Warm Gatherings with Etsy

Love Birds Serving Board by Manual Arts DEpt

It's this time of year I really start to think about having everyone together in the house for some good old fashion fun and food over the holidays. I love having friends and family over and the idea of having the fire going while it's snowing outside makes me feel all warm inside. When you're looking for items to go along with this warm and cozy feeling, Etsy is the place to go. I tend to shift towards the warm grey and cream tones; beautiful pottery or twinkly metallics. Anything to help keep that feeling alive. Here are my top pics for warm gatherings on Etsy.

Fringe Linen Table Runner by Linen Space

Handmade Organic White Crackle Slab Side Plates by Leslie Freeman Designs

Modern Ceramic Vase by Yahalomis

Ceramic Baking Dish by 1220 Ceramics Studio

Wool Throw by BOTEH

Fun outdoor pillows

It's that time again... the time to be thinking of the outdoors. As I mentioned in my last post, I'm going to finally make a cushion for the couch on my porch and began my search for pillows to go with it. I found some pretty ones on Etsy of course. Outdoor fabric has come a long way and now you can find all sorts of fabric designs for outdoor cushions and pillows. Oh now what to choose? Secretly my favourite are the Tropical outdoor pillows from Anita's Casa.  I love that pink cording! I'm eyeing the Tonga Weave in Grass or the Eaton, Deep Charcoal from Tonic Living for the main cushion. I'll have to see what works.

1 || Navy and Turquoise Outdoor Pillow from Cathy's Custom Pillows
2 || Gray Outdoor Pillow from Cathy's Custom Pillows
3 || Evil Eye Outdoor Cushion from GorgeousGD
4 || Blue Outdoor Pillow from The Pillow Toss
5 || Orange Lumbar Pillow Cover by Anita's Casa
6 || Tropical Outdoor Pillow from Anita's Casa
7 || Banana Leaf Pillow from Tonic Living

Unihom | Modern Style Mouth Blown Glassware

1 || Hand Made Gift Mouth Blown Clear Glass Water Jug

2 || Handmade Gift Clear Glass Teapot with Infuser

3 || Hand Made Gift Mouth Blown Clear Glass Teacup

4 || Hand Made Gift Mouth Blown Clear Glass Coffee Espresso Cup

5 || Handmade Gift Mouth Blown Clear Glass Teacup

I cannot even handle how gorgeous this glassware is from Unihom. It's beautiful and delicate and something that would fit into any home. I particularly love the glass water jug at the top up there. I was surprised to see that they are all very reasonably priced as well. Perfect for gift giving.

Find out more about Unihom here.

Hook nook

We have a little nook beside the stairs that isn't really big enough to fit anything like a bench or table so it just sat empty until Mark had a great idea of putting hooks there.

It was a great idea because, even though we have a closet by the door, we always pile our coats on the bannisters when we come in the door. This way we can hang them up instead. The other issue with the closet is that it's so cold in the winter that our coats are freezing when we put them on. Hanging them on the hooks helps to keep our coats at room temp.

I got these hooks last year at Artefacts in St. Jacobs. They are from 1812 and add a little character to what would otherwise be a blank space. I have three and put the third one in Mila's room.

And because I love you I'm going to keep it real. This is what the hooks look like right now...

Assessing the corners of the house

   

I was bored today so I took some random (fuzzy) photos of some corners of our house. The first four are from our living room, the fifth one is in our dining room, sixth is the back corner of my office, seventh is in my bedroom, eighth is the mudroom and the last is the crazy toy corner of our basement.

Here's what these photos tell me: 

1. I would like to get my shelving finished on the fireplace in the living room but over all I like the room.

2. I need some art for the walls or maybe some frames for my kids' paintings...

3. I really need to get rid of that yellow Bay bag in the second pic. It's full of random things from our street sale and has been there since May.

4. I need a proper kids' art station.

5. I would love to sand the kids' table and chairs (for some reason they think it's paper and write/paint all over it [and get it out of my office]).

6. We had to take some of the plants in from outside, one of which we put in our bedroom, and I love how it fills up the room. I will likely leave it there and get something else for outside next summer.

7. I need to swap out the summer stuff from the baskets in the mudroom (add it to the list...).

8. One would think I run a daycare from the toys in the basement however I do not. I need proper storage or a big garbage bin. :)

The End.

PS: the wall colour in the picture with the easel is pretty true to life. I recently won some paint from ParaPaints and need to let them know what colour I would like. What should I paint the living room and dining room?? The grey is nice, but I feel like I could go with something new after having this colour for five years... Thoughts?

PPS: I can't believe I'm showing these crazy corners of my house! Ahh!

Blogger Garden Tour Series

Side garden against the garage

A few weeks ago I was standing in my back yard raking up leaves (again) when I started to think about other gardens around me and how cool it would be to go on a few blogger garden tours. I wanted to actually go to their homes to see their gardens, what they've done, how they take care of them and what they'd love to see in their garden in the future.

After running around in my head about how I could organize this I thought... hey I'm a blogger (guessing I'm blogging again??), why don't I just ask other bloggers to send me a few pics of their gardens that I could put on my blog? 

So that's what I did. I put the word out to my nifty blogger Facebook groups and asked who'd like to participate and guess what? People responded! So nice of them...

For the month of August I'll be hosting tours of some beautiful blogger gardens. If all goes well, I'll have six gardens to show you!

The first in the series takes place on Friday and will feature the garden of Heather Benton from New House, New Home, but I thought it would be fun to show our garden first! I also had a few questions for the bloggers so I'll answer those too!

Here we go!

We have a pretty decent-sized yard for Toronto standards and when we first bought the house, there was a giant wooden play structure in the back (the previous owners took it), no deck and a chain link fence. I wish I had before photos for you!

