New Adventures!

2012 was a year filled with weddings, babies, apocalypses’ that didn’t happen, and new adventures into adulthood. We attended two weddings last year, one of which I was asked to photograph. To be honest I wasn’t really proud of the photos I took at the wedding and I feel really bad that I couldn’t give them better quality photos. I think I was just nervous and a bit overwhelmed with such a responsibility. The second wedding we attended was my brother Matthews wedding, which I was asked to Emcee. That was nerve wracking as well since I usually get really nervous in front of crowds. But thankfully with the help of practicing in front of a mirror and let’s not forget the open bar at the wedding, I was able to do it and not make a complete ass out of myself. The wedding was such a blast and I am so happy to finally call Rachele my sister.

We were also happy to welcome the birth of our new nephew Caleb who is just adorable. He is the first baby on my side of the family in over 12 years. I was lucky enough to be at the hospital when my sister was in labour, and had my camera with me to capture the first moments the older siblings got to see their new baby brother. My sister delivered via C-section and missed her older children’s reaction to meeting Caleb for the first time and I know she appreciates the photos that captured that moment. We knew a number of people who also gave birth last year for a grand total of 5 babies, and luckily I only had baby fever once. Along with all these babies we also got an announcement that my eldest brother Andrew and his wife Christine will be welcoming a new baby in February of this year.

On top of all these weddings and babies, Richard and I took the big step into Adulthood and became home owners. It’s been a big responsibility but one that I’m glad we took. We both love our new place and are excited to make the changes to it, and thankfully not a lot needs to be done other then some upgrades.

We also celebrated our 1 year anniversary. It’s sometimes hard to believe that we’ve been together for almost 6 years. It will actually be 6 years on the 15^th of this month, and it is a shock because it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long at all. Crazy!!!

Last year around this time I started this blog as a way to talk about movies and show some crafty things I was into, as well as just talk about things that were happening in my daily life. That quickly fizzled out and eventually got to the point where I stopped writing at all. A goal for myself this year is that I want to start writing a blog post once a week or twice a month where I do something creative that deals with crafts or home design. Being a receptionist can get rather boring and I need something that keeps me motivated and creative. I have always loved decorating and interior design, so I hope to show some of the things I can do through this blog.

Recently a friend and I edited our “Bucket List” and I really want to start crossing some things off that list, as I think this will be another good way to get out this year and do new things and see new places.

So here is to a year filled with laughter, new adventures, and creative outlets, and completely goals that I have set for myself.

Bring it on 2013.

Last Nights as a Renter!!

It's been over a year since we moved into our current house and to be honest I have hated it 90% of the time. We previously lived in an apartment together which we loved. It was a very cute apartment but unfortunately, there were some things that were wrong with it. The rent would increase each year and some of the other renters were abusing the building. One guy would actually pee in the elevator. For no reason just would whip it out and pee. So gross! Who does that?

After all this started happening at the apartment and we got engaged we decided to move in with Janine into her house that had a fixed rent and ensuite laundry room. Also it was a good way to save money for the wedding. What we discovered was how much we hate HOUSES. We are definitely Condo people. I hate that people can see into our windows. In the apartment I had no problems changing with my blinds open, because no one around me could see into our bedroom. Can't do that in a house cause all the houses look into each others backyards. In this house there is a creepy man from next door who sits across the street and stares into our living room window. And I hate shoveling snow. Thankfully this year I think we shoveled the driveway twice which was awesome, but in the new place its underground parking. Whoo Hoo!!

F**k you snow.

Oh how I hate packing. It's not a fun process. Deciding what stays and what goes. Making sure everything that is breakable is packed tight in bubble wrap. I don't know how people do this so often. I find it draining and I hate how absolutely messy everything gets when you're  packing up. We have boxes everywhere, and when you move furniture you discover you can make another cat with all the fur you find.

I have big plans for the new place, and I can't wait to get started on it all. It's going to be so nice to be able to change and decorate anything we want and not have to go through a landlord. I mean we can't tear down any walls or anything but then again neither Richard nor I are handy enough to do any of that crap.

Tonight we go to the lawyers to sign away our lives on all the paperwork and tomorrow we get the keys. :)

I'm very curious to see what the place looks like. I wonder if the previous owners left anything or cleaned anything? I mean I don't even know what we will be walking into tomorrow. It could be extremely shinning or we could have a butt load of furniture that they left. :S

Richard and I want to try and get the bed set up by Saturday night so that we can bring Smudge over to the new place. We figure if the bed is set up she will hide under it until things settle, and then she'll relax a bit, and explore. She's in pre-heat right now so we are hoping that the move scares it out of her. LOL.

