Decorating with a Split Personality

Honestly, I do believe that is what I have!  Can you relate?  Part of me just loves the glitzy glamorous shine of bling, and then there's the part of me loves the traditional timeless look of warn rustic dull edges, and then there is the casual side of me that is all about being true to being nautical.  That's quite a contradiction isn't it?  Let me show you what I'm talking about.

Here's a few pieces I've recently bought from work and several of my other favorite shopping haunts.

I bought both sizes since they were on clearance and 60% off of that.

I've been admiring these sparkly blinged out frames for awhile now.

Stein Mart also has these.  Can you believe they are acrylic?  I bought them full price because I know they will not last until a sale.  I love the way the light reflects off the bubbles!

The shine on these eggs found at Marshalls certainly caught my eye too.

I love everything with sequins!

Still debating about this with the eggs.  Hmm???

Then there are pieces like these below that I purchased on our recent trip to Asheville, North Carolina.  We stopped in at this FABULOUS antique store called Antique Tobacco Barn.  OMG!  I didn't take any photos inside because I was too shy to ask, so you will have to go to the website to see what I'm talking about.  Seriously, check it out y'all!  Open a second tab and copy paste this link and then come back and tell me your first response.  OMG! Right?

I was in 7th Heaven yall!  This place is filled to the brim with all sorts of goodies.  We found it on the first night of our arrival and they were just closing so we only had a peek.  Then we tried to go back the next day and they were closed due to the threat of snow. Uh!  Finally, on the day we were leaving Asheville, my husband took me by there again and they were open.  It was so cold inside that day but we lingered long enough for me come home with these two items. 

Now this piece I think I can imagine how to use it.  I'm not sure if I want to paint it or not?   I've seen lot's of these out there in blogland.  I'll be checking out some of your posts to get more ideas. 

But this one?  What to do?  I just couldn't resist it though.  I love, love, love, the shoe placement thingy on the top.  Why?  IDK!  Really! 

Then there's the nautical side of me.  It keeps showing up in bit's and pieces around the house.

I've recently been trying to keep it all contained to one area of the house in this corner.

This sign stole my heart immediately.  I can certainly attest, it's so true!!!

Then this little beauty also jumped in my hand at Marshalls on the same day the eggs did.  Yes, I actually use my split personality while shopping.  LOL!

Now here's the question?  What to do? What to do?  How in the world do I work some of these items into my decor?  I haven't a clue.  But I am decorating with a "what you love" mindset.  I'm not sure this is such a good way to go about things though.  I am seeing big contrasts lately and not sure how I'm going to bring it all together, but I keep trying. 

What about you?  Do you ever feel like you have a split personality in home decor?  Maybe, it's just me!  He he!  Well, thanks so much for stopping by if you did.  Leave me a note if you feel like it too because I really do enjoy hearing from you.  Have a great day friends!

Mary

P.S.  If you know how to get the left side of my of my blog to stop jumping, I'd really love to know.  Thanks!

My First Nautical Christmas Tree

Hey Yall! Did you catch of glimpse of my newest tree on the last post?  I guess you could say this year I've decided to test the waters a bit with a new "to us" Christmas tree.

I've had a very small tree I've put on the screened porch for a few years now but this year I decided to put the slightly larger tree that I use upstairs on the porch.  I also decided it was high time I started a nautical theme.  I always see such cute nautical ornaments while on vacation and never get any because I've never thought they would look right on my trees.  

Well, all that has changed now that I've finally given myself permission to add a new tree to my collection.  And what better place to put a nautical tree then on my screen porch.

I decided to try this one out here to see how well it would tuck right in beside the hammock.  This is sort of a test to see if I want to get a larger tree.  I think it's passed the test with flying colors.  I love it!

Of course a nautical tree just had to be blue right?  This is the first time I've done a tree with mostly blues.  It's really been kind of fun!

I bought a few new things but used a few things I already had as well.  These blue branches I used for the topper and throughout the tree came from Michael's.   I got them at 60% off.  I bet I'll find more of these after Christmas too.

The mermaid ornaments I already had.  I will have to get more of those now for sure!  Do you recognize the white anchor.  It's the napkin rings I made 2 years ago.  LOL!   The ships wheel, fish, and other small wood nautical ornaments all came from the wooden crafts section at Michael's. They were all already painted too and all I had to do was hot glue the ribbons on to hang them with.  Woohoo!

