A Year of Pretty - January 28, 2014

I can't believe how fast the first month of the year has gone by. A couple more days and January 2014 will be over and done.

Today's Pretty Post is this simple wreath design found on Pinterest. by clicking on the included link, the result was just another window with the image, so I'm sorry to say I'm at a dead end as to the original source.

The wreath includes snowdrops and Symphoricarpos, also known as "white berry" or "snow berry".

I remember bushes of these berries used to grow begin our grade school. I can clearly remember being about six or seven years old with David Dodd and Scott Smith (the two cutest boys in my class by far) and crushing the berries under our shoes because they made a neat popping sound. I also punched David in the kidney that day (didn't know that's where kidneys were at the time) because he called me a Frizzy Head. It was a great first date.

This would be a nice image to print onto gift tags for a house warming, or if you happen to know someone named January (hey, it happens . . think of January Jones aka Emma Frost in X-Men: First Class . . . and yes, I am a geek for knowing that and yes, I see the irony of Ms January playing a role with the last name Frost).

Anyhow, enjoy the image. February will be here soon enough.

A Year of Pretty - January 16, 2014

Today's Pretty Post was found while searching for images to print and decoupage onto tins for storage. I thought it was such a nice vintage image of "new beginnings", which is what January often means to a lot of people.

How are you doing with your 2014 resolution? Are you still on track, or has time / energy caught you off guard?

I find my biggest downfall is the "I'll do it tomorrow" trap. As in . . . "I'll sew this tomorrow", or "I can do the laundry in the morning". Morning then becomes afternoon and tomorrow becomes two weeks later.

So I leave little notes for myself on the bathroom mirror. "Take down the recycling", or "cut three dresses by Friday afternoon". The notes annoy me, but I can only remove them once the task is done.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still working on my Great Gatsby Fashion Show Challenge. The designs are coming along, the muslins have been cut, my model has been selected and I have the first fitting next week.

But working for yourself is hard. You have to be more conscious of your time and how wisely you spend it. It is so easy to get distracted by the computer or a text message; and the next thing . . . twenty minutes have gone by.

So here's to staying on course with your new beginnings and taking each day to get closer to your goals.

A Year of Pretty - January 09, 2014

It's January. I have a cold. It's cold outside (though being in Vancouver, BC . . .decidedly not as cold as Eastern Canada or the United States.) It's dreary. Some candles will add some glowing warmth to the room. I love candles

Today's Pretty Post is this lovely winter white arrangement, the original source from Lovenordic Design Blog.

This sort of arrangement would look nice on the mantle of a fireplace. What I like about it is that it can be displayed both before Christmas and afterwards. I would put this out maybe in mid-November, and then around the beginning of December add some sprigs of holly with red berries or a couple of red and gold balls. After Christmas, I'd remove the festive decorations.

Mom and I made a bunch of these pillar candles using leftover taper candle stubs, melting them down and pouring the wax into empty frozen juice tins and rinsed out milk cartons. Once the wax had hardened, we simply peeled off the cardboard.

I have two of these large wooden letters, each for the initials of my first and last name. I'm sure if I talk to my dad sweetly; maybe bring him some peanut butter cookies....that he and I could use his jigsaw to cut out these letters to spell this otherwise chilly time of year.