home decor and garden are very famous in the world

When people ask me what I miss the most about Japan, one of the first things that comes to mind is FOOD. Seriously, isn't that a basic need and desire of human nature? There are some Japanese foods that I could buy where I live, but not like actually living there.

When I had a family trip to California a couple years ago, I made sure that we would hit the Japanese grocery stores there. I was amazed with the selections... yeah... I was in heaven!

For the first time in 11 years, I was actually in Japan. Not in California, not in little Tokyo... real Japan! You might laugh at me, but I had a list of things I wanted to eat while I was there. I felt like if I miss this chance; who knows when my next chance will be?

My family and friends laughed at the list at first, but they were really helping me to cross the items off the list.

They took me to "kaiten-sushi". It is a sushi restaurant that you sit around and a conveyor belt brings the food and you grab a dish with sushi on it. They are so much cheaper than traditional sushi restaurants. Most of the dishes are 105 yen (which is about $1.35 right now). You may not believe me, but I can really pack them in when I am hungry. :)

I was so surprised to see the restaurant. There were few things that had changed since I left; the lay out of the seating arrangement was different, I mean instead of sitting around facing the conveyor belt;, there are booths around the belt, and you can order whatever you want from a touch screen at your booth. The dish stops at your booth and the light flashes to tell you that your sushi has arrived. Things change so much in 11 years! I had to take a pictures at this new found Japanese culture.

You just order what you want, and they will make one right there for you.

There were really good selections. Yeah, they are not same as you eat at real sushi restaurant, but they are pretty good. If you take someone like me, who was starving for Japanese food in general, I was like a kid in a candy shop.

Mmm... Am I done? Well, let me rest for a minute, I think I can go for some more.

When I had small class reunion, we met at an awesome restaurant, there I had bunch of yummy food (which I was able to cross some stuff off my list as well)...




When my mom and my sister took me out for shopping, we had lunch at the restaurant as well... Oh, they were so good...

Am I done yet? No, no way, I had to eat some Japanese junk food as well.

There were LOTS more other things that I ate, but forgot to take pictures because I was too excited about it. Such as ramen, Japanese style Chinese food (oh, they are soo good), very yummy cakes, and best of all, the home cooked food by my mom and my sisters. They are all excellent cooks, and I was so spoiled while I was there. Thank you everyone for feeding me!!

Has reading about all this food given you heartburn yet? There are a couple more pictures to share with you...

Tada! You know what, they are not real food. They are actually samples made out of wax to show what you can expect when you order that dish. I believe this was invented in Japan, and pretty much any restaurant you go to, you see samples like this in front of the place.

Japanese style kid’s meals... I was missing my family and wanted to show this to my kiddos.

I ate so much while I was there. I am paying the price for it right now, but it was totally worth it!

1. Creativity
2. Innovation
3. Use of current design trends
4. Creative upcycled items incorporated into the design
5. Quality of design and items used in design
6. Quality of photos
7. Entrant follow all party rules

If you live in Atlanta and are exposed on any level to the world of design, then you most definitely have heard of ADAC.  Until now, ADAC was a place for designers to visit, but the general public wasn't allowed access.  As of tomorrow, October 1st, any and all will be welcomed inside the campus consisting of 550,000 square feet with 60 showrooms offering 1,200 of the industry’s finest product lines including furniture, fabric, rugs, lighting, accessories, floor and wall coverings, antiques, fine art and framing, kitchens, bath, tile and stone, and home theater product.  It is an exciting venture for ADAC and the entire design community.

To kick things off there will be two weeks of events open to the public as well as designers.  For a detailed calendar of events you can visit ADAC's website.  You can register for any of the events listed by going here.  On Wednesday, October 10th, I'll be speaking along with five lovely ladies, Shelly Hart of Design Indulgence, Erika Ward of BluLabel Bungalow, Claire Watkins of High Gloss Blue, and Helen Young of Whitehaven; moderated Wendy Shannon at With a Southern Twist.  We'll be dishing about what is in, what is out and what is hot in the world of blogging and design.  Please join us!  It's a really fun group and I'm sure you will be entertained.

