Cupcake Liner Pomanders

Yesterday I wrote about the details of my Goddaughter's baptism. The day was awesome and I'm sure Harper had a great time!

Today's post is specifically about the pomanders that were used as decoration on the cake table.

They were so easy and fun to make! Probably around 15 minutes each and cost $8 a pop! I think they look just like carnation balls. Except carnation balls are $60 on the low end and very messy.

As for how to make these babies, you'll need:
- a styrofoam ball
- cupcake liners
- pins

We used cute yellow round head pins but they didn't end up showing at all so I'd recommend the cheapest flat head pins you can find.

Step One: Stick the pin through the centre of the cupcake liner.
  

Step Two: Scrunch the liner

Step Three: Repeat 123,456,789 times

Step Four: Stick each pin into the styrofoam ball

Step Five: Repeat 123,456,789 times (we giggled that it resembled a clown wig at this point!)

Step Six: No step six -- you're done!! Give yourself a pat on the back.

Tons of people commented on how cute they were! I completely agree and think they are super fun for a kids' party or baby/bridal shower. And most importantly, cheap and easy to make! My sister-in-law and I made these assembly-line style with me pinning and scrunching the cupcake liner while she stuck them in.

I think they were oh-so-charming on the cake/dessert table.

xoxo,

E

Harper's Baptism

This past weekend was my niece's baptism. I had the honour of being named co-Godmother (lucky duck has 4 Godparents!) She was a perfect angel throughout the ceremony. She was the only baby out of 6 to not cry -- she actually slept through most of it! I'll give her an awesome high five for that in a couple years. The weather couldn't have been more perfect and the ceremony was lovely and personal.

The reception was held at a local restaurant/bar which had a cute cottage feel to it with one of the largest and prettiest chandies I have ever seen! #chandelierobsession Sorry about the slight blurriness.

Anyway, back to the main event. My sister-in-law decided on a hot pink and light pink colour scheme which was perfect for her almost 5 month old. My favourite part was the cake set up. The cake was ombre and delicious too. On either side were various pink coloured cookies and treats. And of course the cupcake liner pomanders we made for decoration! (I'll post a DIY tutorial for those tomsies.)

Each guest received a cute giveaway consisting of a framed photo of Harper in her baptism dress and a pink rosary. Note the headband! So pretty and vintage-looking. She wore it all day. Such a trooper!

The day went off without a hitch. All the guests also signed a little booklet for her to read when she's older.

Now she can enjoy being an official member of the Church and a beautiful Child of God. We love you, Harper!

xoxo,

Aunt E

PS - Here's a quick recap of Harper's baby shower back in February,

Headboarding

We haven't been up to too many projects lately with baseball season in full swing (punny!). But I will share our newest furniture acquisition.

Meet our headboard!!

We have been looking for the perfect headboard since we moved in. I toyed with the idea of making my own with all the tutorials out there in blog land but I don't consider myself handy enough nor do we have the necessary tools.

Here's a pretty sad-looking before shot:

Requirements: white, tufted. Fabric or leather.

I started my search at the local furniture stores. Ikea, the Brick, Leons, Ashley Furniture, etc. Even a bunch of independent stores. No dice. I searched online and most of them  were over $700. Too much. We determined a $400 budget is reasonable. 

The only one that sort of matched what we wanted was this one at Urban Outfitters. But it didn't come in white. I thought about settling for that light grey colour but for that amount of money, I didn't want to settle.

My next search was at US retailers that hopefully shipped to Canada. Or maybe we could pick it up and drive it across the border? Would it fit in the car though? #headboardproblems. I found a bunch of pretty good ones at target.com. This one, this one, this one and this one were all pretty good. And then I found this one.

She was perfect. A good shade of white, good tufts, good price. Velvet! Done. Except they don't ship to Canada. Ughhhhh.

We almost said "whatever, let's just try to bring it across the border in our little car. I'm sure it will fit." But I wanted to try one last thing before we committed. I typed the name of the headboard into google thinking maybe someone closer had it. I don't know if it's because I have been a good girl all year or if the headboard gods felt sorry for me because I have been looking for this for 11 months, but it worked. Homedepot.ca!!! The exact same one! And the best part? It was cheaper!!

Cray, I know. This doesn't happen. Ever. Things in the states are always cheaper and more accessible! AND I got a 10% discount code for signing up for emails. Estimated delivery time: 3-4 weeks. No problem. We ordered last Tuesday and she arrived the following Monday! The good news just kept on coming! Only teeny bad thing was that we were watching the tracking and the delivery came while both of us were at work. UPS's policy is if it looks like a safe neighbourhood, they leave the item at your door step. She was only alone for max 2 hours. And thankfully everything was fine.

