Mary Kay Crowley

I LOVE Mary Kay Crowley, her paintings are gorgeous. You could live inside of them.



I shared one of the paintings I have of hers in my dining room post.

I only have a few right now, but there are several on my wish list. I stalk ebay often.

 

The large one in my dining room was a Mother's day gift. I ordered it from Mary Kay Crowley.

I chose and framed them myself.

 

 

The one below I bought on amazon for $20.

It hangs in the hall right off the kitchen.

 

The glare was crazy here since I had the windows down. The top one I ordered from MaryKayCrowley. 
The other one I purchased off ebay for $20.

 

 

The top one if my favorite out of these, but my MOST favorite is Her Retreat! Maybe a Christmas present?

 

Y'all have a good weekend!
Michele <3

 

In the kitchen

Hey y'all, happy fall! I am loving this weather, it is beautiful here. It is my favorite time of year and always will be! I have decided not to pull out all the decorations this year, I have sprinkled a little fall around the house and we did decorate the yard. I'll share that as soon as I finish!

 

I have been meaning to share the kitchen and a few new finds for it. So lets get to it!

 

I found this beautiful cement chicken on etsy and fell in LOVE, I adore all the chippiness.

 

Her mate is in the kitchen!  He has quite a imperfections but is perfect to me.

 

I got the enamel bread box off ebay right after Christmas. I have one with green letters too!!!

The bread board is from Pottery Barn.

 

I added vintage teacups to my canisters several months ago.

 Changed up the little vignette on my butter platter.

 

That cute little hen was a yard sale find.

 The Mackenzie Childs teapot was a gift from my husband while he was deployed. (I don't remember if I shared it already)

 

I picked up some cute towels from Williams Sonoma while my sister was visiting.

 

 

Peeking into the dining room.

 Another view!

 

 

Hmmm.....I have an old chandy I found at a yard sale, with a little paint would look perfect over the table!!! Wish we could change that in military housing LOL

 

I ordered some of MMS milk paint in Tricycle red, but haven't tried it. I can't decide what I want to paint.

I hope y'all have a great week!

 

Michele <3

 

You can find me partying here:

Goodwill finds and a cozy spot

I shared my framed needleprint the other day and my newest goodwill find was in the reflection.

 

 

When I saw that lamp it was LOVE at first sight.......but I didn't buy her. LOL Nope I walked past her for about a month cause I didn't have any cash on me.

 You see it didn't occur to me to pull out some darn cash..nope, I almost lost her.

In fact I thought she had already sold because I didn't recall seeing her my last trip.

There she was....and I had cash! I called hubs (he was in the car with the girl) and asked him to stand in line to purchase her while I continued looking around.

She's pretty heavy for a dainty looking thing.

 

 

(don't worry I put a cord cover on that baby a few pictures down hah)

 

 

I purchased the rug from Overstock in February.

It is the same rug as Ms Kim over at Savvy Southern Style.
I brought the green velvet stool down that was found in my bedroom makeover.

 

The red check throw was purchased at Target a couple Christmas' ago.

Leopard pillow is from TJ Maxx.

I love the glow it puts out.

My framed needlepoint on the wall.

 

Looking into the dining area.

 

We got this crate at a barn sale a few years ago and it has been sitting in the garage since then.

Then one day "lightbulb"  (y'all have seen Despicable Me, right?) haha

 

The cats had some fun with my magazines though...so excuse the poor display.

This is what it looks like today. Baby sleeping on table and all.

I've been working on this room for about a year. There are many changes I want to make.

Curtains, I can't decide what color or if I want to do a print.

The coffee table....

We have been trying to sell our huge wall entertainment center on Craigslist for a few months, we want something smaller.

 

I hope you enjoyed a look into our living area.

Thank you all so much for the birthday wishes and the sweet comments, I appreciate them all!

Have a good night!

Michele

 

Joining the following:

 

I'm 30...

It isn't soooo bad turning 30. I was under the impression that my world would change for some reason, but the truth is I feel good. I have a wonderful family that loves me and I love greatly and I am in pretty good health so to speak. I have so many things to be thankful for and one of them is having another birthday.

My sister Crystal flew in from Texas for a week while Justin was TDY in Utah.

My sister's birthday is the day before mine and we have always shared our birthday's together (not always by choice hahaha) when we were younger we always shared birthdays and to be honest I didn't like it one bit. Always having to share and never having my "own day"  but it was nice spending it together this year even if it was few days early.

We went to soooo many places and guess what, I didn't bring my camera. Shame on me!!!

We went to the outlets in Smithfield and I bought a Coach wallet and Reagan some pajamas and dresses from Carter's. We LOVE pjs in this house. 

