Going Outside

I haven't spent a whole lot of time inside lately, so as a result all of our interior updates have been on hold (except for Slooooowwwwllllyyyy updating our master bedroom). Our big plans for the basement rec room, dining room walls and our hallway reading nook have been shelved until fall.

I am extremely happy with our backyard right now however. It's really our first real backyard - with actual grass and entirely no need for shoes.

We've made two sitting areas - a "living room":

Seating from The Bay, pillows and kiddie chair from Real Canadian Superstore

And a "dining room":

Patio umbrella from Pier 1, wicker chairs from Homesense, table from Canadian Tire and metal chairs from Home Depot

Yeah the grass is a little dry (it's been so hot and dry I'm surprised Toronto hasn't lit on fire) and we're battling clover and crab grass but it's lovely to spend all day, every day, going in and out through the screen door in our bare feet and just spraying ourselves with the hose when we get too hot.

Oh, and not to mention having room to grow vegetables!

Tomato plants. Not the prettiest of plants, but the yummiest!!

Beefsteak tomatoes

Roma Tomatoes

A lone bell pepper

Our cucumber plant is growing up around our little Buddha statue. I don't know why but the way the cucumbers are sitting in his arms make me giggle. 

Field cucumbers

If you are hungry, here take my pickle....cause I love the way you call me baby...and you take me the way I am....

I'm heading outside!

DIY watercolour art

I am not good at buying art. My exposure to "art" is generally limited to two aisles at Homesense. You can find some cute stuff there but mostly I feel like the stuff I see is best reserved for home stagers or people that just need something, anything on the wall. It never feels original enough.

I could spend hours trawling through flea markets but I don't have the time. I could go to art galleries but I don't have the money or the time. I could buy art online but I like when art finds me, not the other way around (that sounds weird - I mean I have trouble searching through the thousands of amazing (and some not so amazing) Etsy stores. Sometimes when you look too long you're not sure what's nice anymore). So usually I only buy art when I'm not looking for it (for example the vintage baby prints I found in Stratford). Or, I always thought I wanted to try making my own art. I'm forever pinning other people's DIY stuff, so I thought why not give it a try.

I wanted to fill these frames in our bedroom:

I saw this DIY ombre watercolour art from Emily at http://emsloves.blogspot.ca.

http://emsloves.blogspot.ca/2012/06/diy-watercolour-art.html

A lot of DIY artwork I see I'm usually like, oh hellz no. But I think these are ridiculously cute. I picked up some frames and some watercolour paints and got to copying.

She used gold frames whereas I the frames I picked up are more champagne. And, I didn't so much attempt ombre as I did use two different colours, blue and yellow.

 

Seeing it up in the bedroom, I realize I could replace them with something cheerier. To be fair, I did paint them while watching Sarah's Key. So it may reflect that!

But I think for now they work. It was my first time really painting anything (besides a wall) and it was pretty relaxing! And depending on what colour accent pillows I go for on our bed (once we finally pick a duvet cover - more on that soon!) I might switch them out for something different, to complement.
 

All in all, not a bad way to spend nap time.

An organized dresser + excited me

Wowza! A few weeks ago I sent off an email with a link to my powder room makeover to Lindsey at Better After (www.betterafter.blogspot.ca) and to my extreme delight she featured it this past Monday (here)! I was super excited because 1) I love her blog and think she is the most hilarious person ever, and 2) I got like 50 times as many hits in one day than I have the entire time this blog has existed!

I received such kind and lovely comments on my blog, and as a result I've found so many more amazing blogs written by such extremely cool and creative people. I really haven't left my laptop alone for three whole days! The internet really has TOO MUCH cool stuff on it.

:)

I wanted to show-off some bedroom progress, specifically our dresser top! It's primarily me that uses our dresser top for things like my jewellery, perfumes etc...so it's taken a bit of a girly turn.

Mirror from Homesense $39.99!

A little back story - our house was robbed a few months ago by some a-hole jewel thieves, you know the kind that case your house for a week and then come in and toss your underwear drawer onto the floor looking for grandma's heirlooms and all your gold chains?

