Etsy Friday – Get Cooking

Hi friends!

I am trying to make good on my resolutions for 2010, one of which was blogging more. Another one was to cook/bake more often rather than spending money on going out to a restaurant (related to the third, save some money!). So, to resurrect Etsy Friday, I am going to list the cooking related items I currently have my eye on.

Recipe Book by BethBee (15.95$)

This super cute recipe book has been on my Favorites list for quite some time. I love that it is simple and adorable, and that you can expand it easily by adding your own cards or upgrading the bindings.

Sweet Treats – A Typographical Cookbook – amandawoodward (20$)

Wait a minute, typography AND baking? My two favorite things, come together into one delicious (both the visuals and the recipes) package. I was lucky enough to receive this as a gift for Christmas and I can’t wait to try some of their recipes. Even if I don’t have time to bake, I love to flip through it and enjoy all the eye candy with none of the calories.

Pair of Birds Cupcake Stands – Whitney Smith (84$)

These beautiful cupcake stands would be the perfect thing to present the fruits of your labors in the kitchen. Simple, white and lovely – what more can a girl ask for? Please someone buy these for me for my birthday (it was Wednesday, but I promise I won’t be mad about the delay)

Cupcakes Make People Happy Print – YeeHaw (21$)

I just had to throw in some letterpress artwork. It wouldn’t be an MTLhome post without it! This pretty little print would be the perfect compliment to your kitchen and really make the party complete.

Happy shopping my dears! Hope you all have a great weekend. Looking forward to more and more posts this year.

-C

A Handmade Christmas

This year, I am taking the pledge. Are you? After Christmas I will do a list of the handmade gifts I gave out this holiday season. I think this is such a great idea.

Feel free to link to your shop in the comments if you offer some cool handmade gift ideas!

2010 resolutions

Long time no talk, blog. You know what I learned? Having a house is a giant amount of work. All the extra things that I love to do seem to have taken a back seat through the moving, cleaning, arranging, cleaning, cooking, cleaning etc etc you get the point. Now the year is almost over and despite my good intentions I am still no closer to being a Pioneer Woman than I was at the beginning of 2009.  So I have decided to let it go…that is my new motto for 2010. Just let it go. I have to stop dwelling on my mistakes and short-comings, and start looking at the future and where I want to be headed.

So, in that theme, I have been thinking about what I hope 2010 will hold for me and what I want to accomplish. Here is the list so far:

The small stuff (aka stuff that is quantifiable):

• Read 100 books (this was a goal in 2009 but currently I am only on #73)
• Finish my last 4 classes for my Master’s degree
• Run a 10k race in under an hour
• Learn to use my Canon properly, so I don’t have to rely on the automatic settings.
• Keep off the weight I lost in 2009
• Write in my blog at least once a month

The more abstract stuff:

• Be more patient with my dog. She is never going to be a robot dog – I need to love her for her stubborness and the trouble she causes.
• Stop wasting so much of my time. Be proactive in making a plan and sticking to it, both in my professional and personal lives.
• Slow down and enjoy what I have. Stop trying to force my life to move in fast-forward, I have it pretty great right now and I want to be able to appreciate the life I am living now

That is all I can think of for now. This year I have really seen the value in writing down your goals, it forces you to really think about what you want and how you can get there. I know myself enough that simply thinking “Oh, I should do this or that” won’t get me to do anything at all, I will just waste more time playing bejeweled.

So, here’s to 2010, I hope it is a great year for all of you.

My favorite part of the house so far…

Look what came in the mail the other day:

Awesome.

Judging Books by Their Covers

(photo via chotda)

I think one of the most difficult things about unpacking is trying to figure out where everything should go. We want things to be where they will be the most accessible, and the most useful. We have spent a lot of time shuttling boxes between rooms trying to pick the perfect place.

We were lucky that our house came equipped with two big built-in bookshelves on either side of the fireplace. Here is a picture of it when the previous owner was still living there:

Between the two of us, Sean and I have a lot of books. Mainly me, but still, a LOT of books. We are currently trying to decide on how to shelve them. I am leaning towards leaving the big school books upstairs, and organizing these shelves by color rather than alphabetically or based on who they belonged to (as we had done in the condo).

