V-Day Photoshoot

Done with his vday photoshoot

See a few more photo here.

Necklace Board

I have finally finished this little project! I started it back in September but had a hard time finding pins I liked to hold the necklaces (small town). When I found out we were going to be moving to another city I decided I wanted to switch up my bedroom colors. I was so excited to do yellow and grey but it has been a nightmare trying to find yellow fabric that I love. I don't get it... I see all the time on design shows like Nate, yellow being used currently, but why is their no yellow in fabric??? I was extremely hopefully I was going to find yellow fabric and got paint happy right when we moved in September. I love the way the bench turned out... but it needs some yellow friends. If anyone comes across any lovely yellow fabrics online please let me know!


Here is my necklace board. I took a cork board that I found discounted (hole in the board) at Home Sense with this frame already attached. Added some fabric, painted the frame (it was pink) and added my necklaces. I don't have much jewellery as you can tell by the amount on this board. I am pretty plain... I want to be more fashionable but I find it hard to accessorize myself but very easy to accessorize my home! I remember when I first got engaged, a few girls from my church said, I am surprised Scott is marrying Tara, she is very plain and well... Scott isn't! I did marry a man that is very fashionable, but I love it! At first it was a little bit too much for me with his pink shirts and perfect hair. He has since gotten rid of the pink shirts, but still has perfect hair (his mom is his hair dresser). 

Billy

After my pillow fail yesterday I needed to do something simple. I have been meaning to reline the door of my billy bookcase for a few months now and tackled it last night. In our last place I lined it with scrapbook paper but I removed the paper after the move because the colors didn't go anymore with the location of the billy. 

I bought this pretty Amy Butler fabric a while ago thinking I was going to make pillows (why I keep thinking I can do this) and the red ended up being too bright for my sofa. Put it works perfectly here!

In the end, I used spray adhesive and attached the fabric to red and white dot wrapping paper. I attached the fabric to the door using strong velcro and double-sided tape. When you open the door you see the red dot paper instead of the ugly side of the fabric.

Where's Boston

Testing the backdrop of the photoshoot i was planning... funny they matched perfectly!

The Incredible Diet

Scott and I are on a diet... it's been needed for some time. I have been trying to lose weight for months, years and well basically my whole life. I was happy when Scott started reading this new diet book and asked it I wanted to do it with him. I was thrilled because I have found in my years of struggle that I always do best when I am doing it with someone else. 
The diet is very strict. You eat only 3 meals a day but fill up with tons of protein and veggies. We haven't found it terrible yet but we are only in week 2. The best part of the diet is you are allow one cheat day a week! You can eat anything. If I am having a bad day and really want to snack, I just think Saturday you come and you can have it all! 
The biggest change I had to make with this new diet was my evening routine. Almost every night Scott is at school and I am at home sitting on the couch with a baby that wont go to bed. But since the diet I have tried to keep myself very very busy and I am surprised how fast my evenings go without thinking about snacking. My new found hobby (the new blog) is very helpful in this department.


BUT after all is said and done... there are times when i still feel like this....

Sick Baby

Sick Baby

Will You Be My Valentine?

I saw these frames this week in the Michael's flyer and went and bought two for only $1.50 each! 

First I painted the back and sides white.

Next I found scrap paper that worked perfectly. (My mom bought me some random packs of scrapbook accessories and cut up paper at a garage sale in Edmonton and all this paper was in the packs... good find mom!) After cutting the paper to just fit to the outside of the frame, I than used spray adhesive to glued the paper onto the wood. 


Taking my knife I cut off excess paper and also cutting the heart out. At this point I realized I forgot to paint the inside of the heart... had to do this really carefully since I didn't want to get any paint on the paper.

I used sandpaper and lightly sanded down the edges of the frame and inside of the heart. *Make sure to move down with the sandpaper and not up. This step will fix any uneven cutting that happened especially in the heart. See a picture of this step here.


I look my embellishments (found them at Michael's this week and used a coupon) and mounted them on cardboard using spray adhesive to give it strength. 

I than Mod Podged the front and sides of the frame and the front of the embellishments. I wanted to make sure they had the same finish as the paper on the frame.


