Maui

July 2, 2013

I will seriously understand if you hate me. Yes, I am in Maui and will be here for a couple of weeks. We are totally blessed and know how privileged we are to get to do this. The honest trust is, we wouldn’t be here without the generous help of Lonnie’s parents. This is the 4th time in the last 10 years that they have helped make this trip to paradise a reality. I LOVE my in-laws.

Oh my friends, it’s amazing here. We have been wet and sandy at least 50% of our time here already. My kids are in heaven, well really we all are. We’re enjoying lots of fresh, tropical fruit, soaking up the scenery, playing in the sand, and snorkeling with turtles.

I am loving island life and the warm, humid weather it brings. Since I grew up in Papua New Guinea, Hawaii is the next best thing. It’s so much fun to see all the familiar island vegetation, eat tropical treats, and swim in warm waters. I’ll be sure to share some of our adventures along the way. Last time we were here I shared a recipe for Lemon Coconut Scones and Maui Mango Ginger Granita. And I’ve got some more recipes in the works. And if you want to be totally jealous, you can follow my instagram (warning – a lot of cute pictures of Olivia at the beach).

Be sure to come back tomorrow! I have a great giveaway for you.

Design / DIY

Bay Blanket Printable

June 28, 2013

Well, O + P’s Canada week has come to an end. But, I’m giving you one more fun Canada Day decoration. This free 8×10 printable Bay blanket easily adds Canadian cheer to to your home. Just slip it into a simple frame and place it on your mantel. Two great iconic Canadian symbols all in one.

Click HERE for the free download. And if you missed the rest of my Canada love posts, be sure to check out the Canada Day Bunting, the Giant Geometric Maple Leaf, the Hudson Bay Blanket round up, and the Maple Nut shortbread.

Well, we should be set for Canada Day. I hope you all have a great weekend. I’m off on a new adventure. I’ll share more on Monday, but I will say this adventure does involve snorkeling, palm trees and hopefully pina coladas.

Design / DIY

Giant Geometric Maple Leaf

June 27, 2013

I hope all my Canadian readers are feelin the love this week. I’ve got a inexpensive, go big or go home, maple leaf for your wall. It’s just like my heart and shamrock.

Using 12″ scrapbook paper in red, maroon, and white, I cut out right angle triangle. Start by cutting the full sheet of paper into four 6″ squares and then cut those squares in half diagonally. For this Geometric Maple Leaf I used 2 pieces of white and 3 pieces each of the red and maroon. Then I simple used glue dots and attached them to my wall in a random pattern. Well, I actually copied the pattern from my free printable Canada Day bunting.

Come back tomorrow, because I have one more fun Canadian printable.

Food & Drink

Maple Nut Shortbread

June 26, 2013

I can’t go to Banff, Alberta without buying a piece of maple fudge. You probably know I’m a huge fun of shortbread. They are the easiest cookie to make and their butteryness (yes that is my world) is so irresistible. I’ve come up with the perfect Canadian cookie, a Maple Nut Shortbread.

Maple Nut Shortbread

1 cup butter (room temp)

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

2 tsp. artificial maple flavoring

2 egg yolks

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup finely chopped nuts (I used pecans, but walnuts would be great as well)

Cream the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer. Add the salt, maple and egg yolks and beat until smooth. Add the flour and mix till dough comes together. Add the nuts. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to 1/4″ thick and cut out your maple leaves. Place cookies on parchment lined baking trays and place the trays in the freezer for about 10 mins. If the cookies start chilled, they keep their shape better during the baking. Then you don’t just end up with maply blobs. Bake at 325 F for about 12-15 mins or just until the edges of the cookie start to turn golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

For more Canadian fun, be sure to print off the free Canada Day bunting and check out the Bay Blanket round up I put together.

Design

Canadian Style – The Hudson Bay Blanket

June 25, 2013

This is my Canada love week. Yesterday I shared a free printable bunting for Canada Day. I hope you printed yours off. And today I have a fun round up of some great Hudson Bay Blanket finds. Some of these are a little unexpected and put a unique spin on this Canadian classic.

