We did it!

We built a reading nook! As I had discussed in a previous post, we have talked about turning a small 4(ish)x7 room in our home into something a little more cozy and fun. It was used as a storage room for our home brew supplies for a few months, and it just seemed like a really unimaginative thing to do with such a neat space.

We were inspired by a project done at Thrifty Decor Chick, and decided to build our own reading space this weekend. The best part about this project is that 80% of the materials we needed to build the nook were gifted, pre-owned, thrifted, or borrowed (tools from my Dad).

Here is what the room looked like before:

And are some photos of what it looked like after:

Finished!

Closer.

Some detail of the different fabrics I used.

Noodles thinks we built it for her.

This was so much fun to put together (so grateful that Josh is helpful with building stuff and down with pastels). I wanted a place to daydream/drink wine/write/read, and I think this will be perfect for that. I also can’t wait to have my nieces over because this room will be wonderful for board games and girl talk ( <— not the 80s board game or the musician, I’m talking serious subject matter like the perils of Grade 4 and Selena Gomez). The seat is almost 4×4 feet in length and width, so it will comfortably accommodate two people. There is 2 feet of space underneath for storage of books, games, blankets, etc.

In the future we’ll probably add a chalkboard to that ornate frame on the left, some more embroidery hoops with fabric on the centre wall, and some floating book shelves to the right. But right now I am super content that we were able to pull it together in a couple of days, with stuff that was already available to us for the most part.

This was achievable in a weekend and can be done in any closet or small room. All you really need is some scrap wood, tools, foam, upholstery fabric, paint (very little) and a little decor. We veered off from the how-to tutorial on Thrifty Decor Girl, but her instructions were a great place to start and would be nice for anyone looking to build one of these bad boys into a spare closet!

Now that this is done, I should probably get on with finishing my first book in this new reading challenge I am doing. I am reading The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, and it’s probably one of the best books I have ever read. It seems to be taking a little longer to read, simply because it’s so incredibly poignant and sad that it’s hard to open up the pages without making an emotional investment. But this is what good books do…and now I have a new reading space wherein I can devote myself to words, uninterrupted <3

I did it all for the nookie.

Yes, I just quoted 90s Limp Bizkit on my shelter blog. In a post that’s more or less about books and tiny spaces. Which is my first post since July. Around here, we do things with class.

I am here today to tell you about nooks. Book nooks, like this one:

Click on the image for a nook building tutorial.

When we bought our house last year, we had similar plans for a 4×7 foot room that was previously used as a tiny office. Although the following photos don’t showcase the room all that well, they will give something of a visual reference for now:

Looking into the room.

Looking out...

I love this room. It’s pretty much a closet, but it has a pretty window looking over my backyard and up on the ceiling is an entryway to our attic. There is also a little cabinet above the doorway for storage.

I adore small spaces. I remember when I was 11 or 12, my parents let me move my bedroom into our attic and I was elated. I felt so cozy and detached from the rest of the world in my pint-sized space. When Josh and I moved into our first place together, it was an attic apartment. There were 3 foot high doors (Alice and Wonderland style!) on either side of the living room, which led into a very small crawl space that soon became my “writing room”. I came across a video of the smallest apartment in Manhattan a couple of months ago, and watched it over and over again with wide-eyed wonder. But I digress.

Our original ideas for this room got washed up amidst the tides of a busy summer/fall, and it has now become a storage room filled with home brewing supplies. So, today I’m crafting up some ideas to build my nook once and for all, using supplies I already own or can find for free/very inexpensively.

Still not 100 per cent on whether I’d like to build a built-in bench, or thrift a snuggly chair to wiggle into the room.

Cozyyy!

I love the idea of using old books for decor as well! I created a book mobile a while ago and I think this room would be the right place to hang it.

Another way to repurpose old books into decor!

Hoping to tackle this project over the weekend! Exciteddddd!

A classic pow-wow weekend.

