Flowering Maple

Around the time that I was planning my wedding, a coworker gave me her Flowering Maple. It was a beautiful plant with light yellow flowers the same colour as my wedding flowers. It grew beautifully in my condo… until I got Olive, my little rambunctious Havanese dog. As a puppy she loved plants and especially ripping branches off of them. My poor Maple plant took it pretty hard and it has spent the last few years trying to grow back to its former glory. I decided that it was time to do something with this wild plant. Here is what I did…

What it looked like when I first got it.

The beautiful flowers.

All wild.

First I made a circle out of a wire clothes hanger and straightened the bottom. Like this.

Then I attached it to the wooden stick that was in the planter using wire.

Slowly and carefully wrap the branches around the wire. If you break any off place in water and they will sprout roots. You can then plant these and grow a new plant.

Finished product.

I can’t wait until it grows in a bit more and starts to flower. It should be beautiful.

(Olive was of course curious about what I was doing!)

How to Draw a Robin

It’s March and that means SPRING is on its way!

Growing up in Calgary, winters often seemed long, although the chinooks help make it bearable. Since I was little, my mom would always start a family competition to see the first robin of the year (something we still do every year), a true sign of spring in Calgary. My mom has won every year, I’m serious – she has seen the first robin every single year, but I still love looking for the first robin and have brought the tradition into my classroom.

The students love looking out the window in search of that first robin and listening carefully for its song. After we spot the first robin I will often have the students draw a picture of a robin. Happiness is seeing the pride on a students face when they feel successful in drawing and so I take some time to teach them how to draw a simple robin. I love hearing, “This is the best drawing I have ever done!” By helping them draw step by step, you are teaching them so many skills such as fine motor, listening, following directions, and of course drawing something new.

Here are the step by step drawings to draw a robin.

And done!

DIY Jewelry Hanger

During the move into our condo, the glass in one of our Ikea picture frames broke. It felt wasteful to just throw away the frame so I decided to make something with it. Since it had a wooden back, I thought I could just paint a picture on it and hang it up but at the same time I was trying to come up with a way to organize my long necklaces. That’s when I decided to make a jewelry hanger. I searched the internet for an interesting pattern to paint onto the frame and got to work.

Here is what you do.

1. Paint a picture or design that you like on the wooden back. Think about the room it will be hung in to help pick colours and design. I painted a more difficult design but you could easily paint it one colour or use tape to create stripes.

2. Buy some cabinet knobs. I bought mine at Ikea where you can pick up a bag of 6 for a few dollars.

3. Drill holes where you would like the knob. Make sure to lay your jewelry out on the frame to see how it will hang.

4. Put on knobs

5. Hang on wall

Peach Bridal Shower

When my friend J got engaged, I knew I wanted to throw her a bridal shower, not just because I love planning parties but because I love her like crazy. We met when I was in the 12th grade and she has been one of my best friends ever since. She had picked peach as her wedding colour so I used that as a starting point.

Peach anything was hard to come by so I had to get a little creative. I decided to use peach, pinks, reds and black. I think the colours went very nicely together.

While searching for decorations I saw these paper bag flowers on Martha Stewarts Website.

Then I worked on making a beautiful table. I found peach, pink, red and black candies, food and napkins.

Here is the table.

I ended up going to a scrapbooking store to find peach paper that I used on the table to add the colour.

I made this tart! Looks pretty good, right?. Sorry its blurry, camera skills weren’t great that day!

I had the bride and groom answer a few questions for me and I printed them out and placed them in frames around the room. This gives people a chance to get to know the couple, especially if they don’t know the bride or groom that well.

Here is J and I celebrating.

And some of our dearest friends.

Small Kitchen Reno with Big Impact

When we bought our condo, I knew I would be able to live with everything but the horrible marble blue counter top. Yep, I said it – BLUE!

We knew it would be one of the first things to change but because of an unexpected special assessment to replace windows we weren’t able to renovate the kitchen like we had planned. One of our friends was looking out for us though. His father had some extra laminate countertop and gave it to us. He offered to come over one day and help JJ install it. The counter had a lip (I’m sure there is a proper name for it) that took up over an inch of counter space, having a small kitchen I need every last inch, so we removed it and decided to tile instead. I picked plain white subway tiles. One because I love the look and two because they were about 20 cents per tile. Then, because we hated the tap as well, we made a last minute decision to buy a new one.

I must say tiling with JJ was definitely a test on our new marriage;) But we made it through and were very happy with the finished project.

Before

After

       

The finished product of all my hard work.

A much brighter and more attractive kitchen!

The whole project cost about $200 thanks to the free laminate. I think it was worth every penny.

Valentine’s Hearts

So… the other day, I showed you my gift for J to celebrate being together for 8 years and I said that I didn’t know what I would do with all the candy.

