Embrace your scars, accept your faults.

Good advice for people and furniture alike. 

I have been beating myself up trying to strip this little chair,getting every bit of old paint off of it (found out that the four coats of paint were holding it together in places-oops) finally  I asked my self, Why am I doing this? I don't want this chair to look brand new, I want it to look like what it is, a sweet little old chair that has been around the block a few times, I wanted to see the beauty in her age.

So I stopped trying to strip the years away. I smoothed and sanded what I thought I should. took apart and glued back together, painted the pretty ivory color I had originally imagined, distressed again, letting some of the old layers of black and yellow (even some blue) paint peep through.

 I am happy with how it turned out. I even gave her a new little bit of bling. She is a lovey addition to my kitchen.

I think the imperfections make my little chair, well, perfect.

It was a chilly day here, perfect excuse to drag out some of my French china, English tea and Mimi Thorisson's new book "A Kitchen in France" I am addicted to her beautiful blog Manger, her book is as beautiful as her blog, you have to take a minute to check her out. What a lovely family living in a story book like place. Makes me want to go to France more than ever.

 Bruno decided to get into the photo shoot this morning, he did not get enough "Mama time" this week and did not like getting shooed away or ignored, but I don't think he enjoyed becoming the subject of my photography either. That face, he kills me.

It has been such a crazy week it even put me behind on blog posts. I had planned to post again on Wednesday, but bad weather Tuesday caused a gridlock on my commute home and had me sitting on the highway until 7:00 and accidents did that same thing on Wednesday. My new job has a less than desirable commute, so I have adjusted my schedule so I can come in earlier and leave earlier so I can hopefully avoid some of the awful traffic in metro Davidson county at rush hour.

I am almost down to the bottom of my box of silverware stock, I will be hammering out the last few spoons and knives this week and should be all ready for the "Home for the Holidays" craft show next weekend. This is my first time at a craft show of this size, I even dragged my mom in to work the show with me and sell some of her cute hand knit hats and we are both really excited to participate!

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

A touch of frost

We got our first frost here in Tennessee last night, so of course, as soon as I got up this morning I threw on my hoodie and headed outside with my Pug at my heels and my camera in hand.

I love my flowers, so sad to know that I will not see them again until next year. But oh, they look so beautiful kissed by the frost.

I love fall back, got so much done today because of course dogs do not understand "fall back" and had me up at 5:30. But I got several sentiment spoons hammered for the show on the 15th  and so much more accomplished around the house. 

Hope you all had as lovely of a weekend as I have had! 

Perfect weather for Chenille

I love Chenille. 

Beautiful, warm, perfect to snuggle under. How could you not love it?

A few years ago, I stumbled across a chenille baby blanket, excellent condition in an antique store in East Tennessee. Not bargain priced but not expensive enough to put me off it. I love the baby blankets, they are the perfect size to throw over your lap while you read a book or watch a movie. It took no time at all for my kids to "adopt" that first one I found. So.. I started keeping my eye out so that they would each have one of their own.

It did not take long before we all had one of our own, Now we are up to seven in all, one even has  a darling matching pillow case. And of course I had to find one for Bruno to sleep on.

On our last trip to our favorite indoor flea market we found yet another blanket, the one pictured above with the cute bunny. This one was a bargain price and we snapped it up to add to our stash.

 A friend of my mothers made this darling teddy bear out of rosebud chenille for my daughter when she was born, It was an instant family heirloom.

The weather has finally turned chilly here, but with the sunshine, it was perfect to sit outside on the pallet couch with a book, blanket and cookies.

"The Hobbit" My favorite book in the world. I think I have five different copies of it now.

Bruno always joins me on our pallet couch...darn, this picture would have been Hallmark card perfect if I had my camera at the right angle.

I have not even touched on all the full sized chenille quilts I have...honestly, I am not sure how many I have both in use and in the cutter bag. I am determined that eventually I will make my cutters into a big patchwork chenille quilt. I suppose that means I need to actually sit at the sewing machine and really learn how to sew. Sigh, of all my hobbies.....sewing is not one of them.

We expect to have our first freeze here in TN, time to climb under a chenille and keep warm!

October Flea Market

Well, we are getting down to it. Next month will be the last flea market I hit until March or April depending on weather. The Nashville Flea Market runs year round, but over the winter time there are not a ton of vendors that have the type of things that I collect. So...I will be getting my fix this winter at the my favorite indoor flea market or (when I get desperate) ebay.

But, the last couple flea markets of the year are usually AWESOME. And this month was no exception! 

You can find just about everything at the Nashville Flea market, these beautiful mums were huge and gorgeous!!

Vintage Blow Molds were everywhere you looked.

I finally found a reasonably priced lotus bowl to replace the one I smashed into 1000 pieces. You can see by the light, I was at the market early!

Lots and lots of Pyrex...not at bargain prices.

Pyrex Heaven...again, not cheap but this dealer is good about working with you on the price.

Snapped up these Hazel Atlas mugs for a buck each!

Do I even need to caption this? Oh yes...I spent some time at this table.