Pocket Knife // Mid Century Chair // Twin Beds

Bunk Beds // Sweater

Baby Tee // Knitted Baby Blanket // Wing Back Chair

Seriously, how fabulous is that wing back chair? I pinned a lot of these ideas a long time ago on my Oh Canada board. And I have my little piece of a Bay Blanket, that I’m still trying to decide what to do with. I’ve been planning an ottoman of some sort for Riley. Someday I’ll get around to making something out of it. Just so many projects and so little time. So, do you share my Bay Blanket love?

DIY

Geometric Canada Day Bunting

I’m been thinking a lot about my homeland, Canada, lately. My thoughts and prayers are with friends and family in the Calgary, AB area. The recent flooding in Calgary has really made me homesick.

I was born in Alberta and lived there till I was 7 years old (then we moved to Papua New Guinea). But, Alberta was home, and that’s where my Grandparents were and until recently my parents as well. When I graduated from high school in PNG, I moved back to Canada and did my first year of college in Calgary. I love that city and the whole provence of Alberta. And I’m proud of my peace loving, Canadian heritage.

Since my parents have moved to Northern California, we haven’t been North. It’s been 4 years now and I’m really itching to go. Next summer it WILL happen. The plan is to drive Riley up there.

Oh yes, I couldn’t help myself, triangles are still alive and well here at O + P. After my geometric heart and then the geometric shamrock, I had no choice a geometric maple leaf was a must. I’ve put together a FREE printable bunting for July 1st, Canada Day. But, if you’d just like to show some Canadian love, during their time of loss, print it off! When I see it hanging in my house, it’s a good reminder for me to pray for those effected by this terrible flooding.

Click HERE for your free copy of this bunting (there are 3 pdf files). Simply cut them out and string it up.

Find

Thrifting Thursday – Vintage Alarm Clocks

June 20, 2013

While I was in Idaho, the week before last, my mother in law and I checked out a mini vintage flea market. It’s a new vintage show run by Two Chicks in a Barn. They’ll be holding another event in September, so all my Idaho friends, be sure to check it out. This California girl was impressed with Idaho prices.

I came away with a couple fun, very inexpensive treasures. These vintage alarm clocks just had to be mine and for just $5 for the pair, it was meant to be. I think they’ll look really cute together on my bedside table, or maybe I’ll put them in Riley (my vintage trailer) since they are wind ups and no batteries or electricity is needed. And maybe this a collection in the making, we’ll see. For now I’m happy with these two little guys, but if I see a third, I might need to get it.

This octagonal one is my favorite. Octagons are the new triangles, right? I still love my triangles, but I have a feeling could love this new geometric shape just as much.

Have you had time to hit any garage sales or done any thrifting this summer? Tell me about your best find lately.

Find / Travel

The Brooklyn Flea

Well, I’m FINALLY back. Thanks for your patience friends, this was a much needed break that both my family and I needed. We have been all over the place the last couple of weeks. We drove to Idaho (a 14 hour trip), to visit Lon’s family. Then while we were there, Lon and I left the kiddos with his very generous parents and flew to NYC. We got to spend FIVE days there, all by ourselves. Then we flew back into Idaho, spent a few more days with fam. Then early Monday morning we drove to Lassen Volcanic National Park and met my parents there. We spent yesterday exploring the park (it’s fabulous and I’ll be sharing that with you as well), and then this morning we drove to my parent’s place in Eureka, CA. The kids are fantastic travelers and we are having a great summer. And there’s still a lot more Summer traveling adventures to come.

We are celebrating our fifteen anniversary this summer and wanted to do it in a big way. It was BIG friends – New York City big. We had such a great time and packed in tons of great stuff and lots of yummy treats. I’ll be sharing some of our NYC adventures in the weeks to come. Today I’m sharing our first destination in NYC – the Brooklyn Flea. My husband is a good sport, and even though he is NOT a shopper, he does enjoy wondering around a flea market.

Denali would have loved one of these brass owls or cats.

The view of Manhattan from the Flea

I’ve long been a flea market fan. If there’s one happening near by, I’ll be there (from France to Santa Fe to the Rose Bowl and everything in between). The Brooklyn Flea did not disappoint. It was small and quaint and was a great mix of great old stuff and also local artisans work. And probably some of Brooklyn’s best food was there. I wish I would have been a little hungrier, because there were many treats that tempted me, but I just couldn’t justify stuffing another thing into my face (especially People’s Pops, so I may need to buy their cookbook).

