Visit to Penn State but...best...Bellefonte

This last weekend Paul, Matt, and I went to State College for a Penn State game.  The game was Saturday night but we left late Friday afternoon so we would have at least one day that we didn't have to drive.  It's about 3 1/2 hours from here. 

Actually we stayed in Bellefonte, a beautiful, small, quaint town near State College.  Paul and Matt had attended a game last year during one of my trips to Texas and found this great B&B in Bellefonte.  It's a couple's home where they rent rooms during game weekends. 

This was a perfect house in a perfect place-I could have moved right in.  What a fab getaway.

Here is our hostess, Jill, along with Paul and Matt.  What a wonderful, gracious hostess she was.  The home, the food, all the accommodations were fabulous.

Jill is a retired school librarian and her husband is an-almost retired minister.  Jill is a weaver and a very talented weaver at that.  This and several rooms in their home reminded me of pictures of Carl Larson's home...be still my Swedish heart.

One of Jill's looms in the works.

Some of Jill's works of art.  She makes rugs, throws, scarves, pillows, etc.  All beautiful.

A little close up...

...and another.

The beautiful living room.  The house was amazing and I spent way more time studying than taking photos.

The bottom of two separate floors of the same room in the back of the house that have three walls of windows overlooking the most wonderful back yard and carriage house.

Oh yeah, and we went to the game.

Fabulous travel opportunity!!!!!

Every so often I make a piece of art that I really like.  This is one of them that I made today.   It was fun.  It's going in the shop, but should anyone* out there in cyber world like to purchase** it, it comes with a free, all-inclusive*** vacation to your nation's capital.  This offer includes an unlimited stay at a bed and breakfast so warm and friendly that you might think you are at a friend's house.  This particular B&B has been rated A++++ by Zagats as one of the top ten B&Bs in the neighborhood of which this is the only one.  You will be given a first-class tour**** of your nation's capital and a VIP tour of the White House by a professional artist.    You will have some free time, also, to cook for your hosts.   Any special requests will be taken into consideration, but don't get your hopes up.  This is a once-in-a-life opportunity, so if you think you might like this, don't hesitate-let me know right away*****.

*Does not include residents of Maryland, DC, or Northern Virginia...duh.

**The cost is $45.00.

***Does not include any airline or miscellaneous expenses.

****This is a relative statement.

*****Shamelessly trying to get friends to come visit.

New artwork...some sanity continues...

I guess my theme is friendship as it just happens and I had a good day today putting these and other things together.

I have several girlfriends who qualify for this but I'll put it in the shop and see who wants to make a favorite girlfriend feel special.  Wish them all luck!

Image of the day...

Just got this back up after having the wallpaper done.  For some reason it is one of my favorite vinettes and had missed it.  Now it's back up...next are the window treatments...

Yippie!!! New wallpaper!!!

I've been waiting a looooooooooooong time to get new wallpaper and I finally got it this week.  I had the idea and got the new paper way before Miz Juney ever decided to re-do her kitchen-FYI.  I had a friend who was going to install it but couldn't bring herself to tell me that she didn't want to do it because it was such a shit job, so it took me way too long to get the hint then I found someone else to do it.   This photo also shows the chandelier that we took out of Paul's Uncle Robbie's NYC apartment.  It was a very dusty gold.  I removed the crystals and spray painted over the dust, cleaned the crystals, and added shades.  I love using heirlooms whenever possible.

 

I was beginning to get really nervous having hundreds of dollars of wallpaper sitting around the house for so long.  It was a ridiculously priced job because the most wall in the area-the kitchen and breakfast nook-is a 5 foot wide wall, above and only 8 foot ceilings.  The rest is a 3 foot knee wall, a sliding glass door, two doors, two entryways, a fridge cutout, and cabinets- so mainly just soffetts to paper. 

 Sooooo much expensive paper wasted but there was no other way.  OVER 12 YEARS we had the other paper.  The new is a beautiful robin's egg blue background which is the same color as my dining room which the paper bumps up against.  It also has very similar flowers to the ones on my roman shades in the family room which it bumps up against on the other side. The picture is also from Uncle Robbie's apartment-one I just fell in love with and am so happy to have the perfect place for now.

Here's the old paper.  APPLES ON VINES.  Very similar to the paper two papers ago in Miz Juney's kitchen.  12 years.  That's too long.  It wasn't just Paul's fault; I got too used to it too and just didn't see it for the last few years then suddenly I did see it and went, "Yikes!, where have I been?". 

Here it is close up.  I know, not even really right for 12 years ago.  Not a classic design but this is our first house and I made so many mistakes at first; the whole house has been done over at least once but this was wallpaper and wallpaper has to be lived with unless you're made of money.  That's why I splurged on this new one-Thibaut-to get a more classic look, hopefully, that will work for a while.  The other one was right off the shelf-how embarrassing.   I still have to make the new curtains from the same pattern fabric with a yet-to-be-found coordinating fabric.  Of course I'll let y'all see!