2017 Country Living Fair

On Friday, October 27th I went all by myself to the Country Living Fair in Stone Mountain, GA.  I had a ball!  I had asked several girlfriends to go but all were busy with other things and couldn't go.  Mister D usually goes with me and he and I even attended the Ohio Country Living Fair before.   I have been many times with my BFF, Patsy but never by myself.  I thought I would have a great time just meandering around looking and buying of course. But never thought I would enjoy it as much as I did!!!!!

I was even able to go to two different workshops that I would have never done had someone been with me.  I attended one about decorating and mixing prints with these two guys, Jason Oliver Nixon and John Loecke of Madcap Cottage. http://www.madcapcottage.com

I had my lunch while just sitting, enjoying the beautiful fall weather, listening and gathering ideas from these two gentlemen. 

The other was with Norma Murphy from The Connecticut Home.  Check her out on Facebook.  I learned that she has been a decorator and designer for Ethan Allen Furnishing among other ventures.  But more importantly she is to be featured in the Country Living Magazine in December with her Connecticut home for Christmas.  It's all about tartan plaid and how to decorate with it.  She showed screen shots of the beautiful magazine pages and explained how she went about decorating for the shoot.  It was glorious!

Below are a few of the pics that I took during the day.  The first being a cotton wreath that everyone needs to have in their Southern home.  It was only $65.00 but I already have one in my kitchen so I passed on the buy.

This was beautiful as it was so simply done.  I could have so seen this in my daughter, Meg's home.  But when I shot her a pic she shot me one back of the one that she already had. 

This was something that I saw from a distance that I thought might be interesting.  It was a cart that had the beginning stages of being decorated.  I have one of these in my sewing room with rolls of decorating fabric stored in it.  I lined my cart with painter's cloth and thought that I might be able to add the rag tassel's to my cart when I had the time to work on it.  Hence the idea below.

This is the find of the day.  I was so excited as I am a big lover of old quilts.  I have about 12.  That's not as many as some of you out there have. This one is a navy polka dot and cream.  It was only $78.00 and a steal. 

I didn't take a pic of the masking tape on the inside border but it has a strip of masking tape that had the date of when it was last washed.  The lady I bought it from said that she purchased it from this lady that was selling some of her mom's quilts that her mother had quilted it in a quilting bee club.   It was hard for her to part with it, but her mom had so many t choose from and she couldn't keep them all. 

In the quilting club the members would wash the quilts they sewed and put the tape on them with the date of last washed on there.  I thought that was so sweet as they loved each and every one they quilted.

This was a strange find.  This is a Chinese man and I was attracted to it because I have 3 Chinese great nieces and 2 Chinese great nephews.

I immediately texted my niece, Tiffany and asked if she wanted it.  It was only $5.00 and I knew she would.  She collect these and has them all over her sweet little house.

Here is a close up of the cart again.  I think it will be so cute when I get mine done.  I'll make sure that I try to blog about it when I start the process. 

This is a banner that I bought from a guest star of the fair, April Cornell.  Yes, she was there in person and so I bought a spring banner from her and a few other Christmas gifts.  I even had the fore thought to have her autograph it.  I should have had our picture made together.  That was a real treat to hear about her fall collection that was displayed in the booth.  She is a sweet lady and so cute.

Well, that was my day at the Country Living Fair in Stone Mountain.  I hope you enjoyed it and will think about going next year to find a prize you can't live without. 

Stay tuned to see the blog posting of my cart!

ELVIS Birthday Trip 2017

Today I'm going to share my post about our trip to Memphis to go to Graceland!  I surprised my husband for his 70th birthday to venture out on a total surprise for him.  He had absolutely no idea where we were going but just a long weekend trip.  We left on a Saturday morning in July and started driving toward Birmingham.  He guessed several times where we were going, however didn't put it all together until we got on the other side of Birmingham.  Then he saw the Memphis signs and guessed our destination.

You see he and I both are huge ELVIS fans!  When we were young married and he was in college, our hobby together was to go to ELVIS concerts.  Yes, he saw him in concert in person all over the southeast 13 times and I saw ELVIS 9 times.  It was a great experience to share together.  When ELVIS died I was only 26 years old, and we both were devastated. 

