The 2nd Floor of “Bear Lodge” in Summerfield, NC

“Bear Lodge” is the home we toured last weekend and it is a home decorated and opened to the public to help raise funds for The Muscular Dystrophy Association. A few days earlier I posted the photos I had of the first level of this gigantic 6000 square foot home and today I wanted to take you upstairs.

Here is one of the first bedrooms we found upstairs and it was one of my favorites probably because it was green. My own house has a lot of green so I felt right at home in this room.

I liked this little sitting area that was included in this room and I liked the painted wood detail. Rustic but nice.

We had our choice of two stairways up to the 2nd floor and we found this nice leather chair at the top and of course I had to take a photo of the Golden Retriever pillow…looks a lot like our dog Oakley.

The hallway upstairs was wide and had beautiful hardwood floors and really unique artwork like this chicken painting.

This bedroom included two twin beds and it was a nice large room with a bit of a cowboy theme.

And here was the bathroom for the little cowboys. None of the bathrooms really blew me away but they were still very nice.

Next stop was this bonus room. It was a combination of a Family/Game Room and had an Exercise area near a big window that had a gorgeous view overlooking a mini lake.

I liked this game/snack table and the horizontal stripes on the wall were nice. I am seeing this kind of wall painting more and more and I am not sure how much I like it just yet. It looks great here but I am not sure I could do it in my own house.

Another simple bathroom but I did like the color blue they used.

Another Bedroom….hmmm, it’s green too and I kind of like this one too! I really loved the blinds on this window.

Very nice!

Another farmhouse sink in this bathroom. I think that makes 3 farmhouse sinks total in this house.

Here is the 2nd floor Laundry Room. Remember I showed you the one on the first floor a few days ago. How nice to have one on each floor!

I loved the black and white floor and had to take a shot.

And lastly, this was a very small study room/office???? It was a bizarre shape and decorated a bit extremely with the animals…..Not sure a giraffe fits in with the Rocky Mountain “Bear Lodge” theme they had going but who am I to judge??? I was going to buy it but the giraffe turned me off. :) I’ll take you outside to the patio and terrace later this week.

A Little Bit of Burlap

This was a fun, quick and easy project. Just the kind I like! I got the idea a few weeks ago from the Shanty 2 Chic blog by Ashley and Whitney. They have the cutest ideas and this was one I wanted to give a try. And it was so quick and easy that I made two!

I started with a stretched canvas and I cut a piece of burlap slightly bigger than the canvas. It needed to be big enough to wrap around to the back of the canvas but not so big that it created too much bulk. Lay your canvas face down on the middle of the piece burlap. I pulled and staple the top and bottom and then did the sides. You will need a upholstery/heavy duty stapler for this job. Check every now and then to make sure it looks fairly even on the front.

I folded over the edges as I stapled them for a cleaner look on the back.

Next was the fun part. I used blue painter’s tape to tape down the stencil on the front of the burlap covered canvas. Then I took a stencil brush and some black acrylic craft paint. Make sure you do not have too much paint on the brush. You do not want globs or extra paint to seep under the stencil. I used my fingers to keep the stencil flat against the burlap as I was applying the paint. I tried not to pounce so I wouldn’t stretch out the canvas and instead rubbed it on in circular motion to get nice coverage. I did the center stencil first. Then applied the border in the same way.

And here they are! I loved how they turned out and now I am brave enough to try again on a larger scale.

Hillsdale Farmer’s Market

Today I stopped by the Hillsdale Farmer’s Market after getting a call from Ellen who sells flowers there each Saturday. It seems the weather had seriously interfered with people stopping to shop today. It’s a damp and chilly day with that kind of fine misty drizzle. A good day for staying indoors and watching huge amounts of college football which is the only thing on our agenda today! Anyway, Ellen called me to say she had extra flower arrangements and she wanted me to have one for free! How kind is that? So, I stopped by and she gave me another beautiful bouquet of flowers grown in one of her many gardens.

I almost forgot that I also bought two bags of Spring bulbs from Ellen too that were freshly dug from her garden. I got a bag of yellow Bearded Iris’ and a bag of orange Crocosmia. I was not familiar with the Crocosmia but Ellen showed me a photo and I am going to give them a try. Both need full sun and I have a spot with plenty of that!

Lucky for all the vendors today that the Hillsdale Brick Store has a big wrap around covered porch so they were all able to set up their tables on the porch and stay dry. The table next to Ellen’s Flowers had freshly baked pies made by Dawn Terrell from Sweet As Pie. I was able to sample her Chocolate Pie which I decided to buy and take home with me and she had a beautiful and unbelievably delicious Pecan Pie which I really wanted to buy but my husband is still not feeling well and my son doesn’t like nuts. I need a Pecan Pie sitting in my house like a need a hole in my head! But that Pecan Pie sure looked good and I will think about getting one of them next time I need a dessert for a party and there is somebody else in my house to help eat it. So I opted for the Chocolate because I knew my son would help finish it off and it is tastee! Next week she said she would have some Apple Pies available. Hmmmmm .

