Monthly Favourites

Clarisonic Mia 2 // Nicole by OPI Carrie Underwood Collection // Kiehl's Midnight Recover Concentrate // Sigma Beauty Brushes

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Throwback Thursday

February 2008 

Dressing Table

Ahh a dressing table... something I always wanted but never had room for. When I was a teenager I would get ready at my desk and now there is burn marks in the wood from the straightener. My Mother was not happy....

I always liked to sit down when I got ready .. mainly because it takes forever to do my hair so I would get tired of standing. 

When we moved to this apartment, I knew I was going to be able to put one in... I also knew that I had to get something because not only is there no counter space in my bathroom, there aren't any electrical outlets! Now 4 months after we have lived here I can finally post a picture of my dressing table!

This was when I first got it so I thought I would show you it in it's barest state. The dressing table is the Malm one from Ikea. The mirror is also from Ikea... and so is the uniform I'm wearing ;) 

I then got some con-tact paper and lined the drawer with it. This stuff is the most annoying thing to put down. Oh and I also forgot to mention... the mirror is hung by command strips because that wall is a dividing wall so it is concrete. We weren't able to put screws in it. Anyway, I will note the mirror is still there and hasn't fallen down!

Here it is with everything on it. The drawers beside are another Ikea product. I use them to store all my other beauty stuff besides makeup. This keeps all my stuff out of the bathroom. In fact, the only things in my bathroom are my facial care stuff and my toothbrush! The chair is a temporary staple until I can get a nice fancy one.

 

Moving onto the drawers, I won't show what is inside because I don't have drawer dividers for all of them. I will also share more detail into how I organized my dressing table on my business website. I use the first drawer for jewelry, the second for hair accessories and brushes, the third has hair products in there, the fourth has anything to do with skin care: moisturizers, body scrubs, etc. It basically has any excess that I am not using at the moment. And lastly, the fifth drawer has all my hair tools in there. The little white drawers on top hold my nail polishes. Eventually I am going to put little stickers on the top of the lids so I can easily see what color it is.

 

I got the mirror from homesense and I spray painted a regular cup to hold some of my lip products.

I will be doing a tutorial on the spray painting makeup holders next week. This is the other side of my dressing table. The frame is from Ikea and I made the print myself using photoshop. Pinterest is great for getting free fonts.

And of course I have to include Lady! If you don't know yet, I love Disney so you will see little Disney things pop up around my house. :)

So that is my dressing table so far. It is not complete yet but I figured it was time to show you. I still need to get all the drawer dividers for the rest of the drawers and I need to finish lining the drawers. I also need to buy a nice chair but that is not an immediate to do for that. Getting the drawers properly organized is higher on my list!

A gift for my Mom

My Mom's birthday just recently passed and I wanted to share the gift I got her because it was really amazing.

I was perusing through Etsy and I came across custom house portraits. So I finally settled on this one shop. 

Mini House Portraits

I am going to be honest with you. Her price was what was the deciding factor between her and other stores. There were tons of shops that did essentially the same thing. I paid $50 for a 5x7 painting.

So here is a preview of the kind of stuff you will see in her shop.

I ordered a portrait of the house my Mom grew up in. It is a typical downtown Toronto house and I just thought it would be a nice thing for her to have. 

Because I was getting it for my Mom and for her birthday, I had it sent directly to my Mom so I wasn't going to be able to see it in person. Working with Alison was really great. She was very quick to respond and listened to my preferences. She also scanned a picture of it to show me so that I could see and let me tell you, it turned out so good! 

My Mom actually liked her gift for once! Usually she tells me I shouldn't have spent my money on that but she liked this one so that is a plus. 

I highly reccomend this shop if you are looking for a nice sentimental gift for someone. I was really impressed.

And now for the reveal of what my Mom's house portrait looked like:

 

Weekly Recap

I'm not going to lie. I have no idea what I did this past week... uhh. It seems like a bit of a blur! 