On another day I took her to the little town of Selma to go antiquing and have lunch at the Hula girl or something like that. Their milkshakes are yummy!

I came away with one treasure from that outing. This beautiful framed needlepoint for $24. I just loved the green in it with the gold frame.

I apologize about the glare, but hey if you look closely you can see the reflection of a recent goodwill find. LOL

We had a day specially planned for Reagan we took her to a pottery painting place in town and she painted a kitty. We also went to New Bern to an ice cream shop full of cow stuff (I can't remember the name) but there were cows everywhere. Afterwards we went across to the water and watched the ducks and walked around.

On her last day here we spent all day in Raleigh shopping. I got a bunch of cute shirts, an Eiffel tower charm for my Pandora bracelet and a pair of madden girl boots (from tj maxx) We had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory and my dinner was delicious. We also made a trip to the Disney store for my girl and pre ordered Cinderella. Which comes out October 2nd and she got a little stuffed Cinderella doll. 

As much as I wanted to stay up and chat most nights I was so exhausted from walking around all day I'd pass out on the couch!

My Birthday which was the 23rd was a quiet one. We had dinner at home and hubby ordered a yummy cake. I did go out and cut my hair though......what ya think? 

Please excuse the poor quality pics. I certainly am no photographer...especially with my phone haha!

It is growing on me...I really disliked it the first couple days. I'll be back soon to share where my "new" old lamp is and several finds that I haven't shared in months!

Sorry for rambling lol

Wishing you all a happy night!

Anniversary Dinner

On Friday the 13th Justin and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. I made a nice dinner by candlelight.
I set a simple table for the two of us while dinner was cooking, nothing fancy.

We had bacon wrapped filet mignon, parmesan asparagus and mashed potatoes. 

I set the kids up at the bar, but little one decided she was joining us at the table.

For dessert blackberry crisp and the best ice cream ever!!! (it finally made its way to Raleigh and we stocked up on a recent trip to the city!)

You can find the recipe for the blackberry vanilla crisp HERE. It is absolutely delicious.

Happy Anniversary hunny. I love you muches and looking forward to many more.

Michele <3

Revisiting the dining room

So I don't think I've shared my dining room in some time. I haven't made many changes because well I've been pretty content with it and rather focus on other rooms in the house that really need help!

I say this is our dining room, but the reality is if we had an eat in kitchen this would be our breakfast area and I would purchase a much larger table....so there is plenty of room for the guests that we never have.  :)

I got these kooboo chairs from World Market some time around January. I actually bought 4 of these, but I like mixed chairs around the table. I just wrapped an antique french postal bag around the cushion and on the other is a feedsack.

I added my new french chair.  (Please ignore the armoire. I bought it at goodwill over the summer for Reagan's bedroom and since Justin was deployed it has been sitting here.) We will move it as soon as I get her bedroom together.

I still love my european grainsack as a table runner.

The cloche and Mackenzie Childs plate is home to some peach jam I made a couple weekends ago.

I flipped my red check pillows over to display red ticking.

The Mary Kay Crowley painting was a Mother's Day gift from Justin, I framed it myself. I love it, it is just fabulous! I first came across Mary Kay Crowley paintings from Kristi, The Thrifty Gypsy and fell in love I could live inside her paintings!

I hope you enjoyed my mini tour.

Michele <3

I'll be joining the following parties:

Homemade Play dough

I love making stuff with my kiddos, although lately we haven't done much. We Justin painted both of the kid's rooms and we moved Reagan to the bigger bedroom, since Jonathan will be going to his dad's house in Texas for the school year. (He leaves in 2 weeks :( and I am sad) Her room looks like a twister hit it, I'm hoping to have everything organized in a couple days.

I am also getting the house ready for my sister's visit in August....but in between all the laundry, rearranging and cleaning I squeezed a project in with the little ones.

I thought it was fun and I'm certain Reagan enjoyed it much more than Jonathan.

I let them choose what colors they wanted to make.

Reagan is working hard on her pink snowman.

She wanted me to take a picture of it.

Have fun with your kids today!

Ingredients: 

1 C Flour
1 C Water
1/4 C Salt
1 TBSP Vegetable Oil
2 tsp Cream of Tarter
Food Coloring

Instructions

Mix together all the ingredients, except the food coloring, in a 2 quart saucepan. Cook over low/medium heat, stirring. Once it begins to thicken, add the food coloring. Continue stirring until the mixture is much thicker and begins to gather around the spoon.

Remove the dough onto wax paper or a plate to cool.

I'll be joining the following parties:

Stonegable's tutorials tips and tidbits

Happy Fourth of July!

                                                   Have a happy and safe 4th of July!
                                                         (Pictures are from last year)