february loved.

creating a girly pink space just for me.

with the countdown on until my final days at work this may, i find myself more eager than ever to get the next chapter of my life in motion, and i can't help but daydream of the endless possibilities before me. plans to selfishly take time off this summer before jumping into my new career (whatever that is) face, head and heart first, brings with it a whole new set of goals to focus my attention on. things like painting our entire top floor, caring for a garden, cooking a shit tonne, getting involved in wedding happenings (my fave) with some creative and talented friends, and crossing off as much of my 30 by 30 list as possible--basically, i get to be a housewife, and i am more than ok with that. i'm the kind of person that once i get an idea in my head, there is no letting it go until i can get that shit out -- which is amazing for some things, and horribly brutal for others. luckily for me, right now the idea is designing a space for myself in our home, and nothing crazy like learning chinese or getting knocked up, which is an idea that's currently swimming around my husband's enormous head (and balls for that matter).

with four bedrooms that are all sadly under utilized, i have made the executive decision to turn our second largest bedroom into my own little work space: a combination craft room/studio/office, it will be a place where i can let my creative juices flow and my hair down (all 1/4" of it), and will hopefully be an honest reflection of who i am and what inspires me most. i'm leaning towards fresh white walls with accents of pale pink & gold, i want it bright, airy and eclectic. throw in some antique pieces like art and mirrors, a clothing rack to display my favourite outfits, a colour-coded bookshelf and a victorian sofa for reading and snuggling the babies, and i am pretty sure i will never leave the room. well except to hit the junk drawer in the kitchen. who am i kidding, i'll have one of those in my girly pink office too. for now, i'm gathering ideas and doing my research, which has turned up these beautiful spaces making me seriously giddy.

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homemade lemon & coconut sugar scrub.

one of my goals for 2013 was to take better care of my skin, so when i saw this tutorial on a blog i read often, i decided to give it a try with a little modification. i will probably always be a plain ol' bar of dove girl at heart, but as i get older and notice the wrinkles forming, i can't help but do what i can to make the aging process as painless as possible. with my face somewhat under control, i have focused my attention on the rest of my goods. like a good girl, i do the whole exfoliate and moisturize business regularly, but i wanted to look into using an all natural product, without spending an entire paycheck on it. so i made that shit.

how we do: lemon & coconut sugar scrub

you will need:

2.5 cups of sugar

1 cup of coconut oil

4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

zest of 1 lemon

you most likely have all these ingredients in your kitchen as we speak, and actually putting it together is so easy, instructions are almost superfluous, but here they are anyways for shits and gigs. once you gather all your ingredients and supplies, it's a matter of prepping everything. juice a fresh lemon to yield 4 tablespoons, and set aside. scoop 1 cup of coconut oil into a measuring cup, and microwave for 45 seconds or until fully melted. it's really effing hot, so please don't burn yourself like i did. in a large bowl combine 2.5 cups of regular, everyday sugar, adding your coconut oil, and then the lemon juice. mix until the oil and lemon juice is fully incorporated into the sugar. i used a coarse grater to zest an entire lemon into the mixture, and gave it all a really good stir, that's it. i love anything lemon scented, and coconut oil is like crack, but feel free to do whatever scent combinations you like. honey & lavender, coffee & brown sugar, and peppermint variations all sound like they would leave you yummy enough to eat.

i filled a small sealable preserving jar to the brim, and topped it with a bit more lemon zest for funzies. i keep it in the shower for use when i need it (so good if giving yourself a pedicure, makes your feet silky smooth) and i love the way it leaves my skin soft, moisturized and a little more girly. it makes a perfect gift for things like showers, a house warming gift, birthdays, etc. it's 100% natural and animal tested as i definitely dropped a blob on the floor while transferring to the jar, and india ate it. not to worry, she is alive and positively radiant.

we accept the love we think we deserve.

i had made a mental note to make sure to see "perks of being a wallflower" 

during a preview for it when the movie came out last fall. i can specifically remember thinking:

a} paul rudd. nuff said.

b} charlie is far too young for me to be attracted to him physically. like born in 1992 too young.

c} emma watson with a pixie cut is the cutest thing i've ever effing seen.

d} i read the book in grade 9, and loved it, might as well give the movie a whirl. 