I did go out for dinner at this burger joint here called The Works. Oh my god. If you have ever tried peanut butter on a burger, you know what I am talking about. I was a little apprehensive when I ordered it but the waitress said it was her favourite.

Before you think ... ew Lauren, what is wrong with you... I am a really picky eater so if I love it, that says something. They also put our beverages in these measuring cups. I thought it was a neat way to do things!

That is about all for this post. Short and sweet. I will leave you with these wise words of inspiration!

4 Months

Oh ma gawd... 4 months until the wedding. Every time people ask me if I'm excited ... I respond with, yea excited to get it over with! I do not recommend to anybody to ever plan a wedding for 2 and a half years!

Anyway, in November I had set out to do these things

•  Rent or buy Brandyn's tux
•  Print invitations
•  Reserve any rental equipment
•  Get some more of the decor stuff done
•  Book hotel block

Done and done with a few more things to cross off as well. Obviously "get some more decor stuff done" is a little vague but I managed to check a few things off the list.

  

Besides that list, I have also compiled a list of hair and makeup artists and decided on where we are getting the wedding pictures done.

I plan to do a post on my invitations and the screaming steal I got them at but that will be after everyone gets them because I don't want to ruin the surprise! 

Where it stands with the wedding invites as of today - I am waiting for the hotel to send my group code for online booking and then I can print out the accommodation cards. I will be sending them out in phases so if someone gets theirs before you, do not be alarmed.

Everybody who lives out of province: January 31st

Everybody who lives outside of the GTA: February 14th

Everybody who lives within the GTA: February 28th

I am sending some earlier to give time for making travel arrangements.

As for my new to-do list. I have to get this done by February 24th

•  Mail out all invitations (February 28th)
•  Book hairstylist and makeup artist
•  Decide on accessories and buy them
•  Apply for marriage license
•  Pay off DJ
•  Pay off florist

I think this batch of the list is one that I am most dreading... accessories? Absolutely no idea. Hairstylist and makeup artist is a serious chore for me and the marriage license? It is getting real now!

I have also added to pay off those two vendors. It will just be easier for us if we pay them off as soon as we can instead of waiting until the end so it is my goal to pay off those two by the end of the month!

Anywho, wish me luck on those two dreadful things to plan lol. I will report back as I go. Oh and I also plan to show off some decorations I've gathered for the wedding.. once they come in of course!

Throwback Thursday

Sorry for the lack of post yesterday. I didn't have anything good to post so I figured no content was better than crappy content :) 

Here is the throwback for this week!

 February 2009!

The Book Mailbox

I have been growing quite the collection of books I want to read or am reading... problem is they all sit in a very large pile on top of my bedside table. 

I was just sitting on my bed once staring at the wall and an idea hit me. I went into homesense to search for the perfect product to execute this idea and I came across a tin industrial "book mailbox." That is what we shall call it - because it is kind of like an inbox but for books!

Here it is all set up with some books in it!

Our apartment is very old and our walls are plaster and the exterior walls (and walls between units) are cement so screws don't jive that well here. Because of that, I use command strips to hang most things. They are seriously amazing! You can kind of see it poking out at the top there but oh well. I was a bit worried they wouldn't be able to hold the weight of the book mailbox (which is pretty heavy itself .. it is metal) let alone the massive books that I have stuck in there but it is still up there!

As you can see there are a few books on my nightstand, that is my Q&A journal and my planner. I write in those every night so I will keep them there. Underneath is some magazines that I really have to get around reading.... 

Overall I love how it turned out! It is a great place to keep these books and once I am done with them they will go onto the bookshelf in my office of course!

Weekly Recap

I started off this week by going and doing some wedding stuff. I went into Kleinburg to look at the two places I wanted to get pictures done. When I went to the first place, it was extremely disappointing and not what I expected. so that was out. Then I went to this other place which was a historical train station (that was out of service) and it didn't need a permit. It was a beautiful place but problem was.... it was all fenced up and turned into a show house for a new condo development in the area. Great. So I went for my plan B. 

