My 100th post...a little celebration!

A tea party setup....we all know how much I love those:)

o today marks a milestone in my blogging career, my 100th post.  WOW, did I really have 100 things to write about?!!! Evidently, the answer is YES.  In June, I wouldn't have imagined that I would enjoy blogging as much as I do, or that I would be here at 100 posts. 

The people that know me well, know I am a bit neurotic, and tend to start things and, well, how shall I put this, loose steam...perhaps, when the novelty has worn off.  Well, I must say that blogging has had the opposite effect on me...I have wanted to move full steam ahead. It has been so much fun to meet(virtually and hopefully in person some day!) like minded people, that enjoy so much of the same sorts of things that I do.  They understand and "get" that I love to fiddle in my home, that I enjoy sewing, the excitement I feel when my design magazines come in the mail and when a good design book comes out,  others who love "treasure hunting" as much as I do, and all of the other 100 things I have been able to muse about. I have learned that I really enjoy taking pictures, and that writing is something I enjoy even more. (well most of the time!) A blog is the perfect outlet because I get to meld these two things together.

pretty blush roses with the straw color and silver is pretty.

 As a celebration of my 100th post, I bought myself 6 blush roses.  You know, just a little gift to myself, flowers always make me happy.  When I got them, I thought, "I sure wish I could share these with all of the people that have been so supportive during the past few months"....and then a little lightbulb moment.   I am going to PRETEND.  I am going to set my table for an imaginary party.  Adults can imagine too, you know;)

Since I enjoy most of my blogging while sipping my coffee or tea, I brought out some beautiful French China, and the silver of course and had a pretend celebration.  I want to send a special thanks to PVE, Rene, Pretty Pink Tulips, The Zhush, The Buzz, and The Perfect Gray for all of your consistant support.  You all have given me the steam to stay commited.  I smile inside (and out) every time your names pop into my inbox.  And I can't wait for all of the the new friends that blogland will bring my way.  You all are an amazing group of ladies and I can't wait to maybe meet you in person some day.  (I also want to send a shoutout to my Mom for her neverending support, she would definitely be invited to the celebration too!

 Here are a few photos of how I imagine our Little Tea Party Celebration...

I thought we could have some Chai Tea Latte from Tazo Tea or I could try my hand at some Pumpkin Spice Lattes..... One of my favorites!

I would serve you all from a pretty silver tray, of course:

And then we could nibble on scones (chocolate anyone?) Served out of these pretty plates. Or some sumptuous cupcakes....

pretty Haviland China Plates

And of course I would send you home with a little gift.  Maybe a little packet of personalized letterpress cards, like this.

I hope you enjoyed the little virtual celebration, and I leave you with a little bloggy inspiration.

I read an awesome article recently from A Gift Wrapped Life, about her blog adventure, it was written on her 1 year anniversary.   It about sums it up, and is so true.

via a Gift Wrapped Life...I love this pic.

Oh, and I have a fun announcement,  will hopefully have the details by Monday or Tuesday, so stay tuned!

Happy Friday and Happy weekend.  We have a 4 day weekend, so I plan on taking full advantage!

UPDATE: My lovely and talented friend PVE over at PVE Design so nicely offered this giveaway in honor of the100th post celebration, head on over and enter.  Thanks Patricia!

A little treasure

My little treasure...isn't she pretty?  I might call her tootsie:)

ne thing I forgot to mention about this past weekend, was that I was able to steal away to an Estate Sale for an hour.  My wonderful husband said, "did you know there was an estate sale down the road?"  What? What? WHAT? An estate sale that I DID NOT know about!

Since I had been housebound and laying sod and doing yard work, I had not gone out in a couple days (well at least not down THAT road) and didn't see the signs.  So, true to my style, and lucky for my understanding husband, I jumped in the car.  It happened to be the SAME home that had an estate sale in the spring where I scored my 16 piece (full place setting) of Rosenthal White China...for $100!  The owner of the property is a professor that just has accumulated (I would say a bit of a hoarder, but if you are gonna be a hoarder you would want to be this kind) because he has TREASURES!  And they haven't even gotten to the inside of his house yet.  I have heard it is a treasure trove.  All of this sale was outside...and from his shed.  (I forgot my camera, so you will have to imagine a secret garden with tables and tables of brass, and copper, and china, and pots, and on and on!   I may have missed out on all of the Fatabulous "finds", but I think it was fun to find the little diamonds in the rough, the ones that got away, that were looked over because of all the "great" stuff.  And it doesn't hurt that an hour before they close up shop everything is 75% off!

Last night, while polishing the couple pieces of hotel silver, I got to this little footed dish.