luckily for me i was reminded of it recently by a friend, and wouldn't you know it a week later paulie came home with a copy in his hands and i've been thinking about it ever since -- i was hook, line and sinker within the first 20 minutes. i found myself noticing similarities between charlie's character and my own little wallflower paulie, and it made me like him even more. i adore that it takes place in the early 90's and could connect with each of the relationships between all of the characters. for as feel good as it is, there are some pretty heavy moments that make the movie smarter, more relatable, and that much more endearing.

ps- i was telling someone at work that we still physically rent movies from the movie store, and he looked at me like i had googly eyes. 
you know the ones, where one eye's lookin' at ya and one eye's lookin' for ya? yes, those.

colour your life.

a beautiful bouquet of roses, hydrangeas and stargazer lilies from my valentine.

organizing my kitchen cupboards brings me more joy than it should.

in bloom : a la dee da lunch on my day off.

selecting the perfect colours for my valentine's day mani.

cuddle time with da bebe while she soaks up the sun.

pink & red glitter scalloped nails for love day.

for my valentine's.

 somehow, this life has blessed me with not one but three valentine's, and not a day goes by that i don't take a moment and appreciate all the love i have in my life. forever a constant source of unwavering, whole-hearted, pure love, that is there without fail, and only gets better -- a love that accepts me for who and what i am and makes me the best person i can be. i love them more and more each day, 
and wouldn't want any other valentine's to be mine.

happy valentine's day. xo.

someone asked me what home was.

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someone asked me what home was

and all i could think of were the stars

on the tip

of your tongue.

the flowers sprouting from your mouth

the roots

entwined

in the gaps

between your fingers

the ocean echohing

inside of your

ribcage.

--ec.

bon iver: can't make you love me.

i'm pretty sure my vagina can sense we're just a stone's throw away from valentine's day, as my female intuition to get in touch with my sappier side has gone a little fucking bananas. before i know it, i'm throwing joni mitchell on the record player, or feeling the sudden urge to watch every movie nicholas sparks has ever been a part of, and yet i still feel like i can't get enough. however, this song has a beautiful way of filling that craving for pure heart wrenching desire, and then i'm back to normal(ish) again. i fell in love with the original (by one of my faves bonnie raitt, who i love to bust out at karaoke from time to time) when i was really young, and now even more so by this cover from bon iver. his version is haunting, and romantic, and brings tears to my eyes every time i listen -- from my vagina to yours (if you have one).

antique shopping: my favourite kind of shopping.

a few weeks back, plans were made with two special friends nataschia & selena, to spend this past wednesday thrifting and antique shopping to our little hearts content. selena was a peach and scoped out two stops in cambridge, where we met up for a day of pure beauty for my eyes to feast on. the first location, green spot antiques which i prefer to call 'g spot antiques' as i pretty well orgasmed the second i stepped foot into the store, was the perfect place to begin our day. selena had booked a private appointment with the owner, an incredibly interesting fellow named vince, to have the whole place to ourselves -- this alone could have done it for me. i pretty well dropped my purse, and began to scour the joint like a swarm of flies on fresh shit, i had my hot little hands on all of vince's precious cargo -- for the amount of crap packed to the tits in that place, this man knew every single item in it, and where it belonged, which i loved.

i managed to accumulate a pile of items that had to come home with me, including some lovely pieces of blue hobnail glassware, a couple of rusty old skeleton keys, a beautiful wooden letterpress tray to use as a shelf to store my chachka shit, and my favourite find, a big, fat, white letter 'c' from an old sign or marquis. i can't even begin to explain the joy it brings to my life, and india is really loving it too.

once we were happy with our 'g spot' time, we grabbed some drinks & lunch and then made our way to our second stop, southworks antiques. southworks, originally a foundry over 160 years old, is a 30,000 sqft antique mall, housing over 100 vendors, selling everything from jewelry to china, quirky one-off items and anything & everything else in between. it was perfectly organized and laid out, which made it easy to move from one booth to the next, efficiently allowing you to get lost in all the goodness. i managed to snag a few records and a train themed vintage 'avon' beer stein for paulie (cause he's a nerd like that). by the end of the day, i felt like i had been in a time machine, and i made my way home with a few more pieces to surround myself with, new-to-me items that bring a little more character and history to our home, and a new found love and appreciation for the 'g spot'.

