Summer Lovin’ 2012

Last summer I shared with you folks what all the happenings were in my little neck of the woods. You can see that post here if you wish. This is my second summer in our first home and although summer is still in its early stages I thought I’d give you a look-see into my present life during these sun shiny days.

 

I purchased these sweet little porcelain garden markers from Chapters at 50% off (score!). This summer I’ve mostly stuck with herbs like mint and lavender but I’m hoping to learn some mad gardening skills and by next summer be able to grow everything you see labelled above. As a vegan lady it’s exciting to think one day I can cut way back on grocery shopping and just eat from my backyard the food I’ve put my hard working hands into. Or fail miserably with a bunch of dead plants…. who knows! :)

   A big part of my summer lovin’ consists of buying sweet sweet local berries. I’ve been gulping down fruit smoothies in the morning as opposed to my regular steaming hot coffee since I feel like sweaty moose is not a great look for me-unless I’m kicking butt at the gym. Smoothies are such a satisfying way to fill your tummy up sans the guilt and sneak in all the yucky health powders and stuff people like to consume. I add maca powder, chia seeds and a B12 powder to mine for an extra nutrition boost. See more about those products here.

 

My galfriend gave me this hearty white ikea planter and every summer I put it by my front door to brighten up our entrance and give you a burst of flowery scent when you come and go. This year I filled it with some sunny begonias and other bright blooms. It feels extra jolly to come home to some peppy flowers.

 

I have to admit summer is not my favorite of all the seasons. I rather enjoy the crisp chill of a brisk Autumn day but when my pink roses come into bloom I forget all about the sweltering heat and feel downright jubilant. I can be a majorly prissy girl I know, but there’s just something so gosh dang pretty about roses growing in your yard. On that note here’s one of my favorite cheesy “think positive” quotes:

Instead of complaining about the thorns on the rose bush, be grateful that the thorn bush has roses.

 

These are my sweet “Welcome to our Home” flowers in my front door basket. Yes, more pink! I loves me some pink. I can’t remember the name of these little cuties but they are small flowering buds that stay fairly compact and are super easy to maintain. I know this because I tend to inadvertently kill most plants but these guys are hanging tough (while being adorbs!)

  

I’ve also been doing something I’m very good at: evoking my inner consumer. I went on a bit of a shopping spree with my lady friend and bought some spiffy new stuff. I found this daffodil scarf for $15 at Chapters and it’s one of those fantastically gigantic ones you can do all sorts of different things with (good thing you pinned “600+ ways to tie scarves” on Pinterest last week!) The tangerine ring is from H&M and only set me back $7. I have a serious “big funky rings” addiction. The lipstick is from Sephora (a store that could empty my bank account in one visit if I’m not on high alert) in a really sweet shade of, you guessed it,  PINK. My skin is paler than a scoop of vanilla ice cream (I have a little chat about that fact here) so I can’t pull of the fun coral colors that you tanner beauties can or I’ll look like a clown. A soft pink is always my go-to color, this one is called Lovable. And lastly I picked up this adorable little book Baby Cakes from my local library for some sweet vegan treat ideas to make for weekend get togethers with my chums. It’s a pretty awesome little book, I recommend checking it out.

My other little shopping spree consisted of something a touch more extravagant. Recently my iPhone decided it was done being alive and just checked out. No good-bye letter, no forwarding address, just a cold hard black screen of hatred. I felt like I was missing a leg for the three or so days I had no phone. What did people do before cell phones? How do you leave the house without a phone? What if I was out and saw something mildly interesting or funny? How would I instantly tell everyone I know about it?!……. Anarchy!

So I walked into Best Buy all confident that I wouldn’t get swept up into any fancy sales footwork and walked out of Best Buy with Samsung’s brand new Galaxy S3, a nifty case and the extended protection plan. That sales person was smooooth! (I also found out I was his first sale, so maybe I just lack smoothness?) What I found silly was that I am so unhip and non-trendy that I had no clue this was the new “gotta have it” cell phone. I didn’t even look at the display model before I bought it; the salesmen just said this was the phone to get and I blindly agreed. What can I say? I was delirious from not being able to read tweets on-the-go. I would have bought a phone made of asbestos and the tears children if it had a data plan and a decent camera. Addictions are no joke people!

Anywho, after using my new phone in public and being constantly asked by excited strangers about it, I realized I fell head first into the latest trend. I suddenly felt like putting on my sunglasses and strutting my stuff. 

