VINTAGE GOODNESS FROM LAURIE ANNAS

Mom got this darling silver bird and vintage-looking letter "M" wall hook from Laurie Anna's Vintage Home in Canton recently. I love the way they look in this vintage white pottery.

GIFT-WRAPPING

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Wrapping gifts for the office Christmas party coming up this week!!! Our first party of the season!

WINTER WONDERLAND!

I guess get my love of Christmas decorating from my parents! Dad has already decorated the backyard with tons of lights! He and Mom can look out their big bay window in their kitchen, while sitting at the kitchen table, at their own "winter wonderland"!

THE SMART DENTIST IN THE SMART CAR!

I had posted here about my boss (a dentist) getting a Smart Car this past Spring. It's sooooo tiny and cute that we decided to incorporate it into our office's latest ad shown here!

You can't help but notice Dr. T. when he's driving around town in this teeny, tiny car! The photo doesn't really do it justice-----it's an eye-popping bright, bright metallic orange!

Did you know the Smart Car is made by Mercedes? It is! My coworkers and me were really concerned for his safety at first but then found out the Smart Car has a steel safety shell that tested really well in test crashes.

This car is so little and cute that it literally makes me smile every time I see it! What do you think? Would you ever consider getting one?

PUCKER UP!---INTENSE LEMON CAKE!

I asked Big D what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday, and he requested lemon....so lemon he got. I took an easy lemon cake recipe and tweaked it a bit. If you get a craving for something lemony, this cake should do the trick. It has a really intense lemon flavor from using 3 lemon ingredients. And it's super easy....

EASY INTENSE LEMON CAKE

1 (3-oz) pkg lemon flavored Jello
1 cup boiling water
1 box lemon cake mix (I used Duncan Hines)
3 eggs
¾ cup vegetable oil
1 TBSP lemon juice

GLAZE:

2 cups powdered sugar
3 TBSP lemon juice

DECORATING: 1 lemon, washed and sliced

Dissolve jello in water. Cool. Then combine cake mix, eggs, vegetable oil, lemon juice, and gelatin. Beat until smooth. Pour into greased 9 x 13” baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees 30 – 35 minutes.

Combine glaze ingredients. Pour over cake, while cake is still warm.

After cake cools, place lemon slices on top for decoration.

Optional: Add 1/2 tsp. lemon zest to cake batter and 1/2 tsp. lemon zest to glaze.

TRACY & JOSEF

I went to a really sweet wedding shower recently for the daughter of some very dear friends of ours.

Congratulations, Tracy & Josef!

May you share a lifetime of happiness together!

Love, Patti

VINTAGE FARMHOUSE CHIC TO THE MAX!

Mom and I made a spur-of-the-moment trip to Canton for the Fall Preview Show at LaurieAnna's Vintage Home which was also the opening of her new 6,000 or so square foot shop next door to her previous shop. Can you say amazing! Could anything be more fantastic than her other shop? I didn't think so but when you magnify all that vintage home goodness by a zillion times, the answer has to be "YES!!!"!

There was so much decorating love everywhere you looked that it was almost hard to take it all in! We came away with some real treasures and tons of decorating ideas! In fact, in talking to each other the next day, we found out that neither one of us got much sleep that night because we kept thinking of all the great stuff we saw-----lots of unique vintage-looking lighting and gorgeous chandeliers, galvanized metal, tissue-papered walls done by hand, white pumpkins with curly vines, mini gourds strung together, alphabet hooks, paper flowers, beautiful jewelry, handmade wreaths, little turkeys, burlap ribbon, burlap pillows, large santos statues, black & white cafe signs with the coolest sayings---I could go on and on----just click here to check out all the shop photos on her blog! I think my very favorite thing was the white china display on the wall. I love pretty dishes. I've bought the square white plates from her in the past (and have gotten so much enjoyment from them), and on this trip I bought one of the little white china dishes that was made up of 3 flower "bowls" attached together all in a row, that was hanging up in that display. It's too cute! I'll have to do a post later and show you the goodies that came home with us.

Here's the extremely talented Tina of the fabulous Cherry Hill Cottage.
Be sure to check out her beautiful photos of LauriaAnnas Fall Preview!























She is always so sweet and helpful. I'm a HUGE fan of her blog!

We got to meet jewelry designer,Michele Busch of Plano, whom we had just read about in the Dallas Morning News, and see her beautiful handmade jewelry in person. Click here to see her photos of her trunk show at LaurieAnnas. She was so sweet.

And to top off our visit, it's such a pleasure to see Zeek, LaurieAnna's sweet shoppe dog! He is such a darling! And thankfully he is feeling much better (for those of you who keep up with him through LaurieAnna's blog).

We had lunch and then came back again to make sure we didn't miss anything. It was so much fun and we left with our brains totally swirling with decorating ideas!

LaurieAnna's shop and (her booth in the Arbors on the TradeDay grounds) are open Thurs. through Sun. during First Monday TradeDays. The next TradeDays start Sept. 2nd.