Hey everyone! Just letting you know my friend Kathy of K Interiors and My Interior Life is having a sale Friday and it looks like there will be lots of great stuff!
Flea Market
Friday was rainy and a lot of vendors didn’t want to play, so I waited until Saturday to hit the flea. Here’s a recap of what I saw…. You can see all my other trips to the flea HERE.
I picked up this $10 lamp for a friend whose new house is going to get the Modfrugal zhush treatment. We are excited to get started as soon as the boxes are unpacked!
I really, REALLY loved and wanted these elves, but not for $60…..
I would have loved to pick up another one of these to make mine a pair, but these felt like flimsy knock-offs. They were overpriced too.
So what did I get? Well, after the flea I also had a Craigslist appointment, so I added to my finds with a waterfall console. I know our Craigslist can be a tough one and after Emily Henderson’s Nashville CL review, this felt like a much needed win!
But I had to paint the kitchen ceiling instead or rearranging the house when I got home…boo!
But the switcheroos have started and the house is in crazy flux. Lots to do today. Until next month!
Crafty Time: Advent Calendar
I didn’t grow up with advent calendars, so I naturally felt a little cheated when I found out about them later in my childhood. “Wait, you mean you get a surprise EVERY DAY for the whole month of December, THEN you get Christmas TOO!?” Wretched excess. Unbelievable. Ridiculous. By this point I was a little too old to ask for one, and I thought it would make me look greedy, so life goes on.
I grow up and have my own children, and it honestly hadn’t occurred to me to do the advent calendar thing with them, until my brother in law brought one with the little chocolates on a visit just before the holidays.
It’s not what’s inside, (although my kids maintain the Trader Joe’s one had crummy flavor) but the thrill and anticipation of the big countdown. So I decided to embrace it. That following year I got the thumbs down TJ’s version, then I got a Playmobil one the next year, then the Lego Star Wars version the next year, and HOLY COW those Lego ones are too expensive. It is time to get back to basics.
I love the DIY advent calendar Jordan Ferney did HERE, and I wanted to adapt it, so…much I like I approach every recipe, I had to mix it up. Here’s my version of the Oh Happy Day advent calendar.
I traced numbers onto paper circles then went over the pencil with a gold paint pen. I got the Helvetica stencils at Michael’s years ago, and do not see them on their website now.
Then I got the silver boxes from Michael’s HERE, and the bottle brush trees from Factory Direct Crafts HERE.
I unholstered the glue gun, attached the trees, and they are ready to fill! We do not put candy in every day, but like to mix it up with activities, clues to a mini scavenger hunt and tiny trinkets.
December 1st falls on the last day of a hectic Thanksgiving holiday weekend, so I needed to get this done now before I’m too deep in Thanksgiving prep.
UPDATE: It will reside in the dining room for the month.
Playing Dress-Up
While I was building the A-Frame Living site, I realized how outdated the functionality was on my theme here. I know most people update every year to keep it jazzy, and…well, I haven’t. Mainly because I just wanted to keep it clean and simple, and I refused to use a theme with Comic Sans or Times New Roman.
I’m trying on a new outfit to see how it fits. Maybe this means things are going to get done around here?
Clicking though to any of the header menu pages will bring you to the old sidebar features like the Instagram feed, category pull down and search bar.
It feels like putting a lot of stuff into a drawer to keep the room neater – we’ll see how much I warm to it after using it for awhile. There’s a few things I’m still trying to decide if I can live with or not (I’m looking at you beige).
Anyway, enjoy the long over due revamp.
A-Frame Living
If you follow my Pinterest board of cabins, you might have noticed I have a thing about A-frames.
My fervor for the architecture is not fully understood, even to me, since they are a little quirky, with practical shortcomings such as limited storage, but I LOVE them. I mean, really kinda sorta totally have an unhealthy fascination with them.
I somehow (wine?) decided to turn this yearning into a passion project, because I don’t have enough unfinished projects around here to attend to. NOTHING BUT TIME PEOPLE. Despite the insanity of this venture at this time in my life, I felt a sense of obligation and urgency to help my little triangle friends. Most of them are in desperate need of some love and attention, and every time I see one languishing on the market, bank owned, I die a little inside.
I give you A-Frame Living.
All of the A-frames featured are for sale (or were at the time of posting). If you know of any for sale in your area, send them my way and I will share them, and hope that I can connect lovers of this architecture with the sellers.
I hope to have my own little ramshackle A-frame in the Rockies one day, but until that day comes, I will be content to see all these wonderful structures find their way to industrious visionaries who have the gumption to take them on.
Viva La A-Frame!!!
To visit the site, go HERE.
Do Over
The family felt cheated after our washed out camping trip at Fall Creek Falls this summer, so we decided to go back over the school break for a “do over”. There were several trails we hadn’t gotten to explore, and we had unfinished business.
Instead of camping, we rented one of the lakeside cabins for a little trip insurance. The day we drove up, it was raining, and we were starting to think that things were not going to look good for the trip (again), but the skies cleared and we had postcard perfect weather every day. We were able to fish off the deck and enjoy the stillness of the lake. There are no motorized boats allowed on this lake, which makes it an amazingly peaceful waterfront. I loved watching the kayaks silently gliding through the mist in the early mornings. I wanted to be in one of them…next time!
A Copperhead came to visit at the waters edge of our cabin….
While in the park, we really wanted to hike the trail to the bottom of the falls (treacherous and totally worth it) and to explore the mountain bike trails. We went on the 7 mile loop trail near the stables and saw NO ONE. I think that may be the park’s best kept secret, as we had to get help at the information center to even find the trails. They are not mapped on any of the main park maps, but the link above takes you to a hand drawn PDF.
We stopped at Burgess Falls on the way to FCF, this part of the state is so full of natural beauty and waterfalls, it’s hard to see every one. FCF has 3 falls in the park (Fall Creek, Caney Fork and Piney Falls).
We went to Cummins Falls on our way back home, only to find the park closed for roadwork. It’s only an hour or so from Nashville, so we could do it in a day trip sometime down the line when it’s swimming weather. So many waterfalls, so little time….