Assembly was super easy. Legs came separate but only needed 4 screws and washers which they provided. They wanted the legs to get screwed into the bed frame but we don't have a bed frame so that wasn't happening. We just squished it between the bed and the wall and called it a day. So far it hasn't fallen on our heads and I don't think it will.

Here's the rest of my photoshoot with our new headboard. Please pardon the weird lighting.

Night shot!

Oh, and we got a little ottoman from Ikea so that our kitty cat can jump on the bed. It was too high for him before and he'd meow in the middle of the night for us to pick him up. You can see it hiding on the left side of the bed in a couple of the photos.

I think he enjoys the headboard as much as I do. ...or maybe not.

xoxo, E

I Got That Polish Spirit!

Just as promised, I have been fussing over the backyard this spring season to avoid repeating the disaster of 2012. Step one was researching my hardiness zone. I learned that knowing this is essential when choosing plants for your garden. Plants are categorized based on how well they can adapt to a specified climate. I am in zone 6a or 6b, depending on which map you look at. So off I went researching which plants like my area.

Anyhoo, right from the beginning I knew I wanted to plant a Clematis because my grandmother always had a beautiful one growing in her front yard. I remember hers having many dark purple blooms each summer and it would climb two stories high. It was definitely a staple in her garden.  I was determined to have the same beautiful plant in her honour.

I wanted one that bloomed later in the season and that was hardy in my 6ish zone. And then I found my Polish Spirit. Nope, not joking. It was meant for me! I am Polish through and through and so was this Clematis. It was bred by a Polish fellow who named it after the "indomitable spirit the Polish people had while under communist control." YES POLSKA! Who's got that Polish Spirit! I do! Now in more ways than one :)

This is what I have to look forward to:

(source)

I don't know for sure if my grandmother had this exact species but it definitely looks very similar! I wouldn't be surprised if it is since she lives in Poland. Apparently this clematis is very beginner-friendly, low maintenance, and  likes partial shade. Perf.

Following planting instructions super carefully, into the ground he went.

The plan is for him to grow giganto and cover that whole wall. Think he can do it? I check on him every day and every day he grows so much! Seriously, it's nuts! I am convinced we will see blooms this year. I believe in you, Clematis! You can do it! Awww such a wonderful addition to the family. (Is it weird to treat plants like your children? I mean, they are alive. ...don't judge.)
xoxo, E

Welcome to the Jungle

Spring has fully sprung. With that, we put on our gardening gloves and embarked upon our first ever landscaping adventure.

We moved into our house mid July of last year and between wedding and honeymoon excitement, we didn't do much in our backyard or frontyard. Really the only thing we did was mow the lawn..... once. It got so ridic long that we had to do something about it.

It was almost as tall as Neptune. Our little jungle oasis. So we borrowed an old non-powered push mower from the in-laws and put in our best effort.

Look at those weeds! I vowed that next year we would do a better job. And given that our backyard is so small there's really no excuse.

Next year is now and last week we mowed again. I also tried to dig out as many dandelions (maskros, in Swedish!) as I could with my little trowel shovel. And that means tons of little holes in the lawn. It was patchy as is so we made the obvious decision to reseed.

We bought ten bags of topsoil and one bag of grass seed. I insisted that we do it right away since they were calling for a lot of rain in the next few days. This meant doing everything at 10pm in the dark. Oh and it was already raining. Fun! We did our best at putting down an even layer and let the rain do the rest of the work. Looks like we did an ok job. We were able to admire our work the following morning:

A week later, we sprinkled on another bag of grass seed, this time with fertilizer. When mother nature doesn't bless us with precipitation, I get the hose out and water manually.

So here's hoping we have a nice lush lawn in the weeks to come!

xoxo, E

Neptune

So it's been a while since I blogged. Our doggie passed away last month and I have not been in the mood to do any house stuff or write about anything.

Neptune was honestly the best dog ever. I had him since he was a baby. Words can not explain the relationship we had or the loss I felt after his passing. Having never dealt with death before, coping was very difficult. I miss him madly. He was my best friend for 15 years.

I miss the way he licked my hands (and feet!), the way he would always greet me at the top of the stairs when I came home, the sound he made while drinking his water, the way he would always run to the first tree at the beginning of our walks, the way he loved rolling around in snow and on grass, the way he would chew on his bone, the way he would nudge our elbows with his nose so we would pet him. I miss the way my hands felt on his head, seeing his fur on our hardwood floors, having to go for midnight walks. I miss everything. I will always miss everything.

I can only think of the positives now -- all the amazing times we had together and the unconditional love we had for each other. I know he is looking down at me from doggie heaven (which is filled with warm timbits, lakes to swim in, and bones). I know his leggies are now healthy and the tumor he had in his belly is gone. He no longer feels pain. And I know he is surrounded by other doggie friends.

I love you Neptune. Now I carry you in my heart. You no longer have to wait for me at the top of the stairs. We are always together now.