 

At any given time in my life, a portion will consist of animal loving because I am one of those psycho: “Don’t swat at the flies!” “My cats are my children!” “What’s the harm in the racoons eating the leftovers out of the trash can? It’s not like we need them!” kind of person. My Ma is currently fostering four little black kittens. This cute little man above is named Luigi and is available for adoption to a good home.

Now for cuteness x4:

A hug full of sunshine is what this is. These four little tykes are all up for grabs to a home brimming with love. (IF you can pry them from my arms!)

And speaking of tykes. This is my little guy Henri who I’m always happy to be welcomed home by. Don’t be fooled by his sophisticated stance, this guy is a handful and a half. Curiosity with total disregard for safety and/or home furnishings is the definition of Henri.

Last but not least, what would summer be without spending time with your friends? My fella and I share in quality time with our friends and our godson whenever the opportunity presents itself and can you blame us? Look at that face. Not the virile hairy one with the deep brown eyes; that’s my guy:) I’m talking about the bald little goof-troop who is pleased as punch sitting in his big buddy’s lap!

Of course not nearly as pleased as when he’s sitting in Auntie’s lap! The boy has good taste.

  

So how is you Summer coming along so far? Any exciting plans or just relaxing in the sunshine with some delicious ice tea?

   

 

  

(Photos property of Reckless Bliss with the exception of #8)

Color Injections

                                    

           

 

 

Be Brave!

  

(Photo credit Pinterest)

Decorating For Fall

Hi everyone, hope you are all having a fabulous hump day! I wanted to finally post some pictures of the fall decorations in and around my house. It’s not really complete yet because I hold off on a lot of the Halloween related stuff since in Canada we have Thanksgiving first then Halloween a couple weeks after so everything is a work in progress. This first picture is of my fall wreath that took forever to find. There were soooo many options for fall wreathes but I wanted to be picky and not buy one until I found something that didn’t look super fake or over the top, I was holding out for “Mr. Right Wreath.” After looking at wreathes in all price ranges and zillions of stores I finally settled on this guy which I found at Wal-Mart for $15 smacka-roos. I thought it was subtle and brought out the red of my door really well. Man, was I happy to get something on that door too, I am not a patient lady when it comes to decorating for the season.

This is what it looks like as you walk up the steps to my house. The brown will all eventually turn black when my fella finds the time to make that happen. No idea when that will be....

I got this lantern at Ikea for $7 marked down from $15, which was a total score might I add. I find a use for it every season. This Christmas I intend on loading it up with holiday themed decor the same as how it’s packed with pumpkins and pinecones right now.

  These are my pathetic plants. The apple basket on the stand isn’t doing too terribly but I’m such a terrible gardener I can’t seem to keep my pots of mums alive. If any of you have any advice on where I’m derailing here please leave it in the comments. Side note, they looked gorgeous the first day I brought them home (pre-plant massacre) when they were in full orange bloom.

Well that’s the outside of my house at the moment, now let’s take a look-see inside shall we?

This is my little display area to feed my decorating vice. I don’t have a fireplace mantle to guccy up so I (my fella did all the work) put up these floating shelves which I found at Canadian Tire.

The candle sticks are from Ikea, they come in packs of three at all different sizes but if you end up smashing one like moi, then you only get two… but on the bright side, three sticks wouldn’t have worked on the shelf so all is well.

I got the “FALL” pumpkin candle holders from Michael's a few years back on major sale. I’m guessing it was on major sale because all they had left was “FAL” but I bought them anyways hoping they might bring them back the next year. What I silly fool I was to think that ever happens. So now I just disperse them around the house separately so it isn’t quite as obvious. (One year I tried displaying them as “ALF” as if it were intentional but that just made people confused and raised many questions which I had no sensible answers for.) The little mason jar was just something I had sitting around so I filled it with some delicious candy corn and tied an orange ribbon around it. I also had some cute Autumn stickers so I attached one as a “label” for the jar.

This is one of the few Halloween themed decorations I have up right now but I thought they were too cute to wait. I got them at HomeSense for $10 but I bet they would be easy enough to make if you had the will power.

 

  I haven’t gotten around to doing much crafty stuff of any sort so I was super excited to make this picture for my Fall display. It was pretty straight forward stuff. I used Fall themed scrapbook paper and some more of the stickers I had. I cut out the letters myself which took forever and then decided that they should have been bigger but I was not about to re-do it so here we are. Toss it all in a frame with a little glue here and there and this is what you get! The frame is from Ikea by the way, I believe it was about $15.