So if you live near me and you are interested in Contact information for either Ellen and her flowers or you need a delicious pie from Dawn at Sweet As Pie, leave me a comment and I will e-mail you their information. So now if you will excuse me, it is back to football…we are flipping back and forth between the Carolina game and the Michigan game. Go Heels! and Go Blue!

Mini Gala Apples

The apples are starting to come in to the markets here…they have pretty much moved out their off season stock and now they are replacing them with the new crisp and fresh apples that I love this time of year. Nothing worse than biting into a mealy past it’s prime apple. Not anymore! I found these mini Gala Apples today and had to eat one in the car on the way home. Really good. I just took a picture of them because they were so darn cute. They might not look “mini” in the photo but they are. Almost too cute to eat…almost!

I am trying out a new program to give me more flexibility in writing my blog posts and for adding photos and being able to enhance them. The program is Windows Live Writer and I have no idea what I am doing but I figure I can wing it and eventually I’ll figure it out! It comes highly recommended by Rhoda at Southern Hospitality who is always so generous with her ideas and advice. So Thanks to her.

I guess you can consider this a “Test Posting”. If you are reading this and seeing photos of my mini apples we can consider the test a success! Thanks for being my lab rats!

Candy Corn Re-cycled?

Yes it is another black and white harlequin decoupaged treasure made by me the newly crowned Decoupage Queen. :) I also found this little lidded candy dish at the Goodwill for $1.49 this morning and it is perfect for holding the candy corn.

I love candy corn....unlike Chelsea at her Room to Inspire Blog. She is one of the blogs I passed the "Honest Scrap Award" to and she wrote a funny item in her "10 Things About Me" post including how much she hates candy corn. How can anyone hate candy corn?

My kids used to wipe out the candy corn jar the same day I would fill it but not anymore. I now save what is left of the candy corn at the end of the season and I put I put it in a baggy and keep it for the next year. That is the corn you are seeing in the jar today. It is from last year! It really doesn't taste all that great. The kids take a few pieces...get a funny look on their face and they pretty much leave what is left in the jar alone. There is nothing wrong with it really....just a little bit stale is all.

I haven't purchased any new corn yet but I will...I like Brach's the best. It is just too early to be eating candy corn.....we need to wait till at least the first of October anyway...and then I will spring for a fresh bag. Does that make me a bad Mom???

Honest Scrap Award

I was just awarded the "Honest Scrap" Award by Kathy at Creative Home Expressions. I am so new to Blogging that I am not sure how to act...I think I am excited about this! This is kind of like a cross between "Tag, You"re It!" and "Thanks for the award...I am so honored!" I have enjoyed Kathy's blog and I know you will too so when you get a chance, stop by and give her a visit.


Here are the rules I need to follow:


1) Say thanks and give a link to the presenter of the award. THANKS KATHY!!


2) Share "10 Honest Things" about myself.


3) Present this award to 7 others whose blogs I find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged me.

4) Tell those 7 people they've been awarded HONEST SCRAP and inform them of these guidelines in receiving.

Here are 10 things about me....

1. I met my husband on a camping trip......and I hate camping....not my husband. :)


2. My favorite holiday is Halloween and I was Nick Nolte's Mug Shot for a Halloween party a couple of years ago.



3. I love all things French and I want to travel all over Europe. I'd like to go to France of course, and Italy, England, Spain, and Greece.


4. I have loved being a Mom to my two kids. I feel like I figured it out as we went along and continue to do so.


5. I worked the afternoon shift in a factory one summer when I was in college called Gay Toys. I am not kidding. We made toys....for children!!! My job was to assemble plastic toy motorcycles and because I was so good at it they wouldn't let me work on any of the other toys. My girl friend got to assemble the "Polly Pots and Pans". I was jealous.


6. I "designed" the telephone system for WJR radio in Detroit back when I was working before my kids were born.


7. My roommate in college grew up on a hog farm. Our Junior year she was crowned the Pork Queen of Michigan and I got an all expense paid trip to Kansas City for the Pork Producers Convention because I served as her chaperon.


8. I am related to the great writer Franz Kafka. He wrote some bizarre stuff and I would much rather be a descendant of Jane Austen but we can't pick our relatives now can we?!


9.. I lived in the Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity House my last year of College. I wonder if that qualifies me as a "legacy"?? Anyway, my roommates and I did not belong to any sororities but we needed an apartment with a flexible lease at the last minute and that was all that was available. Turned out to be a very fun year! :)


10. I love shopping on QVC. And I have a recipe that was selected and published in the QVC Family Cookbook. Yep, I am "published". They gave me a free copy of the cookbook as a thank you. :) So I have that going for me.


