unique stairwells

while i’ve been browsing photos i’ve come across some really unique stairwells.  whether it’s the railing, the shape or the color, something about these stairwells stood out to me. 

image – bhg

i love how this one spirals around and is free from the walls.

image – michael s. smith

the red paint sets this stairway off.  it gives the the space so much character.

image – house beautiful

the railing is beautiful on this one.  cute pooches too!

image – martha stewart

railing looks vintage.  not sure if it is or not.

image – house beautiful

had to throw this one in since i’m in the smoky mountains this week.  reminds me of all the log cabins i’ve been seeing.

image – house beautiful

image – traditional home

image – traditional home

image – burnham design

image – willow decor

LiveJournal Tags: unique stairwells,bhg,michael s. smith,house beautiful,martha stewart,vintage,smoky mountains,log cabins,traditional home,burnham design,willow decor

Sisters on the Fly

So, ever since we started researching travel trailers, I began Googling everything that had to do with trialers non-stop.

I came across a cute blog that was both about being a housewife and vintage trailers. I was thrilled! Who knew those things were ridiculously cute!?

Ok, so maybe they start as diamonds in the rough. But after a little bit of elbow grease and love, they can shine.

You cannot tell me that you are just drooling over a Cat's *pink* vintage trailer. (She's actually doing a series on vintage trailer owner blogs this week. Head on over there asap to see all the cute pictures!)

This adorable one belongs to Mary Jane over at the Beehive Cottage. Now you tell me the inside of this trailer doesn't make your heart go pitter patter! By the way, her name is Button Willow.

And there is much more adorableness to be found....

And maybe an odd character or two..

And if all this didn't overwhelm my cuteness tolerance level, I happened to stumble on the Sisters on the Fly website. These ladies, who like to call themselves 'glampers', not campers, know how to plan a trip in the wild!

In order to join this fun group of gals, you must own a small trailer (I do!), have a love of camping (me! me!), love to have fun (still me!) and love having girl time (I swear, this group was made for me!). And when you do join, you have the chance to earn merit badges. How cute is that? And they aren't your run of the mill Girl Scout badges- these badges are called Martini badges, Cowgirl Finishing School badges, River Rats with Cowgirl Hats badges, Cigar Aficionado badges.

Each 'sister' gets their own number (Mary Jane's is #595 and Cat's is #997) and must name her trailer and decorate it with some sort of cute, kitchy theme. Many gals stick with something I'd call 'cowgirl chic' but there are other themes out there.

I guess you could call it Girl Scouts for grown-up gals. :)

And I wanted in soooooo badly. So, I told Southern Hubby that after we get our trailer all squared away, I want to start looking for a vintage camper. I'd love to restore it and make it super cute. In fact, I already sent in my registration and yearly dues so I'll be getting my number just as soon as they send it to me! I'm so excited. :)

And yeah, maybe I'm jumping the gun. So I don't have a vintage trailer just yet. But I swear I'm getting one. (The Bee Hive will do for now since it does qualify as a small camper since it's under 30ft.) And I need some other gals to get one, too! I want to bring some preppy 'glampers' into the group! Think of all the fun we'd have on those all girl travel adventures! It would be a blast!! :)

Eeek! I can't wait to see what my number is!! Head on over to SOTF and let me know what you think and if you're as in love with them as I am!

Happy trails to you!

xoxo Y

We have a winner!!!

Congratulations to The Tale of a Southern Belle!!!! You won the $100 Cambria Cove Shopping Spree!!

Have fun shopping, sweets!!! Hope you can cross some stuff off that Christmas list of yours!

xoxo, The Southern Housewife

cute girl’s room

i think this is one of the cutest girl’s rooms i’ve ever seen.  it was designed by amanda nisbet of amanda nisbet design.  the bright colors she has used are so funky and fun, and i love the yellow accents throughout the room.  the hanging lantern light fixture and yellow side table bring the perfect touch of whimsy to the space. 

mixing and layering pillows is a great way to bring variety and depth to a room.  this daybed is a perfect example of that.

love the wall-to-wall striped carpet.  great color and texture. 

all images – amanda nisbet design

LiveJournal Tags: cute girl's room,amanda nisbet design

Moving on...to pizza

Morning gals! After praying on it a bit, I've decided to move on. I'm going to be a bit more a cautious of what I write and the pictures I show from now on though.

Anyway, (just in time for lunch!)I wanted to share a fun recipe with y'all. The other evening, I had the biggest craving for pizza. I loooooove cheese pizza. Love. I'd never made pizza dough from scratch, but I figured it was a good day to learn. I ended up using Paula Deen's dough recipe and it was fabulous! It's very easy and hard to mess up. :)

I had to use my Lucy pizza making skills when tossing the dough. As you can see, it didn't turn out in a perfect circle. But that doesn't affect the taste one bit, thankfully!