One thing I struggled with was the height of the second floating shelf because I knew I wanted there to be enough space to put candlesticks and picture frames on the shelf below but obviously the shelf needed to be at a height that made sense too.  I ended up going about three feet above my bottom shelf and giving the little pumpkins a booster seat to sit on so they could be seen way up there. (It’s an empty couscous box. Shhh!)

Lastly, I added some beaded branch looking wire along the shelves and that’s how my faux mantle came to be. I’d say overall it turned out pretty decent for my premiere attempt at Fall decorating in our first home.

  

I have a lot more of that wirey beaded stuff you put around candles and what-not so I strung some of it up from my light fixture for a little extra Autumn flavor. So far not a single person has noticed it without me pointing it out…. but I know it’s there.

   This is how the dining room is looking overall now. I plan on hanging some pictures or something on either side of the shelves but that’s a project for another day. I already have a few plans brewing so stay tuned!

      Moving into the living room I have decked out the space available to me as best I could. Candy corn has made another famous appearance in a much larger form here. I got this cute pumpkin dish from Target for $5 and loaded it up with treats. (If you want in on a dirty secret: the back of the dish looks nothing like the front because I may have been periodically dipping into it.. but there’s no evidence to prove that!)

In the center of the unit I kept it pretty simple on top with a line of tea lights which makes the leaves glow all pretty and possibly puts me at a higher risk of burning down my first home. But hey, it’s all worth it in the name of decor and design.

At the end of the unit is my other sole Halloween decoration. It’s a big white pumpkin I also got from HomeSense for $10. Once Thanksgiving comes and goes this weekend I’ll finish with the Halloween decorations and put up some new stuff. Underneath the giant pumpkin is some baby glass pumpkins I’ve had for a few years now. I got them from Safeway for about $2 each on sale so I snagged the last four they had. They were labelled as “dip bowls” but I thought they were cute all on their own and this way I don’t have to scrub dried up onion dip out of them.

There’s a few other little touches here and there in the entertainment unit like these orange Ikea candles and the little flower pots. I tried not to overwhelm the house and I was also on a tight budget so I needed to stretch what I had as best I could.   

  This is the overall view of my Thanksgiving themed entertainment unit. Like I said, I plan on making it a little more spooky after this weekend of as I call it, ‘grateful gluttony’ is completed.

Lastly is my bookcase area in the corner of the living room. These bookcases have become a catch-all for the random books and magazines and what-not that fill everyday life so try to ignore the lack of organization in these next few pictures and focus on the decorating if you would be so kind. Also take note of the lonely glowing “A” that was forced to be separated from it’s lettered siblings. *Warning Immature Joke Alert* It’s A-hole is glowing tee-hee.

 

These are my cheapo fake fall flowers that for some reason my cats cannot stop eating. It’s like crack for them so I had to make sure they were in an unreachable place. I suppose felines love the taste of inferior painted styrofoam and plastic petals. I layered a few fake leaves inside the vase to help it look fuller as well.

 

  Speaking of cheapo fake flowers, here’s some more for your viewing displeasure. I don’t mind using them for decorating because I’m not rich enough (or care enough for that matter) to buy fresh blooms every few days so I give myself an A for effort even if they aren’t the most realistic. The cats aren’t interested in these ones so I think it must be the mini styrofoam balls on the other flowers that have them hooked. Who knows what goes on in their complicated tiny melons.

   A side view of my bookcases gives you a better overall idea of the setup. Gotta love those fake leaf garlands.

I typically drape the garlands over whatever surface I see but one day I plan to invest in some good quality ones with pinecones and other fixins’ to make it look a little more full and purdy. That little brown pumpkin shaped trooper is my one and only “L” from the “FAL” fiasco. Every year I decide I’m going to just toss them in the garbage but I just can’t bring myself to pull the trigger.

   I love these leafy little guys. I scored them on a post-season sale at Carlton Cards for something like $5. I think it’s landing the sales that make me like the things so much more. Like little trophies scattered throughout to remind me of good finds at super duper prices.

  

Well that about does it for my house at the moment. Stay tuned for some more decorating and other fun posts here. And please feel free to share with me some of your favorite decorations or those trusty tips for keeping pots of mums alive and well. Until next time my beauties!

 

(All photos property of Reckless Bliss. Any photos taken from this site should be linked back to the source)