(lovely expedit shelf via monquee)

I just love the way it looks, so clean and visually interesting. Also, I have been known to buy a book based solely on the cover, so clearly I have lots of books that would look beautiful organized this way.

What do you guys think? I am setting it up bit by bit and will take some pictures when it takes shape. I know this trend has been around for a while so maybe I am missing the boat a bit, but who cares it is my house! I can be as behind-the-times as I wanna be, right?

I am going to spend the rest of my afternoon browsing through the Rainbow of Books pool on Flickr for some more inspiration. Talk soon!

-C

Crawling out from behind boxes

Just wanted to let you know that we survived! The move was stressful, and disorganized, but still fun. I don’t know how we would live without our friends or family, they were so amazing. They helped us paint, schlep boxes, clean the floors, organize the kitchen, figure out how the heck to get our pool to a normal color/consistency, etc, etc, etc.

Right now we are still in the begining stages of organization. I have a mental list a mile long of projects and renovations we plan to do once I can figure out where my tank tops are going to go, and other minor details like that.

I was sad to say goodbye to the condo, but even in one week this house already holds lots of good memories and I think we are going to be really happy here. I know I must have said it a million times in the last week, but I am NEVER moving again. If I ever talk about moving again, I will just go back and read this post and remember my vow.

I have lots of pictures for you guys. And stories, and desperate pleas for advice. However, I am now back at work and exhausted, so that will have to wait for another day.

-C

Rainy Day Blues

It is finally here! My countdown is flashing a big zero and as of 3pm today I am free to move into the new house! We went over last night to do a preliminary visit. It was a little strange walking around the house all empty, seeing the refuse left over by the previous owner. So strange what people leave behind. We have lots of paint, tools, even a purse, some dried flowers, a little lamp…very odd. Tonight I am heading over there to do a major cleanup. I am hoping after the cleaning and painting is done the house will begin to feel like our house and not some stranger’s home.

We are gathering all our friends and roping them into helping us move in on Saturday. The one issue is, it is miserable weather here in Montreal. Constant, depressing, mind-numbing rain. With no end in sight. The problem with that is (other than the depression) that our two trucks on Saturday are open bed pick-ups. Rain makes them pretty much unusable. Yesterday it looked like we might luck out:

But this morning I am looking at a new, less lucky forecast:

I see you sun! Trying to peak around the corner of that dark nasty looking cloud. Please, for me, could you just try a little harder and give me some solid hours sans rain? You owe me after deserting me on my last three trips to the beach. I don’t ask you for much. I live through what feels like 11 months of cold, dark winter. Just this one day, alright? I think that sounds like a more than fair deal!

Wish me luck guys! I will be back with more pictures and painting stories and hopefully be moved into the house, at least 90%, by Monday.

TGIF!

-C

Plans for the Master Bedroom

I am still working on my plans for the master bedroom, and more specifically for the bed linens. I still haven’t purchased a duvet cover. I am thinking now about keeping my plain white one and accessorizing to bring the colors in. This is what I have currently

Plain white bedspread/duvet/sheets

I just ordered this Civil War Woolrich blanket from Amazon, should arrive next week. I am hoping it is as comfy as it looks! It will be placed at the end of the bed.

I also have a yellow pillow that I got from Target. Not this pillow though, but I couldn’t find the real one on the Target site. The one I bought is silk with a white pattern and much nicer than this one, in my opinion. But this gives you the idea.

I still think I need some more grey in the mix. Here are some other duvet options from Ikea:

This was a choice of mine originally. Still up there on my list, but I haven’t seen it in person yet.

This is a little more subtle. There is a slight pattern of grey which  might be a nice hint, but I feel like I need something more bold. Ah, I don’t know. I guess I will have to wait and see what it looks like all together!