My sister and nieces. My sister made the regalia that all three of them are wearing.

Yesterday Josh and I woke up early (well, for us…I won’t tell you what time we actually woke up because that would be embarrassing) and headed to my hometown for the Grand River Champion of Champions Pow-wow. For those who haven’t been, the pow-wow is a public event wherein we celebrate our aboriginal roots by way of dance, song, craft, and food. People from other nations visit our territory for the weekend as either spectators, vendors, singers, drummers or dancers.

This year was extra special for us as our nieces were dancing! My sister has been a dancer for over a decade and it was really precious to see her passing on what she knows to her girls. She even makes her own regalia – the jingle dresses shown above (and on my nieces again, below) are an example of her handiwork, and you can also see her beadwork in some of the other pieces that they are all wearing. Beautiful!

My nieces with some of the other jingle dancers.

At noon, all the dancers enter the circle for Grand Entry. It is such a gorgeous display once they have all entered the circle. The dancers are men, women, boys and girls. The age range is vast. It’s incredible to see some of the elders who dance in 30+ weather in full regalia – a testament to the spirit to be sure. Josh and I agreed with my brother-in-law Jonathan that it’s hard not to get choked up watching the elders dance with such grace and pride. It is a juxtaposition knowing that many of them suffered serious oppression in the residential school system (read up on it if you don’t know), and yet here they are today dancing with their grandchildren with an air of freedom in their movement.

Grand Entry

After we watched the girls dance in Grand Entry, watched an intertribal dance for veterans and listened to the Thanksgiving Address, we were ready for the best thing on earth – pow-wow food. Every thing is fried and delicious. I think there is probably a considerable fraction of event attendees that just come for the food. One such food stuffs that you will see everyone eating is Indian Tacos, or in our case Navajo Tacos. It’s a honkin’ piece of fry bread topped with beans, meat, lettuce, cheese, sour cream, tomatoes, etc. And every time Josh and I go to the pow-wow we also drink copious amounts of fresh lemonade.

Powwow food. Navajo Taco.

Fresh squeezed lemonade. So good.

Halle coveting the cherries the she swiped out of my lemonade.

We made it back to the dance area to watch Halle in the Tiny Tots category. She was so cute!! The judges gave the kids five dollars at the end of the dance as encouragement, and for the rest of the day Halle would not let it go – referring to it as “my fifty bucks, Aunty Lolo!”. We also watched Mia dance. She looked so pretty in her green regalia. I was a very proud Aunty at that moment.

Halle and Nan walking in to the circle to dance for Halle's age category.

And no visit to Six Nations would be complete without a stop at home. We visited my parents for a few hours and admired their ridiculously large raspberry patch. Josh took some frozen raspberries home to incorporate into the beer we will soon be making, and next weekend I am going to be getting together with the Hill women to do some jam making. Here is my buddy Ears helping me eat raspberries -

Ears in the raspberry patch.

And that is it – a classic pow-wow weekend to be sure. The only thing we skimmed over is crafts, because if I need anything beaded or sewn my sister is my go-to woman. And the wonderful thing about being a little rez-amuffin is that I can make my own dreamcatchers, moccasins, and somehow I always have sweetgrass in my possession. Seriously. Always. Where does it even come from??

P.S. – Here’s a Youtube clip of my nieces dancing! D’awwwww.

Around house

Dear My Blog,

It has been exactly 2 weeks since I have updated you. My sincere apologies. I have been a little worse for wear recently due to an unwelcome visit from sinusitis.

I have laid low around the house for a few days. Here are some photos of what I’ve been up to between periods of rest, and just some shots of what’s growing in our yard:

Baseball in the park behind our house, on Canada Day.

We are planning to keep bees next summer! Going to be doing a lot of research in the coming weeks and saving up for supplies.

Hollyhocks at 6 in the morning. These are probably my favourite plants in our garden now, aside from our lavender and vegetables.

