I had to share!

Many of you know my sister Melanie and how talented she is. Well, a few weekends ago she hosted a ladies luncheon for her best friend who is having a baby girl in a few weeks. I could not make it, I HAD to go to the beach ;) but she posted some pictures on her blog today and I am drooling over this party! Melanie used to be an event planner before her little girls arrived and every now and then she gets to divulge in her talents and put on a shin dig more beautiful than anything I have ever seen. This one took place in her home for a change and not in a location. She can do anything! Flowers, gourmet cooking, decorating, invitations, you name it she can do it. The man who sells her dahlias didn't have what she needed at the farmer's market so she made them out of tissue, so beautiful. I will have to do another post later about what we have done with vellum and cylindar vases, you will be rushing right out to pick you up a few to have on hand trust me! Enjoy!
***her blog is currently public, scroll down to a few previous posts to find the link****

Heavenly Scent Herb Farm

Look at the fairy gardens!

Yesterday my sister and I met at the Heavenly Scent Herb Farm, they had their annual art fair. I just love visiting the farm and seeing all of the gorgeous gardens. This time of year they are in full bloom. They have the cutest little fairy gardens and I love their topiaries. I thought I would share a few images from our visit. If you live close you should visit, the store is adorable too!

Fireplace Face Lift

Fireplace before:

And after: total cost of makeover: $187.00

I have been in a cleaning frenzy lately. I am going to have a garage sale with my sister and that is my inspiration to get rid of all things extra! Today I tackled the office and filled a garbage bag with papers (to recycle) and another one of things to shred. How do we accumulate so many pieces of paper? Well, in my process of going through all little receipts etc. I found the receipt for our fireplace tile that we re-did last year. When we moved in it was oak, I liked oak back then, not so much now. I wanted to give it a makeover the only way I know how, as cheap as possible. I first painted the oak a pretty creamy white and then removed the awful mauve tiles that the builder has put in. I think he got for a steal because he used it in the upstairs bathroom too. I found this pretty travertine natural stone tile at a local tile store. It came in sections and we were able to cut and piece it together, I say "we" loosely, Mark did that part. I love how it looks now, much more updated and appealing to look at. It really has become one of my favorite features now. I found a picture of how it looked when we moved in 8 years ago, I hope you can see the difference! I got alot of bang for my $187 bucks!

I am a Member of the Window Mistreatment Club

This is our family room mistreatments, I found this gorgeous toile at a yard sale, I then saw it at Calico Corners for $25 a yard! Lucky me! I just clipped this up with drapery rings and let it puddle on the floor. I started putting my fall decorations out today!
I could not get a good picture of my kitchen nook curtains. I burned my fingers so many times trying to hot glue this trim on!
This is our formal dining room, I fell in love with these fabrics.
Could not get a great picture of this one in our office either, if you scroll down a few posts you can see the whole office. I found this trim at the same yard sale and I had just enough for both drapes. As with all of my treatments I buy enough yardage to have enough to cover the windown and a big more for a puddle on the floor, I then cut it in half so that I have 2 treatments for the price of one. I have a ton of windows in my house so this helps.

The Nester is having a club meeting for all of us ladies who use our glue guns, drapery rings and upholstery tacks to gussy up our windows. You should stop by her site and see all of the great ideas that other club members have come up with. I am amazed! Here are my contributions, I got really lucky and found some beautiful fabrics at a garage sale so most of my mistreatments cost me a few bucks! You must give this no sew treatments a try, it is addicting let me tell you! If you are new please leave a comment, I love "meeting" new people!

It's Potty Time!

The powder room downstairs
This cute little antique shelf cost $12 and the accessories were just a few dollars at a second hand store.
I found these Asian ink prints for $8, I love them and they remind me of our trip to China. The little drawer on the back of the potty I got for a dollar at a yard sale.
This is our master bathroom. I love this shower curtain from Target. The picture hung in my grandparents bathroom for years.
This is where the beauty transformation takes place every morning ;) This is in our tiny potty room off of our master bath, I have it filled with my Tiffany boxes ( I can't help it, I treasure any gift from Tiffany's!), Mark's colognes and on top I have a beatuiful series of boxes that were in our beautiful bathroom at the White Swan Hotel in China while we were getting Myah. This was a gorgeous 5 star hotel and the toiletry boxes when put together make up a scene of an ancient Chinese bridge in Guangzhou, I brought these home because I thought they were so cool!
Our master closet is off of this room as well. Not a very great picture of my tub! Don't you just love my brown and blue rubber ducky!

A few weeks ago Shannon posted pictures of her pretty bathrooms and asked us to post pictures of ours. I hesitated but thought what the heck. We are starting to potty train Myah and I find myself sitting in the bathroom more than ever. Why not have pretty things to look at while you are in there? When we bought our house it was already built so we didn't get to choose any fixtures or anything like that. There are many things in the house that I have changed out to reflect our taste instead of the builders. He put the cheapest of everything in here so we didn't feel too guilty getting rid of them. I replaced the mirrors with more decorative ones, I didn't break the budget at all, I looked at Lowe's for something that was stylish yet affordable. I also changed out the lighting fixtures as well, I said bye bye to the Hollywood style bulbs and replaced them with a few inexpensive fixtures from Lowe's as well. I put pretty shades from the Pottery B*arn outlet to gussy them up a bit. Someday I will get brave and paint my cabinets but for now the oak has to stay. Not my favorite. I also added knobs to match. I love the color of my bathrooms, it is Rope from the Eddie Bauer collection at Lowe'*s as well. I painted the downstairs powder room first and liked it so well that I put it in our master bath. The kid's room is painted the color that I had left over from our office, I still am looking for a new mirror and fixture for that room. I hope you enjoy the little tour of our bathrooms.

Cooperstown New York

National Baseball Hall of Fame

The entrace to the Spa
Doubleday Field, the birthplace of baseball.

I loved all of the vintage trophies in this window display

The Otesaga Hotel was gorgeous! The Hall of Fame inductions were this week so the famous people were staying there so we couldn't get in. It is beautiful!

We just got back from a week long baseball tournament in Cooperstown New York, the birthplace of baseball. As you can imagine everything is about baseball there but it is an absolutley charming little area. I found a few really neat antique stores, the restaurants were great, and the scenery was beautiful. It is in the middle of the Catskill mountains and it is so pretty. ! I thought I would share a few pictures from around town.