were:

*hubby having to "borrow" someone's canoe without asking to rescue a ball from the lake

*Brayden using his hiking stick as a horse and laying down during the hike, saying "horsey nap"

*Makenna holding my hand while we were hiking and saying, "I love camping"

*Laying on a big rock in the sun reading a book for a few hours while the older kids played together.

*sitting around the fire cooking hot dogs, warming our hands, and talking at night about granddaddy long legs and whatever else came to mind.

I have been doing some fall decorating too, although I kept it simple this year. I will share what I have been working on very soon.

Happy Fall to you!