Scones in the morning. Used a recipe from The Dumpling Diary. They were such a nice excuse to get Josh out of bed (o:

Our garden is starting to produce some very lovely vegetables. Our poor plants do need some more water though. Eep.

These pretty flowers have started blooming. We have pink, light yellow, crimson...

Our favourite lady cat, Chuck.

More pretty hollyhocks!

Some bread I made for Josh's 30th/our housewarming.

Powerful women! And a Josh.

Shiyloh was all about the photo bombs on Saturday.

Mia <3

Shiyloh <3

Josh and our beautiful niece.

Water balloon fight!

More water balloon fight!

Just a short photo post before I head off to work! It was so perfect this weekend to have family and friends over. I think our first guest arrived at 5 p.m. and the last guest left at 3 a.m., so it was a full day of laughter, food and drink. I have another busy week of planning a baby shower and will be going out to my parents’ house on the reserve to make raspberry jam for the first time! I am so excited. When we’re there I hope to talk to my dad some more about where our hives could go next summer. And after this week it’s time to start planning that canning party! Peaches are coming soon!!

<3 L.

Vintage Bicycles + Brantford love, with a side of DIY decor.

I had the pleasure of spending 48 glorious, uninterrupted hours with my darling husband this weekend. It’s rare that we get a full weekend off together, so the past couple of days were a beautiful blessing. We tidied our cottage, cuddled, went to dinner + a movie, went dress shopping and finally got a chance to check out the Canadian Vintage Bicycle Show here in Brantford! We’ve wanted to ride our vintage (and very dorky) tandem bicycle out to this show for a couple of years but we always seem to miss it. Our bike was out of commission unfortunately, so we took our super swish Kia Rio to the show instead. Ha.

This bicycle was made in 1878!

One of the joys of living a semi rural life is that I find that I have no choice but to absorb the smallest pleasures with an open heart. The vintage bike show, a used book store, the farmers market, local honey, working at my local library – these are all simple pleasures that weave together to create greater joy and appreciation for small town living. I think I would feel a little discombobulated in a larger city. As much as I appreciate what larger urban centres have to offer, I absolutely adore the simple fact that on a Sunday…just around the bend from my house…there is a band playing inside a barn at a vintage bicycle show. At a gorgeous, historical homestead, no less!

Best looking venue ever.

The point is, Brantford can be precious sometimes.

The object of my adoration.

Understanding Brantford’s history gives me a greater appreciation for our town as well. As we were checking out the bicycles, we noticed some of them had these gorgeous wooden wheels. One of these bikes in particular had a little manufacturer’s plate on the front that said “Brantford, On”. Interesting to think about a time when our city was booming with industry…in contrast to the times we find ourselves in at the moment where we are dealing with some really unfortunate unemployment rates. I wonder what kind of changes we will see in our economy over the next 20 years? What will our new history be?

Wooden wheels + cork handles!

Brantford Canadian Bicycles

 

I want to go on crazy adventures on this bike!

I like the tiny one with the polka dot seat the best.

I have struggled with the feeling that small town living can be very limiting, but simple things like participating in the community (even just by attending some events) and appreciating the town’s history really open my mind to the true value of Brantford. There are so many things this city has been, and so many things that it will soon become. A city that can reconstitute itself like ours has over and over again…that is evidence of a place that is decidedly unlimited and full of potential. And so as of today I stop blaming Brantford for what it lacks, and instead turn to Brantford to draw inspiration from its history of perseverance.

On another note, I’ve been a busy bee lately crafting up some decorations for my dear friend Lauren’s baby shower. Last night I made some lacy luminaries with a bunch of jars I found at a thrift store, and some thick floral lace that I scored at a fabric store. Here’s what they look like all lit up -

Summer glow.

I can’t wait to finish putting together the rest of the decor! I hope Lauren will be happy with how everything turns out. I am inspired by the whimsy of this wedding, DIY projects on Pinterest, country living, and by Lauren’s natural beauty as a mother-to-be.  I am overjoyed that her daughter Sophie will be joining us so soon! Babies are a blessing.

