Stand-out Style

I've been reading through Style Statement: Live By Your Own Design for a few months now. While I am still figuring out exactly what my personal style statement is, I have discovered that I particularly enjoy
stand-out style; style that is out of the ordinary.

Stunningly beautiful, Lush is the Mommy Necklace that I'm currently coveting. Yes, I truly love my necklaces! I have so many now that I'm planning on taking a few with me to a clothing swap this spring.
Stand-out style; being complimented for wearing something that is different.

I have cardigans in a variety of colors and lengths. I love them because they hide my insecurities (like my wing-arms, argh) and they make layering up or down very easy.

Stand-out style; being a little bit more me, on the outside.

Over the winter I've been wearing crocheted head wraps. Now that we are headed in to the warmer weather I went looking for a spring alternative, and here it is. I sure hope I can pull it off!

Stand-out style; maybe it's just me telling myself it's ok to be different.


Image sources: Mommy Necklaces

Ricki's

PrettyBabyBowtique

Etsy Find: Fabric Ticket Holder

Before I returned to work I was trying to think of things that I need more than want, and things that could help. Since I take the bus to and from work during the extremely cold Winnipeg winter, I thought it would be a great idea to have something to hold my bus ticket. Having to fumble with taking my gloves on and off and pulling the ticket out of my purse or pocket is not fun.

I looked around on Etsy and found this:

TheSewingBeeShop on Etsy

It ended up being a tiny bit too small for my bus ticket but I've just been folding it down to size. It has been working quite well. I just snap it on to my necklace and can leave it hanging outside of my jacket for the bus driver to see.

Anything that makes it easier to get out of my warm bed and go out into the frigid temperatures is good with me!

Back from Staycation

Hello friends!

We are back from our 'staycation', playing tourists in our own city while my Dad and Step-Mum visited. I'm happy to report that I missed blogging which is a sure sign that it is meaningful to me.

I spent the majority of the past week like this:

It's been a little chilly but apart from a brief little snowfall last Friday, thankfully, the snow and cold held off while we visited and spent lots of time outdoors. Oh, and if anyone is trying to decide on the right baby carrier to buy, I highly recommend buying an Ergo! As you can see my pumpkin regularly falls asleep when she is in the ergo and it's not a great strain on my back to wear her. I love it!

We have lots of catching up to do but for now I will just leave you with a look at the surprise that came in the mail this morning.

Those beautiful pillow covers were on my etsy favorites and my Mum bought them for me! Thank you Mum. :) You can see more lovely pillow covers by purplepajamas on etsy.

I'm looking forward to catching up with you all!

Art work ideas for the girls nursery

In my last post I showed you the finished girls nursery. As I was taking pictures of the room I started seeing the need for some accessories, apart from the uppercase living expressions the walls seemed so blank! So I decided to look for some unique art on etsy and boy have I found some gorgeous pieces!

My song for Desana is You Are My Sunshine, and for Freya it's My Girl. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any art work with the My Girl lyrics but there were lots of choices for You Are My Sunshine. Here are two of my favorites.

You Are My Sunshine by mintbuttercup - $12 &  You Are My Sunshine Sign by barnowlprimitives - $75

The picture on the left has more of a nursery feel although I LOVE the style of the sign on the right.

I showed Desana some of the pictures I was thinking of using and she really liked these.

Mini art prints by jolinne (4 pack) - $15 & Mini art prints by jolinne (8 pack) - $24

I love the idea of pegging them to some twine, and these mini-prints are so well priced that I could hang all of them on some twine across the wall next to Desana's bed. That's one way to save money on frames!

Crush by kmberggren - $29

Katie M. Berggren has so many beautiful motherhood prints, I can see this one being perfect above the recliner in the nursery.

Last but not least, as a tribute to my little girl's variety of interests...

The Robot - $38   A Boy & His Dinosaur - $20   Goodnight Bunnies - $20   by StephanieFizer

Robots, dinosaur and bunnies, oh my! The above three are all by the same artist who also has gorgeous alphabet art, and princesses and fairies... very diverse and gorgeous pieces to chose from.

So what do you think? How much art is too much? Can robots and fairies play well together?

