Once a year, all of Tennessee & the top half of Alabama descend upon Bell Buckle, TN for the

Bell Buckle Arts & Crafts Festival

.  This festival has been going on for thirty years & according to the website, is known as one of the top 20 events in the south.  I don't know what that means, but it sounds important.

*I'm wearing

this lipstick

in Beso.

My mom has gone every year for as long as I can remember, but this year my sister & I went with her.  I had no idea what to expect, but it was 100x better than I anticipated.  First of all, it's HUGE.  We were there for 4+ hours & still didn't see it all.  It's obviously primarily arts & crafts, but there are also lots of antiques & thrift store type finds.

The weather was perfect.  It was overcast, cool & felt like fall.  Apparently most years it's still pretty hot outside (because Tennessee doesn't have a fall anymore!).  But this year it was perfect.  I felt like I bought a lot of stuff, but I only bought these 3 things.  That giant K is from an old theater in Kentucky.  I've wanted one of these giant letters for awhile now & while this one isn't exactly what I had in mind, it was just $20, so I bought it.  YOLO.

On Saturday afternoon, my friend Alexis came over to help me finish my gallery wall.  A week into it, I am literally unable to finish it.  Alexis did what everyone told me to do - cut out the shapes of everything & tape them up onto the wall.  What I assumed would take 2 hours, took 10 minutes.  So yeah, I totally should have done this a week ago.

*P.S. That's Alexis in the picture, so while I appreciate your compliments on my cute derriere, alas, it is not mine.

And here it is!  I think we did this in an hour.  Well, one week & one hour.  Thank you, Alexis!  I love it!  And John likes it, which I did not expect.  It really livens up our living room, which is what I wanted.  Hooray!

There are a million pictures of both Bell Buckle & my living room on

Flickr

.  Knock yourself out.