And it was really a fun time in the kitchen with Southern Hubby! I'm always on the lookout for bonding opportunities with my husband and this was a great one! We tried to see who got the best circle, had fun with the flour, and ended up with some funny memories. :)

Do this one tonight, gals. :) Promise you won't regret it!

Happy cheesy pizza!

xoxo

shoe storage

what a neat idea for shoe storage!  using fabric drapes in front of shelving is a great way to hide you’re storage items.  i really like how there is a personalized photo of each shoe on every shoe box.  i’d love to have the problem of trying to hide this many great shoes.

images – traditional home

LiveJournal Tags: shoe storage,fabric drapes,traditional home

RAYA CONTEST!!!

Assalamualaikum dan selamat sejahtera....

Dikesempatan ni saya harap tak terlambat untuk saya ucapkan SELAMAT HARI RAYA. Sempena Syawal yg masih ada ini, saya ingin mohon maaf atas segala kesalahan dan kekasaran saya kepada semua seandainya disengajakan mahupun tidak. Harap di maafkan..

Disamping itu juga saya ingin mengumumkan RAYA CONTEST anjuran GIRL-CHARMS!!!
Cepat..Jom sertai ramai2!!!

Syaratnya simple sahaja:
1) Contest ini terbuka kepada semua pelanggan GC yg pernah menempah/membeli pakaian dari GC.
2) email kan gambar anak kalian ke norashikinkamal@yahoo.com
3) Gambar tidak semestinya diambil dari kamera cantik..sebaliknya gambar yg berjaya menyerlahkan suasana raya akan dipilih sebagai pemenang.
4) Setiap gambar hanya untuk setiap SATU penyertaan sahaja. eg: kalau anda ada 2 atau 3 anak yg pakai baju GC dlm satu gambar..setiap gambar hanya layak untuk satu penyertaan sahaja.( Sila pilih anak yg mana untuk setiap gambar). TETAPI anda boleh menghantar seberapa byk gmbr untuk penyertaan ini.
5) hantar kan gambar selewat2nya 30 syawal .. hari terakhir kita beraya..

Hadiah yg dijanjikan semestinya rekaan baju/skirt dr GC. Good luck to all!!

To Private, or Not to Private...

Girls, y'all have been so amazing during these last few days. I really wanted to thank you.

I'm still at a crossroads. I don't know whether or not to go private. I feel so very violated. I feel dissapointed. I feel like I want to erase my archives, but I know there is no point in that. This person has already read everything.

The smaller person in me wants to erase my Facebook, blog, Twitter, and any other account I may have. Because said person reads my blog, they know about my other accounts (I'm guessing they may have gotten a Spokeo account. If not, they are darn good hackers!)

The smaller person in me wants to tell this person off.

The smaller person in me feels sorry for this person.

The smaller person in me pities this person.

The smaller person in me thinks their actions are pathetic.

But... the bigger person in me wants to just drop it and continue blogging.

The bigger person in me realizes that the church service I went to on Sunday was meant for me. It dealt with anger, guarding your heart and loving your enemies, frenemies, and everyone in between.

The bigger person in me needs to forgive this person 77 times. (Matthew 18:22)

The bigger person in me needs to pray for this person who is probably not in a good place in life.

The bigger person in me needs to not treat this like high school or college and gossip, gossip, gossip.

Now, how to be the bigger person.....

xoxo, Y

away from home

this week while my dad’s out of town i’m up in tennessee house sitting, dog sitting and watching my grandmother for him.  i was a little worried when i got here because i didn’t think i was going to be able to connect to the internet.  he must have changed the network key to his router since he wrote it down the last time, but after a trip to staples to purchase a cat5 cable that i can hook directly to the router i’m back in business. 

dad’s house is in pigeon forge on a mountain top so i’ve got a great view while i’m here.  i wish the trees had started to turn though.  there’s nothing prettier than fall in the mountains of east tennessee. 

i brought along some great reading materials…the new house beautiful and the new traditional home magazines.  they will keep me busy in case i run out of blog to read.  i’ve got a few blogs that i have been meaning to do some back reading on and haven’t had time so this will be the perfect opportunity.

i’m bad about flipping through new magazines before i sit down to actually read the articles.  i did sneak a peak at the cover story of house beautiful “rooms you’ll never get tired of.”  they are right, i don’t think i would get tired of this family room in california designed by michael s. smith.  in the magazine this image covers almost 2 pages so you can really see the details well.  the chandelier is very charming with the turquoise glass beads around the center.  i also like the layered rugs.

i wouldn’t get tired of this kitchen either.  it’s from the same california home.

and how inviting is the guest room!

well off to catch up on my favorite blogs.  happy monday.