Next I had to pick from my small selection of ribbon, the perfect match (okay this is a huge selection... I have an addition). I glued down the ribbon using glue dots. I also took some craft glue that dries clear and added a small amount of glue to the cut edges of the ribbon to help prevent fraying.

Lastly I applied tons of these sticky lifter things (no idea what they are called) and raised the embellishments from the frame just slightly to give it some dimension.

Here are the finished frames! The first one is for my house and the second one is for who Boston wants to ask to be his Valentine... she should be receiving it in the mail shortly :)

Another Blog

Well friends and family... i decided to create another blog. This new blog is dedicated to my addiction to creating!

The main reason for starting this blog was to get myself motivated to start and finish all the projects I have around the house and in my head.


Come and give me some love on the blog! If you have a google account, follow me! If you don't, you can subscribe to new posts via email. 


Hope you enjoy! Comment on the new blog posts, if you like what you see :)


Link.... The Striped Box


Tara


And if you do any great projects and post them on your blog, if you don't mind (i will ask permission first) but i would love to feature your amazing crafting and decor projects!

Valentines Free Printables

***Updated - Added new free printables at the bottom!!!***
I am in love with all the talented ladies out in the blogging world and their Free Stuff! I wanted to share the great finds I found for valentines day (and there are still tons more, leave a comment if you know of another great v-day freebie)!


Todays Fabulous Finds - Valentine Subway Art

(Picture from Today's Fabulous Finds)

This lady does new subway art for every season, holiday and month.


Becky Higgins - Love One Another

(Picture from Becky's Website)

I printed one of each for myself at Walmart and sent a copy for my mom to her Walmart. They look amazing!


Vintage Holiday Craft - Vintage Kids Valentine Cards

(Picture from Vintage Holiday Craft)

Lovely Papershop - Cupcake Toppers

(Picture from Lovely Papershop)

The Rubber Punkin - Be Mine Cards

(Picture from The Rubber Punkin)

U-create Crafts - Valentine Candy Wrappers Tags

(Photo from  Ucreate)

One Charming Party - Class Valentine

(Photo from One Charming Party)

Beth Proud Foot - Valentine Poster

More lovely printables....

The Long Thread - Heart Card

The Long Thread - Bird Card

Bunny Cakes - Sweetheart Valentines Classroom Cards

Bundled Up

All bundled up

What I Miss About Our Condo

In our current place, we are renting an older 850 square foot apartment. Before we moved out of Calgary we owned a 790 square foot condo. I purchased it before I meant my husband and people always told me how smart I was to make that financial decision (I purchased before the big housing increase in Calgary). I have to admit, that wasn't even on my mind... the only reason I purchased my own place was I was sick of living in a place that didn't look nice! I was renting with 4-7 girls depending on the month and nothing matched.


Reasons why I miss the condo:
1. The color! I love color and miss being able to paint my walls.
2. It was new and clean. When I open cupboards in our current place the first thing that comes to my mind is... will I see a mouse (and no I have yet to see one)
3. Everything I own fit into this place perfectly. I currently have boxes and boxes full of decor items that I don't know where to put them (k, some of this is because my son is into everything right now).
4. Heated underground parking.
5. Dishwasher!


What I don't miss about the condo:
1. Lack of space, our current place has more square feet with equals tons more storage.
2. We had to walk down a huge hallway to our door and 1-2 flights of stairs depending on which parking spot (here we only have about 20+ steps).


I thought I would take myself down memory lane...

Our little kitchen, small but clean and a dishwasher!

Living room and dining area. Notice the green stripes on the wall.

Hallway, TV in living room and Boston's room (I didn't paint it because we were moving a few months after he was born) 

The brown matches the bathroom down the hallway but its not my favourite.

I miss my den/scrapbook room! Nothing special but in our current place this little room is were the dining room should be.

Please mum

Mum... mum... mum... can I go outside??

Sorry Boston, way too cold!!!

A sight that you don't see often in our household

We tried forever to get Boston to take a soother. When he was really young he use to gag and choke on it, then look at us like we are so mean for putting it in his mouth! When he got to the teething phase i tired it again and he used it to rub back and forth on his gums but never got the real concept of it.
But for some reason he decided yesterday that he wanted it. I have just always stored it with his toys and he found it yesterday and actually stuck it in his mouth and stuck it! Started crawling around with it stuck in his mouth. Only 9 months late Boston!

