I Love Mushroom.

I love mushrooms.

The color. The veggie.

All good.

The color is popping up in all the "trends for 2017" articles. 

I love to read those even though I don't consider myself  "trendy" or a "trendfollower"

They are good for inspiration and if I've used a color, material or "look" they forecast 

then I feel all smug and happy and tell myself

 I was "ahead" of the trend.

 #whatevs

I pinned this the other day.
From Country Living's website.

'Cause we were snowed/iced in here in Atlanta for 3 days 

and I went "pinning" crazy with my extra time :)

I'm good with this forecast because ... you guessed it... 
mushroomy colors are already in my home decor.

I have a Sherwin Williams 'strip' that I use in my house. I've talked about this somewhere before on the blog but now that I'm "on trend" we are going to go there again.

My "strip" is the one on the far left.
 Shoji White to Urbane Bronze.
Very mushroom~y.
(They look a bit grayer in this pic but get a strip and look at it in your light. Mushroomy)



There is a method to my "strip" madness.
Since I move things around in my house a lot 
(there are people living here who say I move things "toooo much")
using the variations off the same color strip makes my decor mix and match~able. 
Like Garanimals 

We painted Mollie's bathroom cabinets in SW Porpoise
 when we did our Mother~Daughter One Room Challenge. 



Not gray. Not taupe.
But a rich, deep mushroomy color.

And perfect with our bargain agate knobs we luckily found!

And the stripes in our downstairs powder room went from blue gray to white and mushroom (SW Amazing Gray a couple of years ago.)



Yes, the vanity cabinet is painted a color right off that same strip.
And the color looks good with bamboo which is a necessity in my home.


(Fun fact: I bought this shelf on a thrifting app on my phone last January
 during an ice/snow day  and had to wait for the "thaw" to go get it!!)

My front door is  painted Urbane Bronze.



Looks great on all the holidays!



You get the idea. I could go on.
Find yourself a mushroom~y strip and feel trendy this year!!
Paint something mushroomy. You will be happy.

 And on the edible mushroom front.
We love stuffed mushrooms of all kinds so I leave you with this:
This is the closest I can find to our family favorite stuffed mushrooms.


via

Make them. You will be happy.

When It Snows In The South

I know the title alone made some of you laugh -

 maybe even feel superior if you are an experienced icy conditions driver.

I admit, we go a little nuts.

But may I remind you that we deal with 100 plus degree weather for weeks on end during Summer, so A) we can't help being a bit fried in the noggin and B) most of you icy conditions experienced drivers complain loudly about the heat for months on end when we are casually dealing with it.

And we never forget...

Snowpacolypse 2013!

That being said Mollie and I tried to get ahead of the panicked crowd and purchase our "necessities" for inclement weather. 
Why? 
Because we have it on good authority that this snow will, in fact, happen.
Here's how we know. 
My friend, Mr. Buman, of the Tomato/Tomato Pie fame
is 91 and knows all about these things. He told me years ago before we had a big "snow event" that if it thunders in Winter that you will have snow within the week. Well, it thundered Monday night so... I'm thinking it's really going to snow in the Deep South.
He also told me that if snow stays on the ground three days it will snow again and a lot more! He's better than Doppler Radar!

We buy really good snacks (more on that later), wine, and paint for any crafty or remodeling project we might feel we need to accomplish while hibernating. 

And this time I also bought some fabric for a pillow switch that I need to make because of the amazing bamboo chair I found on Craigslist right before Christmas for my guest bedroom. 
(More on that later, too.)

(I've never felt like bread was my number one need if I am going to be snowed in.
 Chili fixins, stuff to make homemade cinnamon rolls, wine.
 You know, necessities, that's what I buy.)


(This one cracks me up!)

Anyway, we got up this morning and mapped out a plan!
Any excuse to make a list!!

First, the fabric store and my favorite Sherwin Williams store
 (where I bought 2 gallons of paint cause what if I'm wrong about the first color and I can't just run out to get another one because of, you know, snow?)

These were contenders. 

I'll show you what I ended up with after I get it all pulled together.

Then we went to Old Navy because we got gift cards for Christmas, 
everything is on sale and there might be a cute warm hat or scarf we need for our 
"Atlanta Snow Event." 
(Why do they call it that?)

Then to Trader Joes for wine!!!
We got veggies and healthy stuff, too, but wine was the goal. 
#letsbehonest

This sparkling Pinot Grigio was one of the "Staff Picks" before Christmas
 and we really like it so we got enough to last until "the big thaw." 
Try it - for $6.00 what do you have to lose?

Then we hit up the "regular" grocery store for a few more things and dog food.
I serve my spoiled pooches a mixture of homemade cooked veggies and chicken and overpriced gluten free dog food. I mean, really.

Anyway, the frozen veggie aisle was wrecked. 
There wasn't one bag of frozen peas in the whole store. 




Let's be honest. 
When you hear, "You should plan to be snowed in for 3 days"
 on every weather report do you rush to buy frozen peas?? 
This is concerning. 
Please see above for our list of "necessities!"
Are we the only people who are going to party our way through this?




 Is everyone else eating veggies?
Except for my friend who goes to the store 
and buys pie (and wine) if she hears we are going to be snowed in. 
#thatgirldoesitright

We also gathered up some movies we haven't had a chance to see.
And I'm planning to reread this book while I'm snuggled up under a cozy blanket.



