Dia de los muertos!

Every year the botanical garden in Nashville does a Day of the Dead Celebration. Travis and I went this year, it was a great start to our vacation week!


 i love alters. i say i'm going to make one every year, but i always forget.  one day i will make it down to mexico to see the celebration.  the nashville one is pretty fun though. it gets better every year!  i was good and resisted buying much. and i've already got so many skeleton things. we got some treats from las paletas! i got raspberry lime, it was SO SOUR i couldn't finish it. travis got hot chocolate which had cayanne. it was really good. we made paper marigolds and skull masks. we missed the sugar skull station somehow!  we got some free hats too! we made a tombstone for rose for the pet graveyard. it has been about a year since we lost her. i still miss her so much and think about her all the time. i think i'll split this into two posts so i don't bombard you with too many pictures!

My Vintage Find of the Year!

One of my favorite things on the internet is Her Library Adventures weekly thrift find round up! And this week she is hosting a best find of the year contest! Travis wants me to enter the life sized gold bust of hank williams that he got at the goodwill outlet for 5 bucks, but my favorite find was this tree!

i guess technically it was an estate sale find. i was making my second lap through a bummer of an estate sale when i saw this box in the kitchen next to the fridge. they had 20 bucks on it. i thought it couldn't possibly be complete, but at that price i had to take a chance. i'd been looking for an aluminum tree for years but never found one for less than 150 dollars. it was the last day of the sale, but the lady was trying to drive a hard bargain and told me she wouldn't take less than 20. i was happy to give her 20. 

imagine my delight when it was complete! and the prettiest aluminum tree i've ever seen! i love the mercury balls on the end of each branch. i can't wait to show you a picture of it all set up! i set it up for that christmas photoshoot i helped with and i was in awe of it. seriously, i was dorking out about it the whole shoot. so i think it can take the title of my favorite find this year!

Flea Market: Things I Didn't Buy Edition

The Nashville Flea Market was so full of amazing vintage christmas stuff this last time. I decided not to get anything until I've actually put out my decorations so i can see what I have room for. i mean, i have FOUR trees now. I need to give at least one away this year. but i was drooling over all the pretty stuff. i loved how all those balls looked in the wire basket! i'm going to start picking up those glass balls whenever i can find them cheap. i want to make a vintrage ornament wreath too.  my friend thomas came with me and was freaking about this roulette wheel. i made fun of him. because i am mean. haha.  kyle was looking at this old camera and i loved that you could see his face! so cute.  i really love the colors on this tablecloth. but it wasn't for sale. we stopped by the honeybean! kaelah had some really cute stuff! i loved those deer the most. i was a dork and got too nervous to say hi to her though. as i mentioned before, we were STARVING and had to leave before we made it through the whole market. we made a stop at baja burrito and were recharged and made a trip to goodletsville to one of my all time favorite antique malls. did not buy this awesome clown. i am kicking myself for not buying this awesome tv tray! i love it SO MUCH and it was only seven dollars. maybe it will be there when i go back.

linking up as usual!: 

Boiler Room Date

A little while ago Travis and I went on a double date with our good friends. We started off as we often do by browsing at one of our favorite antique malls:

 This mall is in Franklin TN. there are some really good vintage dealers. and some really terrible ones.  there is one case completely full of cat and dog stuff!  we didn't get anything, just browsed. i've gotten a lot pickier, thankfully. since my house is pretty much already full.  we went to dinner in historic downtown franklin. it is so cute in the fall. and all other times really.  we went to McCreary's Irish Pub as usual. i love it so much i never want to try one of the other restaurants.  i started bringing a little notebook around with me to jot down blog/fun ideas. it has been really awesome so far. and check out the cute sticker i won in a giveaway over at angel's art blog! i have been having really good giveaway luck lately! speakin of that... i convinced my friend crystal to give away something for the paper sparrow tim burton blog party. then hilariously i won the giveaway! she brought the wallet i won from her shop that night and included a note that said something like "i can't believe you tricked me into making you a free wallet.' hahaha.  after dinner we headed over to the boiler room to see a play! it is a theater that is in the actual boiler room of an old stove factory that has been converted into shops and living/event space.  we saw The Rocky Horror Show! it was really good. it was a little different from the movie and the theater was tiny and we laughed pretty much the whole time. it was great. i want to try and see more plays there. on tuesday nights it is buy one get one free tickets so it is really affordable. it was a perfect date.

Vacationing in a Tourist Trap!

Just wanted to pop in and tell you how great our vacation is going so far! our cabin is perfect, gatlinburg is so fun and cheesy, and we spent the whole day antiquing then got an "olde tyme portrait." i'm just waiting for the brownies to be done, then we're going to go sit in the hot tub and maybe watch scary movies. hope you are having a good week too!

Halloween!

We went to a Halloween party on Friday night. I had big plans for a costume i was going to make (don't i always?) and never got around to it. I kept putting off deciding what to be until friday afternoon. Thankfully i have a whole trunk full of costume stuff so i can always throw something together. This year I was a witch! and travis wore his old standby, the skeleton suit.

 i think i was trying to make a "scary" face this makeup is so awesome. if you need to make youself one color this is the way to go. it just feels like foundation on your skin and it dries so you don't have to worry about staining everything you touch. and it has shea butter in it so your skin actually feels really soft when you are done. i love it. i bought it at a costume shop in nashville called performance studio.  the party was at our friends nettie and graham's house.  what a good idea! so easy and cute.  nettie and her husband dressed up as hal and oats. she look so hilarious!  here is how ryan's seymour costume turned out. so cute! i still want to steal his audrey 2.  travis manned the fire, as usual. i think that is his favorite part of parties.  there was dancing. and laughing. and too much sugar eating.  we made it home around 1:30 am. it was so fun!