Shopping & Lunch at The Bright Star

One of the ladies at my church invited me to go with her this week to Bessemer, which is a small town and part of Birmingham, to a place called United Textiles. I had seen their ads many times and wanted to visit, so it was fun to see it in person.
They are known for their large collection of rugs and they do have plenty.
Lamps and accessories are also in abundance.
I really liked this oil painting and at $179 was quite a good price for a large painting.
This bookcase with sort of a rattan inlay was $250 and very pretty too.

Upstairs held lots of lampshades at really great prices and lots and lots of fabric. I did find some bamboo Roman shades for my bathroom at a really good price.
Remnant tables held a lot of fabric for $4.49 a yard, quite a steal if you could find what you wanted.
And the regular prices of fabrics weren't bad either. These were fun prints.
They had quite a collection of toile in many different colors. I grew up shopping at fabric stores with my mom. I didn't appreciate it back then as much, but I sure do enjoy browsing fabrics now. All those pretty fabrics, waiting for something to be made....they sure can beautify your home.
Lunch was a real treat! I have been hearing about The Bright Star restaurant for awhile now and finally got to eat there. It is the neatest place...so old South.

You can see they've been around for a long time.
I justed loved the feel of the place. When you walk in, it just has a very old-South, genteel feel, like an upscale Southern restaurant from the 50's. The walls were all wood paneled with a beautiful hand-painted mural that someone from Europe painted years ago. The waitress was an older lady and said she has been working there for 18 years. It's truly a landmark in this area and many people love it. I can certainly see why.
Lunch was $8.95 for shrimp and 3 sides. You cannot beat that deal! I'll definitely be taking my hubby back here, since we've been wanting to try it. And everything was as good as it looks.
Chocolate almond pie was the perfect finishing touch. With a homemade crust, it was to die for!
We wandered down the street to look at a couple of furniture stores in the old downtown of Bessemer. I loved this old storefront door.

We both thought this island was a really unique piece. It had a top that flipped over to make a table, but was a great sized island for a large kitchen. At $400 it was a pretty good deal too.
Downtown Bessemer.
On the way back we stopped by another place I have heard about, King Cotton, a wonderful fabric store.
They only have fabric samples hung on the walls and you have to order from them, but they really have quite a gorgeous collection of designer fabrics. They were sumptious!
The problem with going in fabric stores is that I see all these yummy fabrics I'd love to take home and who can afford to redo everything?! Not me....

Aren't these gorgeous?
I loved all these green and brown colors together. Such a nice combo.
They had some samples of drapery panels on the walls. I thought this top treatment was unique.
And of course, lots of fringe.

Thanks for going with us! Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Fabric shopping is always fun to me. Now my creative side is trying to figure out where I can make a few little changes with fabric.

I'll be at the Deeper Still conference in Atlanta this weekend. Looking forward to being spiritually renewed. I'm using "scheduled" posts for the first time on Sunday and then I'll see you soon with an update!

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Here's a little pet peeve of mine that I'd like to throw out there for y'all to think about. As far as comment moderation where you have to type in the letters and wait for the pages to load before the comment is saved, it takes SO much extra time for this feature, I would love to see less of that out there in blogland. I would be much more inclined to visit a blog if I don't have to wade through the comment moderation with all the extra waiting time. This drives me crazy! Not only the wait time, but trying to read and get the letters right. That doesn't always work the first time. It takes SO much longer to visit people when so many blogs have this in place.

Please think about removing that feature from your blog if you do have it. The BIG blogs out there do not use this feature at all, so I really don't see any reason to have it. I've never had it on my blog and have had very few problems with unwanted comments showing up. So, just something I thought I'd throw out there and hopefully some of you might agree with me & take it off of your blog. Thanks for listening!