Category: Five Things

Five things

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I love these kind of round-up posts for a Sunday, only it’s already Tuesday. I’m gonna blame the heat. All I want to do is nap. But I also want to see what’s in my first Birchbox, and I told myself I could only open it after I’d written my post. Do you do that too? Set up little rewards for yourself? Honestly I am soooo tempted to open it but no, nope! I’ll press on. Here are some of the things we’ve been up to lately.

1. We finally made the marbled clay ring dishes from A Beautiful Mess. (I’ve been wanting to make them since they were posted last November.) Lily said it was the most fun craft ever! Word to the wise: don’t try to remove the clay from the bowls you baked them in until both are cool. You’ll burn yourself (guilty!) and might tear the clay (did that too). I say “tear” because they’re kind of pliable, rather than rock hard like I thought they’d be. But they still do the job and they’re cute, so it’s all good.

2. The watermelon popsicles from Eat Yourself Skinny were a little bit more difficult. The popsicles melted so quickly (seriously, it’s hot here) that they fell apart every time I tried to take a picture and we probably went through three or four before I finally got this one. The green part is supposed to be lime sherbet but nobody here likes it so I used vanilla pudding with a little food colouring instead. The “seeds” are chocolate chips. Cute eh?

3. A couple of weeks ago we taught the kids to play backgammon and they are totally obsessed. I’m so happy to see they like it. It’s the same set I spent hours and hours playing on with my grandmother when I was their age.

4. A Beautiful Mess regrammed this picture I posted on Instagram and it’s had something crazy like 5,800 likes. The print was in the last Happy Mail. Don’t you love?

5. And my girl Aneta and I have a flash giveaway happening here on Instagram for a $20 gift card to Home Depot. Quick, hop over! It ends tomorrow at 5 pm. Canadian residents only svp.

Now to open my goodies! I’ll tell you more about it in another post.

Have a great day, everybody. Stay cool.

Five things + A giveaway!

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School’s out and summer’s officially here! What’s in store for the weekend, everybody? My kiddos are away visiting family for a couple of days so I’m catching up on some reading, doing a lot of cleaning (it’s really the only time I feel like I can make some headway) and going out to dinner tonight with girlfriends from the neighbourhood. Here’s a look at some of the goings-on in the past week or two.

1. Twinning! My daughter and I found matching sandals at Loblaws in Joe Fresh kids.

2. Murale beauty master Eric Wang gave me the most beautiful blue shadow last Thursday for Wink Day, an initiative to support women struggling to beat the cancer blues.

3. (not pictured) Wondering how to build your own gallery wall? I love these tips from the UK’s make-you-smile-style icon Will Taylor.

4. These s’mores couldn’t be easier! Just toasted marshmallows sandwiched between two chocolate-coated butter cookies. (Adapted from Ricardo Cuisine.)

5. Lampe Berger just introduced some gorgeous new scents for summer. Exotic Cocktail is imbued with the sparkling freshness of pineapple, mandarin and orange, the warmth of coffee, coconut and rum, and the smoothness of patchouli, vanilla and musk. Daring Pepper has the spicy head notes of black pepper, saffron and jasmine, heart notes of violet, raspberry and plum liquer (yum!), and sensual base notes of vetiver, vanilla and Cordovan leather. There’s also Summer Night, a mosquito-repelling oil perfumed with the Ocean Breeze fragrance. (Brilliant!) For your chance to win a Lampe Berger starter kit — that’s a lamp, a burner, a 180 ml surprise fragrance (maybe one of these!) and a 180 ml So Neutral fragrance — enter your contact information here, then come back and tell me which of the three new summer fragrances you’d most like to try. You must leave a comment here on the blog in order to be eligible. (Anonymous comments will not be posted.) The giveaway is open to Canadians 18+ (excluding Quebec) and ends July 10, 2015. You can learn more about Lampe Berger on their website, Facebook page, Instagram account and on Twitter, as well as on my posts — I’m an ambassador! — here and here. Lampe Berger products are widely available across Canada.

