Goal 9 - check!

We're having weekend guests next weekend, and late last week I was starting to get anxious about getting ready for them. They're hubs' dad and step-mom, and they haven't seen the house yet although they've been super excited about it since we told them we purchased it. So, I want them to like it and I want them to feel very comfortable and enjoy their stay.

Heck, we've lived here now for over 5 months, so we may as well put some stuff in the main bath and master bath!

So I made a to do list, and on it for Friday night was to hang a few things (party on).

I went ahead and did a bit more than that, and here are the (crap pics thanks to crap-tastic camera again) results:

Main Bathroom:

Hung some nice modern sconces. I've had them a while and really like the, but they're kind of too modern for a lot of the main floor, but I thinkthey're perfect in here.

Master Bathroom:


Hung another sconce as well as pic by the same artist as our family room "eye" pics. I acknowledge that the red candles do nothing for it, but it was a last minute decision and just need to swap 'em for a more neutral colour.

But I also wanted to make the spare bedroom a little more home-y:



So we hung a mirror and some framed Thai batik. I was going to put some scrapbook paper in the frames originally, but when I was looking at our excessive collection of frames and stuff, I noticed them sitting there waiting to be framed and enjoyed. And up they went.

And after way too much Tyra-esque deliberation and a lot of holding and viewing, we decided to put the St Maarten art in the family room, but decided it needed a bit of height to ground it, so moved the vase o' sticks over there as well until we get lamps or some other stuff:


You'll note a couple things.
1-Yes, there are still eyes on the main wall. The plan to add a third pic didn't work out because there were minimal pieces the same size and when I did find one, learned photoshop and went to frame the doctored image, I realized that the new mat was ivory and the ones we had were white. It just didn't work.
2-My walls are not pink. I have to keep my camera on the colour swap setting for it to work and it makes all the colours wonky. They're a beige-y taupe. Trust.

With the St Maarten picture in place, my other 2 important pieces needed a good place, and the original plan for the SXM piece was a perfect fit. So I hung this piece

(my fave of the foursome) at the top of the stairs:

Where you can see it from the entrance, stairs and hallway.

And I hung this piece:
On the wall heading back down the staircase:

And the 2 smaller prints in the upstairs hallway like this:

They're all Aboriginal Australian dot (re)prints that I bought when I lived in Sydney for 6 months. I wish I had many more and I wish I had some that coordinated a bit better (gave all the neutral ones to mom).

Overall, hubs and I are both happy with the way things are starting to look and I seriously wonder why we didn't do this 5 months ago? Lazy arses.

I'd still like to hang the art in the dining room and some in our bedroom too. And...in the long wall in the entry way, but I need to first decide what I'm putting there in way of storage, seating, etc etc. Indecision and setting up a home are not a good combination.

You likey? Please tell me we're not the only ones who wait so long to put stuff up...

Goal 4 - check!

I was a bakin' machine this weekend. I don't know what's gotten into me, but the past few weeks I'm loving the baking. I've never been a great cook, so baking's always been my contribution.

Goal # 4 was to make a care basket for hubs' and my good friends. They've gotten a lot of food over the last little while, and though I've given them some too, I thought something sweet might be a nice treat.

Unfortunately my camera's been crap-tastic again and I don't know what to do. Because of this all my photos for the next while will, once again be crapola and my walls will look pink. Gah!

Here's the snack pack, which includes some ah-mazing chocolate chip cookies (I'm complimenting the recipe here, not my abilities), some browines with PB flavoured candy melts melted over top and some candied pecans.

Hubs went over there Saturday morning to help with some installations and he informed me that one of our friends ripped it open and scarfed down a few of the cookies immediately. Good to hear.

It's nice to remember how easy it is to do something so small, but appreciated for special peeps in our lives. Plus it's just daggun fun to bake and decorate a pretty package (wow--that sounds lame even to me).

In addition to those treats, I also re-attempted and was quite successful this time in making Pastor Ryan's Bloomin' Herb Bread, compliments of Pioneer Woman. It was delish...and I'll definitely be trying it again, but cooking it about 2 minutes less and with some different herbs.

And finally for family dinner last night, I was (as usual) charged with bringing desert...I love being a bad cook, I get to bring the fun stuff! I had a mild case of baker's block and I've brought lemon or lime flavoured deserts the last 3 weeks and the recipient of jokes about it. So I decided on a chocolate cake, with a fluffy PB frosting (so simple!-PB, butter, milk & icing sugar) and then melted chocolate drizzle and then PB candy melts (can you tell I just found them this weekend?) drizzled over top. I also brought the leftover baking from the care package so it wouldn't stay in my house and be devoured by yours truly in 2.2.

I realize this doesn't have anything to do with setting up our home, but it does have to do with my monthly goals, which I make myself accountable for by posting here, and the fact that our new home is making me more home-y and encouraging me somehow to do this kind of stuff. Not to mention my insatiable sweet tooth.

Sideyard

Yay-progress!

It's slowly starting to look like a real house!

Here's what we came home to Tuesday:




(Yeah-I don't get the sign either. I think it was just a place to stash it)

They'd grated and placed our trees! The cedars and maples were pretty easy to distinguish, and the other bushes are asian lilacs (the white flowers)...fantabulous!

Since Wednesday was Canada Day, we completely took for granted that these would stay this way until at least Thursday. However, we woke up Wednesday morning to back hoe noises and a few gents working away in our yard. Thanks guys! After some partying downtown, we came home to this:



Great work guys! They had a much more productive Canada Day than anyone I was with. Hubs and I sat on our rooktop over the porch and enjoyed the local fireworks show and our new less-garbage-y front/side yard.