These balls where from Michaels and I knew I had to get them because they looked like fish scales to me.  The little wooden boats I already had as well.

 I decided to tuck my Sailing Santa right underneath.  I think he will make a nice tree topper on a bigger tree, don't you?  Hmmm??? Oh well, maybe next year!

Thanks for stopping by!

Have a great day friends!

Let's get Nautical!

Nautical! I wanna get nautical! Let's get into nautical! I think that's the way Olivia Newton John should have sung that song.  Really yall!

With the Memorial day weekend fast approaching I am thinking of all things nautical.  I am pretty sure I will be working Monday but am hoping for Sunday off.  The Mr. and I enjoyed a wonderful weekend of sailing this past weekend and hope to be able to do more again soon.  While we were out we talked about getting our new grill installed on the boat so we can do more grilling out on the water.  Please feel free to send me all your delicious shiskabob recipes ladies, as I am craving those to kick off the season!

With that in mind I decided to gather up a few of my nautical inspired serve ware pieces to create a display for the screened porch.  This will also keep everything handy in case I want to grab a few serving pieces as I head out the door.

Here's how it all stacked up!

I started over here on the blue table and brought out my plaid runner to work off of.

It sorta has a bit of a nautical flair, right?  Okay,  well, not sure why I brought this out really but there it is.

Next I decided to use the old wine crate that I keep on the porch and have been trying to decide how to decorate.

Then I very carefully (Hehe!) draped one of my patriotic dishcloths inside.

The first thing in was my chip and dip set that I purchased last year from CTS for only $5.99.  Love it!  I cannot wait to bring this down to the club.  It's ceramic so I will have to be very careful.  

Next in was my sailboat dip with spreader dish.  To save all of us a lot of time and reading here you should know all of these items came from the CTS. This was only $3.99.  We do not have one here where I live, so I made a special trip down to one in Augusta last year and went wild when I found all of the great deals on the nautical serve ware.  

This sailboat bowl was sold separately for only $1.99. I bet this could hold a boat load of salsa!

Then I collected up this set of three boats to add in my box too.  They were purchased at $4.99 for the whole set.

Oops! These melamine plates are from Walmart this year.  They were on clearance for $1.00 and I could only find 3.  I need one more!

I am pretty sure the napkin holder was only $2.99 and included the napkins as well.

The votive candle holders were only .64 cents a piece.  What a deal!

And my cups were only $1.69 each.  Now here's the real deal!  Those are all the prices I pulled off of them today as I was unpacking them.  I am pretty sure I got an additional amount off on many of these pieces but cannot remember exactly what.  That's how good of a deal it was and so worth the trip.  If you have a CTS near you or withing driving distance you are so lucky.

I had to move the box to it's final resting place before it got to heavy.  I almost forgot to add in the napkins and napkin rings that I made last year too, or was it the year before?  Oh, IDK!  Anywho, there they are before going in the box.

A little blue bottle of something good and I am all set!  Don't worry this is actually empty but I saved it because I liked the color of the bottle and the taste of the wine and wanted to remember the brand.  I was at World Market a few weeks ago and saw a wine with a Sea Glass label that I wish I had bought.  I think it was a Pinot Grigio, but not sure.  Maybe next trip.

And there you have it!  All set and ready for a very nautical day of dining.  Well, kinda, I still need to find a good deal on some red flatware somewhere.

I've set this up on my bakers rack outside.  If it stays here a bit I may have to redo the whole rest of the vignettes on the bakers rack now too.  But I think I'll wait and see how much I pull from here to go on the boat first.  We shall see!

Speaking of seeing and the boat...

Here's a few glimpses of what we enjoyed out on the water last weekend.  

It was very windy all weekend and we were able to get in a few good sails before getting to tired to fight the wind any longer and calling it a day.

I stretched out in the cockpit for a rest to lay down and look what I saw!

Right over our heads above the top of our boat was a beautiful rainbow.  I couldn't help but think that I guess Jesus wanted to remind us he likes going sailing too!  