The soother use to have a race car on it, but do to the fact it gets thrown in the toy box, it is completely scratched off.

Carpet On Carpet

Some people have said, no to carpet on carpet but others have said why not! I am not of those, why not kind of girls.

In our current place, we are renting a older 850 square foot apartment. The carpet itself it okay, the flooring underneath the carpet is uneven and hollow. In the place we lived before I had laminate hardwood flooring and found the perfect rug for only $125! It was a steal of a deal... a mis-communication between co-workers (they sold the last old version of this rug I had on hold) and in the end they gave me this 8 x 10 rug worth over $1000 for only $125 (Pottery Barn isn't as expensive as you think... sometimes).

Isn't it pretty?

Before I bought this carpet I had a green area rug from Ikea. But I went paint crazy and painted my living room green. It was pretty obvious I had too much green and that is when I bought the PB rug. When we moved, I knew the place had carpet and since we couldn't paint, the old apartment was going to be in need of some color. The white shag wasn't going to be the best idea for carpet on carpet due to the fact the rug is very thick and the carpet was already a light color (also I knew my baby would be starting solids soon and spit-ups wouldn't be just white anymore). I still loved the green rug and got it out of my parents attic.

I wanted to touch on another point when it comes to area rugs. Every designed has a different option but I am going to quote Sarah Richardson on this one. On her first episode of Sarah 101 she said, "at least the front two legs of each piece of furniture should land on the rug. You don't want your area rug to seem like an island floating in the middle".

CSN Stores

We moved to our new apartment in September and for months I looked for a chair for my sons room. I wanted a cute pattern that would go with the colors in his bedding. Since we are living in a small town I was having a hard time finding anything. In the end I made the decision to just find a brown chair that can go with any future baby bedding (I do plan to have more babies and especially a little girl). You think finding a brown chair would be simple... well it wasn't for my price range. Finally I came across an online store that ships to Canada. For all my fellow Canadian's we all know that not all stores ship to Canada, in fact, a lot don't. 

If you don't already know about CSN Stores... check them out! Not everything ships to Canada, but most does.

Here is the chair I bought for the babies room. 

I love it. Simple and very comfortable. To cut down the cost of shipping, the chair had to be put together and it was even more complicated than something from IKEA. BUT I did it all by myself with a baby crawling all over me. In the end, worth it!

**It says Free Shipping on items like furniture, but for my dear Canadian's... this is not the case. Just a heads up, you will be charged shipping but it was only about $30.

Vacation Ended

We were very fortunate to go to Alberta for 4 weeks. Scott had 4 weeks off school and we packed up and left Regina. We spent 2 weeks in Calgary and 2 weeks in Sherwood Park. Mostly we did a whole lot of nothing but spend time with family and friends.

I think Boston did the most out of the three of us. Right before we left he had started to army crawl pretty good, but while in Alberta he learned to do normal crawling and pull himself up. He also climbed the stairs! He saw Scott sitting on the stairs on day and climbed all the way up to see him. It was his first time on the stairs since we have no stairs in our apartment. He also started putting himself to sleep and did pretty good at sleeping though the night (which has all gone down hill since we got back to our apartment).

Here is a random picture overload from the last month!

A few seconds after this picture was taken, Boston started sliding off the seat and through the hole at the feet. He was smart enough to grab on to the wheel and hold on till someone saved him!

The tree on Christmas Eve.

This is fun.

More presents please!

What, another gift?? Please also notice the third outfit of Christmas... Boston had tons of gifts and we spread them out through out the day. Especially since he fall asleep before we finished opening all of ours.

New hat Grandma Fullmer bought Boston.

Happy to be out of his car seat after about a 3 hour drive... sadly there was still 6 more hours to go!

Santa! Boston was amazed at Santa. He didn't cry, just stared at Santa with his hands reaching towards his face but didn't dare to touch him.

First taste of a cookie and we made sure it was the Fullmer's family favourite.

I left Scott to babysit Boston in the morning, only to come downstairs and see that Scott must have ignored him because Boston was dead asleep in a kneeling position perched up on the pillow.

Home at last! But before we could put Boston to bed, we had to lower the mattress in his crib.