Now, here are some of the blogs that I have enjoyed and I would like to pass on the Honest Scrap Award on to each of them. Drum Roll Please.........

Brown Eyed Belle
Confessions of a Plate Addict
Room Service Decorating 101
Butteryum
Tales from Bloggeritaville
Room to Inspire
At Home With A Country Lady

Harvest Pumpkin

It is raining here....again! But I can't complain too much, we are not having the horrendous flooding that they are having in other parts of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. We are having that gray misty kind of drizzle. The kind that is just enough to be annoying. My husband is upstairs in the bed with the FLU so I am making a pot soup for dinner tonight. So while that is on the stove simmering I will see if I can find a home for the new Harvest Pumpkin that I picked up from Hobby Lobby.



I have started to slowly bring out a few things for Fall and found this metal Harvest Pumpkin at Hobby Lobby for 50% off so I got it for $9.00....a good deal It thought. It fits perfectly over the decorative plate that was there...like it was made that way. Lucky me!

Here is the lamp with the plate:

And here it is with the Harvest Pumpkin in place:

I think this is a good spot for it!

Falling Leaves

Just a few days ago, one of my favorite blogs, CENTSATIONAL GIRL, posted a "how-to" on how to make a beautiful collage out of Fall leaves. If you have never visited Kate at Centsational Girl you are in for a treat. She has an eye and the know how to create a gorgeous home using things that you already have and makeing trash into treasure. You have to stop by her blog....it won't be your last visit I guarantee it!

On her blog, Kate, the Centsational Girl, gives you the details on how to create this beautiful and seasonal collage out of the colorful leaves in your backyard. Want to make one for yourself??? Click here on Centsational Girl and you can follow her step by step like I did.

Here is what she made for her own home:

I love this! She actually made a set of two of these beauties. I was quite inspired and I stopped by Hobby Lobby to get the things that I needed. You will need a blank canvas and did you know they make a Metallic Mod Podge? I picked up a jar of silver metallic Mod Podge and some metallic gold and metallic esspresso brown acrylic craft paint. (Kate used a metallic bronze but I couldn't find it so I substituted the espresso instead.) You will also need some leaves and it is best if you press them in a heavy book for a day or two to make sure they are flat.

First step: Paint the canvas. I had some leftover paint....."Latte" from Sherwin Williams that I used to paint my master bathroom earlier this summer. So I used it for the basecoat on my canvas. Wait for it to dry before you start glueing your leaves on the canvas.

Next step: start glueing your leaves on your canvas with the silver metallic Mod Podge. I tried to place my leaves in a scattered fashion on the canvas to make it look like they had landed there after falling out of the tree.

After you have the leaves glued in place then you can start to touch up each of the leaves with some of the metallic gold and espresso or bronze paints. I also used these paints to make strokes and swirls around the leaves to make them look like the wind was moving them. This is fun to do. Keep a damp clean cloth nearby if you are like me and get a bit carried away you can wipe a stroke off the canvas and re-do it if you don't like how a swirl turns out.

And here is the final product. This was a fun project. Thanks Centsational Girl for the How-To and the inspiration. I enjoyed making this one!

Another Decoupaged Masterpiece

As promised I finished my wood box with the hinged lid that was part of my Goodwill junk from earlier in the week. Another reason why I like blogging is that is makes me finish what I started! Anyway, remember this box.....a bit too nautical for me....and you know how I love to decoupage. It was perfect for my next decoupage project and I have lots of black and white papers left over from my last project and there is something about that harlequin pattern that I can't seem to get enough of.

Here it is before....

I gave the box 3 coats of black acrylic craft paint.

The box is indented on the lid and on the front where the pictures of the ships used to be so I cut out two pieces of the black and white harlequin paper to fit each indentation. Then I decoupaged them on by painting Mod Podge in the indentations, painted glue on the back of the paper, and then slowly adhered the paper to the box with a top coat of the Mod Podge.

Next I added another one of the many white porcelain cabinet door knobs that I had left over from when I re-did the cabinet doors in my laundry room. (Click on Laundry Room to take a look at that project.) I had to add a painted matchbox to act as a "washer" for the screw of the knob and it is on the inside of the box helping the knob stay secure. I painted it black to blend in to the inside of the box. I used a drill to get a clean hole in the the center of the top of the box the thread the knob through. This is very similar to the cardboard box that I decoupaged earlier this summer. Click here to take a look at it if you missed it. (Black and White Decoupage Box Project) And that is it.

Here is is before:

And here it is after:

Remember how these all looked when I brought them home from the Goodwill??



And now take a look. Good things come in threes!