valentine's day house tour.

since the very first step i took into a perfectly collected home on a holiday house tour a few christmases ago, i have dreamed of creating a home worthy of being part of such a flattering honour. i remember walking from room to room, admiring every last detail -- from the artwork chosen to the way it was curated, the window treatment and floor covering choices, to the way almost each room had a perfect poesy of flowers or a fresh potted plant displayed, it took everything in me to keep the green monster of envy from projectile vomiting straight out of my mouth and all over everything. like a hangover on new years day, i made my way home foggy headed, slightly embarrassed of myself, yet totally inspired.

with a better (but not perfect) handle on how i want our home to look and feel, i have come to realize that getting it to that point, requires more work than anticipated. because i'm not part of a house tour, no one is showing up to our little diamond in the rough, to design florals to place perfectly in every little nook and fuckin' cranny, and i don't have a cleaning service, or catering company showing up anytime soon either, so i guess that shit's on me too. making this a space that feels more and more like home every time i walk through the door, is important for me and my little family, so i am giving it all i've got, and i'm going balls deep in this bitch. wow, that was rude.

since the day christmas came down, valentine's day has been up, so i have had a good few weeks to collect, make, and find homes for the shit i have hoarded. with a few more details in mind, i will have this place perfectly cheesier than a chapel in vegas. for now, i think a wee holiday like valentine's day feels like the perfect little segue for me to share bits & bobs of our home in what i'm calling my own little 
house tour: "the welland edition". yikes.

a dining room centrepiece complete with red, pink & white gumballs.

some glittery initialed love.

our fireplace mantle all decked out.

my too-pretty-to-toss garland going strong with the addition of festive hearts : handmade doily wreath.

handmade burlap bunting & felt heart banner.

yarn & felt wreath re-loved from last year : windy's festive scene.

valentine's day cookies: heart marbling bidness.

it's always been a tradition among a few of my friends to bake and decorate cookies for each holiday, and because we've pumped out sugary pink and red love almost every valentine's day for the last 5 years, we had no choice but to keep the tradition alive. this weekend i invited them over for a cookie making & decorating slumber party, and the results were my favourite to date.

how we do: 'heart marbled' valentine's day cookies

using this recipe for royal icing, and a top secret family recipe for sugar cookies (this recipe is pretty damn close), we made enough icing and dough to yield approximately 6 dozen cookies. we chose to stick with classic hearts, and went with three different sizes. once you get through the less fun part (making the dough, rolling, cutting and the baking), you can sit down to do the more fun part -- the decorating.

again to keep things clean and simple, we made just three colours of icing; a dark red, a bubble gum pink, and a pastel baby pink. i prefer to use gel food colouring when dying icing (as opposed to the wee liquid bottles), as it's much more potent, so not only do you need less of it to achieve your desired  colour, but it ends up more true to the colour you are going after. this tutorial will explain how we outlined, filled & added a heart marbled detail to some of our cookies.

 using a #2 piping tip, start by outlining the cookies with your icing colour of choice. allow that to sit and harden up while you outline any other cookies you may use this design for. letting the outline harden creates a border for your icing to stay confined in, which looks tidier, and is easier to work with. when the outline has hardened, go back and fill or "flood" the centre of your heart with the same icing. note: some tutorials will advise that using a thicker consistency icing for outlining, and thinner consistency icing for flooding is the best way to go, however we were too fucking lazy to do this, so we did it our way. feel free to be a hero.

while your icing is still fresh and wet, you can add your design. using the same size tip, pipe a line of dots along the outside edge on one half of your cookie. using a toothpick, pull through all the dots until you reach the end, and repeat on the other side, wiping the toothpick clean before you go. working on one half at a time ensures your dots are as wet as they can be, which makes them melt into the bottom layer of icing more easily, and create an even design. allow it to harden, and you're golden.

this little detail looks just as sweet on one half of a smaller cookie, as it does all the way around for larger cookies. it's an easy way to dress up your valentine's day baking, and looks professional  enough that your friends just might think you paid someone to make them, when you really spent 4 hours on a snowy saturday getting it just right. and if you want to stick to tried & tested classic conversation hearts, well those are always fun too. my valentine is one lucky bastard.