Hoppy Easter!

I know I am late, but I wanted to share my cupcakes with you all! A co-worker/friend invited us to her house for Easter and I decided to bring cupcakes. My original plan was just to decorate cupcakes with coloured icing and sprinkles, but ever since Shea's birthday, I am kind of addicted to fancy looking cupcakes! So, I did a quick google search and found this link: http://parispastry.blogspot.com/2009/03/easter-cupcakes_21.html

They turned out great! It was pretty simple to do. Though next time I would use regular icing rather than cream cheese icing because cream cheese icing isn't pure white and the marshmallows were pure white. I doubt anybody noticed though - well, except me :) I used a jelly bean instead of a m&m or similar shaped candy - I really liked it. I did try to find black licorice for the whiskers, but string black licorice is hard to find in the stores! I think I will buy some and keep it in my cupboard for occasions like this.

I had some extra cupcakes, so I just decorated them simply with little chicks that I picked up at Michaels the other day. They are cute too!

I really have to say that I love google - there are so many talented people out there and I love that they share their ideas! Thank you to all that share your ideas!!

Here is Shea looking for easter eggs :)

Hope everyone had a lovely holiday!

Happy Birthday Lil' Dude!

It's official... Shea is now 1 years old! He is a big guy now. He loves to read his books, play cars, climb the stairs, get chased and play his music instruments.

This weekend we had a monkey theme birthday party for him. We had all hands on deck! Here is my dad helping out by putting the goody bags together (banana bread, finger puppet and chocolate monkey sucker).

My mom found a book that had monkey cupcakes in it and here is how ours turned out! Not too bad!

I bought the invitation, banner, gift bag tags, thank you cards and other printable items off of Frog Prince Paperie. I sent the files to Staples and got them printed there. The banner is amazing printed! It is definitely a keeper!

Overall, his birthday was great! I have had a wonderful year getting to know this special little dude and can't wait to see what this next year holds for him!

Monster Shaker + Tutorial

Shake, shake, shake your sillies out with this great Monster Shaker! It is a great way to use up those scraps of fabric (fleece, fuzzy, terry towel, etc) and have fun.

We are giving this monster to a one year old, so we kept the decorations simple so they aren't a choking hazard. For older kids, google eyes and other decorations would be fun!

I created a tutorial which you can download from here. It is super simple craft and doesn't take too much time to complete. And for older kids, they could decorate their own monster shakers.

This is my first tutorial, so if you find an errors or need clarification, please let me know.

Download Tutorial Here

Happy December - Annual Wreath

Welcome to December everyone! Do you all have your Christmas shopping done? I will admit - I am almost done. I only have my dad to buy for and he is definitely the most difficult to find the perfect gift for. Any suggestions??

One quick side note - Shea went to see Santa! He was so cute! I know I am biased though :)

My Wreath for 2010

Today my friend and I went to the annual wreath making class. This year I had no real inspiration like I usually do and you can tell! I used all sorts of different materials and I now call it the "Spastic Wreath". Hahahaa...

PK's Wreath for 2010

PK's wreath turned out FABULOUS! She used cedar this year with some fantastic accents. I really like the cones in the middle.

Hard to believe last year we were both pregnant and sick during the class! Now we have amazing little people to enjoy this time of year with.

Here are our previous wreaths:
2007: no picture taken - boo hoo
2008: http://arianephillips.blogspot.com/2008/12/wreath-making-class.html
2009: http://arianephillips.blogspot.com/2009/12/yearly-wreath-making.html

Weekend Update

This weekend was all about resting and getting organized. On Saturday, I sewed for the first time since... I don't know how long it has been! But it felt good and I completed 2 hooded bath towels. Sorry for the crappy pictures, but I wanted to prove that I actually sewed them. Thanks to Mel for giving me a little nudge to get going! I have approximately 6 friends that are pregnant and I want to make sure I have all their gifts sewn before our little person comes along. 2 down, only 4 more to go!


I also found this cute Handmade For You tags by Amy Cluck aka Peptogirl.


Now that the baby room is all painted and the dresser was setup, it was time to move onto the office. db woke up early on Sunday and started putting the bookcase we bought from Ikea. It didn't take long before it was all done and ready to go into the office. One small problem, the office wasn't ready for the bookcase. Adding a bookcase to our already small office space required some shuffling around furniture, including my dear sewing machine. Luckily we found a home for all the furniture and it looks not too bad - cramped - but not too bad.

I really wanted to organize our books like this:

Image from Apartment Therapy

or like this:

Image from High Fashion Home Blog

But db wouldn't let me because he thought it would be too difficult to find an actual book he was looking for (boo-hoo), so currently the books and bookcase looks like this:


Hope everyone has a great week!
~ariane

Yearly Wreath Making!

This is the 4th year that my friend and I attended a wreath making class. I always love how my wreath's have turned out and this year is no exception!

Here is my wreath:



Here is my friend's wreath:


Click here to see our wreath's from last year... so different!

New Baseball Babes + Tuesday Tutorial - Hooter Hiders

We have a new addition to our baseball team! One of the ladies on our team had a little girl last Saturday. She is so adorable! Mom and babe have been at our last 2 games. Here is a picture of our new little Chronic (our team name) at her second baseball game:

Second game for our newest team member!

