DIY Baby Feather Headband

Are you underwhelmed by the giant flower headbands that everyone puts on their baby girls?

Or just looking for something different?

Personally, I like the flower headbands, but I was also looking for something unique. 

I'm really loving feathers these days - on cards, on scrapbook pages… why not on headbands?

Here's a quick and easy tutorial on how to make a feather headband for your little one :) 

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Fruit Christmas Tree

A party at my house with all of my workmates inspired me to make something festive to munch on. 

With everyone else bringing snacks to share, I thought a healthy snack might be a good choice this time.

So I went about building a Christmas tree out of fruit! 

Step one: Cut of the bottom of an apple to stabilize the tree structure.

Step two: Cut a hole in the top of the apple, just slightly bigger than the width of your carrot and stick the carrot on top. Make sure it's a tight fit!

Step three: Cut up all the fruit you want to use, and stick each piece on a toothpick to be inserted onto the apple/carrot structure.

(we actually found it easier to put the toothpick in first, and then put the fruit on)

This was the fun part :)

Done! Garnish however you like and serve! 

We made it the same day that we served it - a few hours early so that it was still fresh.
None of our guests wanted to eat the fruit at first. I think it looked too pretty to wreck. But once they started, the tree disappeared in no time :)
Enjoy!

{xoxo}

DIY Christmas Advent Tree

Being outdoors this winter inspired me to make a rustic advent calendar. 

I envisioned the beautiful bare branches covered in rustic bags and shiny ornaments. 

My husband was gracious enough to bring along a saw to cut some branches for me on one of our lovely winter walks this year :)

First I created the advent bags using the tutorial here. 

They were super easy to stamp and label. 

Once they were done I filled them with silver, gold, and black tissue paper to match the rest of the tree decorations :)

Next, I made some fun glittery Christmas ornaments, using this tutorial. 

I love the gold and silver colours shining off of the tree branches.

To make the stand, I filled a silver milk jug with rocks, places the braches in, and set it all upon a gold platter (from the dollar store - you can get everything there!). 

Then I used moss and pinecones to decorate at the top and bottom of the jug.

I finished it off by tying a festive gold bow around the top :)

Then I filled all of the bags before hanging them.
They were filled with one of two things - either a winter/Christmas activity for us to do together, or candy :)

Ta-Da! My finished project :)

Counting down the days now until December 1st so that my husband and I can open the first bag! 

(I made sure there were enough candy/chocolate pieces that we would both get one each time!).

Happy Holidays! 

{xoxo}

Pumpkin Spice Latte [at Home!]

Three magical words when said together: Pumpkin. Spice. Latte.
Don't you just feel more relaxed already?!?
It's getting cooler outside, and I'm getting cozier inside, and coziness requires warm drinks, knitted blankets, and good books (in my opinion).
I already have the last two, so I thought I'd work on one of the classic fall drinks for my indoor evenings.

I found a few recipes that I liked, and amalgamated slash adjusted them so that they were just the way I like it: tasty and easy :)

Ingredients: 

Fresh brewed coffee (of your choice - I used decaf!)

1 1/2 Tbsp. Pumpkin pie filling

1/2 cup Milk

1 Tsp. Brown sugar

Optional [in others' view] Topping: 

Whipped Cream

Cinnamon

Nutmeg

Directions: 

1. Brew coffee of your choice
2. Whisk together pumpkin pie filling, brown sugar, and milk
3. Warm up whisked product and froth the milk (if you have a frother)
4. Pour milk mixture into your favourite fall mug, and fill up the rest of the space with coffee
5. If you want topping (which you should!) add whipped cream on top and sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg

Everyone we've served this to so far has liked it :) 

If you're making it for more than one person, just double, triple, etc. the recipe!

Enjoy! 

{yumm}

Taste of Autumn

I L-O-V-E the fall. 

It is easily my favourite season.

I love the temperatures, the colours, the leaves falling, pumpkins, apples, & cinnamon. 

What's not to love?!?

Our fall came with handfuls of fresh apples from mom's tree - perfect baking apples!

Clearly I put these apples to good use :) 

Apple pie was first on the agenda.

Then, since we had more crust, and more apples - mini individual apple pies were made too :)

We shared the goodness with neighbours and family. 

My mother-in-law told me the crust was as good as hers! Wow - that's a compliment!

Unfortunately I didn't snap any photos til after... but here are the leftovers!

Two slivers of pie, and one mini pie :)

Since we still had more apples to spare we also baked some quick apple cinnamon pancakes for breakfast!
I just used my normal pancake recipe and threw in the apples and probably a tsp of cinnamon.
Pancakes are the easiest breakfast because they are so quick to make, you can add virtually anything to liven them up, and they're made with simple ingredients that I always have lying around my kitchen! 

Even without whipped cream, these pancakes were delicious!

I'm sure there are more fall treats coming - I haven't even gotten the pumpkin out yet!

{yumm}

Kohlrabi Home Fries

I was in shock when I received this strange purple vegetable... who knew this existed?

Kohlrabi? 

Sounds made up.

But it's not, and apparently a lot of people had heard of it before, lol. 

A lot of people suggested that we eat it raw, which I'll have to try next time because in the midst of our cooking, I never even popped a piece in my mouth! 

We decided to make Kohlrabi Home Fries - hence the title ;)

They were very easy to make and tasted great!

1. Chop Kohlrabi into homefry sized pieces

2. Fry them in lots of oil. (note: they cook very quickly!)

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3. Mix together 1 tbsp of cumin, 1 tbsp. of chili powder, and 1/2 tbsp of sea salt. Sprinkle on top after cooking and spread evenly.

4. Enjoy!

Not something I expected to eat at the onset of the week, but it was a happy change from the ordinary meals and vegetables :) 

There's a 100% chance I'll try this again if I get more kohlrabi this year! 

{xoxo}

Scrapbooking Wall Decor

I love scrapbooking and making albums to show off to people. 
It was only a matter of time before I started to get some of my creations up on the wall!
So I decided to scrapbook another wedding page to hang up in a shadow box.

I had to use wedding colours (i.e. orange, brown, green & yellow) to make sure it matched the other wedding artwork on that wall.

I also wanted to make sure that this wall flowed with my orange accents and my new photo wall in the adjoining room.
Here's the finished product: 

 And here's how it looks up on the wall! 

The other shadow box frame was one of my post-wedding crafts 

and the large frame is our wedding guest tree.

This has essentially become a wedding wall :) 

{xoxo}

Going Away Present

Well he's gone... basically.
My little brother is all packed up and headed to Japan for 3 years to teach English!
I'm pretty jealous of his adventure - it's going to be amazing to be so familiar with another language and culture the way he will be.
Luckily there is always skype, which is basically how I talk to him right now (being 3 provinces away), although I don't know if the 15 hour time difference will make it too difficult for me to talk to him regularly.
It's a great opportunity and I wish him all the very best! 

What do you buy as a going away present for someone heading overseas?

Can't buy anything heavy, or large because of the suitcase. 

The gift needs to be semi-useful, and also (from my perspective) semi-meaningful too. 

Well, my brother had the idea of asking for a scrapbook of Canada to share with his students in Japan. 

I had less than a week before I saw him, so this was a bit of a daunting task, but I went for it! 

Here's his have-fun-overseas/good-bye-for-a-while Canada & Family scrapbook:

Hope you liked it Nate! We will miss you!!
See you in Japan in a year or so (hopefully!)
Lots of love from our family in Alberta :)

{adios}