I love that the table is white, but one small problem I noticed once I put the table in the foyer was that it blended a little too well with my white walls - it needed a little colour. I think one of the easiest ways to add colour to a space is with flowers. I love Orchids as they’re not too expensive and they last forever, however as my foyer doesn’t really get any natural light I opted for some colourful fake ranunculus from HomeSense instead. I also placed a little tray to hold my mail and keys, and then I decided the table needed a little whimsy so I added my Matryoshka-like dolls that I brought back from Australia a few years ago.
What do you think? Do you have a place in your entry to put the mail and your keys when you come home? Or do you do what I used to, and drop it  in the hopes a magical elf would come by in the middle of the night to tidy it away?

Disclosure: Staples Canada provided me with the table and asked me to share how I would use it as an accent piece in my home. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

It sat on my windowsill for a few weeks until I eventually decided I should put something in it. The next time I was at Home Depot I explored their plants and tried to figure out what would look best. The problem was that most of the small plants they had in stock were simple with leaves in various shades of green and I wanted something with a bit more colour since the pot itself was green. Happily I found the perfect plant one row over – an African Violet.
One of the other things I remember about my Gran is she always had several African violet plants. I can still picture several on her drum table in front of a big picture window. Whether she had them because they were a favourite, or they were given to her as gifts I’m not quite sure, but they will always make me think of her.

I’m crazy I know, buying yet another project before finishing (ahem – starting) so many other projects, but it’s an almost perfect match to my living room console, so I couldn’t not get it. Right? Plus it was only $40 (if you don't count the gas I needed to drive an hour each way to get it). It does need quite a bit of work, and while I’m normally a ‘wood should look like wood’ purist, this is a piece that may need to be painted given the many chips in the veneer, and the damaged foot. I also need to source some more chopsticks as this piece has got damaged trim - just like the console did. The hutch will go in my dining room so I’m trying to figure out if I do have to paint it what colour might work with the kitchen’s dark blue floor, and the piece's brass hardware. Once it’s finished will help add some needed storage to my dining room (and will replace my old dresser which is the next item to go into my January Cure outbox).

Anyways, the Junction flea was pretty neat with a wide variety of vendors and items for sale. I did bring home two things that I thought were pretty.

I bought both the vase and the bowl from the same vendor (wish I had remembered to get her name) for $40. I think the glass bowl looks a bit like an overturned iceberg. The white porcelain vase says ‘Kaiser – Germany’ on the bottom, but I couldn’t find a similar vase online to see if I got a good deal or not. It doesn’t really matter though as I’m happy with my purchases.
This weekends task for the January cure was to organise my kitchen, make myself a new recipe and buy myself flowers. I did buy myself flowers as you can see from the picture of my new vase above, but I completely failed at the other tasks. On a positive note I did continue with the outbox task and sold two furniture items on Kijiji, and made myself $80 which covered the cost of the hutch and the pretty flea market purchases.

I took these pictures with my cell phone so the quality isn’t great, but it’s what it looks like – someone in the building took a marker and drew two huge marks on the walls in our front stairway. What makes it worse – the board had just weeks before had all the interior common walls repainted at a cost of several thousand dollars. I know it shouldn’t, but this vandalism feels like a slap in the face. Our building is small – just 23 units. We know pretty much everyone (there are a few renters), so the fact that someone would deliberately do something like this wounds me. I and the other members of the board take the time out of our lives where we could be doing all the things we enjoy to help ensure all of our homes are well looked after. The vandal may as well have written ‘SCREW YOU’ in big black ugly letters (it actually feels like another word, but I try to keep this space PG).

Do sunflowers make you happy?

I’m not sure what it is about sunflowers, but they make me happy. I’ll be sure to look at them tomorrow after I get back from the emergency board meeting that was called in response to the lovely new art of our walls, and then maybe, if I feel up to it, I might draft a blog post about something that make me happy. Wish me luck.

Like a lot of other people in N. America I get a number of those group deal emails every day. I don’t purchase the deals too often, but from time to time there’s one that’s tempting. I’m rather careful about what deals I buy – last year I was one of the people who purchased a deal for a Toronto butcher (Google ‘butcher Toronto coupon’ for more info on that snafu if you’re unaware of it) that ended up being too good to be true. I did get my money back, but it’s made me a little more wary of the ‘deals’ that arrive in my inbox.
Anyways, in May there was a LivingSocial deal for either some fresh flowers or a flower arranging class, and after a quick Google search for bad reviews I decided to buy the class. I thought it would be nice to learn how to arrange flowers in a way that doesn’t look like I just unwrapped them and plopped them in a vase. After buying the coupon I called the shop and booked my class for June 16^th.
On the 16^thI left for my class and I was rather excited. I’ll admit I may have been drafting my triumphant blog entry about my monthly flowers being done in the middle of the month while I rode the streetcar on the way to the class, but I was truly excited about learning some tricks and techniques. That is, I was excited until I entered the shop and after saying I was there for the class was told that the class had been cancelled because LivingSocial hadn’t forwarded the money yet. Womp womp. So disappointed.
I haven’t tried to re-book my class so these flowers are more of the ‘I don’t know what I’m doing so I just stuck ‘em in a vase’ variety. I think they’re lovely no matter what though as they’re Peonies which are one of the prettiest flowers, and a personal favourite.
Do you like the vase? I think it's very Jonathan Adler-esque, but I found it on clearance at HomeSense for $9. It's decidedly quirky so I like it.

Procrastinator: (noun) Someone who postpones work (especially out of laziness or habitual carelessness).

Why are stems on roses so long? Does anyone actually not cut the stems?

Hopefully I'll get some projects completed in the next 30 days. At the very least I hope to be able to complete the refinishing of my new console. What about you? Do you have a list that you're having trouble crossing things off of? Am I alone in my procrastination?

April flowers - Mums

This month's flowers are Mums in two colours - I'm not sure what it is about the lime green, but I love it paired with the pink.


In the next couple of days I hope to show you a store I got to explore during a recent trip to the Big Apple.

My bouquet one week later. It's lasting rather well.

I have to say that I'm loving my new camera - I never would have been able to take pictures like these with my old point-and-shoot.

You may recall that in the early days of 2012 I posted about my to-do list for the year. One of those things was to buy myself flowers every so often 'just because'. Well today, as it was the last day of February, I did just that.