Sibling Rivalry is Real and Netflix Can Help!

Happy Friday guys! Ready for the weekend? It's one of my favourite weekends of the year here in Ottawa. Tomorrow is the Great Glebe Garage Sale where the entire neighbourhood hauls their junk out of their basements and litters their driveways with stuff. The expression, one person's junk is another's treasure couldn't be more true at this event. There is stuff everywhere to be had and for the DIY lover, it's paradise. I'm on the hunt for an old dresser for our baby girl. It's almost time to move her into a big girl room and I would love to give an old dresser a facelift. I found this chair at the big sale a few years ago.

It's also Ottawa Race Weekend where the city encourages thousands of runners along their race journey. Mr. Fix-It and I are both running the 10k. Well, he's really running it and a couple of girlfriends and I are doing the walk/run...well more walk ;) I digress.

Having three kids is busy. Really busy. The kids are always together. They love each other and play together a lot. It's comforting that they stick up for one another and travel as a team. However, they aren't best of friends at all times. There are days that they can go from playing happily to wham! tackling each other or calling the other person a name they think is awful. A popular one that we've heard the last couple weeks is "you're a bum head" ;) Yup, none of this is the end of the world but obviously we talk to them about this behaviour and remind them that words hurt. We also have a few Netflix shows that are good reminders to the kids to be kind to one another.

The Hive - Episode: Babee's Room - Buzzabee and Rubee compete over who Babee (their new sibling) gets to room with. Mom and dad must explain to Buzzabee and Rubee that Babee needs to grow up before she can share a room.

Puffin Rock has a good episode about following the rules - Mama tells Oona and Baba to stay close as a storm approaches. After ignoring her advice, Oona and Baba get stuck in a seagull nest during the storm.

Self-love is always good to fuel into your kids' souls. It's our responsibility to do our best to engrain that into our kids. We want them always to feel special, powerful and to love themselves. The Adventures of Puss in Boots has a great episode that reminds kids that they are awesome.

Feel free to keep these Netflix shows on hand when you need them. As for Mr. Fix-It and I, we're almost finished the Scandal marathon...I don't want it to end it's so good AND I've had a sneak peak at the upcoming season of Orange is the New Black and it doesn't disappoint!

Have a fab weekend. I'll let you know what I find at the garage sale. Wish me luck in the hunt for treasures.

Keep it Beautiful.

   I'm part of the Netflix Stream Team. Every month I remind you how much I love the Netflix addiction and want to encourage you all to love it too. All the words and thoughts are mine.

Al Fresco At Last! Summer Dining

Hey guys! Thanks for giving me a little grace while I've started up my new gig. I've been working hard, listening, learning and rockin' those heels. Last weekend was a welcomed break and the holiday on Monday was a sweet treat. My American friends, your long weekend is coming up. Woot! 

Can we talk patio season? It's officially here! Heaven. My parents took the kids up to the cottage for a couple days last weekend while Mr. Fix-It and I did some gardening and got the yard ready for this fab warm weather. It's always a sweet treat to be alone together. We get so much done and get to hang out...just the two of us. 

I've let you know about my love affair with Wayfair.ca before and thrilled to be partnering with them to bring you inspiration to kick up your patio love and dine al fresco. Finally, outdoor eating has arrived. 

So, with the kids being away, we took full advantage of the warm weather.

Creating a beautiful table is really easy in the summer with all the fresh flowers and greenery around you.

While I was at the garden centre buying flowers, I picked up a few loose floral stems they were selling by the cash. A little water, a couple of my Nana's glass milk containers and a mini blue vase for a pop of colour = centrepiece!

The hostas in the backyard are already massive. Holy cow those plants are hearty. I clipped off a couple of the leaves, and wrote our names with a gold pen for an easy place setting. Cute eh? 

I really like the idea of mixing plastic with your regular dishes. Why not? I like how the gold paired with the green. So fresh. You can find similar cutlery and shop Wayfair's dinnerware for gorg dishes and glasses. 

It's also a good idea to pick up a couple packages of napkins and why not add some matching straws. That way you'll have them on hand to whip up a beautiful and quick outdoor table in a pinch. A delicious gin & tonic is always good too :)

As your gardens continue to bloom over the summer, use those gorgeous flowers to create your centrepieces.

I'm so thrilled that Wayfair.ca has come to Canada. They sell pretty much everything, have insanely good prices, are right on trend, amazing customer service and free shipping to Canada. Yes! 

I hope this inspires you to dine al fresco this weekend! Cheers to long days and warm summer nights. 

Keep it Beautiful.

This post was sponsored by Wayfair.ca Everything you've read are my words. I'm in love with Wayfair.ca and want to spread the love with you.

New Biz & New Job

Hey guys,

Just a quick note to let you know about a couple of things a buzzing. I’ve got two big things that are turning my wheels right now. The first one, is that I’m working on a new biz that I had planned to launch last week BUT a nasty flu virus decided it would hijack my week and delay my launch. But, I am going to launch slowly, and the plan is hopefully by end of week?Whaat? I’ve been working hard on it and hoping that it will be ready to go. Woot! So fun, and so exciting. I hope you'll love it too. Stay tuned, you’ll be the first to know. Honestly, I’m busting excited.

Second, I’ve accepted a new position for my daytime job. The organization is completely new and so are the files. I started last Thursday and it was really great. It's always those first few days where you know nobody and just trying to figure out where the cafeteria and bathrooms are. So far, I've figured out where to get a cup of coffee and the ladies bathroom :)

High heels do powerful things for women. Let's be honest, they make your legs look fab but there is something in the tightness of a high heeled shoe that reminds you to stand tall, be confident and rock it!

