If Someone Throws A Rock At You...

"If someone throws a rock at you, throw a flower back...just remember to throw the flower pot with it!
-unknown.

Being the thrifty person that I am I am always looking for fun and cheap ways to up cycle old things into beautiful new things. I truly believe most pieces of furniture have at least a few lives in them, you just have to get a little creative. Not to mention the fact that I seem to have champagne taste on a beer budget, and I am talking the home brewed, maybe even in the bathtub quality of beer budget my friends. With a budget like that, you have to get a little bit creative. I was at the dollar store last week (which can truly be a wonderful place if you look past the cans of cocktail wieners and mouse traps) and I noticed an abundance of terracotta pots. Lets face it, planters are pricey. It always surprises me that big box stores expect people to pay upwards of thirty bucks for a clay pot that has been glazes within an inch of it's life. As a child my mom was always very creative and worked best on as she says "a shoe string budget". We painted clay pots and we used them for plants, as pencil/pen holders, as little vessels to hold bobby pins and as candle holders. We used acrylic paint. We brushed it on, sponged it on and stenciled it on there, ending up with beautiful and unique mini pieces of art. It was a wonderful project for kids to take part in. So I did an online hunt and here are some ideas I found that I rather loved to turn a one dollar clay pot into something great!
-m

Fabric!

When Red-Haired People....

"When red-haired people are above a certain social grade, their hair is auburn."- Mark Twain.

I have been growing my hair for months...like seventeen months to be specific. I had a sweet pixie when I moved to Halifax and maintained short locks for a couple of years. I decided to grow it out for my best friends wedding and for the first time in my life, I am having trouble parting with it. It never phased me to grow and chop, grow and chop, that was pretty much my hair cycle. That and just chop-chop-chop. Scissors do not scare me, but this time around I am just not ready to part with my seventeen month endeavor. That is commitment. That is more time and commitment than many of my relationships and it's really not hurting anyone is it? My sister would argue that it is hurting me and my degree of "edgy-ness". Ha. She tells me I used to be edgy and that I am getting dull in my old age. So this time I left it long, dyed it red and got him to cut me weird little short bangs. I am also rocking a nose hoop for the first time in years! Edgy enough? Who knows but I always do like a change and I am told red heads have more fun. I will keep you posted on that, lets consider it a social experiment! For now I will leave you with some red-headed love/ inspiration. You can't deny it, these people/ characters are nothing short of a ball of fun!
-m

Don't Live Down To Expectations...

"Don't live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable."- Wendy Wasserstein

Last week my sister graduated from university and I couldn't be more proud of her. She is bright, stubborn, compassionate, funny and she has grown into a lovely young lady who I am proud to call my baby sister.  Did I mention she is cute as a button, determined and that she is just the right amount of fear-less?  I look very much forward to seeing where all of these qualities take her in the future. She will do something special, I just know it.

For grad day I played with fondant for the first time. Way fun! I made cupcakes and tried to keep them as cute as possible because a cute lady deserves cute cupcakes. Unfortunately I have not become close friends with my Kenmore yet so the oven temperature was a guessing game. I ended up with slightly dry cuppie cakes...sigh..

Happy Tuesday and congratulations Sarah-Jo!
-m

How cute is she?

Best Way To Get Rid....

"Best way to get rid of kitchen odors, eat out!"- Phylis Diller

As excited I am about being a home owner, I can honestly barely contain myself,  I find myself sometimes mourning my 60's glam low-rise in the heart of the city. Yes, I complained about it...a lot. I lived there for four years and it was nothing short of entertaining. A couple of weeks ago I ran into Colin, my apartment neighbor and fellow islander who lives on the third floor. We discussed all of the ridiculous and funny things that have happened in that building over the past few years and established that as much as we both disliked the bull-*hit, the cheap rent, location and funny stories that came out of living there made it all worth while. I secretly miss my life-vest orange and lime green kitchen. I miss my walk to work and stumbling home in bare feet after a Martini Monday. I will always hold it a little bit near and dear since it is where I started my new life in Halifax and where I embarked on my career. Here are a few doozies Colin and I came up with...

-Superintendents son throwing burning charcoal in the dumpster and setting my apartment (which lives over the dumpster) on fire. Waking up to five fire-fighters at my door...

-My sister calling me at work to tell me that there was a half naked woman passed out in front of my door in the hall..

-Leaky bathroom that didn't get fixed for 11 months..

-Neighbors sending their children into the fire escape hall way (which back onto each master bedroom)  to "cry-it-out" each morning.

-Replacing the carpet in the hallways twice before fixing Colin's bathroom, which was crumbling down around him.

- Drug dealers living in the basement..classy joint.

-My moving in late because it was being "professionally cleaned" when really there was yogurt on the walls, pee in the toilet and an inch of grease on top of all the cupboards that required a strong arm and a paint scraper.

-Colin moving in late because the previous tenant had a paint fight with herself and tossed gallons of paint all over the kitchen and the walls...

Ridiculous? Yes. Kinda funny? Hell yes.
-m

I will leave you with memories of my apartment kitchen. I would share more pictures of my updates and progress in my little house but I am currently working on hanging art. Naked walls aren't very inviting my friends. I also have a whipper sniper and a leaf blower currently residing on top of my dining room table...you get the picture, hillbilly central.
-xo

Just Because Something Is Different..

"Just because something is different, doesn't mean anything had changed.."-Irene Peter

Renovating the blog, bare with me, it is just time for a face lift! Hope everyone had a wonderful sun-shiny long weekend filled with good friends, good wine, the outdoors and anything else that is important! xo
-m

Pour Yourself A Drink...

"Pour yourself a drink, put on some lipstick and pull yourself together." Liz Taylor

Sending you all some lip-love inspiration! Kiss Kiss.
-m

Decorate Your Home...

"Decorate your home, it gives the illusion that your life is more interesting than it really is.."
-Charles M. Shultz

Sorry for the long lost posts that have not arrived in more than a week. My life has been filled with boxes, big trucks, paint, topsoil, paint and a lack of internet. Now that my internet is back on, and I am slowly settling into new digs, I plan on getting back on track with this little labor of love.

Remember that post a couple back, you know the one about pink doors. Doors so pink that they would make any little girl who fancies herself a princess swoon. Well after much moral and decorating debate, I settled on a color called Tutti Fruity. Yes my friends, the name says it all. After hours spent with my dad in Home Depot, scraping old paint, replacing rotten stair treads and exactly four coats of pink paint, my house sort of became the talk of the street. I have to admit, I had regrets with the first coat, I questioned my sanity with the second and by the third I said screw it, it is just paint. Turns out I love it, as do most of my neighbors. I think my next door neighbor said it best when he stated that "It adds some much needed zap to the street". I will take it! Here are some pics, shutters and window boxes soon to come!
-m

Who says I need a truck, dad can convince me to do all kinds of things!

Told you there was lots of scraping!

Ta-Dahhh!

Cute right? Shutters and window boxes next, landscaping has much improved since this picture was taken!