home decor and garden are very famous in the world

The house featured for sale here, is available to rent from 25th August to 2 September 2012, and during the last two weeks of October.

How charming are these pictures of a 18th century home, restored and decorated to create a comfortable family home.  What I especially love is the way that so many old pieces of furniture and objects are used, effortlessly.

The sort of items I love to buy in my local brocante fairs and flea markets.  Living proof that it's not because it is old, it can't find a place in a family home today.

The chair above is just like the pair I found in local market last week, in fact I think I may use this idea of toile de jouy to recover the seat.






Beside this old armchair, is a delightfully faded painted panel on the wall.  Quite possibly original to the house.







The kitchen is just the right size, and I love the butchers block placed beside the range.  Those old copper saucepans have never really lost their popularity, and are something I often buy here for clients.  Same for the old baskets hanging from the ceiling.  I could even source old blue and white tiles to reproduce this charming backsplash around the range.













all photos thanks to Campagne et Decoration

Beside the fact that I love playing with the new Pic Monkey Collage feature,
I also love getting floral-ish centerpieces for my home...and you can too.
Here's a pictorial of how to -

I know I said that you couldn't really purchase individual yards of fabric, trim, ect. at International Quilt Market, but there is one event that is held before market opens where you can and it's called Sample Spree.  Again, this event isn't open to the public, but it's about the only chance that one has to purchase lines of fabric that have yet to be released and may not be released for up to five more months.  It happens around 8:00PM the night before market and goes until 10:00PM.  Not every fabric manufacturer participates, but a lot of them do.  There is a lot of fabric as well as trims, patterns, notions, ect. that can all be purchased at wholesale cost (without the huge minimums that generally come with ordering wholesale). 

Sample spree is nuts!!  Seriously.  Imagine all the chaos that goes along with the running of the bulls, but instead you have hundreds of ladies obsessed with fabric all running to grab the new lines.  And once it's gone, it's gone, so I'm sure you can imagine the madness.  Mom and I signed up for Sample Spree last spring which was our first time, but we skipped it this past fall, so we thought it would be fun to do it again.  Luckily for us, there are no fabric lines we just MUST have, so we are much more relaxed about the whole event.  Some people would not find sample spree fun at all.  Certainly if you don't like crowds, you would not like this event.  But we like the excitement and hub-bub of it all, yes, we are the type that actually like shopping the day after Thanksgiving.


People start lining up for Sample Spree up to four-five hours before they even open the doors.  Mom and I arrived about 45 minutes before it started and this (picture above) was what the line looked like and we ended up pretty much in the middle.  It seems kind of nutty to wait in line that early since once the doors opened we were all in there in about 5 minutes, but to each his own.

So here are some of the things we brought home from sample spree and some freebies from different people at market..........










I picked up pretty much the whole collection of 'Rhapsodia' by Art Gallery Fabrics (which has already been released).  These are all 1 yard cuts and I am in love with this line.  Feminine and girly, yet still modern.  And if you've never felt Art Gallery Fabrics, you are definitely missing out.  They are dreamy and wash better than any of my other quilting cotton.  Perfect for garments!






And while we were at the Art Gallery Fabrics table, I picked up one more bundle of fabric that I might love even more than 'Rhapsodia'......this one is called 'LillyBelle' by Bari J. for Art Gallery Fabrics.  This line will be released in June which is just around the corner.  This is only half of the collection as the other half was already sold out by the time we made our way to this stop at sample spree.





I have been waiting for this line from Riley Blake Designs to come out for about 6 months now.  It's called 'Seaside' and it is just perfect.  Yes, Riley Blake Designs sends me fabric for all my design team projects but I wanted to have all of these fat quarters of each print so I picked up this fat quarter bundle at sample spree.  I'm seeing a quilt here with this set.  Although, I may have to get some yardage as well because a few of these prints are begging to be made into children's clothing.



I don't have very much seasonal fabric in my stash, so I picked up this fun Christmas collection from Anna Griffin.  I like that it incorporates some pink and blue into the traditional red and green color scheme.


Here is a little freebie from the folks at Windham Fabrics.  This is Lotta Jansdotter's new line 'Bella'.





I picked up a Kona Cotton Color Card that they were giving out for free.  It's a great thing to have because it gives you an actual swatch of each solid fabric that is much easier to coordinate than just looking on your computer.  This card is also great when you are trying to pair a solid with a patterned fabric.







And that's a wrap.  We had so much fun picking up these goodies at quilt market.  It's so nice that Mom and I both love sewing and fabric and can bond over fun experiences like quilt market.