DIY Artwork

We're still awaiting the nursery bedding. According to USPS, it was received at Canadian Customs on March 15 with no updated status since. Hopefully we'll see it sometime this week. In the meantime, I thought you'd enjoy a little sneak peak of what's else is happening in the nursery.

I decided to try some DIY artwork for the walls. I was inspired by a bunch of things I spied on etsy.com, but didn't want to wait even more weeks for shipping. I figured I could create my own versions at home, frame it up and call it done.
I wanted both an alphabet print and a number print. I perused a bunch of etsy shops and then sat down with MS Publisher (I'm not yet proficient enough to tackle it in photoshop) to create my own prints - customized to the nursery colours. Once happy with them, I printed them on heavy card stock and they were ready for framing.

I picked up the inexpensive white frames earlier this week, they just need a good cleaning to get the layer of dust and finger prints off them.

Once they were framed up, I thought they looked pretty cute. Particularly given they cost me nothing more than the frames!

And ta-da!

The bottom frame will hold a birth date print. That print is already created in two versions, one with our boy name and one with our girl name, and is just awaiting the birth date, time, weight and length details. You'll get to see it sometime after wee one's arrival - no sneak peak on that one ;)

And there you have it. With just a couple of hours of effort, I created, printed, framed and hung my DIY art. I'm pretty sure Baby Ryan won't mind that it's not Monet :)

Winter Soup in Spring

It’s called winter minestrone soup, though I enjoyed it equally as much yesterday evening even though it’s spring. Perhaps that’s because it still feels a little like winter around here, with the crusty white stuff still on the ground and nippy wind chill temps hovering around -11 degrees celsius. The soup is chock full of delicious veggies and flavour, making it good year-round.

I made a double-batch so I’d have some to freeze and enjoy after baby’s arrival. And really, when cooking soups and stews it really is just as easy to make a double or triple batch as it is to make a single pot. I started with this stash of ingredients – just look at all that orange and green goodness!

keep in mind this is enough for a double-batch

First, heat the olive oil in the pot.

While that warmed up, I chopped up my onion, carrots and celery.

I found pancetta already chopped, so that saved a step.

You just chuck all that in the pot with the hot oil and a little garlic ... and please don’t judge me for using the pre-minced garlic from the jar. I know the real stuff tastes better and adds more flavour and all that jazz. But I’m about 39 weeks pregnant, so easy-peasy outweighs peeling and mincing individual cloves of garlic these days! I sautéed that together for about 10 mins.

While those ingredients danced away together in the pot for about 10 mins with the occasional stir, I washed and chopped the swiss chard. It’s hearty and holds up to the rest of the soup marvellously. The recipe also calls for a chopped potato here, but I leave it out. Experience has shown the potato doesn’t freeze well, so I sub in extra beans later on.

Once the chard wilted a little, I added in the tomatoes and rosemary (the recipe calls for fresh sprigs, I used dried and it worked just fine). You bring it to a boil, turn back heat and simmer for about 10 more mins.

In the meantime, puree most of the white beans with a bit of broth.

Add it to the simmered veggie mix, along with the rest of the broth and simmer for another 15 minutes or so. I then added in remaining white beans plus the extra that I use to replace the potato. Simmer a couple of more minutes just to let the beans soften. Season with salt and pepper to taste, ladle and serve.

I like mine with crusty artisan bread. But if you prefer crackers, that’s cool too. Either way, it’s healthy, hearty and delish!

For the complete recipe visit thefoodnetwork.com.

R&R

Happy Tuesday morning to you. I'm enjoying mine sitting on the sofa, surfing the web and sipping a toasty cup of decaf coffee.

Jumping Bean Coffee + A Favourite Thermal Mug

Which to most of you probably sounds divine right about now. And yes, it is nice. Though I've decided I wouldn't be a good one for doing this stay-at-home alone thing all the time.

A) I'm social. I like people. Seeing them, talking to them, listening to them.
B) I'm active. I like to be busy, to have things to do, to be accomplishing something.

Yet without a car (I'm also a sleeper, so I don't want to get up and take hubby to work every day), I'm homebound, without social interaction most of the day. I'm also just about 39 weeks preggo, meaning what I used to be able to do and accomplish in a day, I can't. I now have to space it all out with breaks and rest time on the sofa, surfing the web, sipping decaf. And to think I've been off work less than a week!