I like... 31 Days

October is going to be a great month for blog readers and I just had to share. It's a little funny for me to say this since it hasn't even started yet, but I LOVE the concept behind this! A lot of you have probably already heard about this, but if not I'm telling you about it now. Eight lovely lady bloggers have all made a commitment to blog for the 31 days of October about a specific topic. I think that there is probably a little something for everyone in this group.  

• 31 Days to Stress-Free Entertaining from Sandy at The Reluctant Entertainer
• 31 Days to a Better Photo from Darcy at Life With My 3 Boybarians
• 31 Days to More with Less from Jen at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
• 31 Days of Autumn Bliss from Melissa at The Inspired Room
• 31 Days of Living Simply from Emily at Remodeling This Life
• 31 Days to an Inspired Table from Kendra at My First Kitchen
• 31 Days to a Less Messy Nest from The Nester at Nesting Place
• 31 Days of Grace from Emily at Chatting at the Sky

Although I will probably check out all of the above I am most interested in:

  

You can read more about this over at the Nesting Place.

Which blogs do you think you will be checking out?

Reading: Romancing the Ordinary

I am a big fan of our public library system. You can access it online and browse through dozens of pages of all the newly purchased books, place requests on those books and then have them delivered to your local library for pick-up. I went a little crazy with the requesting not to long ago and discovered that 35 is the max amount of requests you can have at once. Yep, I hit 35! Since then I occasionally sneak Matt's library card to make requests on his as well. He really enjoys picking up books with titles such as 'Pretty Plus: How to Look Sexy, Sensational, and Successful, No Matter What You Weigh', 'Dear Fatty', 'Ina May's Guide to Breastfeeding', 'Room of Her Own: Women's Personal Spaces, etc. Now when I ask him to swing by the library to pick up my holds, he asks me how embarrassing the books are!

My current read is Romancing the Ordinary by Sarah Ban Breathnach.

What a wonderful book. Sarah takes you on a journey of the senses, sight, sound, taste, touch and two additional senses she says that women have - knowing, and wonder. She reminds you of all the things you've stopped noticing. When I think about it I don't take the time to really savour things like a nice breeze, a slowly sipped cup of tea, the comfort of freshly washed sheets, and so much more. It really is all about 'Romancing the Ordinary'.

I've had this book out from the library for a couple of months. I've renewed it three times and will sadly have to part with it by the end of the month. It's out of print so I am going to buy it off ebay or somewhere similar somewhere down the line. I think it's the kind of book that's nice to pick up and read once in awhile, or every day if you make the time. There's always some thing to be taken away from it.

I like... vanilla cream

I'm very sorry for the late post today, sleep has just not been happening lately and having no energy plays havoc with my creativity. So here is a simple but beautiful little post for today.

A week or two ago I was browsing kijiji and saw a posting for an Everyday Style consultant. I emailed her to ask for a catalogue and a few days later she came by and dropped some off.

Now I am in love!

I am an occasional tea drinker, moreso a hot chocolate drinker when the temperature is cool. While I was growing up my Mum had the Willow Ware dinner set, and teapot with cups and saucers. We would have hot chocolate in the teapot, with the cups and saucers and biscuits (cookies) all on a tea tray. Just a lovely memory.

I love the cream tones, the simplicity, the (implied?) warmth. This is my kind of shabby chic.

While much of the EverydayStyle products are not to my taste, this line most certainly is! They have a lot of other 'Vanilla Cream' products  but the above are the ones I would be most likely to purchase.

Lately I've seen a lot of people blogging about changing their home decor over to fall decor up here in the northern hemisphere. What I am about to say may alienate me from the throngs of decor bloggers. I am not a fan of fall decor, I find it kitschy! I think that I'd rather have a lovely teapot, sugar, creamer and mugs representing the change of season than a big old pumpkin sitting on top of a pile of leaves.

Am I the only one?!

I like... country tables

I've decided to start up a new irregular feature. By irregular I mean that I won't be doing it on a particular day of the week, every week, maybe just when the mood strikes me.

