I Went to the Country Living Fair...

And all I got was this pillow

 

and this bracelet, which I think looks pretty Furbish worthy.

 

But let's start from the beginning.

 

My friend Amber and I hopped in the car and headed to the ATL on Thursday.

 

First stop, IKEA.  Some love it, some hate it, I am in the "love it" camp.  If you haven't checked it out, go to IKEA Hackers to see all the ways people spiffy up IKEA products.  DIY insanity!

 

 

I picked up two of the Vittsjo shelves for Madeline's room.

 

 

I was convinced to try some DIY insanity of my own after seeing this:

 

 

on the Little Green Notebook blog.  It's just spray paint, how hard can it be?

 

After the pregnant lady and her friend loaded the heavy Vittsjo shelves into the big honking Ford Expedition (thanks for driving your gas guzzler, Amber) all by themselves (IKEA is truly a get it yourself place, they DO NOT care if you are pregnant and lifting heavy things, guess that is why the shelves were only $40 bucks a piece) we grabbed some food at JCT Kitchen and Bar.

 

 

 

Fried chicken = good

Almond cake with pears on top and cinnamon ice cream on the side = mind blowing

 

Next day, we hit the Country Living Fair at opening time, 10am.  Due to lack of planning, I did not purchase tix ahead of time online.  This is the ticket sales tent.

 

 

This is the end of the line at the ticket sales tent at 10am.  Notice how you can't see where the tent is.  There were a gazillion people here.

 

 

After we finally got tickets and made it into the fair, here's some of what we saw:

 

Rhine River Antiques

 

Great mid-century educational diagrams and charts.  Have been seeing these in lots of magazines.

 

Great Stuff by Paul Antiques

Lots of great baskets, dough bowls, large wine bottles, door panels, wooden bowls.  Not quite sure if these things were actual antiques or reproductions from China.  Kinda thinking reproductions since they had so many of them.

Happy Chair

Shawna Robinson makes these and I read on her website that she is a former NASCAR driver.  Crazazy!  This was one of my fave booths.  All these items looked worthy of Anthropologie.

If I was a single girl, this sofa would be the star of my bachelorette pad.

 

 

 

Go Jump in the Lake

 

Cute signs, you can snag one via Etsy on the link above.

 

On the Road Again Art

 

This would be great in a boy's room.

 

South Porch Antiques

 

This booth had great vintage signs.

 

Below are some random photos, not sure which booths they came from.

 

Are antlers still having a moment?  If not, then someone didn't get the memo cause these are still hanging around.

 

Vintage game pieces would be fun in a kid's room.

 

This is the classic Navy chair in aluminum and wood.  Never seen one with wood before.  Died over this and wished I had someplace for it.  Hope it went to a good home.

 

Varsity Blues - again, great in a boy's room.

 

Fun holiday displays:

 

 

 

Wreaths made with vintage Christmas ornaments:

And for the big story of the day, I visited the RePurpose booth by Cari Cucksey from the HGTV show "Cash and Cari".  I was impressed, she was actually there running her booth (if I was a big TV star, I would have just sent some of my peons to do it for me, she is much nicer than I am).  I bought my pillow and bracelet at this booth and had a deep and meaningful convo about the porto-pots with Cari during check out (I haven't meet too many celebrities, but I am sure they would rather talk about mundane things like porto-pots instead of hearing about how great they are and how much I like their show/book/merchandise/etc). 

 

RePurpose

 

I only agreed to this photo because the pillow hides my preggo bump.

 

At this point, Amber and I were worn out by the heat, crowds, and walking, so we decided to get on with the show and get to the best part of the whole thing: 

 

Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams

This is Amber with her ice cream.  I think she wanted to kill me by this point.  I had drug her to some crazy craft/antiques fair in the million degree heat and then had the nerve to make her take a pic in front of the ice cream stand.

 

I had the Salty Caramel flavor 'cause this dude (who doesn't really look like he would be at a craft/antiques fair, maybe his mom/sister/girlfriend made him come?):

said it was good on the Country Living website.  I chased it with some Dutch Chocolate.  I can do that 'cause I am pregnant.  It was some kind of good.

 

After that we decided that we were done with the fair and we needed some real food.  Somehow we ended up at the Nuevo Laredo Cantina.  There were bars on the windows and I wasn't so sure about the place, but Amber was feeling brave so I followed her lead.  Turns out this place has been voted the best of Atlanta since 1992 and their homemade fresh salsa made me want to slap my Mama.  I ate a whole bowl.  It's ok, I was/still am eating for two.

 

After that, we hopped back in the gas guzzler and headed back to BHAM and that was all for Tiff and Amber's Country Living Fair World Tour 2012.

 

(I'm craving that Jeni's Ice Cream right now.  Guess the Wal-Mart Great Value ice cream left over from Savannah's b'day party will have to do 'til next year.)