Here’s one of last fall’s projects—I thought I’d pull it out again for this year!

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I love the look of beadboard, and I’ve been using it for signs for months now (you can see some here), …but I also love the look of pennant banners, so I thought, “How about a beadboard pennant banner?”

Once my lines were all drawn, I used a table saw to cut along the lines. Note: You could also use a jigsaw if you don’t have a table saw!

Once you get the first piece off, you can use a fence to cut your parallelograms easily…


…but that’s not going to help when it’s time to cut the triangles off!

I ended up with ten little triangles. Rather than drill each triangle separately, I stacked them and clamped them together. Then I could drill five at once! This is a great time saver.

I base-coated all my triangles with Rustoleum Heirloom White spraypaint, but then I decided to get further color inspiration from candy corn! I used acrylic craft paint, and didn’t even worry about getting lines perfect or anything. Have you ever seen a perfect candy corn?? Another Note: OK, so now I know that candy corns are actually yellow-orange-white and not orange-yellow-white. Sorry! I don’t actually eat them! Bleah.

I used black acrylic paint to stencil on letters…

…and the next day I distressed and glazed all my little pennants.

I tied the pieces together with twine, and anxiously hung my banner on my buffet so I could admire my handiwork!

This particular banner now lives on my sister’s buffet!
I like this little “fall” banner with the different fonts for each letter.

The possibilities are endless! What would you put on a banner?

(and if you don’t want to make your own…contact me through my Etsy shop and I’ll make one for you!)

Domestically Speaking	Elizabeth & Co.
	The CSI Project
Friday Remodelaholic	2805
My Simple Home Life’s Simple Creations Friday
Funky Junk’s Saturday Night Special	The DIY Show Off Stone Gable
Beyond the Picket Fence	Someday Crafts
Knick of Time Mod Vintage Life	My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
Perfectly Imperfect	{Primp}
Common Ground	My Repurposed Life
From My Front Porch to Yours	All Star Block Party A Little Knick Knack
Cowgirl Up! The Graphics Fairy	{aka} design Coastal Charm

So, I have been sharing the stories of my trip to Japan, and there are many more to tell. Also, every year I have been doing a Tea Rose Home blogaversary giveaway in September, but I haven't done that because I have been away... I am going to do that with some goodies I brought from Japan soon! So stay tuned. :)

Are you ready for the link love for this month?

I have seen so many bookends before, but this one is such a cutie! Annemarie's Haakblog shared these crochet bookends. Things like this put a smile on my face.

Have you already decorated your house for the upcoming season? Cherished Bliss used orange and aqua to decorate her home for the fall and shared the pictures on her blog. You should visit there to see them, because they are stunning!


If you are a biker or not, you will love this picture drawn by Grow Creative. I love the use of colors, they are simply adorable.


Blue Bird Sews shared this great tutorial for stretching wonky stars to make a baby quilt. I LOVE the fabric she used for this project, and the quilt design goes so well with it.


I love projects that use something worthless or ordinary and come up with jaw dropping creations. Carolyn’s Homework has done just that... She used brown paper bags from the grocery stores and created this amazing faux bay leaf wreath! I would love to give it a try.


Thank you everyone for sharing your talents!

I will be back with more stories from trip to Japan this week, see you at the next post. :)

I am NO green thumb. So, I try to avoid as many living plants as possible.
Sometimes my mother plants real, live plants/flowers in my window boxes.
I am not ammused. But, I'm too lazy to take them out. And, I'm especially not a mum person.
They really aren't all that attractive, but they say "Fall".
So I go with it.

Here's what I did to zing up the typical "mums in a window box" type of thing.

all photos thanks to Wealden Times