Country Liviing Fair - Austin 2012

You may remember a little trip I took last October with my mom to the Country Living Fair in Atlanta, GA. It was so fun. While we were there we saw that they were planning a Country Living Fair in Austin Spring of 2012. I was so excited! As soon as the tickets went on sale, I bought a pair of 3 day passes with early bird access.

My friend Jaymie came all the way from California to visit so we could go to the fair.

I'm not sure if there were less vendors at this fair compared to the ATL fair - or maybe it was just how they were all set up. Never-the-less, they had some great vendors/shops!

I think one of my favorite shops was the Scarlett Scales Antiques. It was this cute little booth in the corner. Quite honestly, it was easy to miss if you didn't know exactly where it was. But it had absolutely adorable items! I got some of my favorite things there!

My Be True Banner over my fire place.

#3 Bucket

Driftwood Star

We also saw Olive Grace Studios. She was at the ATL fair. I was so happy to see her. I got lots of cute fabric!

They had a huge area for their Antique booths. Lots of cute items! I found another one of my favorite pieces in the antique area:

On Day 2 Jaymie entered the Country Living Twitter contest and won $100 fair bucks! She bought me these beautiful measuring cups with half the money:

Kitchen Bling

Here are some other photos of lovely items and booths we encountered...as well as some longhorns that made their fair debut....

Creative and beautiful chandeliers

Antique Barn

I'm already looking forward to next year!

Fortune Teller Demonstration

Back in January, Bradley provided a "how to" demonstration for how to make a "fortune teller." Check out his video below...

365 2012 :: Day 72

Lookee what came in the mail today! My Country Living Fair Tickets! My friend Jaymie will be flying in from San Diego to go with me. So excited!!

Placemat Throw Pillows

I adore the look of cute throw pillows - but quite honestly can't stomach paying $20-100 for the throw pillows I fall in love with. So I've started finding cute placemats that I can turn in to throw pillows. I purchased a couple placemats on sale at Target a few weeks ago. They're blue and white to go on my entry way bench. I haven't done much to them yet...

Only $1.18 each!

I plan to make these in to pillows once I get more stuffing. In the meantime, I made one with the one bag of poly-fill that I did have. I love how easy it is...and how they turn out :)

Take a seam ripper, and cut out enough for you to stick your fist in to the placemat.

Take your bag of poly-fill stuffing and start filling the inside of the placemat, one fist full at a time. Be sure to get the corners.
Once you're done stuffing, hand sew the opening back up with matching thread.

You end up with a cute throw pillow! This cute embroidered bird pillow is for our guest bedroom we're trying to fix up. Love how it turned out! The cost is very inexpensive. I paid $2.99 for the bag of Poly-Fill and $3.99 for the above bird placemat. Total = Approx $7.00 (+tax) for the pillow.

Composition Book Trip Journal

I took a ton of photos from my trip (see trip details here, here, here, here, or here) with my mom. And knew before I even left, that I wanted to memorialize our trip in a scrapbook/journal of some kind and give to my mom as a Christmas gift. I have a thing for composition books (specifically graph paper ones). I know...kinda weird. But I thought a composition book would be a great canvas (and an inexpensive one) for this little journal.

Once again, I pulled some of my inspiration from some finds on Pinterest.

I loved Little Boo Blue's Art Journal tips. However I started my journal before I saw this...otherwise it would have (attempted) to be a little more artsy.

Photo Credit: Lil Blue Boo

Isn't her journal beautiful? I loved the ribbon closure and how she sews items around her journal. I definitely want to try one like this.

I loved the below idea of outlining our route with embroidery thread on a map. I used my grandmother's old National Geographic Atlas book that had been falling apart for years. It was going to be thrown out - but I loved the old maps inside. I found a map of the Southeast coast of the US (GA and SC in particular)...and worked off this idea (thank you Martha Stewart)...

Photo Credit: Martha Stewart

My map didn't turn out as perfect as Martha's. Mainly because I have no idea how to do embroidery and I had little patience or time...

Our trip...embroidery by yours truly.

I was a little worried about actually finishing it - and it looking half way decent. There are still a few things I wish I had done...but overall I like it (mainly because my mom liked it so much).

It ended up being very thick!

The front was covered in scrapbook paper then Mod Podged over it.

Mom did love it...and she was holding on to it for a while after opening all her gifts. Mission Accomplished!

My step-dad and mom - Fuzzy photo (sorry!)

If you want to see the full thing - all pages - below is a video of me flipping through the pages. It's kind of long...about 6 minutes. (The actual video screen size is small - I did something wrong when uploading it from my bloggie)

Lighted Ribbon Garland

Pinterest is a wealth of inspiration for any aspiring crafter/decorator. I love the ideas around the holidays. There were so many I wanted to try out...but I just didn't have the time.

I did try version of this one:

Photo Credit: Whitney Caroline Designs

At first I was going to try the different colors. But then I went for all white ribbon. I got some white cotton/poly blend fabric from Joann's on clearance in their scrap bin. I also picked up some different ribbon....some crossgrain ribbon, satin ribbon, and a couple others. I also used some tulle that I had left over from my wedding (yes...it was over 10 years ago...and I still had it. I used one of our string of white lights and had to fold the lights since the string was too long. Then I just cut the strips of fabric and ribbon and tied the peices in knots around the lights. Here's the results...