I had bought it up because I really liked the lines...and the hammered pewter finish, and the sweet little balls around the foot.  I turned it over and saw the imprint, quick search on google...turns out...I have a little piece of collectable metal art by a metalsmith named Serge Nekrassoff.

via Kellscraft.com

One thing about estate sales is that you DO have to dig, don't be put off by all of the dirt and grime.  There are little treasures amongst the mess.  Look for the lines of peices, turn peices over and look for stamps. If you love it buy it!  I am really happy I did.  I am really a newbie at all of this, but it is really fun to learn how to find the "good stuff", and really rewarding when you find a little treaure.

I am not sure how much it is worth, but I am quite positive it is worth more than I paid for it.

Happy Hunting.

How bout dem Apples....

photo via moi

This weekend was spent enjoying our new backyard with GRASS that WE laid!  What rewarding work.  I mean it is one of the best carpet purchases we have ever made!  It is great when the first thing your 3 year old son says is "now I can play baseball, and football, and soccer, YAY!" We enjoyed a cookout with family and friends and allowed the kids to play by flood light until they just collapsed!  A fun, fun evening.  Amazing how grass can make everything feel so good.  Bye, Bye Dirt.  Now if we can keep it alive.....

my new french table and chairs.

And then yesterday we went up to Hendersonville with the Grandparents and went Apple picking.  Another bit of rewarding work.   It was a glorious day in the mountains with a little bit of overcast gray, a little bit of blue, and a ton or red and green apples, oh and some orange pumpkins!  The kids had a blast, and so did we.  This is an activity we look forward to every year!  Now all I have to do is figure out what to do with all of those apples....

we were a little late in the season, but some of our favorite apples were still hanging on.  We had a plan for that...

strong arms and little fingers!

makes my heart melt just a little bit...

speaking of melting...I see these in our future....

via Pretty Pink Tulips....Southern Living Spread!

Happy Monday Everyone.  Is it okay to take a nap on a Monday, I am tired???

One of my favorite things

is to listen to the girls on The Skirted Roundtable.  aka Megan from Beach Bungalow 8, Linda from ::Surroundings::, and Joni from Cote de Texas.  They discuss blogging and interior design weekly on a radio show.  It makes cooking dinner and doing dishes much more bearable and enjoyable.  This week, I loved the interview with the Meg Fairfax Fielding, aka the Junk Whisperer, who also happens to have her own blog Pigtown Design.  She has just garnered new found fame with her spot on the Nate Berkus show, showing how she can eye a treasure from a mile away.  (hello, Hermes scarves for $2 a peice)  I felt she was a kindred spirit.

Just on the show yesterday....I love me some Nate!

I wish I could have been at this flea market.

Meg on Nate 1 from Pigtown Design on Vimeo.

I love how Nate is showing the masses that a Collected Home is not hard to create.  Which we all know is something close to my heart...I love mixing old and new!

Have a great weekend, I wish I was doing a bit of Junk Whispering myself...but I will have my hands in the dirt laying sod in the backyard......YAY!  So excited to go from dirt to green!

One thing leads to another...

After I got over my shock of that beautiful island from my post yesterday, I thought I would flip through a little more of my House Beautiful.  I came across the gorgeous spread (which happens to be the cover) of a pied-a-terre in New York that Phoebe Howard and her husband, James Michael designed for the, from the movies couple Erica and Harry from Something's Gotta Give. (one of the best movie sets of all time BTW!)

Anyway, this photo (another 2 page spread!) got me to thinking about table settings.

via House Beautiful

So I linked on over to Mrs. Howard Personal Shopper, Phoebe Howard's blog and started poking around, you know, avoiding laundry and dishes like the plague!

I clicked the events page and saw that....
 
Eddie Ross is going to have a event in Charlotte on November 4....hmmmm, check calendar, nothing going on, immediately email RSVP, and I am in Like Flynn!  YAY! YAY! YAY!  I had been moping around feeling sorry for myself that I didn't live closer to Elizabeth from Pretty Pink Tulips to go to her event with Eddie, which sounds like soooo much fun!

I am a sucker for a beautiful table setting and I love new tips and tricks, and since we will be hosting Thanksgiving this year in our new digs, I think of it as a necessity to go.  Don't you?

Here are some of Eddie and Jaithan's Thanksgiving  table settings.

via Eddie Ross, his spread in Lonny

via Eddie Ross

Via Eddie Ross

I am going shopping with he and Jaithan on Saturday November 6 at the Metrolina Antique Show too,(which is sold out!) you don't think he will think I am a stalker, do you?  I like to think of myself as an enthusiastic fan!

Getting more excited by the minute!

BTW: I am so glad I didn't do laundry or dishes....I may have NEVER known about this.

Natch

This screams mountains to me.!

