Buffalo Check and Burlap

Hello everyone!

Well, the first day of school started off without a hitch.  It feels strange to have a quiet house again. 

Many who read my blog regularly, may remember these draperies were once in my family room.  They had been put away until (or if) I decided to use them again. Well, that day has come.  I pulled them back out and hung them in my kitchen.

 

I was ready for a small change and these fit the bill.

That's the nice thing about having the same color scheme on the main floor.  I can move things around easily from room to room.

I also moved my little burlap bench in here too.  This is the original one I had (before I found the one with the union jack on it).  I draped a burlap pillow cover over it because I liked the bolder script.

 

Hope everyone is having a good week.

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Kelly ~



European Flair

Hello everyone!

First let me thank everyone who visited my guest post on my sister's blog last weekend!  All of your kind comments were so nice to read.  I think it will be a fun series to follow in the future, won't it?

Have you been watching the Olympics?  We sure have and it has been a lot of fun to cheer for team USA!  Of course, with it being held in London,  I've been spying a lot of union jack patterns everywhere.  I just added a touch of it to my sitting room. 

Isn't it cute?!  It's my first piece of union jack trend in my house.  Ha!  It's a burlap bench from Target that was on clearance.  I couldn't resist.

You may recall I have one similar to it with writing on it.  That moved to the kitchen, which I will show in another post soon.

For now, this little bit of union jack brings some European flair to this room.

 

I also found a couple of down filled french script pillows that I loved. I added them to these chairs in here.

Here is a close-up.

Tomorrow, is open house at my youngest son's school.  We'll get a chance to find his classroom and meet his teacher.  He will be starting 5th grade.

  I can't believe that school starts back this Thursday! (I think it is strange to start on a Thursday anyway.)   Where did the summer go?  It went by too fast.    So, you know what I'll be doing this week.......school meeting, school supply shopping, and lunch packing.  Wish me luck!

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Kelly ~ 

Linking to the following:  Tweak it Tuesday



Come See My Guest Post!

Hello everyone!

I am guest posting over at my sister's blog today.  She is starting a weekly series called, My Favorite Room.  She asked me to feature my favorite room to get this series started!  So, of course, I couldn't say no!  I hope you will pop over and check it out and say Hi!  Here is a sneak peak.......

Click here to go see it!

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Kelly ~

My Quirky Silverware Bouquet

Hello everyone!

One day, after moving some things around the house and "robbing" one room to fill another, I was left with an empty galvanized container.  I still wanted to use it though.  It once had a plant in it, and rather than finding another one to fill it, I decided to do something a little crazy.

I filled it with dry beans and stuck some silverware in it.  It now looks like a silverware bouquet.  These were silver plated serving pieces that were stored in the dining room. 

Crazy right?  I thought it would fit in nicely with all of my other dishes on display.

 

So simple. I used what I already had on hand and I like the added texture that the beans give it.

So, that is why I call it my quirky silverware bouquet.  I wonder if this will start a trend.  Hmmm.........

Have you ever done anything crazy like this before?

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Kelly ~

I'm linking to:  Potpourri Party

Picture Makeover

Hello everyone!

One thing I like to do is recycle what I have.  When I'm not using something anymore, it often goes into the basement for safe keeping until I want to use it again.  Sometimes, however, I want to use it, but with a different look.  Such is the case for this picture.

This picture used to hang in my kitchen ( a no-brainer right?).  I hung onto it just in case I changed my mind about it.  Then one day, I realized that I wanted to replace a picture that was hanging in the family room.  I wanted something with a black frame.  Voila!  This picture fit the bill.  But since it had a kitchen motif, it wouldn't exactly work in the family room!  So out came the burlap for a quick makeover.

I just cut the burlap to fit inside the frame of the picture.  I used fabric glue around the edges.   Now, I have a neutral background to work with (and the black frame that I wanted).

I had this smaller picture in my basement too.  (Y'all should really see it, it's ridiculous.  I should have a basement sale.)  So, I hammered a small nail into the picture (yes, you read that right) and hung the small picture on top of the large picture.  Here is what it looks like now.

The burlap is not perfect, but it doesn't bother me enough to fix it.  If I wanted to, I could add some gimp trim around the edges.  For now, this is fine.

I placed it above the white chest in my family room.  I like the contrast of it against the white walls. 

Now, I was able to use two pictures, that I wasn't using before, in a new way! 

Of course, the old one is now in my basement.  Ha!

Do you like to recycle things to use in a new way? This project didn't cost me a dime.  I wish I could think of more things to do like this.  It's actually fun and I like that I was able to create something that is now unique to my home.

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Kelly ~

Linking to:  Wow-us-Wednesday

New Picture = New Vignette

Hello everyone!

Now, that I've recovered from all the happenings of vacation, I've been able to tweak a few things around the house.  While I was away, I received a package in the mail.  I  ordered a small picture from Antique Farmhouse when they were offering a shipping discount.  I spied this Apiary print and thought it would be cute in the foyer.

It depicts bee keeping in the olden days.

I love the distressed frame.

So, of course, everything else on the chest got a makeover too!  Do you do that?  You buy one thing and then everything around it suddenly needs to be "tweaked"?  I'm bad about that.  I guess that's why everything is always changing around here. 

So, I brought in some natural elements that coordinated with my new picture.  A few roses and  antlers did the trick.  Then I added my ever growing stash of Jeanne d Arc Living magazines that I love.

 I'm enjoying it here.  Of course, that meant that the items that were in here moved to a new home too.  I'll share that later. 

Did you know that my husband has a cousin who really does bee keeping?  She and her husband make their own honey and sell it.  They live on a lot of land that provides them the ability to do that.  If I wasn't so scared of getting stung, it would be neat to try.

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Kelly ~ 

Linking to:  Tweaking it Tuesday

Final Vacation Pics!

Hello everyone!

I am going to share with you the final pics of our vacation.  I would've liked to have included some pics from our ghost tour, but didn't bring the camera since it was at night.  I wasn't sure how they would turn out.

We toured the Fort Mantanzas.  It was the guardian fort of St. Augustine. 

We had to take a boat to reach it.

Here is a close-up picture of it.

To read about the history of this fort and the tour, click here.

My husband and youngest son toured Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum.  (My oldest son and I went shopping, instead, since we had already seen it.  Ha!)

Here is Will standing next to the heaviest man in the world.

And the tallest man ........

In the city of St. Augustine, I didn't get as many pics as I would've liked.  Here is one of several cobblestone streets that run through the city.

There were several shops and restaurants as well as bed and breakfasts off this street.

Here are a couple of bed and breakfasts that you can stay in.

Here is the "plaza de la constitucion".  It is the oldest public park in the U.S.
(I didn't get a great shot because of the cars, but you get the idea.)

Do you see all of that pretty Spanish moss hanging from the trees?  It was everywhere!

Just outside of the park,  was the Government House.  It was the capital of Spanish Florida.

There was SO much to do and see in this city!  I could've filled my camera full of pics, but just ran out of time.  We spent the majority of our time at the beach since that was  the main focus of our trip.  We've visited this city many times before and already toured some areas, so we decided not to duplicate everything again.  There were wonderful historic cemeteries throughout,  beautiful old homes and horse and buggy tours on every street.  If you haven't been, I highly recommend it! 

Hope you enjoyed the pics.

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Kelly ~