Michele and baby hanging out at the baseball diamond.

Mom didn't receive a "hooter hider" at her shower - so I have been searching for tutorials how to make one for her. I found a couple tutorials, but I am pretty sure there are more out there:

Hooter HIder tutorial by Made By the Mama Monster

Hooter hider tutorial by Bliss Tree

Our friend that plays on a different baseball team had a baby shower for his little girl. I whipped up a baby towel for him on Saturday. His team all wears camouflage, so I made a towel in a pink camouflage fabric. It is pretty cute! Sorry for the bad pictures of the towel, I was in a rush to get to the shower! Dad did try the towel on too - so funny!

Auntie Mandy and newest team member of the Bratz crew!

Tutorial Tuesday - Twirl Skirt

Before I get to the featured tutorial for this week, I have to brag about my beautiful nieces and nephew. Anna is 3 and is so much fun! We play many games together like pirates, don't wake auntie, Mr. tickle, and princess Leona and Ariel. This week's tutorial is inspired by her - she loves to dance around and I wanted to make her a skirt so she can twirl. I have all the fabric and materials to make it, but with all the playing we have been doing, I didn't have time this week. Hopefully I can get it done this weekend and post pictures soon!

Anna watching Auntie Ariane and Uncle db play baseball on the weekend

Next is my niece Suds - she is 11 and is very cool. We went shopping for a dress for db dad's wedding that is coming up in May, but we didn't find anything that is just right. We did manage to find a cool hoodie at a local surf shop. I think she likes it. We also made the Polymer Clay octopus from my previous tutorial. They were more difficult to make, but we managed. Check out the girls painting their fun craft items!

Suds crafting away!

Suds and Anna painting our polymer clay octopus

And of course there is wonderful Matthew - who is such a happy baby. He loves to cuddle and crawl around. While we were crafting, he needed to sit at the table with us, so db sat with him so he didn't feel left out. It is amazing how much he has changed since I first met him. Soon I will be having to find fun boy things to do with him!

Lara and Matthew cheering the Flames on (before they got knocked out)

Now, the tutorial for the twirl skirt I found awhile back on House on Hill Road's blog, but never managed to get Anna's measurements. The skirt looks simple to make - so I am hopeful that all goes well when I start making it.


Tutorial Link: http://houseonhillroad.typepad.com/photos/twirly_skirt/

Hope everyone is having a good week! I should be back this weekend with more fun stuff!

Weekend in Seattle

db and I went to Seattle this past weekend to visit our friend JP and to go to a couple of Mariner baseball games. The Mariners were playing the Detroit Tigers and both the games we saw were really good games! I only took a few good pictures and they are of two of the Seattle players - Ken Griffey and Ichiro.



JP had all this lovely pottery hanging around his house that I was admiring and he let me pick something to take home with me. I picked this pretty vase! I love the colours of it and the size. Now all I need is flowers in it! I think tomorrow I will stop by the flower store!


I also stopped in at Joann's (it's a craft store in the US) and was I in shock! There fabric section is bigger that all the fabric stores in Victoria put together! They had fat quarters on sale for $0.99! I got a couple fat quarters and some pillow forms. I was too overwhelmed that I couldn't think of what I needed. Next time when I am in Seattle, I will be definitely stopping by there to pick up some more fabric and search through the whole store. Sigh... I wish we had better fabric stores in Victoria... even an Ikea would be nice!

Only a couple more days before my nieces and nephew arrive! I can't wait! I have been busy cleaning up my sewing room - I don't want any little feet to get a pin in them! So, I don't think I will be crafting anything for a little while.

I'll be back tomorrow though with a link to a tutorial that I think will be my next project.

Back, but Re-Grouping

I know I have been back for over a week and haven't posted anything. I apologize! When I got back from my London trip, I managed to get a cold and it took me a week to recover! Then I had to do some major crafting for a craft swap that I am participating in (pictures to come!).

I managed to get all the crafts complete and in the mail today! Now it is time to organize all the photos from my trip! It is going to be quite the task because I have over 200 photos! Yikes! The good pictures will be posted on my flickr page!

I loved the London Eye, Wicked (the show), British Museum, Steph's school stuff, and so much more of London! Thanks again Steph for being our wonderful tour guide!

I am off to Seattle tomorrow night - but I am going to try to post a link for a new tutorial before I leave!

Silly Sewing

Tonight is a good friend of mine's stagette and all the ladies attending were assigned a piece of clothing to bring for the bride to wear. My assigned piece of clothing was the skirt. Yikes... I had a hard time figuring out what I wanted to do. I knew that this skirt would only be worn once, so I wanted to keep my costs as low as possible.

I thought of an idea of a tutu, but when I went and checked out prices... wow... they are expensive. My alternative was to scope out the thrift shop and hopefully something would turn up. I ended up finding a basic stretch skirt (I know it will fit her) and decided to sew some embellishments on to it. This is how it turned out:

Weekend in Calgary

Anna looking cool in Auntie's sunglasses

I am back in Victoria - it was very hard to leave Calgary! I had a great time visiting all my nieces and nephew. I love them all very much! I posted some pictures on my flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/arianephillips - go check out how cute all the kids are!

