Monthly Favourites

I was originally going to post this on Friday but I was so busy and didn't make it home until late. Read the weekly recap Monday to find out what all went down this week. But anyway, here it is now!

Philosophy Purity Made Simple Cleanser: I bought this because I kept hearing so many good things about it. It sucked up all the oil on my skin but didn't dry it out. I highly recommend this cleanser. My face felt very clean after I used it.

Lush Tea Tree Water Toner: It is no secret that tea tree oil is amazing for you and helps get rid of pimples. I love this toner so much. I just spray it on after I use my cleanser and walk away. So easy yet so refreshing and it actually smells good (unlike straight tea tree oil).

Lush Ocean Salt Cleanser: You know when you hear those commercials that say you can see the results? This one you actually can. I use this every other day as an exfoliant. I can use it that much personally but if you feel irritated from using it that often then just do it every 3rd or 4th day. After I wash this off, my face actually looks brighter. I don't even know how it works but man, it is amaze-balls! I can't say enough good things about it. 

Bumble and Bumble Surf Spray: I decided to try this out as another curl control type thing. For me this was a nice spray because it helped keep the frizz out and I didn't feel icky product in my hair. What it didn't do was keep it from being big but hey, I hear big curly hair is in now!

As you can see I have two Lush products on here. I am really impressed with this company. I knew about it before but I had never really looked into what they did as a company. If you haven't either, basically they use all natural products and try to get as many local as they can. There are no preservatives or harsh chemicals in it so the product does in fact expire but you will use it before it does. I love how they are always supporting charities and they do not test on animals. I try to be conscious about that when choosing my products. So far I am really happy with my products from them and you can look forward to seeing more of those products showing up on here.

Throwback Thursday

February 2007

I surprisingly don't have a picture from my birthday but I turned 15 this month.... 

The pictures represent my first high school dance - yay :) 

W&D No No (in my opinion)

This is kind of one of those in my humble opinion / what I have learned through experiences posts...

Lately I have noticed a lot of homes being built with the washer and dryer on the second floor... mostly because people are asking for it out of convenience. I totally agree about the convenience but there are some issues that come with that. 

Second floors aren't made like the first floors and basements so they can't exactly handle the shaking of the machines and may cause your whole floor to shake while running.

You would need to find very quiet machines because well... they are right beside bedrooms and I don't know about you but I tend o start doing laundry at night.... 

Those are just pesky things but the main problem with it is: What if it floods?

If you are on the second floor, your second floor will be ruined and your first floor and maybe even your basement. If the washer and dryer was in the basement then it is almost a non-issue. If it is on the first floor you just worry about that area and the basement.... not the entire house. 

So yes I just wanted to give everyone something to think about when figuring out where to put those washers and dryers. I mean... we can all use a little exercise in our lives... even if that is just lugging laundry baskets up and down the stairs!

And of course, I need to give you some laundry rooms that I find swoon worthy!

(Source)

 (No Source)

(Source)

(Source)

9 Months!

I still can't believe the wedding is so close... 9 months away! By this point I had set out to: 

• Book the DJ
• Book the photographer
• and Book the florist

Missions accomplished!

I booked this photographer. Check out her website to a view a sample of her work. I'm excited to see what she will do with my wedding. You can read more about that here.

You can read about how I booked the DJ here. I discovered them through a recommendation on the Knot's local Toronto board. I highly suggest using local forums online. They are a great resource.

And finally I booked the florist which again, was found through a recommendation through the board. Read about that here.

Here is what I need to have done by November 24th! That is 6 months away from the wedding!

• Buy the gown 
• Determine menu
• Book cake baker
• Book ceremony musicians
• Book transportation
• Buy bridesmaid dresses

I got the gown way back last year and am happy to report that it still fits me! The menu was also determined when I booked the hall because it is an all inclusive type thing. The ceremony musicians were again booked when I booked the church. 

So I just need to book the cake baker, transportation and have my bridesmaids order the dresses (which I still need to pick out). I figure book the cake baker in September and have transportation done in November. I honestly have no idea what I'm going to do about the transportation because my budget is nothing compared to the prices out there.....

 

Weekly Highlights

This week was a pretty busy one...

My Mom came into town for business so we did a lot of running around and picking up stuff for the shower and went out for dinner with my Uncle, Aunt, cousin and her son. Excuse the blacked out faces, I don't have permission to put them on here!

 

We celebrated my Dad's birthday:

I also have an announcement: 

We got approved for an apartment. So we move in October! 

And this past Saturday was 9 months until the wedding so make sure to check back tomorrow as I will be posting an update on how well I did with my checklist up until now and the list of things to do by the next milestone.

Hope you had an awesome weekend!

Wedding Shoes

Do you remember these? 

I saw them waaay back in July 2012 during our trip to Oregon. They were a really good price so I asked the bridal salon there if they would ship them to Canada. They said yes. 

Let's fast forward to last January. I ordered the shoes and everything seemed good to go. 

Now it it is the end of March.... I don't have the shoes and I'm prepping to move to Ontario. So I call them....

I call them and the girl said her computer was being slow and she would call me back. I get a phone call and its the manager of the store. Right then I was like, "Ok what is wrong?" 

The manager tells me that they never had the shoes on layaway but they had my payment (of course). So he told me he was going to call the factory and have them ship the shoes straight from there to my house. I changed the address to my Mom's and everything seemed good to go.

Yea... no. I never got the shoes. I still don't have the shoes and I've moved on from those shoes. The credit card company was called to let them know we never got that item and they gave us a refund and I'm guessing went after the store. 

I can't remember what the bridal store's name was or I would say but I was definitely not impressed.

I looked for shoes and came across plenty of beautiful shoes but I didn't want to pay hundreds of dollars for them.... then I came up with an idea.