And then this weekend, we got delish smelling cedar mulch to complete the yard and now it looks like this:




And the overhead view, which I took from that very same fireworks-watching rooftop:
And since I'm spatially challenged, I did up this terrible rendition of the yard:

Where,
The 3 dark green circles are the pine trees
The 4 lighter green circles are the maple trees (including the lonely one at the end)
The 7 yellow-y neon circles are the lilacs (hey-it's paint, the colours are minimal)
The coloured sections are the cedar bushes, some flowery bushes and some grasses respectively.

Sorry for the picture overload---we've both been really excited about this progress and Max & Layla have been having a field day exploring their new yard.

Crafts abound

As mentioned previously, my older sisters birthday was this past Tuesday. I actually kind of surprised myself and had planned her gift weeks in advance and completed portions of it. Who am I?

The first gift was an idea via Make it and Love it, which after my blog gush, my sister devoured and sent me a 'suggestion' for a July goal. It was Ashley's water bottle sling. I didn't think anything of it because I personally had no use for one, but my sister's a teacher, coach and overall pretty active person, so I can see how it could come in handy. So I tried once on the leftover fabric from the drapes that never were, and it was actually pretty straight forward (once you had the tension right). Once I was confident that was correct, I tried it on some cute upholstery fabric I picked up. In the end, I was able to sew a (mostly) straight line and there's only a few spots where the tension was messed up.

Here's (an awful photo of) the finished product:
Next, since my sister and her husband were returning from a year living in St Maarten, I wanted to get them something that could remind them of their time there. I brainstormed but couldn't think of anything appropriate that wouldn't be better if they chose it themselves. Then I came across another blog where they were raving about Wordle. I went and played around with ideas, searched through my sisters facebook page for names of places they went/loved/etc and tried to remember amidst the drunken stuper of our visit some strong memories.

Then I had to decide on colours. I thought beachy would make sense, but you needed a bit of a dark colour in there too, and their wedding colours were brown & turquise, so I went with that. Unfortunately wordle doesn't have any colour schemes like that, so I had to find codes for web colours. I found a pretty wicked one, Colour Codes that made it easy-peasy.

Here's the finished product:
I think it's pretty cool to have such personalized art, and I'm deciding what themes to make for our own place.

Third, of course, was a card I had to make in accordance with my monthly goals. Admittedly, it's a little juvenile and she's an ancient 31 years old (:P just teasing), but cute none the less:

And the finished gift (unwrapped of course):

Which she genuinely seemed to like (although her husband made fun of her having a water bottle sling-whatever she asked for it!).

I never set out to be so budget conscious on her gift, but these were 2 things that I knew she'd like and took an awful lot more thought and effort than a La Senza gc or a random last minute purchase. Sometimes homemade doesn't have to scream homemade or cheap, so I think I may put a bit more thought into other gifts as well-it was kinda fun.

Have a great weekend!

What's your decorating style?

On the quiz bandwagon again...this time with another Style at Home quiz, "What's your decorating style?"

Mine?

Urban Sophisticate ----- You love design for its own sake, and you know what you're doing. Let your parents have the stuffy old-fashioned stuff; you live for the new and exciting. Yet you know that "modern" doesn't just mean trendy, here today and gone tomorrow -- classic design is timeless. Even so, don't be too rigid about snubbing the past; don't forget, one day Karim Rashid will be considered quaint, too.

Really? Are you sure?

Style at Home, you know I love you, but I have to disagree for this one. Considering most of my inspiration pics are versions of these:

I don't think I'd use Urban Sophisticate to describe my style. Regardless, a fun time-waster and an excuse to look through gorgeous inspiration pics.

What's your decorating style?

Celeb Decor Style?

I love quizzes.

Correction--I love fun, novelty quizzes.

You can find this quiz, "What is your celeb decor style" here. Until quite recently when home decor magazines have taken over my life, I was strictly a celeb gossip mag girl. I know---shallow, lame, blah blah, but a quick carefree read with lots of pretty clothes :)

My celeb decor style?
You're a MODERNIST like Brad Pit ----- The architecturally inclined dreamboat has a well-known passion for modern design. He'™s an avowed fan of the designs of Charles and Ray Eames, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Frank Gehry. But he'™s not just stuck in the golden years of modern design. The star recently spent over a quarter of a million dollars at Switzerland'™s Art Basel fair, purchasing contemporary furniture and accessories by the likes of Max Lamb, Atelier van Lieshout and Jeroen Verhoeven. TIP: You don'™t need to resort to knockoffs to save money. Balance splurges with wallet-friendly originals from IKEA or Umbra.

Oh hells yeah! I'm totally ok with that, especially this era of Brad Pitt. Hello Legends of the Fall.

A quiz and some manly eye candy all in one post? You're welcome :)

July Goals

A more streamlined goals list so there's a bit more green on July's judgement day:

1. Send cards for every birthday/significant event
2. Have a real date night with hubs
3. Make or bake 1 new dessert each week
4. Make a care basket for our friends going through a very hard time
5. Spend more time with my girls!
6. Work out at least 5x per week
7. Make or buy window coverings for family room (let's hope 2nd time's a charm)
8. Surprise goal
9. Decorate at least 3 walls/areas...it's just silly that there's a stack of art & hangings sitting in our house and so many empty walls
10. Hanging plants: Hang 'em somehow...our front porch looks lonely

Good luck on your goals, official or not, and Happy Canada Day!