DECK THE HOLIDAY'S

   The  Boryeong Mud Festival  is an annual festival which takes place during the summer in Boryeong, a town around 200 km south of Seoul, South Korea. The first Mud Festival was staged in 1998 and, by 2007, the festival attracted 2.2 million visitors to Boryeong.    The mud is taken from the Boryeong mud flats, and trucked to the Daecheon beach area, where it is used as the centrepiece of the 'Mud Experience Land'. The mud is considered rich in minerals and used to manufacture cosmetics. The festival was originally conceived as a marketing vehicle for Boryeong mud cosmetics.    Although the festival takes place over a period of around two weeks, it is most famous for its final weekend, which is popular with Korea's western population. The final weekend of the festival usually falls on the second weekend in July. History of the Festival    In 1996 a range of cosmetics was produced using mud from the Borye...

That late summer/early fall feeling is beginning at my house! The cicadas are singing and my ginger lilies are beginning to bloom...always a sign that fall is on the way! And I have also noticed that interest in fall is beginning to pick up around blogland and on Pinterest, too.   Hey ...you need a little lead time to create your fall decor!  Sooo ...I decided I would do a little series of posts on my most popular fall projects for those who may have missed them or who are new to my blog. And first on my list are these...…my  Country Living  inspired découpage pumpkins! I knew this would be my next project when I spied... ... this  on the cover of their October 2011 issue! Isn’t this simply gorgeous?  I love the way the pumpkins look as though they have been covered with fabric even though it is actually  paper!    Sooo ...the magazine hopped in my cart and went straight home with me! Next, I went right to work assembl...

Apfelkuchen. Or Apple Cake. Or Bavarian Apple Cake. OR “Happy Apple Cake” as I’m calling it…. This was a common treat when I visited my grand parents as a kid, so was homemade apple strudel, spaetzle and all kinds of yummy German/Austrian/Bavarian things to eat. My grandmother was an excellent baker and made everything from scratch. My mom was telling me how she even made her own phyllo dough for the strudel. That is a LOT of work, something I hope to try one day. I saw Barbara from  Creative Culinary , post this pear quick bread the other day with the hashtag, #TwelveLoaves, and I asked her what it was all about. She told me it was a monthly recipe group all about breads and that there was a different flavor theme each month, but we could make our own twist on it, not have to follow the exact same recipe as everyone else. November’s theme is apples and pears, and well what do you know? I still have a HUGE bag of apples that we picked from our trip to the ...