New Flower Bed

Hello Everybody! Today we had absolutely gorgeous weather so I decided to go to Totem to get some paint for the main floor of our house, naturally i ended up buying $200 worth of stone to re-do our front flower bed instead. The original flower bed was problematic because it was made of a single layer of stone (not the finished top cap pieces) so it really did not look finished and was not tall enough to hold enough dirt to even cover our house's foundation. Totem had a great selection and is a 3 minute drive from my house (trouble trouble) so I got to it! Here is the before picture of the poor excuse for a flower bed. BEFORE

AFTER

!!!!!!!! I decided to go with the charcoal color because our door and some trim is a dark grey/black (Phantom Mist by Pittsburgh Paints- from Totem). I figured that the charcoal would look better with our blue siding compared to the brick red stone that was there before.

I didn't expect it to be so difficult to lay out the stone in a similar shape to the old stone but they were slightly different sizes/shapes, so i basically had to start from scratch (yipes!). There are some spots in the front that need some grass to grow in but otherwise i'm thrilled with the results! (you can see the foundation sticking out here, i need to get more soil to fill it up)

Dirty feet :) I can always find an excuse not to wash my dirty feet until absolutely necessary (I love it) ew gross.

Hope you all had a great Saturday!

Yoga Challenge

Happy Tuesday! I've been participating in a 40 day yoga challenge with Eoin Finn, a Vancouver based yoga teacher who has DVDs and podcasts for those of us that don't live on the west coast. This is actually my second yoga challenge with him but i just felt so good after the first one, i figured i'd just keep going. I've know about Eoin for about 5 years now, since my days as a Lululemon educator (you can buy his DVDs at Lululemon as well as on his website). I personally have always been a fan of him as a DVD instructor because he really pushes you mentally and physically with a real sense of flow. Since i enjoy yoga so much i figured i'd talk about it a little bit here and there and also what i'm wearing while doing it to kind of trouble shoot my athletic wardrobe.

Weekend Paint Job

Well Hello!

It's been so long and I've missed you! I haven't blogged for almost a year, mostly because i didn't have anything exciting going on at all. Lately I've been trying to spruce up my house with more "permanent" furniture pieces because a lot of what we have right now is kind of garbage...... So, i got this cabinet off of kijiji for $60, it was painted this boring brown color over top of a pretty wood that had a lot of potential. My first thought was so sand/strip it down to the wood and then re-stain but i ended up painting it a soft, light grey. Here is the before:

And the after shot <3 I can't wait to accessorize the shelves and pretty up the whole thing a bit!

I still haven't decided if it's staying in the room (upstairs living room). I need to get rid of this dark wall color beside it because it's really throwing me off. Also, i was thinking of painting the backs of the shelves a different color..... let me know what you
think.

Hope you had a great Monday!

Wedding Quilt

Hello!
i made a quilt for our friends that got married in New Brunswick, woop woop! The story is that the groom is from Edmonton and the bride is from Saint John, i wanted the quilt to be sentimental so i acquired half the fabric from each of their hometowns and starting sewing the quilt when we got home from the wedding.

I rolled the finished quilt up and but it in a basket along with a mason jar of dry ingredients for chocolate chip cookies (groom's fave), a microwavable flax neck bag (handmade and hand scented). I also threw a candle and two mugs from Anthropologie in there.

I really love the way it turned out and it just so happens that it fits right in at their new apartment perfectly!

This is the happy couple, they look like they deserve a quilt don't they?

This photo was taken by one of their friends but i'm not sure who

Our house, in the middle of the street

Well, if you live in my neighborhood, you'd know that all the houses are very plain and similar. Then there's my house, blue siding with navy trim and a red door. I'm all for being "different" but it's not like my house is being noticed for beautiful stone work or landscaping. It's being noticed for strange color combinations, so i decided that needed to change. I wanted it to look like it belongs with all the other houses but still stands out for looking well taken care of (because it certainly wasn't before).
Here's what we did: we replaced the peeling navy with white, painted the pillars that were peeling and chipping, painted the door (which use to be an oil based paint) and painted the peeks of the house from navy to the same color as the door (Phantom Mist by Pittsburgh Paints).
AFTER

BEFORE - please take note of the beige and white houses on either side of me.

Quilting!

Edmonton doesn't seem to have much for quilters, not a lot of fabric stores, not a lot of variety. So, my mom and i were thrilled when a new shop opened right in her neighborhood. The new shop is full of long arm free hand quilting machines that you can rent (yay!). The shop is called "Sparrow Studios" and is run by Matt Sparrow, a "man quilter". My mom got me lessons with him for Christmas as well as a full day and a half of time on a machine (intimidating). So, today i went for my class and it was CRAZY. I've been sewing my whole life and it's unreal to me to not be sewing in a straight line, guiding and pulling and adjusting your fabric (like i said, crazy!)

Now that i've learned how to use the machine i guess i have to throw a whole bunch of quilt tops together so i can rent the machine before i forget how to use it. It was definitely a little strange trying to explain to them that i don't buy expensive fabrics online and that i don't use patterns (call me old fashioned). But i do need to start ironing and making sure my quilts are exactly square so they run on the rolls properly. I like that my quilts aren't perfect and you can tell they are hand made, now i need to prove to these guys that my rogue quilting methods are just as good! Happy quilting!

New Bedroom

This weekend while Brent was away at a hockey tournament, i worked on our Bedroom. I don't have a before picture but it was the same color as my office (dingy green/grey). It was a space that i never spent much time on and you could tell.

So, i painted it the same color as the NEW office because i liked it so much and it feels cozy and warm.

