Thanksgiving Holidays – Good Food & Family Time!

Happy Monday, everyone!  We're on the countdown now for Thanksgiving Day, so today I’m off to buy my turkey and get it thawing in time to pop in the oven early Thursday morning.  Got to gather my coupons (because no good Junker worth his salt ever pays full price for groceries), make my list, and head to town.

I get really excited about cooking good food, being raised in a proper Cajun family down in old Biloxi!  Those folks just don't turn out bad cooks, if I do say so myself.  And on Thanksgiving Day, you'll always see a delicious seafood gumbo, oyster dressing, and potato salad on the table.  Yep.....makes my mouth water just thinking about it!  And since we’re talking about all this good food, thought I’d share my favorite Sweet Potato Casserole recipe with you.  Check it out on our Favorite Recipes page.    I’ve been making this recipe since I found it in a copy of Country Living magazine’s 1985 premiere issue of Country Cooking.  Personally, I think it’s the best I’ve ever tasted.  Maybe you’d like to give it a try this Thanksgiving, and let me know what you think.

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Big Christmas Sale!

Can you believe that another year has passed and Christmas is upon us once again? Patty and I will be working hard this week hauling all of our Christmas merchandise down from the “attic” and getting it priced and ready to put out for sale.  We’re looking to MOVE it, so we are ready to give you some really great deals!
Starting Saturday, all Christmas items will be sold for 50% off the marked price.  However, we want to do even better than that for all of our wonderful customers who have been so supportive.  In the spirit of the season, we are offering this coupon for an extra 25% off the sale price!

So all you coupon clippers out there, cut this one out and bring it in to get your extra 25% off.   We look forward to seeing you Saturday, and a big, fat Merry Ho Ho Ho!! from Gwen and Paint Pan Patty!

Tabletop Inspiration - Short & Sweet

Do you ever have STUFF sitting around that you don't quite know what to do with, but you couldn't possibly get rid of it because you may need it someday?  If you're a junker treasure hunter, like me, it could be anything at all, but my stuff looked like this the other day......

So I'm standing there studying this wonderful pile of stuff and wondering if I should just pack it away for another time, when a light went off.  Hmmmm.......why not just pile it all up together and see what you come up with.  Turned out like this:

 Which, I decided, would look absolutely groovy on my kitchen table.  What do you think?  What are some of your inspired creations?  We love it when folks share with us.

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Honey of a Honey Hole!

Last Saturday, a local gentleman stopped by Paint Pan Patty’s and asked if we’d be interested in some junk his wife had sitting in the back yard.  We’re always a little bit hesitant at first, until we get the whole story.  You know, we don’t want to end up with a real pile of junk we just have to haul off to the dump.  So we ask a few questions and try to determine whether or not it’s an honest-to-goodness-treasure-hunter’s-dream pile of junk.  There’s a difference, ya know……..

I could see Patty in the first stages of cardiac arrest when the gentleman explained that his wife also had a nice burn pile going next to all this junk and wasn’t opposed to using it!  The next item on her list for the towering inferno was an old Hoosier cabinet that was dirty, paint peeling, and needed a little work on the roll-up door part thingy.  Whoa!  Eeerrrkkkkk!!!  Stop the train!!  Trash to some folks, but PURE LOVELINESS to us. 

At this point, I watched as Patty calmly (as in *trying not to shake*) wrote down her phone number and asked him to please have Wife call before she burned anything else so we could drive over and take a look.  We might possibly be interested. 

Of course, we couldn’t get up there fast enough, and when we drove into their yard yesterday, I couldn’t believe my eyes.  The Hoosier cabinet is in almost perfect condition but needing a little love.  We quickly purchased that along with a full size bedroom set from the 1940’s or ‘50s, some cast iron pans (one Griswold, rescued from the burn pile), ornate upholstered rocker, vanity bench, some old books, and several other items destined for the shop.  Honey hole, indeed!  We can’t wait to get it all set up and ready for you to see.

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Our Favorite Game

Patty and I love to think of our shop as our playground.  One of our favorite games we play is called “Give Me Some Credit”.  It goes something like this:  Every Saturday after we open up, Patty and I start pulling out items that we’ve collected that week and brought in to price and sell.  Each of anxiously, yet calmly, waits and watches as the other unloads her treasures, hoping to see something that we just fall in love with.  These are called “Needful Things”, in case you’re wondering, and there comes a time in everyone’s life where you require “Needful Things”.  We just seem to have those times more often than most!

Anyway, when that certain item is spotted by either of us, the first question is,

Gwen:  “How much are you asking for that?”
Patty:  “Oh, I thought $25.”
Gwen:  “I just love it, but I can’t give that for it.”
Patty:  “Well, just Give Me Some Credit.” 
Gwen:  “OK!  You get $25 worth of my junk!”  and BAM!  a note for credit quickly goes up on the board.

The picture above of the little glass dog container is one of my favorite Needful Things I got off of Patty.  He now sits on my kitchen counter and holds my kosher salt.  I call him my Salty Dog!

Fun Times at the Country Living Fair 2011

 It was a wonderful time at the fair last Friday!  Country Living really knows how to do it up right, that's all I can say, and Stone Mountain Park makes a wonderful venue for this event. 
Of course, there were people by the thousands, but the set up is so spread out on winding paths underneath towering Georgia pines, that I hardly noticed a few extra folks besides me and my very tolerant husband!  He was wonderful and let me wander to my heart's content in and out of every single vendors tent, while he stood silently by trying to keep track of me.  I was like a kid in a candy store, trying to take in all of the wonderful displays, and getting pictures of some great ideas.  I was so enthralled with it all that I didn't even notice the "Please don't take pictures" signs up in most of the tents.  Husband patiently pointed this out to me :-)). 

We have already made plans with Paint Pan Patty and her better half to make the trip together next year and plan to stay overnight.  However, on that trip, we will take along our own food and tailgate, because the food prices inside the fair are pretty steep, and water is $3/bottle.  The parking lot is located very convenient to the fair itself, and you are welcome to wander in and out all day with the hand stamp you get when you first enter.  Other than the food prices, though, I think that admission at $13.00 per person in advance & $16.00 the day of is very reasonable for an event this well done. 

 

All in all, I highly recommend making your own plans to attend the Country Living Fair 2012, if you get the chance.  If you love antiques and cottage/country decorating, etc., this is an event you will absolutely love!

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Country Living Fair 2011 = ROAD TRIP!

A road trip is in the works for Don (aka Hubby) and me, and I'm so looking forward to it.  The Country Living Fair in Stone Mountain Park, GA is this weekend, so we're taking off bright and early Friday morning.  I've always wanted to go, so I decided that this year it would definitely happen.  Should be lots of fun.  Country Living is one of my all-time favorite magazines, and I'm anxious to see "the pages of Country Living come to life", as they say!  I'm hoping to find some really good junk, or at least ideas for some that I can bring back to Paint Pan Patty's.  I kind of like that stuff!