Hopefully I can post again on the weekend with pictures of the new place with all our crap in it, until then hope everyone has a nice weekend.

Over and Out.

DIY Homemade Candle Tutorial.

March for us is a busy time with birthdays and anniversaries on Richards side of the family. We have my FIL's birthday on the 15th, MIL's Birthday on the 29th, and their Anniversary on the 30th. This year we decided....and by we I mean Richard, his sister Kerry and myself....to make them gifts instead of buying them something. I've really been into the DIY stuff lately and since we are all pretty crafty we decided homemade gifts were the way to go.

For my FIL we decided we were going to make him coasters that had "The Green Man" seasons on them. Kerry was able to get the pictures depicting the four seasons and we put them on each one. I unfortunately forgot to take photos of us doing them so I might do a step by step tutorial on it later. I did take one photo of a finished coaster so here it is.

*Winter*

These are the other three pictures we used.

Spring-Summer-Fall 

 

They were super easy to make, but the only problem we came across was that the ink from the printer ran a little bit when we were putting the Modpodge on them. So you may want to let the ink dry longer.

He really likes them but has decided to not use them as coasters for his office. Instead he put them in shadowboxes and hung them up on the wall in his office.

We decided to do this gift again for their anniversary as well, but instead we used pictures of them throughout the years. From their wedding photo to baby pictures of Kerry and Richard, up to a family photo of all of us at the wedding. We made 10 of them and they really liked those ones as well. I think they are also putting them in shadow boxes or doing something decorative with them.

For my MIL's Birthday we decided to make homemade candles. I found a tutorial on Martha Stewart's website and thought it was a great idea for a present. So we all went out and bought some pretty bowls with a neat design. So now for the tutorial of how to make your very own candles.

Homemade Candle Tutorial

So first you will need a few supplies:

Nested pans

Partially burned candles or new candles

Tongs

New wicking

Fancy New Bowls

Wooden skewers or Chop Sticks

Step 1:

Using your Nested Pans put water in the bottom pan and bring to a boil. In the top pan place your candle and melt that sucker down. Once it melts take the old wick out and place it on a paper towel.

We ended up using the wicks that were in the old candle but you can buy new wicks at Michael's or any craft store you like. We also couldn't find our tongs so we used a fork. :S Ah well worked the same way.

Step 2:

 Cut a piece of wick to the cup's height plus 2 inches. Dip the wick into melted wax to coat them.  Lay your Chopstick on top of bowl or cup, and what we did is we wrapped some of the extra length of the wick around the chopstick to keep it upright.

Then once you have the wick secure, pour some of the melted wax into your cup. We poured a little in at the bottom and waited to make sure the wick wasn't moving and then poured the rest of the wax in. We left about an inch of space from the top when we poured the wax in.

Step 3:

We let this dry and harden and when we came back we noticed there was a bit of a dip in the middle of the candle.

:( Stupid Dip. But no worries this is suppose to happen.

All you do is pour some extra wax into the middle until the wax is about a 1/4 of an inch under the lip of the cup.

Here you can see what I mean about the chopsticks and the extra wick.

Give it about an hour to dry and you should have your homemade candle. Just cut a little bit of the wick off and BAM you are done!

Here are some of the other candles we made.

 I'm sure you can buy scented candles to melt, but my MIL suffers from migraines and we chose unscented candles so it wouldn't cause an attack. What we did buy was some Sage Oil and put just a couple of drops into the melted wax just to give a little something special. Not enough to be to strong though.

She opened them yesterday and really liked them, and put them on her coffee table to light later that night. :)  

I have a few antique teacups that I want to try this in. I've seen some pictures online with them and thought it was super cute, so that's my next project.

Well I hope this tutorial was helpful and you enjoyed it, and I hope everyone is having a great weekend. :)

Wedding Album- Fairy Tale Story

Richard and I have been trying to finish our Wedding Album for a little while now. We are using a site called Blurb, where you can make your own book. You can design the layout and borders and background, its actually kinda cool. I had done one a while ago and when I finished I hated how everything looked. So I started it again and now it looks fantastic!!! I wanted there to be a little story at the beginning of the book about Richard and I, and when I wrote it, it came out more like a diary entry then a story. So Richard and his very talented writing skills came up with a very cute story about the two of us and I wanted to share it with whoever would enjoy it. He said when he was writing it he had the opening of Stardust going through his head. So here it is...

Halloween Wedding is a fairy tale story of love at first sight, and happily ever afters. The voice you are now hearing in your head is that of Sir Ian McKellen. If you do not like my voice, or don't know what it sounds like, you may substitute it with the voices of Sir Patrick Stewart, Sir Christopher Lee, Leonard Nimoy, or Morgan Freeman.

