Category: Uncategorized

Wingdust in Honest Puck (please excuse the phone pic)

Aw, babby’s first indie polish! I discovered this brand about a month ago by searching for Canadian indie brands (most US ones don’t ship to Canada). I found them just before they restocked which is GREAT because they sell really quickly! I was actually sitting at my computer refreshing their site like a frigging idiot, and I still didn’t get one of the colours I wanted!

Anyway, the polishes I did manage to get (plus a bonus mini polish) arrived the other week and I finally got a chance to try one of them last weekend (this was supposed to be my holiday party mani, instead it was my sweatpants-n-the-couch mani). I am basically IN LOVE, the colour is gorgeous and a literally dream to apply. The glitters go on really well, the polish dries very fast and the opacity is great- this is just two coats. I can’t wait to try out the others!

I love Jessica’s work, and this book looks amazing.

The most accurate thing I’ve ever read in my life.

Pizza Underground plays covers of Velvet Underground, except all the songs are about pizza and are legitimately amazing. Also, Macaulay Culkin?

Christin will explain anything.

An interview (+ coupon code) with Melissa of Little Pancakes on Apocalypstick.

A super cute and easy idea for gingerbread cookies (which I might make EVEN EASIER by using a tube of Pillsbury cookie dough because why not).

What Gwen wore.

This week I’ve mostly been super busy finishing the very last of my holiday orders, and making samples of some all-new banner styles. I’ve been instagramming some sneak peaks but in case you missed them…

top row: blue/pink Rose & Dot “Oh My Darling” banner; samples of blue and yellow Star, clear Pearl on purple, and purple Sheer Dot on purple
bottom row: blue/pink Stripe, Spot and Star; clear Pearl on white and black, red/white Gingham and yellow Sheer Dot on white

The first style (Rose & Dot) is available for custom banners now, and I should have the others up early next week. I’m really excited about how these have turned out, and with each style available in multiple colours I will have tons of amazing options! Star, Stripe and Spot come in four different colour combinations, Rose & Dot, Gingham and Pearl come in five and Sheer Dot comes in eight! Additionally, Sheer Dot and Pearl are translucent, so whatever colour I put them over shows through and changes the look significantly- I put the same colour Pearl sheet over white and black in the sample picture above, and you can see how differently each one turned out!

This day has been very frustrating so far. All these little annoying things keep happening and piling on top of me until I’m so irritated and angry I just want to scream. The two most aggravating:

1. There is no hot water. Apparently the water heater has a hole and was leaking all weekend so it needs to be replaced, but like…. they just replaced it in AUGUST. I swear, they replace the dumb thing 2-3 times every year, it’s absurd. STOP REPLACING CRAPPY WATER HEATERS WITH OTHER CRAPPY WATER HEATERS. I was too tired to have a shower last night and I slept in too late to have one this morning, so my plan was to have one this afternoon during Gwen’s nap, but NOPE, I just have to sit here and stew in my own filth and also not wash the dishes that are piling up.

2. SALT. SALT ON MY STAIRS. It’s snowing today, but just BARELY. Here’s a pic to illustrate how very snowy it is not:

It’s not even anything, and it’s certainly not an amount of snow that you have to do anything about. In my mind when it snows you wait until there’s enough to shovel, and after you’ve shovelled if there are any stubborn icy patches, you toss a little salt on them. unfortunately I live in IDIOTVILLE and people seem to believe that you should preemptively SALT FUCKING EVERYWHERE. I knew someone would be going around throwing salt on all the stairs and walkways, so when the maintenance guy came to tell me about the hot water I specifically asked him to NOT salt my stairs. Two hours later?

SALT. SALT FUCKING EVERYWHERE. GREAT HANDFULS OF BLUE SALT THROWN ALL OVER MY STAIRS. I seriously hate this stuff, I gets tracked into the house and makes a mess, plus it is TERRIBLE for animals! When the dog walker dropped Dougal off he was limping and crying he was in so much pain! I had to clean his paws off and then go out and sweep up as much of the salt as I could, and now MY paws are in pain. AND I ONLY HAVE FREEZING COLD WATER TO WASH THEM.

