Friendly Homes Friday~

For today's Friendly Homes Friday we're visiting the lovely home of my darling sister-in-law Betsey! Betsey is married to the Hubby's older brother. They live in a wonderful old farmhouse in Northern Maine! It has so much charm and character that you fall in love with it immediately when you drive up the 1/2 mile dirt road through the woods into the clearing where it sits! And once you come inside, you're tempted never to leave. Betsey is a wonderful hostess who rivals Martha with her creativity! Her home is warm, inviting, and creative...just like Betsey. Enjoy the tour...

This is the sun room...the Hubby remodelled this room for his brother and Betsey about two years ago. It used to be a 70's "greenhouse" addition, and now it is a beautiful room that fits the vintage of the home! My favorite place in the house!
Here's a wider view. You can see that the sunroom sits right off the family room separated by an old weathered beam. So charming!

This chair-and-a-half is so comfy you can sleep in it! Trust me...I have on many occasions!

I'm always looking for great storage ideas...and I just love these boxes! And the baskets? Longaberger. Love them too! Betsey used to be a Longaberger rep so she has many of these lovely baskets throughout her home.

My other favorite room in Betsey's house is the guest room. This wall pocket is found there. I just love the colors and textures in this little floral arrangement...so pretty!

This charming old desk serves as a bedside table.

And here's the bed...love the pineapple finials! Just makes me want to curl up for a nap!

Betsey is the queen of signs...they are everywhere in her house! I am drawn to this little vignette with the dried floral wreath and the sweet vintage-inspired sign.

Another view of the mirror over the bedside table/desk. I'm a fan of using ribbons to hang mirrors.

This pretty stained glass window lights up the room.

This cute chandelier sits over the kitchen table...yes those are flying pigs! How fun is that??

Oops! This one is out of order. Here's another photo of the sunroom...you can see the beadboard detail on the ceiling. I LOVE BEADBOARD!

A bench welcomes visitors just inside the front door. Love the wreath over the mirror (and, of course, the beadboard!)

Another chair-and-a-half in the living room. I love the red and white ticking!

I love this lamp full of sea glass. It sits in the beach-themed bathroom on the main floor. Betsey collected all of this sea glass herself!

Hope you enjoyed your tour!

I have some fun things planned for next week, so please join me here on Monday!!

Have a wonderful weekend~

Friendly Homes Friday and a project

Welcome to this week's edition of Friendly Homes Friday! This week we are visiting my darling friend Trisha. Trisha is a ballerina turned marathon runner who is the wife of a PhD student and mother to beautiful twin girls (the Princess' BFFs) and an equally beautiful baby girl who is a true delight! Because Trisha's hubby is working on his PhD, Trisha knows how to decorate frugally (something we all should be doing anyway..am I right?) and her creativity is amazing! She is a seamstress extraordinaire who even slipcovered her own sofa (which I realized after the fact that I failed to get a photo of...so sorry!) She can sew just about anything and she puts her talents to good use beautifying her home! She is thoughtful and sweet and one of my very best friends. So, I hope you enjoy...

Starting at Trisha's front door...a group of our friends made these rustic cement planters this year. Trisha has hers filled with seasonal gourds. Made me think I should pull mine out and find a way to use them for Christmas. My apologies for this picture. I should have moved the whole thing out of the bright sunlight. But ya know, that would have taken effort. :-)

Such a pretty wreath, and I love the bow!


This little wood plaque with the leaves is so cute!



I love the color these berries add to the top of her entertainment armoire .



This is one of my favorite things in Trisha's house. She needed a little more storage in her kitchen, so she refinished this hutch! I love the fabric she added to the doors, and if you look closely you'll see that she covered a set of canisters to match. Yep, that's Trisha for you!


Okay, and she made these really cute little turkey placemats...she got the inspiration from an old Pottery Barn Kids catalog...just used some fabric scraps she had laying around the house. Of course she did. :-)



Same goes for this darling Thanksgiving banner. You all know how I love a banner. I almost took this one off the wall to bring home.

I thought this was too cute for words. Love those cute little bugs.

Here they are up close. Aren't they darling?

And speaking of bugs, Trisha knows how to pin insect specimens. That's a little trick she learned in college. Leave it to her to turn it into an art form. She pinned this beautiful swallowtail. I *heart* it.

She also pinned this Lunar Moth. This is another one of those things I could have taken home with me. Isn't it exquisite?

Some of you may remember these pretty autumn blocks. Trisha is the one who made them for me. Well, she also made this pretty monogram block. Just downloaded a freebie monogram from this website, printed it on cardstock and mod podged it to a painted block. So pretty! Of course, I am a sucker for a monogram.

She had a bunch of these sweet little pumpkins scattered around. She said they're made from bay leaves. Genius.

Hope you all enjoyed today's tour. Thanks to Trisha for opening her home and sharing with us some of her lovely decorating ideas.

And now for a little project of my own...

Many of you guessed that the projects I was planning were pillows. Well, you were right! I only had enough time to finish the crown pillow, but here she is in all her glory! I hope you all love her as much as I do. I'm planning on opening an etsy store sometime in the next week or so, and I will be selling some of these pillows, and some bee ones also. And perhaps some other designs and products...depending on how productive I am in the next little while. Soooo keep checking back for my grand opening! (I tell you all these sorts of things in advance because then it makes me get to it! Otherwise I might be forced to procrastinate a bit...anyone else have that problem?)

Ah, and before you go...did you all see that the Nester highlighted my mini-Mudroom that I wrote about both here and on Blissfully Domestic. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside that she liked it! She's like a bloggy superhero!woot woot!!

