swiiiiiiing

Winter is long so we have a swing in the house.  It's so much fun for my kids and mommy.

And yes, we are picking out paint colour for our livingroom.  I love the blue during the night and the greeny/grey in the day.  It's so hard to get it right.  It has been months since I've started the process of choosing paint.  It's a big job for us, so we're being slow and steady.

chickpea salad

I think this chickpea salad looks fantastic, especially now that we are all craving something a little fresh and green.  Picture and recipe from Oh She Glows.

thick and blue

Today while the boys are out tobogganing with their friends, I am making a birthday scarf for my friend.  I love this super think and blueish yarn and because of that it doesn't take too long to crochet.

I love making things for friends and I am considering selling some of my pieces on etsy.  I'm inspired by the compliments I have received, but I don't want to take away from the joy of making things.  However, I love the idea of a sweet little etsy shop where I get to be creative and help to pay for some of my crafty projects.

one more crochet hat

So it is February and winter is still here in full force.  I noticed my older son's knit hats were riding up and exposing his ear lobes to the cold wind so I made him another hat.  I crocheted a green one that covered his ears and back of neck.  I made a slightly different one for his baby brother.  I didn't follow a specific pattern but started out with double crochet and ended up with single crochet to make it more dense on the ears and neck.  Once again I used the same youtube videos to help me get started as I did in my other hat project.

This time it took me three tries to get the right size and I kept trying on the hat on my son as I made it.  He was sleeping at the time, but I knew it might be a struggle to get a three year old toddler to cooperate during the day.  By the time he woke up, he had a brand new hat with a pom pom, which he loved.

"not yet spring" season

I love decorating, always have and always will.  During the long winter months, decorating becomes my hobby and that includes the outdoors.  So, now that it's passed Christmas, not yet Spring or Easter, how do you decorate outside?  While the St. Valentine's Day look is festive, it's not for the long run and what do you do after February 14th?    

You can liven it up inside with flowers and bright colours, but it might not be a good fit for the outside with all the snow and cold temperatures still around.  At the same time, it's time for a little colour to liven up your spirits.  We need a little spirit lift because the snow here can last all the way up to May.

Here in Canada most people leave behind their outside arrangements from Christmas.  I have tweeked ours to transition from Christmas to "not yet Spring" season, while not committing to a specific holiday either.  I love green, therefore making a monochromatic arrangement of different shades of green really appealed to me and it made sense of the old pine branches.  So after buying a few bunches of long leaves from Ikea, spray painting old decorative twig balls bright green, and reusing the pine branches, we have a new outside arrangement.  Ta Da!

Now onto decorating the inside...

blue, green and tantrums

Lately I haven't been able to get enough of colour, so for the Christmas season our outdoor decorations are all blue and lime green.  This year I wanted to be able to see a wreath on our front porch from the street so I assembled something matching our colours.  I wrapped a simple twig wreath with an old IKEA boxwood garland, added sparkly blue plastic branches from Micheals along with three lime green balls from Wallmart.  I used a wire to hang the wreath at the exact height that I wanted.

On our plum trees my son and I hung blue and green plastic balls.  It was hard for my son to hang the balls with his large mitts, but it was fun watching him work outside and smile at me and give me the thumbs up.  It didn't take long until the toddler temper tantrum appeared but that is to be expected.  Blue, green and tantrums is the theme for our Christmas season.