This is Bovaird House in Brampton. I still have to call them yet to see about the permit and I didn't get to see inside because it was closed for the season but I was definitely sold on the outside! Exactly what I wanted. Oh and excuse the tree branches everywhere. We had a big ice storm and a lot of trees fell over and broke because of the weight.

Here is just a cute picture of Gizmo and I that we took :)

My Uncle's 50th birthday was on the weekend so we went to that. Here is my brother and I digging into our favourite dessert. You know you are related when all the desserts (and by all I mean a LOT) get put out and you both beeline for the pasteis de natas. I wish I knew how to make them but then again... it is probably a good thing I don't. 

During the week I also started on the slideshow for the wedding and I went to go see some decorations to rent. Don't have them here so I can't take a picture but let's just say that it is vintage themed ;)

Lastly, it is also my Mom's birthday today so let's all wish her a Happy Birthday!!

Anniversary

Today is mine and Brandyn's 4 year anniversary. It is the last anniversary we will have on this day because next year will be our wedding anniversary! Does anybody count both?

Anyway, we did a little fun game - The (Not Yet) Newlywed Game. Enjoy!

Throwback Thursday

September 2008

Check out my skin in this picture - I feel like everything has gone downhill from this point

Santana Concert

 

And my grade 11 school picture - I think this was the heaviest I ever was. 

Hallway Reveal

So my hallway / entryway is official done! It is the smallest area in the house so really the easiest but it still feels nice to have one room done! Here it is:

We picked this up at Target. It is great holding our mail until we get to it and hanging up our keys. It keeps everything in one place so nobody is asking where their keys are!

I set up this little photo gallery as well. The theme around the house goes with my favourite cities. New York, Toronto in the small picture and San Francisco in the bottom small picture. The bench below is from Ikea. We desperately needed a place to sit when putting on shoes and this also adds storage for our everyday shoes.

Here is the dog I got for Christmas! (I mentioned this in my Christmas and boxing day haul video on my youtube channel)

Here is another gallery wall I did. When picture frames went on sale at Ikea I immediately jumped on it. When using Ikea frames, the photos inside the mat are never an exact size, so I went to Costco and got a 12x12 print of each which is just half an inch bigger on each side than the space inside the mat. Knowing this I just made sure to pick photos that wouldn't be affected by that. 

And there is my entryway. I plan to do an updated walk through of the apartment soon as well. That is still a heavy work in progress.

Taxi Printable

Just a quick post today to share something I made for the wedding :)

I was inspired by something on Pinterest to make this for my wedding!

I went into Photoshop, made the dimensions for the size of the frame that I want, put the border (I looked up how to do that on youtube) and started with the graphic stuff. I got the owl graphic by searching for free owl clip art on google - pretty simple. The font is a free custom font that I downloaded - Pinterest has tons of selection and just put the companies and numbers in the area.

I plan to put it in a frame and place it on the bar at the wedding - you know ... just as a friendly reminder ;) 

 

Weekly Recap + an announcement!

**Read until the end because I have announcement!

This entire week I have been sick which is one of the main reasons I slacked on the blog and couldn't get a Youtube video up on Saturday. But besides sleeping until 5pm everyday, I did manage to power through and get some things done that I had previously been avoiding.

This obviously was not one of the tasks but I thought it was funny - Kitty and Gizmo love their new cat tree so much that they fight over it. This is not a permanent spot for it, I just put it there to make it easy to jump onto from the couch because it is quite tall. 

This is also what happened early on in the week and the week before - a crappy weather system. It was so cold but now when I see that it is 0 degrees, I'm like ... hey it is time to put my coat away! 

One of the tasks I started was addressing my invitations, I have them all printed and addressed now. I just need to wait for a special personal touch to come in the mail and I have to get the hotel room block sorted out which I am doing today.