So yeah. Forget today. Today is a garbage day.

Hard Candy in The End

This mani is very plain BUT I did it after drinking two beers and didn’t screw it up at all, which I think is super impressive. I think I’m finally getting my nail skills back after going a year without painting them!

PS in case you were wondering the movie in the background is Spring Breakers

Friday night we decorated the tree, with the traditional donuts & sparkling wine. Sym was in a very bad mood so it was actually a very trying evening. She said nothing was bothering her, but then she fell asleep on the couch at 9:30 so I think the problem was that she was really tired.

H&M had these horrible pumpkin masks in the clearance section so OBVIOUSLY I had to get one

Saturday was my day to go do all my last minute shopping done. I had to go all over the city (ie three different locations) and it was kind of a nightmare because it was cold and I’d bought a ton of stuff I had to lug around everywhere, but it was also a wonderful time because I love buying presents! I was also looking for something for my Goody Goody Gift Swap partner, and I think I was able to find the perfect thing!


Taylor bought this, it was … less gross than I was expecting? horribly sweet though
Saturday night Taylor and I had arranged for Sym’s dad to babysit so we could go to his office holiday party, but Gwen had different ideas. She was feeling under the weather* all day so we ended up cancelling to stay home with her. After she went to bed we had special, not-on-poutine-night poutine (normally we only have it on Thursdays) and watch Fast & Furious 6 (RIP Paul Walker).

it’s been unreasonably cold here so on Saturday I bought Gwen a puffy coat from Old Navy and a stroller wrap, and now she’s snug as a bug when we go out


I’m literally obsessed with this wrapping paper
Sunday was Taylor’s day to do his last minute shopping, although I also ran a couple errands with Gwen. I spent most of the afternoon wrapping presents, and I’m happy to have gotten it all done early (minus two gifts that haven’t arrived yet). I feel very organized, it’s a good sign that maybe this year I won’t end up cancelling Christmas dinner because I’m too disorganized to cook.

*this is code for “had diarrhea”

This post is a lot later & lazier than normal, as I didn’t bother saving ANY links this week. OH WELL ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Instead of links I’m going to talk about pajamas because why not.

In the spring when Gwen started rolling over and moving around more, she’d get into all sorts of trouble at sleep time, wedging her arms and legs through the bars of the crib. I tried putting a pool noodle under the sheet and while that helped a little we needed to take more drastic measures. At that time she was growing out of all her cute footie pajamas so we switched her to a Mod Swad sleeper, which kept her legs contained and not shoved through the bars.

After nine-ish months of constant use it’s starting to look pretty gross, and since it’s almost Christmas pajama time I decided to switch her back to pajamas recently, and last night I dressed her in footie pajamas for the first time in forever. I seriously just about had a fit, how could I have forgotten HOW FRIGGING CUTE THEY ARE???? Especially now that Gwen’s a little toddler, seeing her standing and walking in them basically slays me. I wanted to leave her in the all day but tragically she suffered diaper containment failure and they had to go straight in the laundry this morning.

They remind me of these ones from last winter, which were my favourites:

She has the same hat in cream & a similar sweater in brown now, so I can basically relive this whole outfit, haha. (for Gwen’s daytime outfit this week go here)

OH AND I DID SAVE ONE LINK, to the latest addition to my Christmas playlist.

You can download it here. I realized a few weeks ago that my Halloween playlist was 3 minutes longer than my Christmas playlist and HOW DOES THAT EVEN MAKE SENSE???? Since then I’ve been adding more songs and I’m pleased to say that the Christmas playlist is now 9 whole minutes longer than “Spoopy Creppy” (my Halloween playlist).

I have a three-step process for putting up my Christmas tree so that babies don’t destroy it (more on that below) and I’m only on step two, so I’ve been putting up my other decorations to fill the void (not really but yeah really).