Beekeeping and other dreams.

The suits, veils, and hats we would be sporting during the workshop.

Yesterday morning Josh and I ventured out onto country roads for a lesson in Beekeeping at Everdale, an organic farm and learning centre just north of Guelph. Recently we have been discussing keeping bees on my family’s land next summer – a natural next step for us as we marry our love of the honey bee and our desire to hone some homesteading skills for that one sweet day when we are living in the country.

At Everdale Organic Farm. Our fearless friend Sarah didn't wear a protective suit and was the first to handle one of the frames from the hive.

We learned so much from our instructor, Alison! She started the Tuckamore Bee Company in 2010 after 15 years of working in bee research. She also grew up learning about bees on the coast of Newfoundland where her father was a hobby apiarist. It’s amazing – we both felt after the workshop that we had learned more from Alison in 3 hours than we had from reading books or doing research online over several weeks. Having the opportunity to witness an experienced and passionate apiarist at work was a major learning experience for us.

Our very friendly and knowledgeable workshop facilitator, Alison from Tuckamore Honey.

She explained the insides of the hive – how the top chamber is for storing honey, and the bottom is called the brood chamber – where the Queen Bee lays her eggs and the Worker Bees feed them. She also showed us the Drone Bee (a male honey bee), whose sole purpose is to breed (he actually dies after breeding with the Queen). Our instructor gave us the opportunity to pick up the Drone (he doesn’t have a stinger), but I couldn’t get used to the feeling of the fuzzy little dude buzzing between my fingers so I kept losing my grip on him. The Drone is the most unassuming little creature and Alison’s Worker Bees were very mild mannered – but picking up a bee with my fingers is just an idea to get used to all the same.

Josh taking a frame out of the brood chamber.

Eeeee!

Some other cool things we learned at the workshop:

- If the Honey Bees don’t like the Queen (usually if she is injured or not producing eggs), they begin making a NEW Queen by feeding one of the bee babies lots and lots of food. The old Queen gets overthrown (I think Alison might have said that she even gets killed by her “minions”).

- Swarms are not dangerous! Before they swarm, they eat so much that they feel much like we do after a large turkey dinner. By the time they start swarming, they are bloated and tired. Alison told us that she has walked through a swarm with her arm out in front of her like a branch, and by the time she got to the other side her arm was covered with happy and lazy little honey bees.

- This year, apiarists lost 30 – 40% of the bee population…the highest bee mortality rate ever (in Ontario). Bacteria like American Foul Brood and parasites like the Varrao mite are some of the major reasons for the disappearance of our bees. If you have a hive and you find American Foul Brood (a bacteria that rots the larvae) you are required by law to burn your entire hive – bees included.

- You will need to run at least 300 hives to sustain a family of four. One person can manage up to 500 or 600 hives on a full time basis.

Honeybees feeding larvae.

A drone (male honey bee). He doesn't sting.

At the end of the day, we had so much information to process! The visit to Everdale solidified our plans to become hobby beekeepers next summer – and we started discussing some bigger future dreams as well. After a weekend of learning at the farm, visiting family out on the reserve, and hearing that our land has been cared for by family for 5 generations, I know deep in my heart that my passion lays in forming the deepest connection possible to the land and to my home. There isn’t enough that can be said about the kind of peace you encounter out in the country – a silence suspended in the air that is only occasionally punctuated by the wind filtering through trees; by the slow, low song of the cicada; and by the warm sounds of chatter and laughter that come from within the home. We adore our home in Brantford, but the country is where my heart lives. What a great opportunity we have over the next few years to develop some homesteading skills and re-establish a relationship with our environment.

Couldn’t have asked for a better weekend.

Apples of Aunty Lo's eye. Visiting with nieces and nephew out on the reserve.