I had made our reservations at the new hotel in Memphis, The Inn at Graceland.  It was a beautiful hotel and was decorated in true ELVIS style. 

When we arrived late Friday afternoon we were hungry and ready to eat, so we decided to check out Marlow's!  It seems that you go to the Conciere Desk and ask for a pink cadallac to go to Marlows and they pick you up there at Graceland. We had the best ribs I believe I had ever eaten plus the driver was awesome.  It seems that when he was a teenager, he had a girlfriend that lived behind ELVIS and she taught ballet.  ELVIS wanted her to teach Lisa Marie how to dance so he put a gate up between her yard and his and she could come and go between the yards to give her lessons.  He also said that they used to sneak over to ELVIS' pool and swim at night when they thought no one was watching. They got ran out numerous times, only to return again and again.  Funny stories he told. 

He also said that when we got to Marlow's that we should ask for CJ (I believe was her name) in the gift shop and that she dated ELVIS.  He said we should ask her when we meet her specifically "what ELVIS gave her on their first date". So when we arrived we went to the gift shop and met her we asked the question.... She said that ELVIS rented a movie theatre and they were sitting watching the movie.  He asked her what her favorite color was, she said red.  He excused himself and she thought he went to the men's room only to return shortly afterwards.  When they left the movie, he presented her with a burgundy Pontiac Lemans right outside of the theatre.  He said burgundy was the best he could do that late at night.   

This was us at the Graceland gates after dinner.  Graceland is literally one block down from the Inn. 

Close shot of the brick wall at the gate. I thought it was really cool all of the signatures and sentiments to ELVIS written on the wall.  It's a great piece of grafheti.

As you know today is the anniversary of his death so I would really love to be there today, but not possible to go back right now.  They say that they line up the afternoon of his death anniversary and everyone walks by the memorial garden on the grounds and pays respects until everyone in the line, no matter how long is able to pay respects.  Sometimes it's 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. the next morning. 

This was a photo of ELVIS in one of his cars at the new ELVIS pavilion across the street from Graceland.  It's a beautiful new complex and has all of his cars, outfits, memorabilia, and other star's outfits that had beautiful sentiments said about ELVIS and his music.  It was a great place to spend several hours just going through all his stuff!  You actually board a bus to go over to Graceland from his site.  The airplanes were also here to go through. 

In the automobile display room these were signs on the walls and were huge.  I thought the one above was great since it told the story of the American Dream and how it spoke of American's freedom.

Its strange ELVIS was a very shy person, but was always self confident in his talent.  That's why he was able to sell himself to the world as a great artist. 

These pics of the gold suit, his early guitar and shoes show the 50's & 60's style of ELVIS and his eccentric sense of style.

   

Once we reached the house, there is a room outside, where ELVIS and Pricilla had their wedding reception, with more memorabilia in it.  I caught a glimpse of this baby blanket that was Lisa Marie's.  It had this writing on it and thought it was so precious.  It says:

To Lisa

Long Beach Arena

I love my Lisa

Daddy

Wednesday August 15, 1972 

This was Pricilla's Dune Buggy they used to go all over the property with.  Loved it because it was PINK!

Then on to the next stop.  Near the airplanes you can board a bus to go to Sun Records in downtown Memphis.  You will need to ride the Graceland Inn bus back to the hotel.  Sun is where he made it big and cut his first records beginning July 1954. 

History of Sun Records

ELVIS and Sun Records history

This is my hubby in front of the infamous Sun Studio building.

We had such a fun time on our 3 day weekend.  It was a packed, fast, fun weekend trip and my husband loved it all as did I.  I hope you enjoyed seeing a little of ELVIS and his world as it was in the 50s, 60s & 70's and what they have done with it today.  We still mourn ELVIS but so grateful he left behind a ton of music for us to enjoy.  Thanks for viewing my post and hope you return for more fun adventures next time.

Hyde Park, New York Trip

Hi Everyone,

This post was intented for the start of summer, and one that I meant to share with you but didn't have the time to post after we got home from our trip to New York in June.  Even though summer is almost over I wanted to share because Hyde Park/Roosevelt's Home was such an interesting place. Maybe some of you have seen it, but awesome place to visit.