We've done a lot to fix it up including adding a deck, finishing the fence and adding a gate to keep the kidlets in ;).

What do you love most about your garden and what makes it special to you?

I love that it's somewhat shady, but gives us lots of sun in the afternoons (although it does get pretty hot back there!). It's a great place for the kids to play. Although a bit of an eye-sore, the driveway comes all the way to the back so it's a great place for the kids to ride their bikes and play in the water table.

I also love the plants and flowers that come every year. We have poppies from my best friend that she gave us as a wedding gift, pretty purple irises that were here when we moved in and beautiful ivy that covers the garage. Every year I try to get something non-plant related to add to the garden as well... typically I check out HomeSense for little garden accessories.

View from the other side of the yard, across from the side of the garage

What have you learned along the way that you can share with others about gardening or setting up a backyard oasis?

Well we're still learning that's for sure. Mark and I have bad memories when it comes to our garden so we always seem to forget what comes up where and when. We have (kind of) learned not to over-crowd because chances are that things will grow bigger than you think. Our hostas are so big even after splitting them this year and one of them located in the front yard is blocking a hydrangea from getting any sun so we'll move that next year.

We're also still working on dealing with critters and pests. We trying a water and soap concoction to deal with the slugs on the hostas and there are always issue with squirrels and raccoons digging something up!

I guess the main thing we've learned is to be patient (which we have a hard time with) and to plant what we love. Also, planting perennials every year helps keep things growing and flourishing. I find it silly to plant annuals that don't come back!

Do you have any future plans for your garden or do you love it just the way it is?

There is always something to do! I mentioned changing up our driveway a while back on the blog so that will come with time and we'd love to see more colour in the garden beds. This year has been the best so far with colour so we're excited to keep learning and figuring out what works and what doesn't! Mark also wants to give the lines of the garden a bit more personality... he'd like to see some curves as opposed to being straight all around.

Another thing we'd love to figure out is how to have growth for every season. My sister is working on that right now with her new garden and it's something I'd love to get a grasp on so that the garden doesn't look all brown and dead when fall hits.

Take two of the grasses: we accidentally drowned the previous
grasses with the eaves spout over the winter!

Hydrangeas are my favourite! We also have peonies in the spring.

Mark found these ferns behind the garage so he dug them out
and put them in the back corner of the garden

That's it for our garden! Stay tuned on Friday for the first up in my blogger garden tour series!

Huge disclaimer: My husband is the gardener in the family. I'm getting into it somewhat (does raking and dead-heading count?) but you have to start somewhere!

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Blogger Garden Tour Series

Heather Benton from New House New Home

Jennifer Farr of Kitchen Counter Chronicles

Thea Morris from Time with Thea

Cynthia Zamaria from Recreational Decorator

and my garden!

Rustic Wooden Benches

Mark and I took the kids on a little cottage vacation in the 1000 Islands a couple weeks ago and we were traveling along Highway 2 on the way to Kingston (by mistake I might add) when I saw this sign:

Rustic Wooden Benches?! Ahhh! I pretty much got whiplash cranking my head to have a look at the benches as we were driving by and then I yelled: TURN AROUND!!!

So we went back to see what the benches were all about. We drove up the driveway to a beautiful modern-looking farmhouse (there were chickens walking around!) and down the steps came a good looking, super friendly guy with glasses in his hand.

Turns out that guy is Omar Hogbin and he makes these benches in his spare time with a couple other guys. Omar actually runs a swanky company called Model Berri and started building benches as a stress reliever. People started noticing his work and more custom orders started coming in. He makes everything from rustic picnic tables to flower boxes. As a joke he and his friends came up with the name Clutch & Joke for their little company.

Well of course we snagged a bench while we were there, which we had absolutely no room for but we made it work! When we got it home I put it in the mudroom. I had moved our other bench to the living room so we needed something for the back.

Omar doesn't have a website for Clutch & Joke, but if you happen to be traveling on Highway 2 from Gananoque to Kingston keep your eyes out for the big sign! I'm sure he'll hook you up!

I love you more

What a day my friends. 

It was one of those days where it felt like someone was constantly scratching their nails on a chalkboard the entire day, right beside my ear. The kids were crazy and, I'm not sure about you, but ever since I had them, my monthly womanly hormones make me feel like I have the ultimate city driving road rage (TMI? Ahh what the heck).

What was this post about?

Oh yes. I love you more. Right. Because even though my kids drive me batty sometimes, I really do love them. So around the holidays I decided to put something on the walls telling them so.

Ever since Leo could talk, we've been saying I love you more to him (an he to us) as part of his bedtime routine. It started off with "I love you more than fire trucks" but soon extended to include every member of his Lightning McQueen car posse, in addition to one of his garbage trucks. So we now have to say that we love him more than all of those things before he goes to bed. 

Anyway I made this print and thought it would be cute to put it on the wall as part of my ever growing little gallery going up the stairs. I have another little 'love' inspired project in the works too. More coming when I get time to do it ;).

Happy weekend.

Quick and dirty: step stool cover

This isn't the prettiest post, but it made me happy so I thought I'd share it. Leo needed a step stool for his potty training adventures (he's fully trained during the day - underwear and all yay!) and I was going to get this one from Ikea but the colour I wanted wasn't in stock when I was there. Mark brought this really nice one in from the garage and we made do with that until we got the Ikea one.

Well guess what? I'm cheap and the practical side of me said why bother spending money on a stool when I have this one. I'll just recover it. So that's what I did.

I picked something out of my fabric stash and got to work. 

Honestly this is not my best work. There are puckers and folds, but it's a huge improvement from the paint stained blue stool we had before and I saved a few bucks. And now Leo can go potty and wash his hands all by his lonesome. Win-win I say!