Here are all the envelopes all addressed. Some people are going to be getting their invitations before others. I am sending anybody who lives out of province theirs the end of the month so that they have time to make arrangements. Anybody who lives far enough that they need a hotel will get theirs mid February and the rest I am sending out at the end of February.  Once they are all out, I will be doing a post on the invitations.

I also picked up the new Carrie Underwood collection of nail polish! I am wearing the pink one (Carnival Cotton Candy) and I love it!

And this is basically how I spent most of the week - watching Glee.

Not pictured here, but I did do it over the weekend was compile a list of makeup and hair professionals for the wedding. This was one thing I was seriously avoiding because it seemed like an overwhelming and hard task to me. Reasoning being that there is a lot of them, and they are not cheap. I decided upon a mobile service because we will be getting a hotel suite the night before the wedding. I would have had all my calls made by now but alas the illness won out and didn't get to the phoning part but I plan to do that this week!

And now for this big announcement! Over the past few months, I have hinted here and there of a new business venture. Well the website is up and I am ready to share now. I have started my own business as a Professional Organizer! I am not doing appointments just yet because I still have some administrative/legal stuff I want to get together but will let everyone know as soon as I am. In the meantime, my website is up and I will be doing all of my organizing posts on there! So head on over there and subscribe to my Facebook page to get all the organizing goodness that I am going to be sharing :) 

Website: www.laurenashleyorganizing.blogspot.ca

Facebook Page: http://on.fb.me/KTisqC

Fashion Friday

Since I have been sick all week, I haven't really worried too much about my own wardrobe but I did find this really cute outfit idea on Gal Meets Glam. 

On her blog she provides where she bought the items but I've provided more affordable options to achieve the look! 

Dress: Here, Here, and Here

Jacket: Here, Here, and Here

Clutch: Here, and Here

Shoes: Here, Here, and Here

22 Benefits of Being Married

I have been sick the last few days so there hasn't been any blog posts. Sorry about that. Because I missed the scheduled posts for the last 2 days, I'm replacing a throwback Thursday with the one that was supposed to be posted on Tuesday!

That being said, I find there is a lot of negativity around being married these days - especially towards young people getting married. I found this article over on the Inspired Bride so I thought I would share it here for some fun! 

22 Benefits of Being Married 

1. You’ll have a live-in spider killer.

Seriously. When I see a disgusting bug, I put a cup on it and wait for Brandyn to get home and get it.

 

2. Someone will always be around to reach the top shelves in the kitchen.

 

3. You’ll live longer; studies have shown married couples live longer.

4. You’ll always get a Valentine’s Day present… and an anniversary present!

Double the presents!!! Who doesn't love presents.

5 Your husband is like a built-in toe warmer waiting on the other side of the bed.

 6. You will always have someone to share your deepest secrets with. 

7. You’ll have a dishes-doing partner… and a dance partner.

8. There’s always someone to wake up if you have a creepy dream.

9. You’ll have someone to support you in all things.

10. Having someone there to bring you soup when you’re sick.

11. Starting a family with the man you adore.

12. Having a husband is like having a handyman on-call 24-hours a day.

I will never have to pay for an electrician

 

13. Gaining a whole extra family that you’ll love and who will love you.

14. Knowing that someone always has your back.

15. You’ll have a Sunday morning newspaper-reading partner.

16. He’ll be your partner in crime.

17. It’s nice having someone who knows you as well as you know yourself.

18. Two heads are better than one, especially when you’re coming up with excuses for staying home from work, getting out of a prior obligation, etc.

19. You always have a date for Saturday night.

20. Someone is always there to share laughs with.

21. Looking forward to your husband walking in at the end of the day.

22. You’ll have someone to try new recipes on… and someone to tell you how your butt looks in those jeans!

See it is not so bad! Keep in mind, you obviously don't have to be married to enjoy these perks either!