Well grandma's heirlooms they did not find (Booyah! Never keep those things in your underwear drawer) but they did take every single last piece of my jewellery (except for what I had with me on vacation ie. wedding and engagement rings, one watch, one necklace), including all my costume jewellery, fine jewellery, all of my handbags, perfume (some were half empty - weird right?), various other items like my Leafs jersey that husband bought for me our first Christmas :( and lastly my jewellery box.

I guess the only thing I don't really miss is my jewellery box, a big black hulking leather thing that wasn't really doing anything for me anymore. It did house 80% of my sparklies however. Considering I wasted no time using the insurance settlement to re-bling my life, I've been staring a growing pile of jewellery accumulating on my dresser top in a not so organized fashion. So I got to organizing!


I found the antique silver tray at Elegant Garage Sale in Toronto. The little crystal jar with the silver lid belonged to my great-grandmother. It has her initials engraved on the top. I recently liberated it from my parent's basement, where I can't believe it sat for decades. It was suuuper dirty, like I had to soak it in vinegar overnight dirty. 

I've hung my drop earrings from the side of a soap dish, and I've thrown some bracelets in there too. 

This birdcage is from Homesense also, and it's not really ideal to hang necklaces but it looks pretty and works in the meantime. I'm working on another solution for my necklaces.

I just picked up this inlay bone box from Chapters-Indigo on sale for $16.25. It's made from genuine non-endangered bone which is kind of gross but also cool. It holds my random stuff.

I also picked up this Ash and lacquer box for a steal at $7.50. It's not on the dresser but on husband's nightstand. He's a notorious junk piler.

Oh - and I'm planning to do some colourful DIY art for the frames, which I picked up at Real Canadian Superstore. The photo that comes with the frames makes me giggle. It looks like an adult diaper ad. She is so excited it's hilarious, and if you look at her feet you notice her shoe is falling off. Awkward.

Bedroom beginnings

This is the current state of our master bedroom:

I'm only showing you the half-decent bits here. For one, the wall colour, which is Sherwin Williams Essential Gray. It's totally gray, and then in some light (evening) it almost looks lilic-ish. Which I don't mind.

I've added curtains, from InVu on Yonge Street (who are no longer in business, sad-face). I like the trellis pattern, despite the fact that perhaps it's a bit "last year". They were a risky choice considering I hadn't found a duvet cover for our bed yet. But they were like 98% off, soooo....

Sorry if the picture quality hurts your eyes

Speaking of our bed, when we moved we upgraded to a king-size mattress, but we still have a queen duvet and duvet cover on there, as I haven't found a replacement yet. There is lot's of naked mattress hanging out for sure. Our current duvet cover is now discontinued and that makes me so sad, because I LOVE it. Here's a better picture of it from the internet:

Since I'll never find anything similar that I like quite as much, I'm on the hunt for the perfect white duvet cover. Boring, maybe, but I'm going to get crazy with some exciting throw pillows!

In the meantime, I'm waiting for our headboard to arrive, from Crate and Barrel:

I'm excited to get our room finished. It's certainly taking a while!

Bigger is better

Most One of you may remember my post on Scary Blank Walls and how to beat them into submission. The first thing you see upon entering my house is the wall behind the living room couch. Which was known as the giant beige wall. It's still beige (guh), but I had since Mcgyver'ed a solution using Malma frames and spray paint to temporarily fill it up. This is what I came up with:

Now, after this past weekend, you see this:

I had come to realize that a large space like that really needs something...larger. Simple logic really. I picked up 8 Ribba frames from our friends over at Ikea, and there they sat in their plastic in the corner for two months. Two Reasons - 1) I didn't know what to put in the frames (that wouldn't cost squillions of dollars) and 2) Ribba frames are notoriously horrible to frame and I couldn't face it.

I ended up just downloading and printing out some vintage botanical printables from The Graphics Fairy. They added the colour that the wall was really asking for.

As for hanging the Ribba frames, I learned of the old "screw in a paintstick" method from Kelly over at View along the way. Basically you stick a screw through a paint stick (just a little, not all the way), hang the Ribba frame on the screw, position, and then press lightly on the screw to make a little mark where you'll eventually hammer your nail in.

GENIUS.

It turned what Ikea intended to be an afternoon of screaming, crying, and ultimately divorce into a pleasant little home improvement activity lasting no more than half an hour.

Oh and say hi to my new little friend, Piggy (aka breakable toddler bait). He can fly!