LiveJournal Tags: tennessee,pigeon forge,house beautiful,traditional home,blog,california,michael s. smith,layered rugs

loving…

1.  this federal hill row home home featured in chesapeake home.

see more pics here.

2.  beautiful art from painter amanda talley featured on the elements of style blog.

3.  this continuum buffet from stanley furniture.  i think it’s beautiful.

4.   this canvas art from z.gallerie.  i’ve been eyeing it for a while now.  i used to show horses when i was younger so i have a fondness for anything with horses on it.

5.  this cool company called schoolhouse electric that has great schoolhouse reproduction lighting.  prices are reasonable too.

like this pendant fixture for only $109.00.

have a great weekend! hopefully the rain will stay away from atlanta like it has for the last couple of days.  we could do without it for a month considering the amount of rain we got all last week and the beginning of this week. 

LiveJournal Tags: loving...,federal hill row home,chesapeake home,amanda talley,elements of style blog,continuum buffet,stanley furniture,canvas art,z.gallerie,schoolhouse electric,reproduction lighting

“first dance” wedding video

after we got married in may of 2008 billy created a slideshow out of our wedding day photos that our amazing photographer, angela wilson of angela wilson photography, took for us.  he put the slideshow to the song “first dance” by corey smith.  “first dance” was appropriately the song that we had our first dance to at our wedding reception.  corey smith, for those of you who aren’t familiar with him, is a local artist who has quite a large following.  you won’t hear him on the radio but you may have heard some of his songs before.  

after billy posted the video we noticed that it was getting a lot of hits on youtube, 26,751 as of today, but we couldn’t figure out why.  tonight billy and i went went to dinner with our friend kevin who is in town visiting.  while we were on the way back home billy’s friend bret called and said that our wedding slideshow video is posted on corey smith’s actual website.  how cool is that!  we immediately jumped on the corey smith website when we got home to check it out.  it was definitely there.  i guess we’ve finally figured out why our video is getting so many hits. 

here’s the link to the corey smith video page.  you can see our video link down at the bottom left of the page.

and here’s our wedding slideshow video.  i know this isn’t interior design related but i just had to share it.  it was the best day of my life.

i’ll have to tell you about my wedding day dress fiasco some other time.  it was pretty crazy. 

LiveJournal Tags: first dance,corey smith,angela wilson photography,youtube,wedding

Last Year's Fall Interior Decor

I LOVE the fall season! It's my fave! And I know people say it all the time, but it seriously is for me. In fact, summer is on the bottom of my season favorites so I'm extra excited when fall comes around because it means my most hated season is ending!

And of course, when it comes to decorating for fall, I like to do it right! Here are some pictures of my fall decor from last year. I plan on taking all e autumn decorations out tomorrow to get started put things up.

I loved my fall house last year, but after seeing all the farmhouse chic goodies at Super Pie Farm House, Aunt Ruthie has inspired me to put a little of these whimsical touches here and there. So I got a some new farmhouse/country feel goodies to put up this year.

Of course when it is all finished, I'll take pictures and post theme here. Do you have a harvest 'theme' you plan on doing?

Churchill UPDATE:

Yesterday, I spoke with the Animal Services in San Antonio. I asked how fundraising was going and I asked how Churchill was doing. Want to good or bad news first? I always take the bad news first to get it over with so we'll do that. Well, the bad news is that sweet Churchill has tested positive for heart worms. If you're a dog lover, you know what sort of horrible treatment this is for a canine to undergo. After all the treatments, he has to be confined to an area for one month straight-alone. Pretty much like solitary confinement for something they couldn't do themselves. :( Spread the word on responsible pet ownership!!

But, the good news is that Her Southern Charm readers have raised over $300!!! I am so overwhelmed and blessed to have such awesome and generous readers. And this includes those who were unable to donate monetarily but did so by emailing friends and family, blogging about Churchill and spreading the word. :)

I would like to ask that anyone who still needs to donate do so by choosing to send the money as a gift instead of a donation. Paypal seems to be taking their cut out the donations but the two who sent them as gifts are not getting anything taken out of it and are able to be donating their full amount. Let's give this money all to Churchill, not to paypal's outrageous fees. Please me sure you send it as a gift!

Also, I've got another swag bundle to put out. This one may be mismatched as it's got some super cute home decor stuff as well as preppy stuff. :) I'll get it fixed up soon so everyone can see. That's 4 chances to win goodies! Yeah!!!

Happy two days till the weekend! ;)

xoxo Y