Happy Monday everyone! It’s sunny and gorgeous here in Vancouver which makes for a good start of the week. And, another reason for why this Monday is special is because our home is featured on Design Sponge today! Thanks to Anne for taking the time to put our story together. You can see the sneak peek of our home here.
The other weekend, we went to the Design Sponge book launch party held at Anthropologie and met the lovely and talented Grace Bonney. I’m so honoured to have my book signed by her and to have finally met her in person after years of continued inspiration. I also have to say that I am completely flattered of her nice write up on our totes over at Design Sponge – so amazingly sweet. You can read it here. Thanks Grace for including Vancouver to your book tour. Come back soon! xo, Nerissa
As Luna grows, our space grows with her too. We’ve changed our studio space numerous times to continually adapt to our ever changing lifestyle. Before Luna came to our life, our studio space was mainly used to work. When Luna came, we had to share the space with her and had to move furniture around to make room for her to crawl around. Now that she’s a little toddler and is more mobile, we’ve changed the space again to adapt to her needs and created a little fun art/play factory for her.
Luna loves doodling and being read to. So she now has a little art table, a reading rug, storage for her toys and a place to feature all her art work. We also created a family picture board where we’ll continually add photos of our family. She loves looking at it and screams out “mommy’ & “daddy” as she points to our photos. Luna loves spending time in here and every time she walks in, she goes straight to her artwork hanging from the ceiling and screams out “nice!”.
I always find it important to create different spaces in the house based on the activities that we would do in them. Luna knows that this is her space and it’s a place where she can freely explore, discover & play.
After years of dreaming about it, we finally got our brand new kitchen & we are extremely happy! The renovation wasn’t as bad as I had imagined – but perhaps it’s because we hired people to do it. All we had to do was to get out of the way – pretty simple on our part. But we did have to live without a kitchen for a full 3 weeks. Thankfully, it was sunny and warm out so we spent most of our days at the park & beach where we ate breakfast, lunch & dinner. Nothing to complain about! However, after the 3rd week, I was ready to spend more time at home & stay home.
Now that the kitchen is completely done, we couldn’t be happier. Nice to finally have our vision come to life. We are still on the look out for what to put on the large white wall by the dining table. We have quite a few ideas but are taking our time to make sure we find the right piece(s) to put on that wall. Once we have it, I’ll update this post with a photo.
When I was gathering inspirational images for our dream kitchen, I always appreciated the ones who listed the materials they used. So here’s a list for you:
Countertop : Quartz Cimstone Lapland 3cm
Backsplash : Statuary white marble 2″x4″ tile
Cabinets : Ikea
Cabinet hardware : Restoration Hardware
Dining Room Light Fixtures : Restoration Hardware
Bar Stools : Industrial Mansard Stool from Home Decorators Collection
Peter also surprised me with a laser etched engraving on the marble. “Collect the moments, one by one. I guess that’s how the future’s done.” – Feist.
We went to check out a fantastic pop up shop called The Found and The Freed which we read about through Janis from Pinecone Camp. I fell in love with the whole shop – I want them all! If you haven’t been, go check them out. They are scheduled to open until July 16th but might be extended throughout the summer or until December. But just in case, go before the 16th so you’re not disappointed.
Thought I would share some behind the scenes photos from the Anthology Magazine photoshoot day. The shoot took all day with a late but extended lunch break with Brian Stevens being the chef of the house & took over the kitchen creating a pretty special salad. That made our stomachs very happy. The day ended with some photos at the beach by our house but those photos didn’t make the cut. All in all, it was a pretty fantastic day.
We are so happy to be part of Anthology Magazine’s issue No. 3. It’s a fabulous spring issue and the theme is “Life is a Party!”
Early last year, co-founder & creative director of Anthology magazine, Meg Ilasco, asked us if we wanted to be in the issue. Well, that was a no brainer – the answer was Y-E-S! So in October last year, super talented SF/NYC based photographer Thayer Gowdy along with assistant photographer Brian Stevens flew in to shoot our home. Part of the team was also local stylist Heather Cameron and it was a full day of fun, fun, fun! Before the shoot, I didn’t really know what to expect. We were told to wear something colourful & spring like. And, maybe a little vacuuming here and there but to leave the space as is because they wanted to capture how we live and not have the space overly styled. Well, that was easy. All we needed to do was to be there & look decent.
The whole day was so casual and we were just there – living. We told stories, laughed, ate a huge lunch & just hung out. I barely noticed them working. There were also no gigantic photography lights or anything. Just Gowdy’s camera, a huge tripod and a laptop – that was it.
It was nice to have met them all as they are all so talented. I liked hearing Thayer’s stories as a professional traveling photographer. Wow, this woman has been to places! Made me envy her life a bit as she told us stories of where she’s been and people she’s met. Such an amazing woman. Heather Cameron and I have stayed in touch and I recently just finished designing her delicious Missing Goat jams & syrups. I’m so excited to see my labels on her jars soon. Yay!
You can check out their stockist list to pick yourself up a copy. Anthropologie is also now selling the magazine in its online shop and issue No. 3 will be arriving in all Anthropologie store locations in the US, Canada and UK.
Recently, I saw sfgirlbybay’s blog post on her home office. What caught my eyes were her vintage baskets where she stores her magazines. Such a great idea. We’ve got a great collection of magazines that we neatly store in our bookcase but to make them all stand in place, they have to be tightly squeezed together from end to end. Pulling one out cleanly is almost impossible especially when trying to squeeze it back in line. Solution: store them in baskets! So awesome. Why didn’t I think of this before? Now, I just take the whole basket out if I’m in the mood to read an old issue or easily add a new issue into the basket. Brilliant. I also love the old blackboard in her studio space. I want one too!