Olive had had enough of all the painting excitement

I really like the results, it may seem quite simple but it feels so much more pulled together. Now i just need to get rid of those white knobs on the side tables.

ps. paisley makes the world go round

Part Three

Today we had part three of Christmas, that is, with the in-laws. It had been a while since we had them over last and it was the first time the grandparents had come to our house. We had a roast and garlic mashed potatoes with cucumber salad and mashed parsnips. Everyone seemed to enjoy the food, which is great because grandpa is a little specific.

Anyways, this year i made my mother in law a quilt, i love it, it was difficult to give this one away. It was all with fabric she had given me over time and she loved it. The snowflakes were Brent's contribution, he cut them out of paper which i then cut out of fabric and appliqued on.


I love the little Canadian mitten print.

Here's a token shot of the boys building. Brent got a ping pong table this year, which he is excited about because he can fold down half and play by himself. The look on grandpas face says it all.

It seems like the quilt went to good use!

This year i want to do more quilting and crocheting, my fabric and wool stash is not getting any smaller and i have lots of projects i'd love to get to.
My quilting goal for the year: I will make a spider web quilt with scraps!
My crochet goal for the year: I will make ten pairs of mittens!
House goal: I want to have all the rooms in the house be functional and clutter free, we have a lot of clutter mostly because we don't have a lot of closet space or dressers, a blessing and a curse, so our house needs to be purged!

Our New Friend

So, Brent's been obsessed with leg lamps for a while now, he thinks they are hilarious and classy, i think differently. So this year, my lovely parents got him one for his birthday/Christmas.......What can i say? She's a beauty.

My dad wants her in the front window......She will be living in the basement.

ps: This is why Brent has no say in anything to do with our house.

Christmas Festivities!

Well, seeing as how i've made no headway on any of my sewing, i thought i'd give an update on what's been consuming all my time... Christmas. I'm hosting my first big family get together for x-mas eve and i'm pretty excited/nervous/getting my house ready for human eyes. Here is our fantastic tree!

Some cute ornaments, we were going for a "classic" look with gold, red and green. love it!


This is my rotten dog looking quite festive.

This is how you know it's winter, Merlin takes over his usual spot, right on the mat in front of the sink which has a heat vent.
Either this or he's on the stove when i bake. Merry x-mas!

Sneak Peak!

We took a much needed break from painting today to do another project. I'm not going to tell you exactly what it will be but it's the first craft brent and i have made together (awww).

I hope to have it done by the end of the week as it's getting quite cold around here.

Painting (again)

Besides taking care of Merlin, we have been painting again (yay, wooo). I know i'm crazy, so we are getting rid of the white for a light neutral grey. It's very light, not grey, not beige. It makes my house look warmer, the white didn't quite fit in here, while i love the look of all white rooms, it just doesn't work in my house. Oh well.

Olive and i had a collision and i rollered her forehead (hilarity ensued as we tried to grab her before she wiped her paint face on the furniture)

Here's the difference between the white and the new color, i used a Behr paint/primer two in one paint, it's actually fun to paint when you don't have to do three coats (we only had to do one).

Poor Old Merlin

Well, my boy Merlin has been sick, consuming a large bag of canine pill pockets landed him at the vet three days in a row. I was so happy that today all the foreign material appears to have moved from his stomach into his intestines (yay!) so we got to take his catheter out and he got to lose the cone collar. He's almost back to his charming little self (he may have chewed up the new bottle of cat tonic lax)-why oh why? But we'll just ignore that little detail. I just wanted to share some pics of the little man that has been consuming my thoughts and time this week

He's been cuddling up to anything warm now that it's finally winter here (i think it's been around -20 celcius), So here he is on his favorite electric heat pack, so sleepy and warm.

He was also quite thrilled to be able to clean himself again!

Signed: The crazy cat lady in me.

OOO Baby, Baby.

Today i made a last minute quilt for Brent's friend who just had a baby girl named Hailey (awww). I bought the patterned fabric from ikea for cheap, i thought it was kinda fun and whimsical. I really think it's adorable, i'm glad to have finished another quilt finally, even if it is really tiny. I forgot to take a picture of the back (oops!) but it's just a white, pink and green argyll fleece (so cozy)

My machine was being a cry baby, i really wanted to free motion quilt a stipple pattern but for some reason, when i have my machine set up this way, it won't pick up the bobbin thread. Who knows.

Collars!

I've been feeling a little crafty lately and ever since i made Olive a Halloween Collar the gears in my little brain have been turning. They are so much more fun than collars that you buy in a store, and so much less expensive as i can sell mine for $12- $15 instead of $25. Anyways, I've been taking orders from a few friends for custom Christmas collars, these are a few i've done so far.

Here's my beautiful great dane modeling her new seasonal collar (Olive is looking fashionable in a festive gingerbread man collar).

Close up!

This new venture has me really excited! Custom dog collars for cheap, what could be better??

My Kitchen...

Well, the votes are in, i officially have the ugliest kitchen ever. I'm not sure where to even start with this beauty, but my main floor of my house is open concept, so there's no way of hiding this kitchen. The cupboards are basically brand new, it feels ridiculous to rip them out and have them go to waste but the color makes me sick. Flesh tone, hannibal lector cupboards with purple-gray counter tops.


Can you even paint this fake wood stuff to the point that it is durable? I'd love to paint them white, change the hardware, get dark counter tops and finish it off with a different color on the walls. It seems like the easiest answer. Please help, this kitchen makes me want to cry.

ps: please take note to how remarkably small it is.

Lazy Day

We had a great weekend, full of dog park dates and laying in the sun.

They don't sleep near each other often, so when they do it's definitely worth a picture.