For some reason I like to torture myself all Winter long 
with images of sunny, tropical locales.

Our county has already announced that school will get out 2 hours early and everything is cancelled for the weekend. 
Here we go!



I hope we see you on the other side!

PS. If you are home with kiddos and are looking for some snow day fun try the projects in this post - lots of snowy fun with things you probably have on hand.

I'm Feeling Green...

No, not the flu!

 #thankgoodness

Actual Green.

The color. 

Greenery is Pantone's Color of the Year 2017, 
which works for me because green is always one of my colors of my year.

I particularly love this green from Sherwin Williams.

Talipot Palm. 
I have used it on a mirror for one thing. Gorgeous green.

In fact, once Christmas holidays are over I hope for one good snow day/school's out holiday and then I'm basically looking for Spring and "greenery."

It's January 4 and I've already been on Pinterest looking at planter combos.
#forreals

Anyway what I'm feeling green about is this:

And honestly, this is another one of those 
"I can't make this up moments!"
 This dresser came into my life about 2 days before Christmas 
and I've just now had time to think about it. 
And I'm feeling green.
But first, the story.
My husband called and said," I'm passing a GW and I'm going to go in. Are you looking for anything in particular?"
I said, "Yes, please find my dream bamboo dresser.
 Or a blue and white ceramic garden stool."
We laughed.
Two minutes later he sent that picture to me via text. 
And the question, "Do you want this??"
Are you kidding??? Load. it. up. now!!

And, oh yeah, I know they had the drawers in wrong. :)

They were literally rolling it out on the floor,
 so my husband told the guy not to even unload it. 
And then the guy asked him... wait for it... 
"What about the rest of the set? Are you taking it now, too?"
I'm dying!! More on the rest of  the set  later.

Right now I'm feeling like it should be green.
So, I spent some of my holiday down time googling these:


via


via Pinterest

Really love this slightly softer green...


via


So pretty. Like Pistachio Ice Cream.
Not surprising that it's so lovely - it's from One King's Lane.
And I love it.

But then there's Navy to consider...


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and turquoise...


via


I'll let you know.

Happy New Year!

The first blog post of the year on 1/1 !!

Don't be impressed.

 I'm putting off the inevitable- using lopping shears to trim the branches off the tree to be able to get it out of the house.

 It grew - a lot- when we took the mesh off at the beginning of December.

We had friends over for NYE - small scale and quiet-

 but I wanted to do a little bit of festive decor to welcome 2017 in the door!

I justified the glittery 2017 banner because I am giving it to the only girl in my youth group to graduate this year!! 

She can repurpose it into Graduation Party decor!

And of course the fabulous Bamboo Bar Carts made a reappearance!

I bought amber colored Christmas lights on clearance because I thought they would add a warm glow to the bamboo and brass pineapples I was planning to use on the carts.

I used one bamboo cart in the foyer again - just like for our Christmas Brunch - 

but I put party hats, horns and noisemakers on it. 

Target and Dollar Store all the way.

Just inside the Family Room Door I placed the other Bamboo bar cart. 

It held the essentials for our under 21 guests!

(I forgot to take a picture after it was completely stocked - oops!)

It wasn't very cold but we also had the new Keurig corner

 (one of Mollie's Christmas surprises - coffee is important to her!! Isn't the color fab??) 

stocked if anyone wanted Hot Chocolate, Hot Cider or Coffee!

I hope you got to ring in the New Year with family and friends.

 I'm headed to "undecorate" some more, cook our traditional Southern New Years Day meal 

(Hoppin' John, Greens, and pork roast) and then we are headed out to a rockin' worship service called "Day One" (complete with food trucks afterwards) to get this party known as 2017 started!!! 

The Little Gold Nativity Ornaments

Mollie and I wanted a little surcie

 (Surcie: Definition (n): word used in the South to mean a small, thoughtful gift, unexpected gift, just because.)

for the guests at our Ladies Christmas Brunch

 that we hosted at the beginning of December.

This is what we decided on...

A little handmade Nativity ornament.

We needed to make quite a few so something we could mass produce was key.

We started out with a 4x4 canvas from Dick Blick.

I drew these free hand but you could trace pencil lines or even use a stencil. 

This is just white glue. Plain old Elmer's or something equivalent to that. 

Practice on a scrap of paper to get the feel for the flow and line consistency. 

Then just draw your image on your little canvas and let it dry completely.

Then we chose to spray paint ours with our favorite gold spray paint that we have talked about here and here and here.

I glued a little gold ribbon hanger on the back.

I love cello bags ( which I order from Nashville Wraps)

 so we packaged them up,

 put them in a bamboo basket on our doorside bamboo cart,

 and handed them out with a hug as our guests left!

Live Nativity!!

It's That Time of Year Again...

It's time for our second

 LIVE DRIVE THRU NATIVITY!!!

We have actors. 

(Me - rallying the "troops"! Or AKA me saying stay off your cell phones - they weren't around in Biblical times!)

And live animals.

And we built our stable out of recycled pallets.

 We have hay. 

We have music. 

We have an off duty police officer to help with traffic.

 We have lights. 

And an angel high above the stable.

 And a star high above the angel.

We have angels singing.

 So please drive thru if you are in the area:)

December 16 and 17, 2016

7 to 9 p.m. 

Wesley Chapel UMC

4495 Sandy Plains Road 

Marietta Georgia

30066