No Internet!

Well, on Saturday we suffered from a terrible thunderstorm; on one particular strike our power went out for a few seconds and there was a blue spark and sizzle and we realized my internet modem had been blown! Of all things to go it was my internet, go figure that one out haha.

As a result I am currently still out of internet at my house and I will be calling Telus as soon as they open today to try and fix this asap. Being that we live in a small town though they may have to mail me a new modem so I could be out of commission for a few days. However! I am currently working on a fun, large project and I can’t wait to share it with you once my internet is back!

I’m going to try to look at this as a blessing in disguise, as a way to unplug for a few days and just enjoy time with my family with no distractions but I must say it’s difficult! It’s amazing how much the internet has become a part of modern day living!

Anyway I hope you all had a great weekend and I’ll be back to posting regularly as soon as I possibly can!!!

Teddy Bear Picnic and the Power of Yes

Yesterday Anna and I took a walk down to the park where the yearly Teddy Bear Picnic was being held! This was our first year ever going and we had a blast! I was quite impressed by the setup our little town had put on for the kids!

Here’s Anna all dressed up and ready to go with her blanket and kitty!

The park! I was surprised by all the booths they had set up, they even brought in a fire truck!

They had a lady doing story time for the kids.

And at another area there was a puppet show!

Ordinary Object Re-Creation Part 2

For this round of ordinary object re-creations I’ll be featuring lace! At my local thrift shop they always have tons and tons of little bits of lace but I never know what to do with them! I always admire them but never bother purchasing them since I don’t know how to use them, well not any more! In this post I’ll be featuring a bunch of different projects you can create using precious bits of lace!

One of my all time favourite lace projects is done by Laura from Decor to Adore, she made some absolutely precious lace napkin rings and they are so simple too! One suggestion was to even turn these into some romantic wrist cuffs instead! You can find a full tutorial here.

Another favourite project is to turn your little lace bits into a chandelier! For a while there was a growing trend of ribbon chandeliers but I love the delicate twist that Andrea Dozier puts on hers!

Camping!

Charles and I have a tradition of going camping at least once every year at a special place called Lockhart. We love this campsite because it’s not very busy but super well maintained, somewhat private, and the guy who maintains it is really amusing to talk too and always remembers us! There is also a fabulous little beach just across the highway which is a super nice benefit!

We’ve been going camping at Lockhart for 3 years now since I was pregnant with Anna and so nothing was going to stop this year, despite the fact that it was even initially raining hahaha.

We love “roughing” it when we go camping and still use a tent, it’s actually a 2 room tent which works perfectly to fit a queen size air mattress for us and a playpen for Anna! We just borrow this tent from Charles sister, Julie (thank you!!!) but next year we’re going to buy an even bigger 3 room tent to accommodate our growing family.

Charles had to play tetris with all our gear in the VW GLI but we managed to get everything to fit (thank god for such a large trunk!). This camping trip just made us fall in love with our car that much more now knowing just how much stuff we can pack into it, it certainly does not disappoint! We do have a bin to go on top but we have not yet bought the roof racks for this car so it was all in the trunk space and extra nooks and crannies!

We then cavorted across the ferry and along the windy roads to our campsite; once there we took a gander around and actually found a four leaf, and even a 5 leaf clover! How cool is that? The trip was off to a great start! We actually ended up finding 2 more yet later on in the trip!

Father’s Day Salt Dough Magnets

Well Father’s Day is quickly approaching and I thought I would share what we did for Charles’ present this year!

I’m not really big into anything cheesy and so all those typical “No 1. Dad” shirts and ties and mugs just was not my cup of tea. We’re also on a tight budget so I couldn’t exactly just go out and buy a present either and thus I searched high and low for a non-cheesy, sentimental gift to make for Charles and eventually I stumbled across the idea of salt dough magnets which I put my own twist on!

I ended up following this recipe which I cut down drastically and I really liked how it turned out. For quick reference I’ve listed the ingredients below.

1/4 cup salt
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup water.

Just mix all the ingredients together and knead for a few minutes adding extra flour until you reach a nice mouldable, non-sticky consistency. Basically like play dough! I found the amounts listed above gave me enough to make my magnets with a bit left over.

Pulled Chicken Sandwiches!

One of my favourite meals to make is pulled chicken sandwiches; Charles absolutely loves them and I absolutely love making them. Why? Because they are soooo simple!!!



All it takes to make these are boneless, skinless chicken thighs, bbq sauce, hickory smoke, and Worcestershire sauce. That’s it.



Now I will note this time around I decided to try using bone in chicken thighs that I skinned myself however despite going over my finished product with a fine tooth comb we still found a lot of bony bits while we were eating these. As such I would recommend trying to get boneless thighs for this!

So all you do is place your chicken thighs in a slow cooker and add about 3/4 of a bottle of bbq sauce, a tbsp or 2 of Worcestershire sauce, and about a tsp of the smoke. You can add a wee bit of water if you think the sauce is too thick but I found as this cooks it does get quite runny from the steam so this isn’t exactly necessary. Turn your cooker on low and allow it to do it’s thing for about 5 or 6 hours.



Once your chicken is done cooking pull it out onto a plate, shred it using 2 forks, and add it back to the delicious sauce.



I like to serve this up on a toasted bun with grated cheese! Absolute deliciousness!



Do you know of any other super simple slow cooker recipes? Lately mine has been my best friend!

Chalkboard Play Table

I present to you guys my latest creation for Anna’s room, a chalkboard play table!

And check out what this bad boy looked like before! Now don’t get me wrong, I loved Disney as a kid but going back and watching those movies as an adult I’ve realized they’ve thrown in some messed up messages and I’d personally rather not portray that right in my daughter’s room.

Here’s how I got this project done! I must say it was a very long journey to get to this post! I was supposed to have this done up for you guys a week and a half ago but things just kept coming up and it took me forreeverrr to finish!

It all started 2 weeks ago when my parents were taking Anna for the weekend. I figured “Great! I’ll use this time to paint her table and it will be ready for her when she gets home!”….or not….

Anna’s 1st Birthday!

Now that it is June I am starting to plan out Anna’s second birthday! I like giving myself lots of time to plan and create so that I don’t have to lose any sleep or do any late night crafting in order to have everything ready in time! Due to the fact that I am now planning her second party I thought I would share with you what I put together last year for her first birthday party!

The theme was “You are my sunshine”; that is actually “her” song that I always sang to her since I was pregnant with her. However despite the cheeriness I still wanted a bit of a vintage tea party vibe to go with it! As such I set the tone of the event with some custom invitations by 1313Designs from Etsy! Kelly did an amazing job working with me to create a fabulous invitation that exceeded my expectations!

I also included inserts to inform the guests about a time capsule to be opened on Anna’s 16th birthday, and one for them to fill out should they wish to bring something for the capsule!

We had the party on the lawn in front of my house; for the main decorations we created a balloon line garland and I also got yellow daisies (I think?) and babies breath in mason jars which I placed on the tables and hung from some of the trees.