It is going to be hard not to be in Calgary for Christmas... My mother, father and sister will be at our house this year. It's always a good time, but when I have small nieces and now a nephew - I feel like I will be missing out! Oh well - there will be other trips!

All my babies - Madison, Anna and Matthew

Weekend Fun and more painting!

Fefff... boy was I busy this weekend, I don't even know where to start!

Okay, I will start with Easter weekend. I dragged my friend Niko out shopping and in our travels I found a bed! It isn't as great as the Flower bed by BDDW, but it is pretty close. So, I dragged db to the store to check it out and he loved it too! It is the shelter bed by brownstone furniture (picture below - it looks WAYYY better in person).
Once I realized we found our new bed, that meant more painting! Off I went to the Benjamin Moore store to get paint! After the fiasco with the colour choice of the bathroom, I decided to get a sample of the colour I thought for the bedroom. Well, good thing I did because it didn't turn out anything like I thought. It is probably because we have a huge window with a large field right outside. Our neighbours did warn us about how the field affects the colour of items. So, I hummed and hawed and realized that the other spare bedroom needed to be painted in order to move our old bed into it.

Yup, again I was off to the paint store to buy paint. db helped me sand, putty and wash the walls to get ready for painting. Then Saturday I went to baseball practice and then picked up Niko to start the painting. db went to Vancouver to watch the Flames vs. Canucks (Canuck won... boooo).

Niko and I painted 1/2 the room and then it was time to go to the Canada Women's hockey game! It was awesome! I love those girls. They were in Victoria practicing before the World Championships, which are on in China from April 4 - 14. Details can be found on the Hockey Canada website. Niko and I took lots of pictures... I will post once I get them back.

Well... long story short. The painting is done and I had a good weekend. My next plan is to paint our walk-in closet while we are still looking for that perfect paint colour. Hopefully it won't take long!

New Chair!

Last weekend, I went shopping for the binding and I quickly jumped into the Polished Home to check out what they had in stock. They were having a huge sale and I ended up purchasing a brand new chair for only $200 (it was reduced from $600). My original plan was to purchase a used chair and recover it, but for $200... I doubt I could have refinished a chair for that!

It was sort of a hasty decision, but the owner of the store was there and she even had my paint chip (silver grey by Benjamin Moore) in the store so I could check and ensure the colours would go together.

It fits the bedroom really well and db likes it too. Now I want to get a round footstool in a deep teal colour to go with it. My searching for furniture never ends!

Work and Play

Wow! I can't believe we are into September already! Where did the summer go? For the long weekend, I went to Nanaimo for a baseball tournament. db decided not to go because of his back... he received his results - it is a protruded disc. Yikes! He is off to a sports physio therapist next week - so hopefully that helps!

On Wednesday my parents arrived! Yeah! I had 2 jobs for my dad to do while he was here: 1) fix the stove as the right side of the stove doesn't work 2) fix the dishwasher. Of course my dad has already fixed the stove and is in the process of fixing the dishwasher! I love dads :)

Yesterday was my parent's 32nd wedding anniversary! They went golfing at Bear Mountain during the day. Then we went to the Canoe Club for a wonderful dinner! Today the plan is to go to Jordan River and look at some land that they may buy. Lucky for us the weather has been beautiful. For the rest of the weekend, we have no concrete plans, but probably a little shopping will be involved!

On the home front, the bathroom is done! WOOT! I will post pictures next week. Okay - I cheated a little bit - I had to get my dad to help finish it. It feels great to have it completly finished!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Weekend Fun in Vancouver

We are off to Vancouver for the weekend. DB's work is hosting a BBQ and paying for our travel and accomodations. Should be okay.

The best thing about going to Vancouver for the weekend is that I get to go to IKEA! There is no IKEA stores on the island. I started making a list of the things I wanted to buy, but the major thing that I wanted to get is a shelf for the guest bedroom. However, db says it won't fit in the car :( Booooo.... Oh well. I am not sure when we will be able to get the shelf then. Other than the shelves, I wanted to get some wooden hangers, picture frames, white towels, and maybe some fabric. The fun part of IKEA is walking around and getting inspiration!

Have a great weekend all!

Vernon Funtastic Tournament

Back from Vernon! It was a great time. We arrived and set up our campsite and it started to pour rain. Crazy rain! Lucky for us that our friends had a massive vestabule and we were all able to fit inside and hang out until the rain ended. There was 17 of us in total. Luckily the campground managers were nice enough to let everyone stay.

The tournament itself was fun! Our first game we were unable to play because the field was a disaster (see picture). The next morning we played on the same field - it was a little better, but not much. Yeah for playing in the mud!

Monday it was hot, hot, hot. 36 degrees! We won both our games and ended up in 6th place in the top division. Not too shabby!

Defintely will have to go to this tournament again!

Who's on First...

No projects were accomplished this weekend. We were playing baseball in the first tournament of the season. Click here to see more pictures from our fun weekend!