One of my favorite vendors, Deb and Daughter had this adorable jewelry box, I don't believe it is very old, but it is very pretty and I picked it up for a decent price. Deb mainly paints furniture and her stuff is...well just wow. They are both very talented ladies! Deb has set up a booth at the Farmisan market the last few months as well...coolest booth in the parking lot.

Lots and lots of vintage linens to be found, but, most of the tablecloths I find are priced pretty high.

I picked up several more things that I did not get a chance to photograph, I will get to those this weekend. But all in all it was another enjoyable trip to the market and I walked out with plenty of treasures. I am sure glad that I am an early riser, when I got to the market, maybe a quarter of the parking lot was full...and I was disgusted thinking I got there too late...well....by the time I left? The ENTIRE parking lot and the overflows were FULL, they had cars lined waiting on the road in front of the entrance trying to get in, I had trouble getting OUT of the parking lot! And this is a very large venue with lots of parking. Needless to say, next month I am going to get there a half hour earlier than I did this month just to make sure I avoid the masses.

Hope you are having a great week!

Halloween Traditions

I love Halloween. I have so much fun watching the kids have fun and I LOVE handing out candy Halloween night. The little ones are my favorite, always so cute!

But really, the weather,  pumpkin everything, decorating, carving pumpkins, trick or treating and costumes. Love it all.

One of our Halloween traditions for close to a decade now is visiting the home of President Andrew Jackson. The Hermitage is the museum of President Jackson's home in Hermitage TN. It is a wonderful place to visit year round, but for Halloween they put on "Haunting's at the Hermitage". It is very kid focused with trick or treating,  kid theme Halloween movies on a movie screen in the back field, a spooky hayride, fun snacks, Halloween crafts, ghost stories and a tour of the house, gardens and graveyard. My kids love it. At 15, even at  my son still wanted to go and had a great time....of course it did not hurt that he arranged to have a cute girl meet him there as his date. I won't complain. It is a sweet and fun outing for young teenagers too.

Every year on "Haunting's night" we have the same dinner menu and for dessert, Peanut Butter, Peanut Butter M&M cookies. In my opinion, the best cookie ever.

I am not really a big collector of vintage cookbooks, I do have some, I love my vintage Julia Child cookbooks but other than Julia's, cookbooks are not usually something I look for, Although they do catch my eye sometimes.

Wandering through a local antique store some years ago now, this little cookie cookbook caught my eye, published in 1991, it is not vintage, but the peanut butter cookie recipe found inside it was a  jewel. The Peanut Butter M&M's were my addition to it. Oh they are so decadent and rich. If you love peanut butter, you will love this cookie.

Cookies, Food Writers' Favorites
Edited by Barbara Gibbs Ostmann and Jane Baker
Printed in 1991 with proceeds from the sale of the book going to MADD.

Peanut Butter Cookies

1/2 cup butter

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup chunky or smooth peanut butter

3/4 cup granulated white sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar (firmly packed) 

2 eggs (well beaten)

1 tablespoon milk

1 cup sifted all purpose flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp ground ginger (I usually skip the ginger)

2 cups peanut butter M&M's (My addition)

follow the usual steps, cream butter, peanut butter, sugar and wet ingredients, sift and mix in the dry ingredients then the M&M's. Pop the bowl of batter in the fridge to chill for at least a half hour, then drop cookie dough onto a greased cookie sheet and bake at 325 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes. I make mine BIG, like six to a pan big and also soft and chewy so 15 minutes is all they need. Chilling them for that half hour keeps them from spreading all over the place.

If you are a peanut butter lover, you will love these cookies!

We have had such a fun full weekend. I did make it to the Nashville flea market early Saturday morning. It was a great market (and PACKED) I am very glad I am an early riser and like to be there when the market opens.  I walked out with some great buys and had a wonderful time wandering around. I will post about my finds at the Flea Market later this week.

I hope you all had a wonderful, beautiful fall weekend!

Merry Christma

You ever have one of "those" days? 

This is not the blog post I had planned. My original blog post was typed up, previewed and ready to hit "publish" but instead of publish I hit close. Oops, entire long post, gone. 

So, when I have one of "those" days I sit down, watch a movie, go to bed early and start all over again the next day.

I should have had a clue, when I was hammering out some stock earlier today for the craft fair next month, this was one of my sentiment spoons...well...now it will be a key chain.

 I had a wonderful weekend! I hope you did too! I will try this blogging thing again tomorrow night! 

Until then! Hope you have a wonderful start to your week!

A little sugar

I needed a little flea market hit last week so I wandered into my favorite indoor flea market and found a couple adorable finds.

One of my favorite finds from this last trip was this cute little pink pyrex sugar bowl. 

The matching creamer was no where to be found but it gives me something else to put on my "must find" list for the Nashville Flea Market this weekend! I am (as always) excited to hit the Nashville Flea and I find that I have a pretty long list for this month. I will be there bright and early Saturday morning to see what treasures I can find!

The weather here in Middle Tennessee is getting colder in the mornings and my morning glories are opening later and later, and the poor bee's are starting to die off for the year as well. But when it is cold like this, they slow down just enough so I can get a good picture of them.

I just love these majestic little warriors!

Hope you are having a wonderful week!!