Updated June 11: Congratulations Darlene S.

Five things

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Do you have a Summer bucket list? I’ve never made one myself, but I do have few things that I’d like to do. Like take the kids to a water park. Pick strawberries and make jam. Do a road trip to Target (the nearest one is two hours away) and Hello Yellow in Almonte (a 45-minute drive). And read Sophie Kinsella’s new book. (And about a dozen others!) Here’s a few things I’ve been up lately.

1. Bananas, cherries and a splash of milk whizzed together in the food processor made the most delicious (and nutritious!) popicles the other day. Me and the kids could live on frozen treats, so you’ll be seeing a lot more of my concoctions this summer.

2. I’m partnering with minted to build a gallery wall and last week my prints arrived. Oh I can’t wait to show you the big reveal when it all comes together! (And there might be a little sumthin’ in it for you too!)

3. All these carnations, just $6 in Loblaws’ discounted flower section! I call them poor man’s peonies.

4. Have you done any planting this year? Yesterday we put together a wee herb garden with all of the usual suspects (chives, basil, thyme, etc.).

5. June is going to be a busy month here on the blog, what with the gallery wall reveal, more book reviews, a look at my trip to a super fun craft show, another giveaway from Lampe Berger and more! I hope you’ll follow along. I’m so glad you’re reading.

Have a great week everybody!

Five things

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Flowers are blooming, birds are singing, the sun is shining — it’s what we’ve been waiting for, isn’t it? And yet this time of year I find it especially hard to fight the urge to crawl into bed and shut out the world. Spring has sprung! We’re supposed to be happy! But what if you’re not? If you struggle with anxiety and depression or something else crappy, you might feel a little (or a lot) guilty. A little (or a lot) out of place. A little (or a lot) like something is wrong with you. Maybe all of those things. That’s how I feel a lot of the time, but I keep trying small things to lift myself up. Here’s what I’ve been up to lately.

1. My kiddos just turned 6 and 8. We’ll celebrate with their friends next month when we’ve had a chance to get ourselves organized (one year we didn’t get around to it ’til October and had a joint Halloween-themed birthday party), but on their birthdays each got to pick what they wanted to do and we did it together as a family. For James it was dinner at McDonald’s and playing on the lighthouse and the steam train outside the Science and Tech Museum. Lily picked bowling and lunch at the Dairy Queen. What do the littles in your life like to do for their birthdays?

2. I’m pretty sure there are fairies hiding in here somewhere.

3. Random House sent me a copy of Tara O’Brady’s Seven Spoons: My Favorite Recipes for Any and Every Day and it’s a treasure. The food stylist and blogger shares over 100 recipes inspired by a variety of influences, including her family’s Indian, English and Irish roots. If it’s true that we eat with our eyes, readers will be just as nourished by the gorgeous photographs and stories as they will by the dishes. I’ve made the roasted red pepper, almond, and feta salad and the trail mix snack bars several times (new family favourites!) and can’t wait to try O’Brady’s seeded boule, Vietnamese-inspired sausage rolls and za’atar chicken and roasted vegetable salad.

4. Saturday we happened across a fair when we were out doing errands. We didn’t go then (heavens, we don’t do things spontaneously!) but promised to return on Sunday as long as everybody was being good. Lily and I went on the ferris-wheel-type-spinny-ride you can see in the sky behind the ticket booths and thought we were going to die, then Lily joined her brother on a couple of the tamer rides. I’d love to share some pictures here if we did that sort of thing, but Hubs is most comfortable keeping the kids’ identities on the down-lo. You’ll see a lot of feet and hands and backs-of-heads here on the blog and on my Instagram, Twitter and Facebook accounts.

5. Do you like entering contests? Here are some (Canadian) giveaways you won’t want to miss: Hélène is offering a one-year subscription to Ricardo magazine, Monica has a contest for a $100 Visa gift card, and Chris wants you to win a butt-load of Pringles.

Have a great week everybody! Maybe try some small things along with me?