What keeps me sane is knowing that the time is short and before long I'll have plenty to do with the babe and, quite likely, less energy to do it with. The house will also begin to fill with visitors wanting to pinch pink cheeks (no, not mine) and there will be more social calls than I'll know what to do with.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to doing a few things this week (and not worrying about the fact that I normally would be able to do this in a day or so). On my to-do list is making this soup for supper and extra for the freezer, finishing up some DIY art for the nursery inspired by some discoveries on etsy, including this and this and this, finishing up tidying the scrapbook nook which had become a catchall for everything that didn't have a home elsewhere in this home over the last few weeks, scrapbooking a few photos, and taking time to stop and smell this sweet laundry.

Sweet Smelling Tiny Clothes :)

And of course, making my way through the to-do list is ever-contingent on baby's decision to hang tight or make his/her world debut.

Simple Things - Essie

There's just something about a new bottle of nail polish that makes me smile, especially when it's at a spa awaiting a pedi!

Essie nail polish in Raisinuts

I finished up work this week and kicked off my year of maternity leave as a lady of leisure...complete with a massage, lunch with my hubby and a good friend, a pedicure and a couple of St. Paddy's Day socials. I enjoyed every second, knowing those days will be fewer and farther between once the wee one arrives (which is hopefully very very soon!).

before ...

and after!

Linking up with Rebecca Cooper's Simple Things challenge:

Nursery Inspiration

With the wee one's arrival only days or weeks away (really only he/she knows when it'll be), we're getting close to finishing up the nursery.

We're still awaiting the bedding, a custom-made order from RockyTop Design on Etsy (and our splurge for the nursery, as we were fortunate enough to get almost all of the other "big" items on loan from my sister - muah sissy!). On the plus side, we know the bedding is en route. On the downside, we also know it's at customs, meaning it could be just days or up to weeks before it actually arrives here in the far East. But, on the plus side again, the bedding really is decorative for now as the wee one will be in a cradle in our room for the first little while, and said cradle is ready! Other than that we still have to get a blind and curtain rod for the window, I'd like to pick up a nice laundry basket, and I plan to make a couple of prints to frame and hang by the crib.

I'll post pictures once it's complete (fingers crossed that the postal-fairies are kind enough to send the bedding soon and that'll be sometime next week). In the meantime, here are a few sources that inspired the style. We started with this hand-embroidered pillow sham that Des had brought back from his trip to Zambia, knowing we wanted to hang it in the nursery. Fortunately, with it's array of colours and cute elephants, it would be an easy fit.

We then wanted to pick colours that weren't "too boyish" or "too girlish", but that we also not the standard cream, yellow and green combo that fills gender-neutral nurseries. After a visit to ohdeedoh.com and ProjectNursery.com, I fell in love with these bright turquoise/orange and soft grey combos, which fit perfectly with the pillow sham ... and could work for either a boy or a girl.



http://projectnursery.com/2010/06/hawkens-nursery-by-anyon-a-k-a-mom/

Loved the striped walls in this one, though it was way to much work for us (and by 'us' I mean D who did all the painting work in the room!) to do.

http://www.ohdeedoh.com/ohdeedoh/noahs-sunshine-nursery-nursery-tour-122750

http://gallery.projectnursery.com/projects/384-Modern-Nesting-Nursery

Once settled on the turquoise/orange/grey colour palette, I went in search of bedding. It was nearly impossible to find anything in that combo on mainstream retail sites, which is how I ended up on etsy.com discovering this fabric collection from RockyTop Design:

from RockyTop Design on Etsy

Can you say love? We were able to pick the different coordinating pieces we wanted using a selection of the above fabrics (you'll see our choices with the final reveal!), which was excellent as most of the pre-packaged sets she offered included a crib skirt. I'm so not a crib-skirt person, a little frou-frou for my tastes, but of course to each their own.

Another source of inspiration was this post even though we didn't go with any owls:

Now if only I had discovered these cute pouffes a month ago, I would've had those too ;)

http://www.ohdeedoh.com/ohdeedoh/decorative-accessories-pillows/crochet-pouffe-etsy-find-139157

So, there you have it - the starting point for wee one's new digs. Hopefully I'll be able to share the final room next week!