So, please be patient with me. It might be a little more hit and miss around here for the next couple of weeks but I’ll try to stay on top of it. I know that you understand that taking on a new full time job is intense. It requires months of intense commitment to listen, learn and feel confident. I’m excited for the new challenge. Please don't forget that this blog, my new launch and you are my passion. Creating beautiful spaces fuels my soul and makes me smile. So, here I go with my high heels on.

Keep it Beautiful. 

DIY ABSTRACT ART

Happy Fabulous Friday!

Our older son is a fabulous artist. He loves to draw, paint, create and he’s very good at it. Our local community centre put out an advertisement that they were holding an art show. Anyone of any age could submit their art for the show. All the art pieces were to be hung in the gallery for the month of May. Our older son was thrilled and knew right away that he wanted to submit a painting. So, a couple of weekends ago, the kids had been outside all day and needed some downtime. I picked up a few white canvases and set up a little art studio in the back room and their paintings turned out gorg.

This got me thinking…

Since I broke the print that flanked the fireplace in December, the wall has been blank. I’ve been keeping my eye out for an inexpensive print but just haven’t been able to find anything that wowed me. Buying a fabulous piece of “real” art would be great but we're not sure what we're looking for, nor willing to shell out a lot of cashola. There are lots of other things on our priority list right now and an expensive piece of art isn't on that list. 

So…I did a painting myself. Gasp! I figured I had the extra canvas, the paint and a blank wall. Why not try it out? I would not consider myself to be artistic in the paint brush-to-canvas type way. I’m a stick-figure drawing type gal, so attempting to create a painting for the living room was out of the box for me.

Here’s what you need:

• Blank canvas (any size you want) They have them at the DollarStore and larger sizes at any craft store.
• Paint – I used the kids craft paint (no fancy artist paint here). I also used some leftover wall paint that we had.
• Brushes – Again, the kids brushes and I snagged a big wall brush from the workroom for bigger strokes.
• Drop cloth

I propped up the canvas on a chair as my make-shift easel

and just started with a few grey brush strokes using the wall brush. Horizontal and vertical.

I didn’t have too much paint on my brush so it dried really quickly. Then, it’s just a matter of layering. Use whatever colour combo you want. I always add a little black to everything in a room (a decorator’s tip) so why not add it to the canvas?

When I felt the colours were getting too intense, I added brush strokes of white over top. This will give you a softer look. You all know how much I love the white.

Take a step back, walk by it a few times before you keeping adding more. More is not necessarily better.

I casually hung it on the wall and felt really weird about it at first. Who am I to add my random abstract art up there? But you know what? It doesn’t look too bad. The kids loved it, Mr. Fix-It likes it and so do I. It was easy to do, cost hardly anything and why not.  

So, my friends…grab your brushes, canvas and DIY some abstract art this weekend. Happy weekend.

Keep it beautiful.

Personalizing Your Space with Canvas Champ

Most of you know that I love a fabulous gallery wall and surrounding my home in family photos. However, you know what I’m not good at? Updating those photos. It’s the classic first child versus third child syndrome. Most of the photos are of our older son and less and less of our middle and third children. Bad mummy. So, I'm on a mission to update the photos in the house and starting with adding udpated pics to the basement walls. 

Personalizing a space is the fun part about decorating. One rainy afternoon, I gave the kids a blank canvas, paint brushes and let them go to town. I told them their art was for the basement and they each decided to paint a rainbow, given the rainy day. They're in no particular order but you can likely tell who's is who's and I just love how they turned out. 

It was these three paintings that provided the direction for the finishing touches in the basement. They're whimsical, personal, colourful and made with love by their tiny hands. These are exactly the kinds of finishing touches that we wanted in our new space.

Over the couch, we added a picture ledge from Ikea with a few frames. 

We’re a beach-summer loving family so I thought it would be fitting to add in photos from our recent family trip to Mexico. 

However, I haven't decided which photos to put in all the frames, but I knew of one particular beach photo that needed a home on this ledge. It was one of those picture-worthy moments that was unplanned, natural and just happened. When Canvas Champ reached out for me to try out one of their photo canvas pieces, I thought it would be perfect for this photo.

It was really easy to navigate the Canvas Champ website. You click on the size you want or you can customize which is really great if you have odd measurements for the space.

Upload your image and then a feature that I really like is they show you what it will look like in a real space.

The prices are ah-mazing. I have some fabulouso coupon codes below. The product came quickly, I'm impressed with the quality and really like the wrap around of the photo. Some companies glue the design right over top of an existing canvas but this one is the real deal.

The orange in the boys shirts was the exact colour that I wanted to pop. Now the wall flows. The colours work well together, it's bright and my cuties look adorbs. Its a wall of love, a wall of them.

Even better, Canvas Champ is having a massive sale on right now. I mean MASSIVE. 85% off canvas + free shipping. Can't beat it!

Here are some fab coupon codes. Go get em! Personalize your walls, you'll love the result.

50% off on metal prints + free shipping over $25: COUPON CODE - METAL50

Free 16X20 canvas print: COUPON CODE - FREE16

Free 12X8 canvas print: COUPON CODE - FREE12

Free 8X8 canvas print: COUPON CODE - FREE8

Keep it Beautiful.