I'm baaaaack!

Hello everyone!  I am FINALLY back after almost five months.  Yikes, sorry.  I've been distracted by Tumblr.  I have been up to LOTS.  Okay, not really, but I did move.  To Fort McMurray Alberta.

I've only been here for a week, and I guess it's alright.  Really, really bloody cold though.  I applied for a few different jobs, but I haven't heard anything back yet so it's been pretty boring.  I did find a really cute used book store that has some super tasty chai lattes.  And tons of books of course.  (Four have already been added to my collection, oops!)  I don't really have anything else to do for now...  My man works in camp up here so he is gone for three weeks out of the month, boo!  But at least the apartment stays nice and clean, haha.

There are two things about Fort Mac that I wanted to mention.  First, a few years ago some high school kid did a project on how plastic grocery bags are horrible, so the city banned plastic bags.  Which I suppose is a lovely thing, but the man and I didn't know.  We went to the store behind our building and bought some pop, ice, and a bottle of vodka.  When we paid we kind of stood there waiting for her to put our stuff in a bag, but she didn't.  So we had to carry a million pounds of things home, stopping to pick up Pizza Hut pasta on the way.  Not fun.  Good thing I have a bunch of Marc Jacobs and Betsey Johnson totes.

The second is the sweet way of doing laundry.  Maybe lots of places have this, but I have never heard of it.  Instead of having to track down change for the machines, they have a debit card slot.  Haha, it facinates me because I am such a small-town hick.

Anyway, This is already too much writing for one post.  Pictures of my apartment to come!

My garden, early August.

Kawaii/Kitsch Decor, part 3.

Another way to kawaii-ify your kitchen is with tea towels. 
Scour thrift shops for vintage ones. These should be cheap enough that you won't mind using them, or just drape over your oven door if it's too cute to risk ruining.

Another good way to get cute tea towels is around the holidays. I've found cupcake towels on sale for super cheap after Valentine's Day and Easter. I got one set from Target last year after Easter, and one set this year just after Valentine's Day.

To find tea towels online, I suggest trying paperchase.co.uk, fisheddy.com or modcloth.com for cute ones. Try Ebay for cheaper ones.

Oooor, if you are really awesome (which I'm sure you are) you could cross stitch your favorite kawaii object onto a towel that's MADE for that sort of thing. I can't remember where, but I saw some towels that were meant for cross stitching on. They had a little grid on them to make it easy. I should have bought some, or at least remembered where they were, damn...

Kawaii/Kitsch Decor, part 2.

The next time you're at the dollar store or your favorite craft store make sure to add "magnets" to your shopping list.  I buy mine in rolls, but I don't recommend them.  The rolls are hard to keep flat, they curl at the ends, so they don't stick very well.  You wouldn't have this problem if you buy the ones that come in strips or the small circular ones.

What do I want these for you ask.  Weeeeeeeell, with these you can dress up your fridge (or locker) with just about anything.  Just peel and stick a bit of magnet to Barbie accessories, old jewellery or hair clips, small toys, anything really, and you have a cute, personalized magnet.

My fridge has a Barbie-sized lunchbox, Hello Kitty Shrinky-Dinks, a tiny guitar, and small wooden garden tools to hold photos and my shopping list.

I suggest hitting the thrift shop for vintage kid's hair things, brooches, Barbie shoes, puzzle pieces, board game bits (Scrabble tiles to spell out messages?), or buttons. 

Kawaii/Kitsch Home Decor.

Need ideas for cheap home decor?  Who doesn't?  I have tons of ideas for you that come from my own house, which I'll slowly be introducing you to.  First I'll start with the kitchen.  This is probably one of the rooms your guests see the most.  For me it is anyway.  So I like the kitchen to have lots of personality. 

Personally, I like color.  And vintage.  I assume you do too, or you probably wouldn't be here reading my blog.  Anyway, one thing I like to stock up on at thrift shops is vintage aprons.  They come in handy when you are cooking, baking, cleaning, or gardening.  Or dressing up like Alice.

