From Garden to Plate

There is nothing better than eating veggies fresh picked form the garden. This weekend was a feast of fresh tomato sandwiches, cucumber salad, watermelons, and fava beans, all from mom's garden. I finally gave myself a break from the internet, and spent a wonderful weekend with family and friends.

OH and get this. While we were up at the mountain house Gavin and I went exploring down toward the waterfall and we came across a huge patch of Chanterelle mushrooms. We know this because my mom has a friend who is an outdoor expert. We picked an entire bunch, and are waiting to cook them tonight. I had never picked mushrooms from the wild, or ever eaten Chanterelles before. I am so excited.

I am sure everyone has had a very eventful weekend. But its time to get on with the week. This week I'll be staying home to get my house cleaned out and ready to move in. I am having a MASSIVE garage sale and selling everything I possibly can in order to make some space. I will also be posting tons of new dresses this week in the shop so stay tuned.
Also, does anyone have any recipes for Chanterelle mushrooms? I have never even eaten them at a restaurant.
Have a Happy Monday.

Thrift Store Finds

Check out all of the clocks I got at the thrift this weekend. I now have an instant collection of mini Baby Ben clocks. I am pretty sure some old woman had been collecting these little guys for months, and finally decided to just get rid of all of them. It can get a little annoying if you have all of them running in one room. The tic tocks will most certainly get to you. I had to take the batteries out of all but one of them. My favorite is the blue plastic vibrant clock right in front.

A word of advice. DO NOT use goo gone on plastic surfaces. The goo gone will eat the plastic up.
I hate those darn stickers from the thrift store!! I can't tell you how many drinking glasses I have that still have the thrift store stickers on them. All of my clocks still have the stickers on them, I just do not have the patience to scrape them off.

Does anyone know a good remedy to get VERY sticky stickers off of plastic?




Here is a beautiful quilt I found at an estate sale. It is only the raw quilted squares at the moment. I need to buy some material to sew to the back of the quilt. The design is amazing, so many colors! Has anyone made any quilts recently? I will be looking for some fabric and advice on how to turn this blanket into a beauty.

Paint The Town Red

This past weekend was Paint The Town Red, put on by the Birmingham Chapter Red Cross. I have been working on planning this event for the past couple months, organizing art vendors as eye candy for some of the participants. The brick walls and store fronts of Second Avenue North in the Loft District were transformed into projection surfaces for some insane digital art and animated short films. There were belly dancers, break dancers, a marching band, and of course incredible art vendors. Here are a few pics from the weekend. My little sister and boyfriend set up my booth while I was running around like crazy getting everything organized.



Just finished setting the booth up here, had a little time to mess around. OK, well Gavin set the booth up, he was absolutely wonderful as always. He helped load everything into the car, and unload into the street. Such a wonderful boy, even dressed the part to sell some vintage clothes and jewelry.





As the night sky faded all of the artwork popped from the brick walls. The vendors were even sure to bring some pretty lights to boost their tables.

All of the art work seen below is the making of my incredibly talented younger sister Lily. She makes the shadow boxes to sell. I keep telling her she needs to post them on ETSY, but she never listens.


This box was my favorite. I loved the dangling keys, they made a beautiful sound in the wind.




Lily also attempted to make a little extra cash flow by selling a poems for a dollar, as the lights started to fade that idea went quickly out the window. It would have been a funky idea, if it werent so darn dark. I purchased a brand new typewriter from Whats On 2nd this weekend as well. A pure beauty, Underwood teal blue portable typewriter with case. I will post pictures later.

This was a painting Lily brought out to display at the festivities. I love how the lights shine through in the dark.

Overall it was a very successful weekend. I sold a few goodies, had a great time with my lil sis and boy, my dad and older sister even showed up to join the fun. The Red Cross put on an amazing event, and I cant wait to help out again next year.