I'm pretty happy with the result! Even my dear hubby thought it looked good. I am thinking about making a string of fun lighted ribbon for our guest bedroom. (Check out Whitney Caroline Design post - see the photo of the string of lighted ribbon around the headboard - totally cute!)

I'll have to check out Valentine's Day decoration ideas on Pinterest...and get started early this time!

All Photos, except where otherwise credited, are mine.

New Craft - Clay Tags

My love of all things Pinterest resulted in trying out a craft. I was going back and forth between trying salt dough or white clay. For this trial, I used white clay that you bake in the oven for about 15 minutes per 1/4" of thickness.

I used a circle cookie cutter that was about 3" in diameter, some stamps and ribbon. Here's the result:

First attempt - Clay Holiday Tags/Ornaments  (excuse the poor quality phone photo)

I wanted to keep them white & didn't mind the indentation of the stamps around the actual letters. What I did realize is I want them a little smaller. Definitely need to work on these. I like them - but some tweaks need to be made. But I definitely want to keep doing them. I think they'd be adorable on Christmas packages and can later be used as ornaments (if the recipient wants to keep them)!

Photo Credit: me

Country Living Fair - Atlanta, GA 2011

For a few years my mom and I have wanted to make a trip out of going to the Country Living Fair in Atlanta, GA. We love the magazine, articles, and decor. So one year ago we made a commitment for a mom/daughter trip to the Southeast to hang out and go! We flew in to Charlston, SC and then drove to Atlanta, GA. We did this for several reasons...#1) We wanted to explore SC and GA. #2) Southwest didn't fly to Atlanta, GA yet. We didn't want to pay for extra baggage and we both wanted to bring extra baggage to bring our finds home! So we both had a long day of traveling before we got to Stone Mountain, GA.

This was my view while waiting in the Charleston Airport for mom to arrive

Mom driving to Stone Mountain, GA

I have to tell you when we tell people that we went to the Country Living Fair - people look at us like we're crazy for flying so far for a magazine fair. People - it was awesome! :) The best news we heard while we were there is that it is coming to Austin in late April 2012. I'm so there! (And I don't have to worry about how to get my finds home!)

Map of the Fair

We purchased 3 day passes which came with early bird access (getting in at 8:30am vs. 10am with the rest of the crazy people). We only went the first day - but the early bird access was so worth it!

Pumpkin & Gourd Mountain in the Fair...the colors were amazing

There were so many great vendors at the fair. I'll highlight some of my favs along with passing along their website/store information.

The first booth we went to was one of the largest. Earth Angels is a collaborative group of various artists...each contributing their own unique style of crafts. My favorite of the artists is Jennifer Paganelli's shop called Sis Boom. Her fabrics, books and other things such as note cards and journals are adorable. Mom and I picked up some fat squares and fabric scraps - I plan on making a cathedral window quilt out of mine. The beautiful fabrics will look great (whenever I actually get to it) :)

Earth Angels Booth

The second booth we went to that we loved was Feather Nesters. So. much. cute. stuff! I got a "W" cut out of the siding of an old barn and a twig/vine star. My hubby things the "W" looks like an "M" (but whatever) and the star looks like it came from the set of the Blair Witch Project. I still like them and will display them proudly.

My 'W'

We visited many other shops and got some cute things...such as this...

Berry Basket

Old "re purposed" door molding

One of my favorite booths was a vendor by the name of Olive Grace. It's a fabric studio based out of Ohio. She has the PRETTIEST and unique fabrics. I'm really hoping she can make it to the Austin, TX Country Living Fair in April of next year. She has an online store (re-opening 11/1). So go take a look!

I also got an adorable painting/canvas of red poppies that I'm planning on putting in my guest bedroom. The artist is Jazzy Artz out of Kennesaw, GA.

Another one of my favorite booths was Modern June. She does a lot of cool stuff with oil cloth.

Modern June Booth

At the Modern June booth was a lady by the name of Tasha McKelvey who made ADORABLE things out of pottery. I got a ring holder - I've been searching for a cute one that wasn't one of the typical giraffe neck's or something like that made out of fake silver. Hers is adorable...it's a tiny little mushroom...

I also love Go Jump in the Lake's store - but couldn't fit any of their wonderful paintings in to my carry on.

I loved so many of the little shops...and the decoration....

Pumpkins made out of fabric

The great art...

The food in the Country Living Cafe was YUMMMMY. The green beans were fresh and tasty. And who doesn't love some good country comfort food?

On to more shopping after getting our 2nd wind from the yummy food

Mom and I had a great time at the fair. I can't wait until the Austin Fair! Anyone game to join me?

My wonderful mom won't be able to join me :(

To see photos of our full trip, please click here! More to come on our trip to Stone Mountain, Atlanta, Savannah, Tybee Island, Hilton Head and Charleston!