 I was flipping through my latest issue of House Beautiful one of my favorites the Entertaining issue and got to this article.  It is a Stanley Dixon home in the Mountains of North Carolina is Cashiers.  Absolutely beautiful. 

And then I flipped the page....

it is so ingenious the editors believed  it deserves a two page spread. (excuse the bad scanning)

Natch....a full spread on the Fatabulous Idea....who would think of something so AMAZING????  Who you say....ME!  THAT is EXACTLY what I wanted for my island.  I don't have proof, of course, because it was in my head and explained with much waving of the hands and "you know, like a gate leg table, it drops down when not in use, but adds seating, would be great for entertaining, bla, bla!"

When I was designing my island I wanted it to function like a gateleg table and was told that was a terrible idea....it wouldn't work, yada, yada .  Guess who was the first person I showed THIS picture too?  My husband of course...the first naysayer....I am still trying to track down my cabinet maker.  (he was wonderful by the way, he just didn't get my stroke of ingenious.)  Maybe I should have tracked down Stanley Dixon first...Oh vell. It is a little bit of consolation that I DID have this idea that ended up in House Beautiful, even if it never came to fruition!

Have a fabulously creative day, and when you have that light bulb idea...GO FOR IT, knock those naysayers out of the way...!!!!

Another way to shop for the home.

For those of you that saw my guest post yesterday over at Cottage and Vine you saw my Henredon Chartreuse Wing Back chairs....found at a Thrift Store.

Those lamps in the back were scored for at an auction. 
I plan on painting them and changing out the shade, but until then.

The Rosenthal White China was found at an estate sale for a song!

I have always loved to shop Thrift Stores and flea markets..... and recently have become an auction and estate sale junkie!  Did you know about auctions??  If you don't you should!  It isn't for the faint of heart it takes time... a lot of it.... but the reward is great.  I am still coming off of my auction high from this weekend.  There was a local antique store that was going out of business, beautiful french, swedish, and english antiques that they had collected over the years...they would travel over seas and bring containers back.  Anyway, they are retiring and needed to unload...lucky for me and many others.  Anyway, I went to the preview on Friday and was blown away. The PREVIEW is where you go and see what you might like to buy.  They have a catalog and I just list what I was interested in, because there were over 700 lots. (the list for this one was LONG!)  Having gone to auctions before, I thought 'this stuff is going to go for way more than I can afford'...but it will be fun to go anyway. 

thinking I really like the birdcages...and the trunk under them...beautiful, no?

a sucker for silver...this is silver plate, but the copper is showing thru and is just beautiful.  If you find silver plate this is the kind that you want.  It is still quite heavy.  Not meant to be mine unfortunately.

a picture of lots of the items....

 So I woke up and got to the place at 9...when I arrived, I thought to myself  'did I get the date wrong?' there were only a handful of cars...normally there are boatloads of people.  So I walked in to find that yes I had the right day, but there just weren't many people that were there, must be football.  Good for me, bad for the sellers.  They started the auction and I had to restrain myself...everything was selling for much less than I would have thought.  By 12:00 I had scored 3 things (been outbid on quite a few others...) and ended up with a carload...

I am still stewing about this one that got away...

Isn't this Beautiful???  Evidently others thought so as well, I was outbid:(

and this, foiled again....

So here are my finds.....Drumroll please...............................

I have not taken these out of the car, and I have the table too! I love the patina and worn seats.

 And here are some pieces that have found a home, for the moment at least.

These 3 beauties...why do I need magnifying glasses???  But I thought they were pretty together.....the clock I got at another auction a few months ago, and the mirror at an estate sale.

a pair of the beautiful painted french chairs with black ticking covers.

There are a few other things that I will be posting about soon
.

Auctions are certainly a fun place to get a good deal...it does take a while to score the deal because you could sit around all day for your one find and still be outbid. Or you could drive an hour to an auction that is awful! But it makes me super H-A-P-P-Y

So take note and remember that auctions and estate sales are another great place to find beautiful and unique pieces for your home, you just have to do a bit of legwork.

I plan on selling some of my finds so if you are interested in any of them please zip me an email gretchenopgenorth@gmail.com.

Have a great day.

Guest Blogging over at Cottage and Vine

 Good Morning Everyone,

Today I have had the pleasure of Guest Blogging over with the talented Rene at Cottage and Vine while she is working at Market. (my first Guest Blogging post!)

Thanks Rene for having me....come on over to see her blog!

And the winner is....

Pretty Pink Tulips!
Thank you House of Rugs for sponsoring my FIRST giveaway.

Congratulations Elizabeth.  I will email you with the details!

Thank you all for entering!  It has been fun....hmmmm what shall I giveaway next???? 

Happy Friday Everyone!