(Oh and by the way – big thanks to our friend Rhiannon for pointing us in the direction of Everdale for the Beekeeping Workshop. Please check out her beautiful blog here. )

I love my Brantford.

Today Josh and I took our photos for the Love My Brantford project:

Josh loves his Brantford cottage.

I love my Gilkison Flats.

The project seeks to engage community members by inviting them to take a picture with the MY sign in a coveted spot within town, then visit Love My Brantford to upload and share (the submission form doesn’t seem to be up just yet…the site was just launched at Tweetstock last night.) It’s a bit of a hide and seek game because your goal is to find one of the signs somewhere in town, take it to your favourite locale, snap a photo, and then drop the sign off somewhere else for another person to find. If you don’t feel like doing all of that, you can make your own sign and just use that as well. I personally like the idea of finding one of the red wooden signs! We left ours somewhere in Gilkison Flats, my favourite “thoughtful spot” here in Brantford -

The project runs from June – November. It will be really cool to see how creative people get with the idea! I am itching to go find another MY sign, because I let it go before I could take a photo in one of my beloved thrift/antique stores! I’d also love to upload a photo of the MY sign to the Things I Like About Brantford tumblr. After all, the online spaces and communities we build as Brantfordians are also part of our community fabric.

In closing, I leave you with a picture of a snail buddy I came across while walking through the flats in platform shoes and a dress (an appropriate hiking outfit if I ever did see one) -

Holding on for dear life.

Making Rose Water

For the past week or two, we have been revelling in the scent of fresh blooms and taking in the sight of new life in our gardens. We have been watching the peas, zucchinis and tomatoes flower — and today we were delighted to behold a couple of beautiful peas that have somehow sprouted overnight (seemingly anyway). It’s amazing how quickly nature can move when it’s ready. Our peonies for instance – one day they were the tiniest little red shoots, and the next day they were vividly green and easily as tall as our hips. I think there’s something so beautiful about that – our plants don’t toil, worry or stress about their progress the way people do. They are just given the very basics and they sprout up, out, and onwards until they are bursting with their best – aromatics and edibles that nurture and restore. It is uninhibited growth that culminates in a precious offering.

Today as I walked around the garden I noticed some of our roses were looking a little ripe. Not wanting to lose their scent, I decided to pick the ones that were fully bloomed and make rose water! I once bought a jar of rose water from the general store and it worked beautifully as a skin toner. Not to mention, with rosewater you can make delicious treats like rose water marshmallows and rose water macarons! If you have the right supplies, you can even make rose water soap and lotions. So many fun things to do with this stuff! Here are a few photos of our flowers and my afternoon in the kitchen -

Our roses <3

Sigh...

Peonies

More peonies!

About 2 measured cups of rose petals - the stems and stuff were discarded.

Chuck and I were waiting for our water to boil.

I felt really sad when I had to do this part. Bye-bye pretty colours, hello steepin' roses for 2 hours.

Covered the mouth of my jar with some cheesecloth, a bowl for spills, poured it in and VOILA! Rose water.

I did this the “quick” way – 2 cups of packed, rinsed petals to 4 cups of boiling water. Cover petals in water. Steep till cool. Pour through a cheesecloth, into a jar. And refrigerate.

I wanted to do this the old fashioned way (which involves making a still) but I didn’t have the right supplies or enough time, so a bastardized version it was. But this is SOME bastardized rose water because it smells soooo pretty! I wish I could wash my linens in it, but I have a feeling rosy smells at bed time would make for a not-so-rosy Josh in general.

In closing, this little afternoon adventure has inspired me to host a canning party at our homestead this summer. Canned peaches, betta’ ask somebody!!

Cute!

Lieutenant Daaa-aaan, Ice Cream!

Try this now.

Take those overripe bananas!

Slice ‘em.

Put ‘em in a ziploc.

Put ‘em in the freezer.

Take your banana buddies out when they are good and frozen.

 Put them in a blender/food processor with a pinch of cardamom and a pinch of nutmeg.