 But they are too cute to keep shoved in a drawer when you aren't prancing around in one.  So, you could try hanging them on a hook on an empty wall in your kitchen.  Or a number of hooks if you have more space, as I do.  There is a small bit of wall beside my fridge where I hang my collection of vintage aprons and my cute potholders.  Here they are on display, AND super handy.

You could also hang cute potholders from strong magnets on your fridge.  I have another Care Bears one on my fridge...

Outdoor Dining Made Easier.

Sick of having to run back inside your house when eating on your porch or in your backyard because you forgot something?  Tired of having to make multiple trips back and forth carrying arm-loads of dishes, seasonings, and napkins?

Trrrrrry buying a cute (and huge) picnic basket!

Buy a big basket and shove it full of paper plates, napkins, and plastic utensils for eating around a fire or the barbeque.  Or do as I have, and hit up the thrift shops for some cheap (but still gorgeous) vintage dishes.  I bought up some mismatched forks, knives, cups, and plates from a thrift shop that I keep in a giant basket on a shelf beside the barbeque.  That way when it's time to eat, all the dishes are handy.  We also have all our bbqing spices and sauces in a basket that's easy to grab when it's time to eat outside.  You can also shove in your hot dog supplies if you have a bonfire pit like we do.  As I said, this basket needs to be HUGE!

You could also line the basket with some summery material for added protection and cuteness.

Fred Flare.

One of the coolest websites ever is Fred Flare.  It has the most unique, kawaii, and of course kitsch, home decor, clothing, and accessories.  You really must check it out, it has something for everyone.  Below are some of my favorite home decor items:

Unicorn corn holders.

Buy

Moustache Corkscrew.

Buy

Saw cake cutter.

 Buy

Throwing star wall hook.

Buy

Cupcake egg timer.

Buy

There is a giant snake in my bedroom as I type this.  In my bedroom!  As in, inside my house.  Where I sleep.  I am moving.

Things are GROWING!!

The past few days have been crappy and rainy.  Again.  Why oh why can't we get more than one nice day every few weeks.  Some old guy at work told me this is the coldest spring on record for my area.  Not good.  But anyway, I guess my gardens have been liking all this rain, because everything is growing so quickly!  Last week when it was nice out, I took a bunch of pictures to post on my blog, but everything is so much nicer and greener that I'm going to go take new pictures, riiiight NOW!

The farthest square are strawberries, the rest of the plants pictured are herbs.  Not pictured are my watermelons because they aren't growing...

Flowers in one of the window boxes.

rubarb.  This crap is growing all over our yard.  What am I supposed to do with it!?

Our radishes.  The biggest, greenest thing in our veggie garden.  You couldn't really see anything else growing, they're all too small still.  So no more veggie pictures yet.

Apple tree.

Grapes.

For some reason I can't upload the rest of my pictures, ho hum.  I hope you enjoyed these because I got a nasty bug in my eye while I was outside taking these.  Ick!!

My yard, part one.

As I previously mentioned, my garden shed is too disgusting from years of neglect to use.  Boo!  So, in order to have a ll my gardening supplies together, I set up a gardening station on my side porch. 

Here it is:

These are SOME of the "window" boxes at my house.  They are actually all attached to porch railings so I don't know what to call them, haha.  I really need to go back to the green house to get flowers for them.  Right now they have only one small spot that is flowers, the rest are filled with crappy plants from inside my house, or these lollipop shaped candles.  And sadly, the lollipops are the only thing that still look lovely.

An idea for garden markers that I got from Country Living.  (I can't remember which magazine it was, but if you know please tell me)

A super cute hummingbird feeder I bought a few months ago.  It may be cute, but most of the birds here can't figure out how to use it...

What I've been up to in the past month.