Spring Wreath

Hope everyone had a great Easter! I definitely enjoyed having 4 days off to relax, sleep in, and DIY stuff.

Despite freezing temperatures, I have spring fever! We have springified the house by adding coral accents, fresh yellow tulips, bunches of pussy willow, and a new door wreath! And this is the story of how the wreath came to be.

Materials used:

- grapevine wreath ($4.99 at Michaels with 40% off coupon = $2.99)

- 3 sprigs of artificial flowers ($1 each at the dollar store)

- Rafia ($2.99 at Hobby Lobby with 40% off coupon = $1.79)

- floral wire

- wire cutters

The above picture lies a bit because I didn't end up using the glue gun or the heavy-duty yellow cutters. The pic on the iPad is a Pinterest link I used for inspiration. I also liked the look of this wreath, this wreath, and this wreath.

I started by cutting off all the individual flowers from the 3 sprigs.

Next I started sticking them in, on by one. I thought that I would need to secure them with hot glue or floral wire, but the grapevine was so thick that the stems held firmly in place right away! The best part about this is that I can take it all apart and reuse the wreath for another season. Perf!

  

This also allowed me to tweak it as I went along since no permanence was involved.

After fussing with it for about 5 minutes, I was happy with the arrangement and called it a day.

After deliberating between satin ribbon, raffia, and burlap, I settled on raffia because I thought it had the most springish feel to it.

But now when I look back, it also has an autumn feel to it. Thoughts? I don't know.. I think it will stay. At least I know I can use the leftover raffia for more DIYs in 6 months.

So there it is! I originally wanted to add a white capital F letter on the other side but I think it would look too busy.

(Yes, I know my door needs a desperate paint job.)

Neptune approves :)

xoxo, E

Maskros-ing

Guess what! We finally put up the light we bought 3 months ago! Readers, meet Maskros. He enjoys hanging out, brightening up people's moods, and splashing fun patterns on the wall. 

But let's rewind a little bit. I am going to overshare this whole light switcheroo process with y'all (I'm not from the south, I just like to pretend I'm Britney sometimes. Especially when I scream and shout... and let it all out.)

Our house is 7 years old and I'm 99.9% sure that this boob light was part of the original design. Unless the previous owners had questionable taste and chose this themselves. Why boob? Because look at it.

Babies would salivate looking at that thing. Not cute for our staircase.

I knew I wanted to replace it the minute I saw it during our first walk-through but it took a while for me to pick a worthy replacement. YHL taught me to never settle. And of course, my favouritestoreintheworld delivered. Ikea has had Maskros on their shelves probably since I was in diapers, but I never really thought anything of it. Until I saw this pinterest post of him in a superduper cute nursery. It was kind of like a guy in the friend zone that comes back from summer vacation and is all-of-the-sudden-for-no-reason hunky. Ew did I just say hunky? To put in other words, I saw Maskros in a whole different light (ha!).

We brought him home sometime in January with big smiles on our faces and then realized we don't have a ladder tall enough to reach ceiling in the straircase. Also, neither me nor Hubs were brave enough to get up that high on a balcony-style landing.

 

 

See what I mean? Boomer is pretending to be the ladder. I should also mention that neither one of us have ANY electrical experience beyond changing a burnt-out lightbulb. Thus we enlisted the help of our favourite handyman cousin to help us out. And our friends were more than happy to lend out a suitable ladder.

Next comes assembly. I wanted to make sure that it was in a ready-to-hang state by the time our cousin came by. I love researching anything and everything beforehand and I found this trusty Ikea video that goes through the steps of putting Maskros together. Doesn't she make it look so easy? I was excited.
 

I hung the base from the shower curtain rod in our guest bathroom so that it was low enough for me to access all points and started attaching all the "stems."

After all the stems were on, it was time for the petals.

 

 

There were 84 of these paper snowflake-looking things and Ikea said they just "clicked" into place. This had papercut written all over it. I was nervous.

 

 

Ready for a time lapse photo party?

 

 

And we're done! It took me exactly 23 minutes and 43 seconds to click all the petals on. Subtract a couple minutes for picture taking. Oh, and papercut count: 0. Excuse me while I brush some dirt off my shoulder.

 

Ok back. Fast forward to the next day. Cousin came while I was at work and Maskros was waiting for me all lit and happy when I got home.

 

 

I love the way he looks alongside the gallery wall. Fun fact: maskros means dandelion in Swedish. Bet you didn't see that one coming! #captainobvious

 

 

 

 Meanwhile, boob light is crying.

 

 

Isn't that just the saddest picture you have ever seen? Not to worry though, we are looking for a loving new home for Boobie on Kijiji. Any takers?

 

So that's the story of how we adopted Maskros. I think he likes it here. And I love taking turns staring at him and his neighbour Mr. Gallery Wall.

 

xoxo, E

 

PS - Woop-aaaaaaaaa close up in your face.