Blend those guys up real good and BAM!

Delicious, fat free, no sugar added, dairy free Banana Ice Cream.

So. good.

The epic migraine of 2011 and my Christie Antique Show recap.

I went to bed with a little bit of a headache on Saturday night and woke up Sunday morning to the most dull and stomach turning migraine EVER. I took 4 Tylenols and it did absolutely nothing. I mustered up the energy to make dinner and watch a movie yesterday, but by the end of Winter’s Bone my migraine had taken the reigns and it was off to bed for me at 6 p.m. I woke up a couple times to appreciate the terror inducing thunderstorm that was brewing outside, and only after some consolation from Josh that the lightning would not jump through our bedroom window and hit me in the face, I went back to bed. I was delighted to wake up this morning to find that my migraine friend had decided to spend the night. Delighted. Now I am on a pill concoction that is working very mildly on my brain but has adversely affected the strength of my stomach. These are the woes of a girl whose body is way too affected by barometer pressure. And yet – I blog like a bat out of migraine hell.

So, this past Saturday brought the highly anticipated antique show. I reckon this is where my health issues must have started, because in addition to waking up at an ungodly hour on a Saturday, we were also accompanied by about a thousand other tired souls who – like us – thought that the early bird would get the worm. Here is photo evidence of the car lineup that went to the very edge of the park about 30 minutes after the gates opened:

Nice.

Being neither a morning or a crowd person, this was a fun challenge for me to remember my motto of compassion. I remember at one point smelling Josh’s eau de SPF 50 and grumpily asking him if he had put on “sour cream” that morning. Sun screen, sour cream…same difference at 8 in the morning.

There were some really unique and beautiful pieces at the show, such as this colourful cart -

And these amazing phonographs, which we longed to take home but were $1000+ which was so not in our league -

I adore rustic wood furnishings, especially the large cabinet pictured below. One day when we live in the country (our big “one day” dream), we can invest in some farmhouse pieces. It killed me a little inside to see these beautiful pieces getting so much moisture, but I’m sure the vendor wouldn’t put their inventory at risk.

And here is Josh admiring this searchlight. We’re really into this stuff right now – carriage/railroad lanterns, railroad insulators, searchlights, oil lamps, etc.

We saw quite a few of these lantern-y things that we would have liked to bring home, but they were all over $100 and in worse shape than the $20 one we found at a local antique market. This was a general theme for us throughout the antique show – gorgeous pieces, but we know where to find similar treasures at a fraction of the price. Part of the fun of antiquing is saving something from obscurity at a bargain price, gussying it up and giving it a new home where it’s beauty can flourish! The price points may have been fair for a collector or serious vintage connoisseur, but we’re just regular folk from Brantford with a penchant for the old. Nonetheless, I would totally recommend the show, if only to see some totally delightful antiques and find some serious inspiration for your home (or future farmhouse). Some tips if you attend to plan the next show, which is on September 10.

- Dress comfortably. I decided to wear a dress and flats, which was silly considering it was a little cold and rainy out. Wear comfortable shoes and a cozy shirt or hoodie.

- Show up at 7:30a to park and get into the show right at 8a. It was busy in the morning, but by noon there were so many people that it was difficult to browse without feeling rushed by the person behind you. Some of the booths I really wanted to see and take photos of were so cramped that it wasn’t even worth it to go inside.

- Coffee.

- Bring cash.

- Bring a camera to document items or booths that inspire new ideas.

- Sport a backpack or some other carrying-stuff-easily-device.

We didn’t end up with a ton of stuff at the end, but we did go home with a cute, country style vintage quilt which cost us just 40 dollars thanks to our superior bargaining skills (some similar quilts at the show were 350 bones!! No thanks!) Here is a picture of our new bedspread, which I am glued to today, no thanks to ill health. At least I can look at something colourful and pretty while my tummy and head do a fancy little waltz through Sicktown -

Goodnight…