Have a happy weekend~

Friendly Homes Friday~

I'm super excited about today's edition of Friendly Homes Friday! That's because today I get to share the home of someone who is not only one of my dear friends, but I am also related to her... It's my sister-in-law Alissa! (Our hubbies are brothers.) Alissa is one of the most amazing women I know. She has more energy than any other three women put together. And she puts her energy to good work being a very enthusiastic mother to four super-busy and fun little boys! She is an amazingly creative mother...I am constantly in awe at her parenting prowess. And even though she is so busy with her boys, she also has the time to be a super-talented crafter and to create a very beautiful home. I hope you all enjoy today's Friendly Home...


Our tour begins just outside the front door...isn't this display charming? Pretty pumpkins and a berry covered wreath hanging from an old garden planter cart.

She also has two of these pretty lanterns...I just love the ribbon.


This bowl is on a table in her foyer...yes, she has a foyer. I love the textures and the addition of the pretty little berry wreath for some autumn-y color.

This has to be one of my favorite parts of Alissa's house. The formal living room has a two story ceiling. I love the double windows on this wall and the huge barn star hanging in between?...well, I just love barn stars!

I thought this little pilgim couple was just too cute!

I love how she put this pumpkin on top of this old scale. I love the vintage patina of the scale. So charming!

I'm a sucker for a pretty fireplace. And Alissa really has one! The painting above the fireplace was painted by our super-talented father-in-law. I've shared some of his art before...here. I also love the long wooden container with the dried hydrangeas. So pretty.

She has a knack for display. Look at this fun box just full of little things to enjoy.

I love this idea. An old chippy mailbox mounted to a board. I bet they really use it to leave love notes for each other. I didn't ask, but I know that family pretty well ;-)

I'm not sure what this is, but I love the look of it with these cute jack-be-littles!

Alissa has cute vintage-inspired airplanes hanging from the ceiling in two of her boys' rooms. She and I joked that this photo would like it was really flying if you couldn't see the corner of the ceiling. (I tried to crop it out of the photo with no luck.)


Yep, she made this too! Old croquet mallets mounted to a board for a coat rack in one of her boys' room. She really is that kind of a girl!

I have long admired this chippy chair. It sits on the half-landing of her staircase. Isn't it pretty?

And last, I wanted to share this cute frame. I love the fact that she has a key for each member of the family...biggest to smallest. Sweet! (and if you look closely you can see me taking the picture...hee hee!)

Thanks to Alissa for letting us peek in her lovely home...I hope you all enjoyed it!

I'll be back next week with some exciting projects, so y'all come back now!

Have a lovely weekend~

Friendly Homes Friday~

I'm surrounded by a wonderful group of friends who are exceptionally talented. They all have beautiful homes, and I thought it would be fun to share with my readers out there some of their spaces. Thus is born "Friendly Homes Friday"!

Today I'm going to share with you the be.au.ti.ful home of my friend Lynette. To know Lynette is to love her! She has a warm, vibrant personality and she is one of those people that instantly makes you feel comfortable. When you are with Lynette you feel important, talented, and interesting! And you know, she and I, we're kindred spirits. She has a creative soul. And it comes out in her home. A few years ago, Lynette and her Hubby were lucky enough to be able to build their dream home. And since they built it from the ground up, it has her personality written all over it! It might surprise Lynette to see the things I decided to share, because I'm a detail person, and as beautiful as her home is, it's the little details that I love...

Doesn't this chair look comfy...all the furniture in her living room is the same way. I just love the colors!

Lynette loves blue! You'll see it again in a minute. I love this stained glass window.

Look at the center of this twig wreath. Lynette has tucked a beautiful little nest inside, and in the nest, real egg shells probably from some baby robins!

Here is a closeup of her living room fireplace. Love the mantel!

And this is the reason I fell in love with her living room...look at those fabulous windows! 6 over 1 cape cods with transoms above that! OH HOW I LOVE THEM. Lynette asked me once what I thought she should do for window treatments. What did I tell her? LEAVE THEM ALONE! (I really did almost shout it.) I love these windows so much, I would never cover them. And luckily, their house is in a beautiful secluded lot so privacy isn't an issue.

These stones are on her hearth...they are beautiful in their simplicity and in their message.

I loved these glitter pumpkins she had in a bowl on her coffee table.

I was planning on taking a picture of this bench because of it's lovely simplicity. We can thank Two for the decor, however. He was merrily playing with Lynette's stash of kiddo toys while Mom and Lynette snapped photos and played with her Cricut machine. (Those are too much fun...now I have to save my pennies to get one!)

Lynette loves a little sparkle! Here's a detail of some of the bling on her mantel.

And here is some more of the blue I promised you. She has these lovely built in bookcases in both the living room and great room.

This fireplace is in her great room. I love the pretty fallish display on the mantel. (Japanese lanterns are so pretty...)

Either she's a kid at heart, or she had her kids and grandkids in mind when she added this fun little detail to the greatroom. My kids love it when they come to visit. You know the Princess would love to play Rapunzel from that tower! Smart idea to put the doors there to close it off!

This stair case is in her front entry. Sorry about the photo...I was wrangling a three-year-old while trying to take it...but you all get the idea.

A closeup of the great room mantel.

Oh, and when you build your own home, you can add fun things like a Butler's Pantry! Yes you can! (Sorry about the yellow photos, no natural light in there.) The cabinets have bubble glass in them...so pretty.

On the other wall in the Butler's Pantry is 6' beadboard wainscotting...so pretty...and I love the three wreaths.

This concludes our first Friendly Homes Friday tour! Hope you all enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you. And a special thanks to Lynette for opening her beautiful home to us!

As I was leaving, Lynette pulled out these beautiful blown quail eggs that she's been saving and gave them to me. She thought I might want them for my little nest. Don't they look cute? (blurry photo alert...sorry.)

Have a wonderful weekend~