Wow, I can't believe it's been over a month since I last posted.  Bad, bad blogger.  Buut, I come back to you armed with excuses.  I've been busy!  (who hasn't?)  So here is a catch-up on what I've been doing:

Yard work.  Lots and lots of yard work.

We've had to clean the gross pile of garbage that was our yard.  Then we had to seed the entire thing so we'd have somewhat of a lawn.  The grass is still rather patchy though... 

We've dug up a spot for a garden, then planted said garden.  Two gardens I guess, one in front of our house for our herbs and fruit, one down in the corner of our yard for veggies.  Okay, I guess I lied again, we have a spot with flowers as well as some things in our landlord's green house, and in the garden in his yard.  Phew!

I also started a compost bin, attempted to clean out the garden shed (too gross and dark and dingy so I gave up), and planted window boxes.  We also gave the porch a good clean so we've been bbqing and eating outside every chance we get.  And I made a little garden center on the porch.

Pffft, I give up on this typing.  You probably already gave up on reading it too, so I'll just go outside right now and take pictures of what we've been up to.  Part two soon to come.

A tour of my house: Laundry Room.

My laundry room is quite hideous with all that mismatched wood panelling, but it gets the job done.

 We have a big white cabinet for all the towels and blankets, but we haven't picked it up yet.  But once we do, I'll have that big counter to fold laundry on.  I put hooks in the wall to hold our brooms and mops.

The cleaning supplies are all kept on the shelf in front of the window, the laundry soaps are on the dryer.  This is the room I most want to paint and redo.  I would make the white counter along the entire wall with cupboards underneath for the cleaners.

A tour of my house: Bathroom.

This is my bathroom.  It's very... green.  I plan to paint the towel bar, drawers, and cupboard doors pink.

Awesome flamingo shower curtain and vintage lace thingie (made by my great grandma) on the back of the toilet.

Random cups to hold Qtips, cotton balls, floss etc.  Vintage cream dish for toothbrushes.

Did you spot my friend Kerropi?

A tour of my house: Bedroom.

Soooo, this is my bedroom.  I'm sorry it took so long for me to post pictures of my new house, I just wasn't happy with how it looked.  It's getting better, but there is still a lot I want to do to it.

View from the door:

 Bed.  Left is my nightstand, Right is my man's.

 My makeup table.  To the left is my closet, and my man's is to the right. 

 Curtains.

 My closet.

 My man's boooring closet.

Garden Ramble.

A quick post of What I Bought, Garden Edition:

hummingbird feeder



various plants

I've most likely already told you guys this, but my new house has a huge yard.  And I also have the best landlord who lets us do whatever we want to the house/yard. 
So this year my man and I are digging up a chunk of yard to make a garden.  The place we are putting the garden is a fenced-in area that was once used for chickens.  This area will have the best soil because of chicken poo, yay!  This also works out nice because I can turn the chicken "coop" (it's a shed) into a potting shed.  I've already been looking up cute ideas, but if you have any, please let me know.  
As you'll see from the following pictures, the yard is really lacking in the grass department.  This is because the previous tenants did NOT take care of the yard at all.  For the three years they lived here they didn't rake in the fall, which means I just got to rake up three years of heavy, wet leaves.  Not fun, they were a foot deep! But our landlord hired some young boys to get rid of my piles of leaves (which I was dreading, the previous tenants had ten dogs (!) and of course they didn't clean up after them) and he's also going to seed our "lawn" as soon as it's warm enough outside.
AND also since we're out in the middle of nowhere we can have bonfires.  On yard cleaning day I made a fire pit down in a corner of our yard.  Now we just need more chairs and whatnot.  But since this post is super long, I'll just post the pictures of my yard and shhhsh.

Back "lawn". I'm going to put a swing from this tree.

My soon-to-be potting shed.  The fence to the right of it is the garden.  We're going to make a rock-lined path to the shed.



Front "lawn" and fire pit area.