This story began, as many modern love stories do, with a young man stalking a young lady through the magic of internet media. The young man, named Richard, had been drifting endlessly through vast sea of Facebook profiles of local singles when at last he stumbled across the enchanting photo of a sweet young red head (well, she wasn't naturally a red head, but her hair had been red when the photograph was taken). Richard quickly discovered that she had a open profile and began glossing over her hobbies and interests. He liked what he saw. They shared some common ground in interests and she seemed nice enough.

Richard decided he wanted to get to know this young lady better and was about to send her a message and a friend invite when he suddenly realized he lacked one very important thing: courage. He closed the window and immediately sent a volley of messages to friends, asking them: is this a good idea? what should I say? if you were to receive a similar message from someone would you think it was weird? and so on. A few days later, sufficiently emboldened by his friends encouragement and advice, Richard set out with determination to introduce himself to his fair maiden. However this would prove no simple task as Richard soon realized, to his dismay, that he lacked another very important thing: her name.

Starting from scratch Richard sifted through page after page of endless names and faces until he once again came across her captivating profile picture. He discovered the name of the girl in the picture was Paula. He sent Paula a message. He waited for a reply. There was none. Seconds became minutes, minutes became hours and hours became days. No reply. He was about to give up hope when one day he noticed that his friend invite had been accepted. Furthermore he discovered that the acceptance of his invitation had opened certain privileges that allowed him to chat with her when she was online. As luck would have it, she happened to be online at that very moment! He said hello, asked how she was and waited for a response. The response came.

“ Who the hell are you?” she asked. “ This chat window thing doesn't show me your name.”

Richard apologized and introduced himself, and what followed was several months of awkward messaging and online chatting. Finally he managed to talk her into meeting him in person. They had their first date at T.J. Chigaco's (now Tee Jay's Sports Kitchen). Paula, initially wary of this strange young man who had spent the last few months stalking her on the internet, fell quite quickly for him after this. By their third date they had shared their first kiss and officially became boyfriend and girlfriend, even going so far as to update their relationship status on Facebook.

From this point on the two were inseparable, renting their first home after only a year of being with one another, and there they retreated into their own little world together. The following years flowed like a dream as the two of them built their timeless life of amusement parks, haunted houses, wax museums, sci-fi conventions and B-horror films at drive in theatres.

Originally they scoffed at the idea of marriage, believing that those who went through the hustle and bustle to make loud and showy declarations of love typically did so to compensate for how weak the bond between them actually was. Yet over time they found themselves warming to the idea in spite of themselves. They loved each other and they loved the life they shared together, so why not celebrate it?

Having made the decision, they thought it best to keep it to themselves for the time being. They needed time to decide exactly what kind of wedding they wanted. Paula said she wanted to elope, inviting no more than six people. Richard, already displeased with how dry and diplomatic their engagement had been argued against this. He told her he wanted her to have a day she would remember forever, and, for that matter, he wanted to give her a proper engagement for the same reason. He asked her for time to plan something special for their formal engagement. He told her to use that time to plan out a wedding suited to their tastes, so that when the time came to announce their decision to the world everything would already be arranged and people wouldn't be able to coerce them into more traditional arrangements.

Over the following months Paula busied herself with the details of their special day. She was referred by some close friends to an officiant named Suzanne Peters, and found a small yet inviting venue called The Caledon Inn. She picked out the decorations, the flowers, the cake, her dress, the party favors and so on and so forth. All the while Richard made plans for the engagement. He sought out the help of a young musician named Alex James, asking him if he would record an acoustic version of an old love song named Golden Earrings and for the price of a beer Alex agreed. With that done Richard enlisted the help of two friends, Hillary and Janine, to help insure his proposal went off without a hitch.

It was the evening of October 30^th, Devil's Night. Richard, Paula and their friends Janine and Hillary set out for a haunted night on the town at Screamfest in Toronto. They wined and dined and at the stroke of midnight, (well, not really, but that would have been good) Richard serenaded Paula with his gypsy love song, took a knee, placed the ring in her hand and they were engaged.

On October 29^th the following year they were wed, and it was probably one of the most unique weddings anyone assembled had been to, but I won't tell you about that. A pictures worth a thousand words after all, and there are plenty of those ahead...

And then obviously you start with the pictures. I laughed so hard at the beginning of this story with all the different actors names, and then since I'm such a pansy I cried a little near the end. Now that this is complete I'm going to put it in the book tonight, review it and put the order in. Blurb is actually having a 25% off sale so that should be helpful. Let me know what you think about the story in comments.Richard really likes to get peoples opinions on his writing. If you want to keep updated on my posts just become a follower or you can subscribe through email :) Happy Thursday Everyone.