You probably remember my previously mentioning the concept of an illustrated discovery journal (IDJ). I have an IDJ folder on my computer where I save images that I come across as I browse. Those things that really appeal to or call me, for whatever reason. I've never had unlimited money (who has?) to go out and buy the things I really like, until recently when I started being able to find those things by looking and looking, then looking some more on kijiji, until just what I was looking for appeared with a price tag I could smile at.

Snapshot of my Illustrated Discovery Journal photo folder

I've found that by saving the images of things I like, I'm discovering what it is I like. That may sound like a pretty basic concept for me to be grasping, but at 26 years of age I can't clearly define my sense of style or what kind of decor I like. Now my IDJ is sure helping me get there!

Anyhow, since I've been blathering on for quite awhile about this, to get us started I'm going to show you just one thing that has really appealed to me lately. :)

I like... country tables

A few days ago I read this post over at Thrifty Decor Chick about a little table she'd been working on. Instantly every blog I read seemed to have one of these tables! I realised that they were conjuring up a childhood memory of my Great Grandparents kitchen table. My Dad cut it down to a size that worked in our small family kitchen. It had a beautiful stained top with white gorgeous spindled legs beneath. LOVE. (Hey Mum, whatever happened to that table?) So I did what naturally came next and searched kijiji for 'country'. This is what I found:

I have neither the room or the money (the seller is asking for $125) to buy this particular table right now, so I have saved these pictures to remember that this is something that really called to me as being beautiful. I can tell when that happens because my heart goes all aflutter and I hear myself making the same noise you make when you taste something very yummy - Mmmm!

Something this kind of size is appealing to me as a little desk to sit at with my laptop. One of my biggest surprises lately has been discovering that after many years of despising it, I actually like blue now. I think it all goes back to my beautiful bedside table.

One of the things I've been working on is not getting all worked up when I see something I want but can't have. I've reached the point where (most of the time) I'm able to look at something like that table and appreciate it without becoming dejected over not being able to make it mine. It has made life so much easier being able to accept what I already have without feeling envious over what I don't have. What I have is more than enough!

Kimmi Dolls

I've been busy with the weekend, my tantruming toddler, my baby who only naps when I'm holding her and my fiddling with blog stuff that for the most part you probably won't even notice! So for a quick update tonight I thought I'd show you these adorable Kimmi Dolls that my Mum sent Desana.

Just a note to any one who has a two and a half year old, if you get a package of similar relatively small sized items, you might want to count them before handing them over to your kid. I have literally no idea of how many of these dolls we actually received, and my Mum can't remember how many she sent!

They are very small but surprisingly heavy. Each doll has it's name on the bottom and has a special meaning. These mini-dolls are only $10 each so make a very affordable gift, and with the attached meanings, very touching too.

After I took the group picture of the dolls above, this little one appeared out of no where. She is my favorite (I love the flowers in her hair!)

Her name is Sachi and her meaning is Joy. When I read her description I was surprised at how apt it is for my life right now!

My spirit enriches and uplifts.

By embracing my spirit and approaching everything in life with passion and enthusiasm, you can make even the simple and ordinary, memorable and enjoyable.

There are so many cute products on the website, I might have to add some to my wishlist! Check out this cute compact mirror.

For the regular traveler you could pick up one of these gorgeous bag tags.

My personal favorite, I have a real weakness for notebooks and this one is just stunning!

Tomorrow I will hopefully be back with a regular blog post. Keep sending your comments my way, it makes me so happy! :)

p.s. This 'quick' post took me two and a half hours to write. Oh motherhood!

Mother

Image source: Charlotte Morrall

I found this little poem in the front of Shabby Chic Interiors by Rachel Ashwell.

Mother

Mother is a little girl who trod my path before me;
Just a bigger, wiser little girl who ran ahead-
Bigger, wiser, stronger girl who always watches o'ver me,
One who knows the pitfalls in the rugged road I tread.

Mother is a playmate who will always treat me kindly-
Playmate who will yield me what true happiness demands.
She will never let my feet stray into brambles blindly-
Mother's just a bigger little girl who understands.

Mother is an older little playmate who'll befriend me-
Yesteryear she traveled in the path that's mine today.
Never need I fear a foe from which she might defend me-
Faithful little pal who ran ahead and learned the way.