Lon’s favorite treat of the day was a Lemon Poppy Seed Donut from Dough. Oh my, it was warm and just a perfectly light yeast donut. They had lots of unique flavors like Passion Fruit Cocoa Nibs and Blood Orange Glazed.

I went for the more dainty, lady like treat – Grilled Maple Bacon Stick from Landhaus. It was the generous hunk of bacon, grilled to crispy perfection, then drizzled in maple syrup and topped with some yummy smoky salt of some sort. One stick was a meal.

There was definitely a limited selection of furniture and vintage knickknacks, but what was there, was of high quality. It was like a well curated Flea Market, without all the tacky junk. I ended up coming home with a handmade mug as my souvenir. I couldn’t resist this cute fox piece by SKT Ceramics. It was hard to choose from all her cute animals and gorgeous pastel glazes.

Brooklyn was probably my favorite part of NYC. If I had to choose a place to live, Brooklyn would be it. It’s hip, young, artsy and is rapidly being refurbished. I love the potential of the place and the people who see that potential. And an added bonus is that Brooklyn has a healthy bike culture.

If you’re headed to New York anytime soon, I recommend you take a L train Sunday morning and spend a couple hours at the Brooklyn Flea.

DIY / etc. / Food & Drink

Science Themed Birthday Party

June 8, 2013

So, here’s how we celebrated my son Dylan hitting the double digits. For his 10th birthday, our little geek wanted a Science Themed Birthday Party. This was a proud day for his nerdy, Biology teacher dad. All those years of brain washing final paid off and science is cool.

I shared some of my science party decor sources last week. I’m so pleased with how all of this came together. The yellow and teal color scheme was bright and cheery and played well with the blackboard details and vintage frog dissection chart.

For the dessert/treat table I had fun making white chocolate Lab Rats, Atomic Pops (oreo truffles), Flask Cookies (that my mom skillfully decorated), candy filled test tubes, and Petri Dish Delights.

And I sewed fun treat bags with the fabulous sciency fabric I had found and filled them with fun nerdy notions.

This was one of the easiest parties I’ve thrown in a while. We didn’t have to organize games or keep the kids entertained and out of trouble. My husband simply kept the kids busy with fun, interactive science experiments. He had them look at the cheek cells under a microscope, they played “guess the magnified object” under the microscope, they made a classic soda and vinegar volcano, they made their own borax goo, and they even got to participate in a dissection.

And what’s a party without a cake. I like to make my kids classic piped buttercream themed cakes. This year’s was super simple, I just made a big flask cake.

And these are my two favorite geeks in the whole world.

DIY / etc.

A Science Party Bunting and a Cricut Giveaway

June 6, 2013

All my Cricut friends, this giveaway is for you! If you’re not using Cricut Craft Room yet, you NEED to be. It allows you to have access to all your digital cartridges and you can mix and match them together on your computer and then cut everything all at once. You can also play with designs and then save then for later. I only started using Cricut Craft Room this year, but there is no going back. Often times I work on my laptop in front of the TV in the evening and lay out everything I want to cut. Then later I just open up my saved designs and cut away.

I recently threw my son a Science Themed Birthday Party (you may have seem some of it on Instagram). I’ll be sharing more of the party tomorrow, but I wanted to share this custom Science bunting I made with my cricut machine. Who wants to buy pre-made party decorations, when you can make beautiful ones to go with whatever theme or color scheme you choose? I made cute little beakers and flasks to go perfectly with all my party decorations.

I’m hosting a great giveaway today! I’m giveaway the Cricut Chalkboard Fonts Cartridge to one lucky winner. This new on-trend digital cartridge gives invitations, cards, and signs a hand-lettered look. There are three fonts included in this cartridge and bonus letters and flourishes for all the fonts.

It’s super easy to enter, just leave a comment below sharing how you’d use this fun new cartridge. Just check this fun custom cell phone cover using vinyl, I really like this idea. Thanks Cricut for this fun giveaway.

Love Cell Phone

Giveaway ends Friday, June 7th at 12 midnight. Winner will be announced on Saturday June 8th.