My silver glitter “Be Merry & Bright” banner is new this year. I was actually inspired by a customer who ordered a gold “Be Merry” banner, but since I can have banners as long as I want I expanded on the original idea. The lights are clear globes that I’ve had for a few years but never used. Originally I was going to do something with them in the kitchen, and then the bedroom, but they ended up just collecting dust on top of the bookcase until last night.

pro tip: unscrew the bulbs and stash them in empty egg cartons so you don’t break any when you’re hanging up the cord!

I also put up my Playmobil nativity scene. Actually, I set up the stable and Sym arranged the characters. She’s also promised to loan me some extra animals from her vast Playmobil collection. There were guinea pigs at the nativity, right? I mean, Santa was there:

I have an unofficial tradition of adding something new to my wreath every year. The first year I made it I took a plain wreath and added tiny gold leaves, red berries and small white globe ornaments. Last year I added two little birds, and this year a string of tiny lights (battery operated). Next year maybe I’ll add a bow? WHO CAN SAY.

How To Put Up Baby’s First Christmas Tree

This is actually Gwen’s second Christmas but last year she wasn’t the force of destruction she is this year, and I had no idea how she’d react to a lighted, ornament-covered tree suddenly appearing in our living room. I’ve honed this three-step technique over the past seven years of being a childcare provider, where every year was SOMEONE’S first Christmas, and I’ve never had a tree incident (knock on wood). Doing it this way gives baby the opportunity to get used to the tree being there, and gives you the opportunity to see how they’ll react to it, and also to teach them to leave it alone.

Step 1: Put up the tree with no lights or decorations, and then leave it for three days to one week.

Step 2: Add the lights on the tree and the leave it for three days to one week.

Step 3: Add all your ornaments. By now baby is so used to the tree it doesn’t even register on their radar. I hope!

I put our tree up on Sunday and originally I was planning on adding the lights this Friday and the decorations next Friday, but tbh the lightless tree was starting to depress me and Gwen was doing really well with it, so I decided to do the lights last night and we’re adding the ornaments tomorrow night, so fingers crossed it goes well! When I first put it up Gwen crawled over and gave some of the branches an experimental poke, but they’re quick prickly so she quickly moved on. This morning she tugged on one light cord but I just distracted her by saying “Gwennie! No!” and is silly shocked voice, and when she’d moved on to some toys I tucked the offending cord deeper into the branches. So far so good!

cinnamon toast waffles & mandarin orange / tomato, cucumber & cheddar salad

I’m pretty sure Gwen has now fully made the transition to being a one nap-a-day baby. It’s weird to think that only a few months ago she was still have THREE naps! She still wakes up around 8:30 or nine in the morning, and then she goes down for her nap at around 1pm. If I’m lucky she sleeps for a couple hours, if not then she has a total meltdown before we can get her in the bath. She has a new, earlier bedtime of 7:30-ish.

I think for me the most difficult part about her adjusted sleep schedule has been figuring out her new mealtimes. It used to be really easy: food when she wakes up, bottle before she goes down. Now it’s breakfast when she wakes and maybe a lil snack then lunch at 11:30 and a bottle at 12:30, then snack after nap and dinner HOPEFULLY around 6 (I’m not used to getting dinner ready that early!) and a bottle before bed. It sounds simple now but it’s taken me a week to get the whole thing down.

And finally, this baby is now a walkin’ fool. She will walk unsupported for 5-6 steps at a time, before she has to grab onto the furniture or drop to a crawl. Every day she walks further and further on her own.

Essie in Mesmerize + Sinful Colors in Hottie (what a weird name for a blue glitter, should be Coldie)

I don’t like Hottie on it’s own; it’s too translucent for my tastes. I layered it over a blue to try and capture how it looks in the bottle, but I think a more electric/royal blue would have worked better. tbh I really hated this mani at first. I did it at night and in the artificial lighting the glitter looked like plain silver. It reminded me of this weird glitter paint I used to have for the daycare kids, haha idk. It’s grown on me though, and the glitter is more dimensional than just silver; it’s actually turquoise blue and iridescent.

duh.

do you like blackberries, Gwen?




everything.



a grumpy robot.


concert hangover recovery.