Well, here is one thing you can do with thousands of candy hearts…

It’s a little project from back in my art school days.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day Garland

My friend J and I spent the other night crafting. We have always talked about doing it but have never actually taken the time to make it happen. So this time, we made a plan and followed through (Aren’t you proud of us?). Since Valentine’s Day is just around the corner we thought we would crafts up some Valentines decorations. Here is what we came up with…

We both decided to make garlands.

J and Olive crafting!

Here is what I did….

Make a template and cut hearts out of felt.

Using embroidery, thread stitch some cute patterns.

String together. I stitched mine together with thread, then added some bows with white ribbon.

Since I don’t have a fire place, I always end up decorating my T.V!

Colour Coded Bookshelf

In our house there are two ways to organize/decorate a bookshelf. There is my husband’s way, and there is my way. My husband believes that books should be organized alphabetically, where as I believe that they should be colour coordinated or at least arranged in a way that is appealing to the eye.

Since most of the books are my husbands when we got married I nicely added my books into the alphabetically organized shelf, which well, makes sense for a library but just didn’t look exciting in our living room. So one day, I had had it and decided it was time to do something a little different. I began pulling off all the books on the shelf and sorting them into piles depending on their colour. My poor husband came home not to the finished product but rather to about 400 books strewn throughout the room. He was a little choked, and lets just say, “not thrilled”, but he offered to help me put them back up. He was very patient with me as I moved the orange books to one side, then to the other, then moved the yellow ones over and then changed my mind again (you get the picture), until I felt that it looked just right.

Still to this day, more than 4 years later, he has to ask me where a book is on the shelf and gives me a hard time about my system, but secretly I think he agrees that it looks better. ( I haven’t touched the DVD’s or the CD shelf… yet!)

Over time I added vases and pictures to make it more homie and after a crazy flood (that’s a post for another day) we actually replaced the shelf to a new one that I LOVE!

Here are some pictures of the change over time, both the books and the shelves.

Then

(First Christmas, shelfs pre-makeover with all our hand-me down furniture… don’t worry it gets better)

(Shelves after they were colour coordinated)

Now

8 Years with my Love

February 7th marked the 8 year anniversary of the day that I met my husband. I wanted to do something special for him to remind him of just how much I love him! So, I decided that I wanted to give him a heart for each day that I have known and loved him. Here is what I did. I love surprises!

Bucket filled with candy hearts.

Thanks to my friend J for drawing the envelope for me! She was inspired by Riffle Paper Co. (Which we both LOVE!)

I bought all the candy at Superstore but I wasn’t sure what I was going to put all the candy in. Being on a budget, I didn’t want to spend another $15-20 to buy a container. As I was walking down the aisle, I noticed this empty plastic container that once held measuring spoons. Well being that it was garbage to them, I decided to reuse it and after a night of crafting turned it into this.

The message.

Ummm yes, I did count every single one of those hearts. (Wanna know a little secret? I was a little short on candy…there was only 2067)

In total this surprise cost me just over $10. Worth every penny. I have know idea what we are going to do with all those candy hearts though…

Happy husband=happy wife!

Cleaning Tarnished Silver Jewelry

Today, I tackled cleaning my bedroom from top to bottom and in the process decided it was time to go through my jewelry, which just happened to be laying EVERYWHERE on my dresser. I started sorting through it all to find damaged or missing pieces and then noticed that a lot of my silver jewelry was tarnished. It was time for a clean.

Way back when I was putting myself through university, I worked at a flower/jewelry shop called Splurge Flowers and Gifts. I loved working there and learning about the different kinds of flowers and how to arrange them. One day, one of the ladies I worked with asked me to help her gather up all the jewelry that was starting to look tarnished so she could clean it. Thats when I learned this quick and natural cleaning trick that uses everyday household products.

Here is what you do.

Here is my tarnished jewelry. (The pictures just don’t do it justice. This really makes a huge difference!)

Note: Caution please don’t do this for really expensive jewelry take that to a place for a proper cleaning!

First you will need:

-aluminum foil

-salt

-baking soda

-a bowl

-boiling water

Step 1:

Boil the water

Step 2:

Line bowl with aluminum foil shiny side up

Step 3:

Put 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of soda into the bowl

Step 4:

Add boiling water and jewelry (Beware the chemical reaction will cause a sulphuric smell..if it stinks that means it’s working!)

Step 5:

Let jewelry sit for a few minutes, then remove rinse with cold water and dry with an old rag (some of the tarnish will rub off on the rag)

Step 6:

See the difference? Isn’t it amazing! (Again this picture just doesn’t show how clean and shiny it is now!)

All the tarnish will stick to the aluminum foil!

Step 7:

Put it back into your jewelry box so it’s ready to wear!

Clean and simple. Now that makes me happy!