Today was spent at Francis and Tracy’s place for a little Lucy, Orla and Luna playdate and for the big people to re-connect. Francis and Tracy made us some fabulous sandwiches, banana bread and homemade apple tart made on a whim by Francis himself. We brought Peter’s yummy rosemary parmesan baked polenta chips and a couscous salad. Food with lots of chatting and laughter makes for a perfect weekend, again.
After lunch while the kids played and the two big boys chatted in the living room, Tracy and I had some time to talk mom to mom. It’s rare for two moms to be able to sit down and have a nice conversation without kids climbing all over us. Tracy and I both come from the creative industries so it was nice to be able to talk to a mom who understands the need to not loose your creative self-identity. I think it’s always a challenge to find the right balance of motherhood and rediscovering yourself again. While there are many challenges, there’s also lots of opportunities to chart out personal passions and steer life in new directions. While there will always be decisions to make and paths to find, I believe we have the power to shape our dreams and nurture a family at the same time.
I feel like this past year, I’ve had the time to re-discover who I am again as a creative person. Even with limited alone time, I feel the most creative I have ever been in years and ideas are bouncing out of my head. I’ve learned to really stay focused and to continually remember all the things I want to achieve and to only work on things that bring me closer to what I want to accomplish in my life. With all the choices that I am constantly faced with daily, I always have to stop and ask myself this question, “will doing this bring me closer to my goals and aspirations in life?” If the answer is no, then I turn around and simply don’t do it. If the answer is yes, then I jump right on it.
Though things will continue to change while Luna grows and our family grows with her, I feel it’s important to staying focused on self-defining what matters in life. There’s no simple solution but the answers become a little easier when you’re surrounded by good friends and supportive households. The big people are growing up as much as the little people. As they should.
My afternoon was spent with Chloe and her little Avenir. It’s so nice to have these simple mommy’s day where stories are shared about life, home, family, food… as we sip coffee and nibble on snacks and Chloe’s yummy grilled cheese basil sandwich.
Chloe lives in a beautiful two bedroom apartment in Downtown with her husband Julian. They have done a great job incorporating Avenir’s toys and play space within their home. It’s always nice to see people live the way they’ve always lived but made minor adjustments to blend baby necessities into their space and not making their home look like the toy section of a department store. I think that’s always a challenge that people have – how do you blend in your baby’s play space and still keep your home look like it belongs to the family and not solely to the baby.
In Chloe’s case, Avenir’s toys are all stuffed in this awesome apple pattern bag in the living room. It’s a simple idea and totally works. I’m always thinking of different ways to store Luna’s toys and I think this is brilliant. For a ‘small’ play space, she’s got this sheep skin rug in the living room where Avenir and Luna spent most of their time playing. It’s funny how they kind of just stayed within that area. Throws were also stacked neatly on a vintage chair on the corner of the room for anyone to use.
It’s a comfortable space to be in where Chloe and Julian still have their space to be adults but yet Avenir has his own space to play and grow.
I’ve been wanting to make this simple bunting project for quite sometime now and finally had a chance to work on it yesterday. We changed our internet and cable tv provider so I was stuck at home yesterday waiting for the new carrier to hook us up and get it working again. Without internet, I couldn’t help feeling like I had nothing to do. But I shook that idea off my mind and decided to to take full advantage of my day at home and went back to the simplest pleasures of life – back to the sewing machine! So I sewed all day and finally made this simple bunting project that’s been lingering in my mind.
Ariana, from Crow Rooster Crow inspired me to make this gorgeous bunting. Hers are made from vintage cocktail napkins but I thought it might be easier for me to source fabric instead of searching for vintage napkins. So off I went to the fabric store over the weekend and went straight to the clearance bin where I found these scraps of fabric that seemed like they were just waiting for me to take home and bring them to life.
To make the bunting, I cut my fabric to about 7″w x 9″h. Repeat this until you have enough. The seams I just eyeballed which I think are about 1/4″. Once you’re done sewing the seams on all your fabric, evenly space them along the bias binding tape (I spaced them out about 2″ apart), folding the shortest edge over, and pin in place. Then sew the flags with a straight stitch and voila, you’ve got your own handmade bunting!
I love having them hung up in our dining/kitchen area. It brings a lot of colour to the space and I also love how the light from outside shines through the fabric. When I first hung it up, Luna kept on reaching up wanting to touch them all. She also couldn’t stop admiring all the different colours as she ate her dinner last night. So I couldn’t resist and made a smaller version for her room and hung it up by her window. I think it’ll be a nice sight for her to wake up to every morning with the sun shining through all the different coloured fabric.
This is a simple project that anyone can do. Happy sewing!
For Mother’s Day, I bought Nerissa a Boskke Sky Planter. The day after I bought it, I picked up a nice orchid for it but the root ball was too big to fit inside the small Boskke. Two months later, I got around to finding a replacement plant and hanging the planter up. I chose an Areca Palm which should stay fairly petite with long lyrical leaves once it blossoms out a bit. It’s a clever piece of the design. The act of hanging the plant upside down abstracts the form. It’s no longer just a plant in a white pot. It becomes a whimsical, living piece of sculptural art. It’s a nice addition to our home.