The shoes I have picked, I already have so they are basically free. I am not saying what they are because I definitely want them to be a surprise but they definitely tie into my personality :) 

So excited for them!

Throwback Thursday

January 2007

Bridal Shower Color Scheme

With planning any event, you should have a color scheme right? Well until like yesterday... we did not have one for the shower. 

My Mom came into town for work and we took a day to run around and do errands for the shower. In doing that, we figured out exactly what color the napkins that hotel will be giving us. Royal Blue. So I thought... what goes with royal blue? 

Enter The Perfect Palette. I follow them on Pinterest and seriously go to this all the time because I'm horrible for color-coordinating.

So anyway, I found this lovely set: Navy and Pink (I know the napkins are royal blue but it is close enough)

I like how the pink is being included because it is also one of my wedding colors. I would have loved to do pink and gold - that is really in right now - but we weren't paying to rent napkins when they provided us with these certain colors. That is just silly!

Florist

So we have booked the florist. I'll admit, I was a little afraid of this one because I have heard some pretty outrageous quotes for flowers but I have said this before and I'll say it again and again... use your contacts! 

I go on a local wedding forum for my city and I have found almost all my vendors through this so far. I basically go on there and ask people if they know of any good vendors within this certain price range. 

I got a name, and a couple more from various sources and I emailed them all but what stood out for this certain vendor was that instead of emailing me back saying, "Ya book an appointment," she emailed me back asking me very detailed questions so that when we did have our meeting, she already had a proposal ready for me. 

So I answered her questions and didn't bother with the other ones I had emailed. I also sent her some pictures of some examples of things that I liked (Pinterest is such a lovely tool). Here are some of the pictures I sent:

She had a very detailed vision of what she had in mind which I loved and she also came back under budget. Another brownie point for her because like real estate agents, most wedding vendors like to push your budget. 

So anyway, I won't tell you what style we are going with because I would like to leave some elements of the wedding a surprise but I know it will be so gorgeous!

Oh and I just realized I never mentioned who we booked and I must do that!

Here is her website: Click Me

Weekly Highlights

My blog is always changing. I'm always trying to come up with new ways to make it better and more interesting. I few weeks ago, I started doing weekend recaps. I noticed after doing a couple that sometimes, the more interesting things happened during the week and really nothing good happened during the weekend. So now I will be doing highlights from the previous week! 

Here are the highlights from last week:

• We booked our florist! There will be a post on that later this week.
• We also went to Ottawa for a night because my brother had a game there (yes all that way for one game). Here are some pictures.

 Nice digs. The Westin Hotel

 Such a big fluffy duvet. I wish I could have taken it home.

And the whole reason we were there.....Don't mind the crappy picture. I took it with my phone

Blog Love

For a while I've been meaning to feature the blogs that I follow. I like to read blogs and I follow quite a few of them. I plan to feature each one over time. Today I will be featuring:

Little Baby Garvin

If you frequent on Pinterest, you may have seen this floating around a few times:

This blog was the first blog that I discovered and was really part of the inspiration to me creating my own blog. I had followed hers for a while and a few others and then decided to just do it.

She has the coolest layout: 

And she is always coming up with the cutest outfit mood boards for her little girl who is one of the cutest babies I have ever seen. She has tons of ideas and advise and gives you real life, no bull experiences. Here is one of her more recent outfit boards. You'll have to go to her bog to see where you can buy this stuff. 

Throwback Thursday

December 2006

- Panic! at the Disco Concert 

- On our way to a Choir Competition type thing
- Christmas and New Years with my Dad

Bedroom Inspiration

Yesterday I posted a moodboard for the dressing table I would like to have. Today I am doing our bedroom. If you can recall here, we did have a bedroom set. Key word: did. I was never a fan of the dresser and nightstand that we had so we sold them before we moved. I also gave the mirror to my Mom because it was probably going to break during the move. The only thing we really brought was the bed. 

But... we have decided to keep that here at my Dads and let my brother have it because I have always had my eye on a different bed. When we bought the Hopen bed from Ikea, we did so because we didn't have a bed frame and it was on a special for only $70. It was meant to be temporary. 

Here is what I'm planing for our bedroom when we get our new place:

 (duvet cover from Urban Barn and the rest from Ikea)

Those are the basics. I would accessorize and everything once it is all set up. I originally wanted this nightstand but at almost $400 each, it was a little out of my price range. I've actually been scouting craigslist for most of these items to see if I can score them even cheaper.

Those two dressors are actually really short and at bed height so I am going to use them as nightstands. I like the idea of having nice big nightstands with drawers because that means more storage space :)

As for clothing dressers... I'm not sure what route I'm going with that yet. I'm pretty picky....

Now to just get into an apartment so I can stop telling you my plans and actually SHOW them ... :)

Dreaming of a Vanity

 I have always preferred to sit down at a desk, or on the floor and gotten ready than to stand in front of the bathroom mirror. It had never dawned on me until just recently that a vanity/dressing table would be perfect for me! Since then I have been dreaming of a vanity. Here are some inspiration pictures that I have pulled together.

(source)

 

(source)

 

(source)

(source)

 

 (source)

(source)

(source)

 Aren't those swoon worthy? Here is a little moodboard I put together using Olioboard to show what I'm thinking for mine.

Vanity, Mirror and Drawer unit from Ikea, Chair from Urban Barn

 

The lamp is from Plum 28 and far too expensive. I was just using it as an example. I'd add a tray to the top and some cute plastic organizers in the drawer with decals like this:

(source)

And isn't this little jewelry box from Urban Outfitters so pretty?

 

Basically, there is my shopping list! Hopefully when we get a new place and get our bedroom set up I can get on that. Tomorrow I will be posting something very similar to this but to do with the bedroom plans!