Raspberry Blush!

had good intentions with this blog, and wanted to make an effort to post every day. And then report cards came along. I have a feeling that the majority of posts and content is going to be added to this blog in the summer months, when I'm off school. (P.S. Isn't that drop cap awesome??? I got it from Daily Drop Cap!)

Anyway, I finished writing my report cards about half an hour ago, and so here I am!

Even though I couldn't manage to find time to write a blog entry, I still read them. And this week I found what colour I want to paint my bedroom!! It's called Raspberry Blush from Benjamin Moore from this post on Apartment Therapy, and I just love this colour, how it's sort of a cross between red and orange and coral and pink. It's so cheerful!

 Don't you love that last one? I would love to have a marble sink with two mirrored closets on either side!!!

Right now my bedroom is boring old "Swiss Cafe," the very neutral colour that they painted the house when they first built it. As you can probably tell already, I am not a neutral kind of girl.

Oh Yum: Brioche with Chocolate Ganache

There's nothing better than French pastries, is there? And unlike Rachel, I do love chocolate.

I went to Paris in the summer of 2007, and my favourite pastry has got to have been les pains au chocolat.  I imagine the ganache in this recipe tastes a bit like that.

Here's a link to Rachel's post with the recipe and instructions.

Traditional brioches, with their little nobblies on top, are so funny-looking, don't you think?

Photo from here.

Which, actually, is an adorable little blog! The author is a teacher in France. Sign me up! I want her job!!! I may have to add Castles Crowns and Cottages to my already-overflowing Google Reader! I mean, look at this picture she posted on her blog! I want to be right there right now!!!!

Le Château et Les Jardins de Marqueyssac

Living Room Reno

For Christmas, my parents gave me a gift certificate for hardwood flooring for my condo.

Since I was off for Spring Break last week, my dad and I agreed that it would be the perfect time to do the floors. My dad took the week off and came down to Calgary to visit and work.



After a bit of investigating, I decided that laminate was not for me. Maybe I'm a snob, but I can't handle the cheap look of laminate. So we soon decided to look at hardwood and engineered hardwood. The style that I liked was the sort of rustic handscraped look. We finally found one in my dad's price range that was a solid hardwood, handscraped, and very rich looking! Yay! It's called black locust wood, which is apparently a bit like acacia and is one of the hardest woods there is. Cool!



So, the work began.

First of all, I painted my wall. I love the colour. It's a very dark green, but appears black in some lighting. Then my dad, who's in contracting, decided he wasn't happy with it (snob!) and painted it again.

Then we cleared everything out of the room and ripped up the carpets. There was a bit of mold on the floor, which dad (who knows these things) painted over. Apparently, he says, doing so locks it in. He said it was harmless anyway, but that's why the floor is speckled.

Then we got to work. My job was to hammer in the flooring. Dad worked on using a mallet to knock the hardwood loosely into place, and cutting the ends to fit the edges.

It took an entire day to do the 250 square foot room, and it really wasn't a terrible job. The backs of my legs ached (and are still sore, days later!) from the bending motion of hammering in the boards, but other than that, that was about all the damage done. It took another day to put the baseboard back on and get everything moved back into the room.

Here's some photos of the room today!

(I experimented with the brightness settings in Photoshop for this one.

Do you think that's what they do in Ikea catalogues?)

I got this idea somewhere in the blogsphere to glue feathers to a lampshade. 

Love it!

And a couple of extras:

Trotsky sitting near some really interesting flowers my dear friend Sarah brought me for Easter dinner.

And my all time favourite flowers, ranunculus.

My sister and I went to the Calgary Farmer's Market on Friday, 

and I couldn't resist making a bouquet from the offerings 

at the flower stall.

I love anemones, too.

All in all, I'm SUPER happy with my room. It feels like a brand new space! It feels great.

And I'm a billion million times thankful for an amazing dad who helped make it happen! I know I couldn't have done it without him!

I love carnations

I don't care what you say, I love carnations. I have this really distinct memory from when I was a really little kid, probably seven or eight, and my parents had been at my dad's company Christmas party the night before. My sister and I were fast asleep by the time they got home. When we woke up in the morning, early, as little kids are apt to, we padded downstairs and went straight to the fridge. We found what we knew would be there, a bright red carnation with its stem wrapped in floral tape and a beautiful "pearl" pin stuck through it.

Are you old enough to remember this tradition? At fancy parties and even on airplanes, they would give you a carnation boutonniere.

Our mom had saved her carnation for us girls because she knew we would love it. And we did.

I bought some fuchsia carnations today and  put them in my wheat-patterned milk glass bowl.

We'll see how long they last because Trotsky the cat loves flowers, and especially carnations.

Emersonmade

I was trying to remember the website of Emersonmade for a few days and couldn't figure it out because I hadn't bookmarked it!

How do you suppose they make them?

I want to figure out how to emulate them! They are so cool!!! I wonder what kind of fabric they use and how to make the petals come into the centre.

Thank goodness for my favourite blog, design*sponge! They did one of their famous sneak peaks on Emerson and Ryan's house today. I love the sneak peaks!


This is, like, my dream house. Excuse the 13-year-old girl talk (I have a girl in my class, like, who uses the word, like, like every second word)

Oh my! What I wouldn't give for a big room and a table like that!

Holy heck! Can you imagine a pantry like this one?!?!?!

I wish I had a big ole kitchen sink like this one. 

And open shelves, too, though I'm sure I'm too cluttery for that.

And that ceiling lamp!!!!!

And romantically, I wish I had chickens, but I think they would be stinky and gross and I probably wouldn't like them.

Tenement Kitchens

One of my favourite books ever is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. I had never seen a character like Francie before in a book, and the racism that existed against Irish-Americans at the time shocked me. I mean, I had no idea that kind of discrimination existed. NO IDEA. And to know that the book is fairly autobiographical and that Betty Smith did endure such conditions of poverty is pretty amazing. The scene in the book when Francie and Neely when they go to buy tongue for their mother to cook because that's all they can afford was incredible.

Anyway, I saw this article on Apartment Therapy today about the Tenement Museum in NYC. To me, this is exactly what the kitchen in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn might look like. I can just imagine Katie Nolan, Francie and Neely's mother, stoking that stove and washing dishes at that sink.

Aren't those amazing? What I'd give to have a kitchen like that first one, and yet it was considered the lowest of the low at the time.



You can take a virtual tour of the museum here.

DIY: Homemade wreath

I like to have a wreath on my front door, and I really like for it to reflect the season. It's finally feeling like spring here in Calgary, a city infamous for its unpredictable weather, so I wanted something cheery. I also wanted something simple, so I bought a can of lime spray paint and a $5 grapevine wreath from Michaels. Then I went to town, and sprayed it probably about four times on each side. I finished it with a coat of clear glossy spray.

Then I used some spare gray fabric (suit lining, actually), and cut a bunch of circles and folded them and sewed them together. I used a technique similar to this one.

 You can see the flowers better in the image above than you can on my wreath.



Anyway, I'm really happy with the results, and I just love the colour! It's my new favourite colour, I think.