Thanks for stopping by today.  I really appreciate the visit.  I am joining a few fun linkys today.

Be sure and visit them too at;

Let's Dish

Outdoor Wednesday

Tablescape Thursday

Seasonal Sunday

And just in case you missed it I am gearing up to host a linky party of my own.  Please be sure and check out my latest post HERE to get the scoop.

Have a wonderful day!

I was in a Regatta!

Wow, what a wonderfully long and exhausting weekend!  I actually participated in my very first official regatta. Let me just say it was super fun! 

  I was basically just along for the ride on this race and was not actively sailing myself, although I did pull a line once or twice maybe.  I am usually not one for racing but this is a very special race that occurs every year around this time.  My husband has participated every year for some time and I've attended all the fun events but never the race itself until now.  It is called the Outback Cup Regatta and is held at another sailing club on our lake, Columbia Sailing Club.  It is sponsored by Outback Steakhouse, yum, and proceeds go to the MDA, Muscular Dystrophy Association.  It begins on Friday night with registration and cocktails and ends on Sunday with the finals of the J24 fleet.  This year we had the most participants from our club attending in quite some time.  If I am correct I believe we had a total of six boats from our club and several members teaming up on each others boats like we did.  We attended the Friday night registration party but I didn't bring the camera for that, only for the race.

This is Columbia Sailing Club the morning of the race.  They have a new clubhouse built two years ago.  Isn't it gorgeous!

The skippers meeting was held at 11:00am.  We had to leave our club at 9:30am in order to motor over across the lake to attend the meeting.  This means I spent Friday afternoon and Saturday AM preparing foods to pack and take with us for the race since we would be out all day.

Here are a few more boats arriving for the race.

This was one of our club members, John. All participants need to attend the meeting and have to tie up to the docks which means rafting up to each other to cross over to the docks.

More of our club members, Debbie and Simon.

They are shown here tying on their "class" ribbon before the race.  All of our members were participating in the Cruising fleet race. There is another division of racer boats which are mostly J-24's.  They are more hard core and race separately from the cruisers.   All the boats in the cruising fleet race are divided up into several different classes based on several things and given a colored ribbon according to what class you are in.

This is my husband making his way back from the meeting towards the boat we were on.

I did not attend the meeting and opted instead to sit on the boat and wait.

We were on our friends boat a Catalina 30, called the Dragonfly.

This is one of the owners, Bud coming aboard.

And the other owner, Ray,  talking to his wife and daughter who were on the way by land.

Time for all the boats to head out to the mark, our starting point and wait for our start.

Here we are all jockeying towards the mark to start.  This is where it get's a little dicey as everyone get's very close together.  I put away the camera  at this point so I could stay focused so I don't have any super close up shots of our competitors.  

Bud and his wife Audrey counting down the seconds before we begin.

And here, we're off!  These photo's were taken of us by another member from her boat.

Another  club member of ours, Frank and his crew.

Other sailors.

This boat was pretty cool.  It had brown sails which is very unusual, kind of reminds me of a boat you would have on your mantle, huh?

It was a beautiful and long day and the winds were very light making it slow going.  Then right after we rounded the island and were on the way back to the finish lines don't you know the wind all but died.  This is where everyone gets very hot and tired but we held in there and finished up fourth in our class.  

After the race we dropped sail and motored back to our clubhouse to shower and change and get ready for dinner back at the other sailing club.  

Ray and his beautiful daughter, Elizabeth are very excited to be going back to our clubhouse to get ready for our steak dinner provided by Outback.   Dinner was at 6:00pm which meant we all had to hustle getting ready and then drive our cars over to the other club.  

Sorry, I forgot to bring my camera back to the dinner.  The food was delicious but I was so exhausted that we ate and made it a short evening and got home around 9:00pm.  What a day!

Looks like we missed all the later fun.  I borrowed this photo of our captain and his wife enjoying the night from another member.  I don't know how they were still going, but I sure wasn't.  LOL!

I spent Sunday relaxing and revisiting all the memorial tributes of 9/11.  Lot of tears and sad memories but I am so thankful to know that we live in a country that is still so filled with love and compassion and the spirit of freedom.  Freedom that allows us to live as this!

Thanks for taking a look with me today.

I hope you enjoyed your visit!