In other news, we sign for the house tonight! Officially the house will be ours, and we take possession on Thursday. Only two more days before the fun ca

Etsy Friday’s – Moving Announcements

I can’t believe Friday is here already. I am trying to quell the panic about the move by browsing through Etsy. I am thinking about sending out a moving announcement, maybe to coincide with an invite to our housewarming party. Although at this rate the party won’t be held until June 2012, but a girl can dream. I do a little bit of designing in my spare time (check out my etsy store, sadly neglected these days but due for an update soon) and I am searching for inspiration. Here are some of my favorites, pulled from the talented sellers on Etsy. I think I may just end up ordering one of these, they are so beautiful! I wish I could afford them all.

We’re Moving Postcards by productsuperior (16$ for 8, 2$ each)

Oh letterpress. How I love thee. These cards are so cool, and have a nice masculine touch to counteract all the prints I keep buying for our house that involve the word love in some capacity. Sean would appreciate it, I am sure. It also contains my other fetish, text as graphics! Oh, text. And letterpress. All I need in my life.

Moving Announcements by greencard (40$ for 25, 1.60$ each)

Even more text! Even though this isn’t letterpress, it still does something for me. I like the humour in it, and it sounds very much like the emails I send out to my friends a million times a day. I like the idea of having something funny to send out. Plus I love the yellow envelopes with the simple white paper. Yellow is my new current thing, I got an amazing pillow at Target which I can’t wait to put up in my bedroom. Tangent, sorry. I really do love these announcements but I would need to think about what I would want to say that would fit our situation, and we all know how un-funny I can be when I am trying (see: this blog).

We’ve Moved Postcards by Ruff House Art (15$ for 12, 1.25$ each)

These postcards pretty much sum up my life right now. Boxes. Lots and lots of moving boxes. They just seem so appropriate (and the most economical). They also have that green/recycled vibe going on which we love so much. I think they are pretty creative and would stand out in the mail. However, I can picture my mother calling to ask why I left the tape on the postcard.

We’ve Moved Car Cards by Colorbutton(17$ for 12, 1.42$ each)

I love the car graphic on these cards. I also love the grey and yellow color combo. They are pretty affordable and come in any color you would like. I love these, but I am not sure if they really sit our style. But I think they would be great for lots of other movers out there!

Change of Address Photo Cards by b.originals (35$ for 25, 1.40$ each)

And now for something completely different – a photo card. This looks a little “save the date”-ish for me, but I still love it. I have a really cute picture of us from the beach that would be perfect for something like this. I just don’t know if it is a bit too much for the purposes of our move. What do you think?

I am going to keep trying to design something myself, but these options are just so amazing that I may end up ordering one..or two…if we can find space in the budget. What do you guys think? Is this a waste of money, or a nice way to welcome friends to our new house?

Hope you all get some sun this weekend. I will be trapped in a house of boxes and packing tape.

-C

Into the single digits!

I couldn’t believe it when I opened up my iGoogle page this morning, my countdown app reading a big fat 9 days until we move! It feels like we just started looking for houses and now I am facing my last weekend in the condo! I got a little sad thinking about it, I will miss my first place, the first place I signed for a mortgage and took care of my bills all on my own, the first place I decorated in my own standards and where I learned to cook for myself and figured out that yes, I can take care of myself, thank you very much! But I know the house will have all it’s own memories, equally awesome, of OUR first place together and my first lawn and (hopefully) my first dog! I am still working on this one, as the other half seems to think it is too much responsibility right now. Pshh, I say! He always is so responsible and reasonable. We balance each other out quite nicely I think, since I would have a house filled to the brim with puppies already if I could

This weekend was a nice escape from our palace of boxes. We headed out to the cottage on the coast of Maine, and filled our days with shopping, seafood, card games and white wine. It was nice to have friends together without the real responsibilities of home. The only thing I wished was that we had nice weather – it was cold and rainy all weekend. We still went for a few walks on the beach anyway, braving the cold weather for the amazing views and that great “sea” smell.

Nothing much house related today. I bought some great things for the house, but that will be another post with lots of pictures when I get myself together, maybe tomorrow. This weekend will be full of packing and running last minute errands, bank, home depot etc. Also recruiting some help for our move next weekend! I get butterflies in my stomach whenever I say that.

Hope you all had a nice long weekend (for my Canadian friends). More soon!

- C