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I don’t know about you, but when we’re in the middle of a summer heat wave I don’t feel like turning on the oven and eating a hot and heavy meal. Something cool and refreshing sounds soooo much better. This meal idea is something my sister-in-law served one summer while I was visiting, and it fit the bill for a delicious meal on a hot summer day so perfectly. It’s kind of a coleslaw-meets-Waldorf-Salad-meets-chicken-salad dish, with a refreshing flavor mix of lime and thyme that my family has nicknamed Summer Thyme Salad. I’m including a printable of the recipe at … Read more

Are you a local explorer? You’d love it!! Few things inspire me creatively more than this. Not sure? Ok, I’ll give you some reasons – and then some helpful tips and tricks. 🙂 All of the photos in this post are from my local explorations here in Knoxville! I’ve lived in several awesome places in the past — places that other people take trips to go visit. (Prague/Czech Republic, Gettysburg/PA, Tampa/FL..) But one thing that completely took me aback was how people who had lived there their whole lives had never taken the opportunity to go see the sights! I … Read more

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” I almost wish C. S. Lewis hadn’t said this, because its so true of me that I probably would have said it myself, and then everyone would be quoting me instead of him. Well … ok, maybe not, but I do love this quote. 🙂 (In fact, I loved it so much, I embroidered it on this book tote I made! I call it a “quote tote” and I stitched my paper beads on it – WooT! One of these days I … Read more

I’ve been making some changes to The Flourishing Abode, to make it easier for you to use, and to help keep it running! I’m pretty excited about some of these changes, and so I wanted to share them with you. There’s a ton of great stuff I want to tell you about ranging from free classic vintage clothes, to a DIY gallery, to a exclusive deal for my readers, to milkweed kisses. Um, I guess you’ll have to read on to understand that last one. ‣‣‣ First (and this is just a small change, but might make it easier to … Read more

I’m taking a little different approach with this week’s hack challenge … instead of one more-involved project, I wanted to give several different upcycling decor ideas that are so simple, there’s no assembly required! 1 – Repurpose clear glass vases to store layers of colorful scarves: 2 – Use vintage insulators as unique book ends: 3 – Use a whisk to hold recipe cards: 4 – Repurpose an old tv stand as a book shelf: 5 – Use a vintage skirt hanger as a unique method of “framing”: Do you have any no-assembly-required upcycling ideas to share? Post them in … Read more

I love maps. And I love when customers give me great ideas for new prints to offer. 🙂 I had someone request a custom map art print to give as a gift to a young couple to commemorate the location where they got engaged! It was such a sweet project, that I thought it would be nice to offer custom map prints for others as well. I made this as an example if you wanted a print to show your home state, or it could also show the place where you got married, or where your child was born, or … Read more

Well, tonight I needed to write the next blog post for the every-other-Wednesday series … buuuut I just realized I left my laptop charger at someone’s house. And our other charger is packed somewhere. And my battery is about to die. Oops. Plus we are still getting settled and it’s been almost a week since we’ve had a good night’s sleep. One night we got a full 45 minutes of sleep. Yeaaaah, that doesn’t quite cut it. 😉 So I’m bowing out for today, but I leave you a couple fun quotes our 4 year old said today while we … Read more

Well, the FlourishCafe birthday celebration continues with a free printable!  I actually opened shop last year on New Year’s Day, which is a common day to start things, resolve things, set new goals – a day for beginnings. Chances are, you set some resolutions 4 days ago this year as well.  How are they coming? How will you be doing on them at the end of the month? What about in July?  Often, New Year resolutions get dropped almost as fast as a porcupine mistaken for a pillow. I heard it said recently that written goals are the real goals- … Read more

This is it! If you’ve been following this 10 week blog redesign series, this is week 9, and it’s time for the big reveal! (As well as a question I am hoping to get your thoughts on … ) I’ve been redesigning Lori’s blog, In My Kitchen, In My Life throughout the series and giving tips on how you can get set up with a whole new design of your own as well. Lori already had great content, and this redesign was intended to get her set up on WordPress and give her posts the proper garnish and setting that … Read more

If coding and customizing your WordPress theme sounds too scary – then this post is for you! (This is part 4 of my DIY Blog Redesign series… a little more techy for this post, and next week we’ll be back on the artistic.) Admission: I designed my blog look – and starting out, I knew next to nothing of how to do CSS. Now, granted, I did know a fair amount of HTML, but I still had to start from scratch on CSS – and it wasn’t too bad. My point is this … don’t be intimidated by coding and … Read more