There’s a new reindeer in town and his nose ain’t red. It’s white. And ceramic. But he has just as much character as Ol’ Red and now (like R.dogdolf) a story that he can pass down to his grandkids too.

Sparkle is a relatively new Christmas decoration – I got him a few years back – but quickly became one of my faves. Allow me to introduce you…

Although I think this shot is funnier. Cue toddler hand stage right (or left?) I don’t know, I’m a designer, not an actress.

Anyway, what you may have noticed aside from the cute little hand and awesome reindeer is lack of antlers… or part lack. Sparkle is ‘placking’ (part-lacking – and yes, I just made that word up) antlers.

He actually placked antlers last year and got them fixed but this year when I pulled him out, he pulled another plack on me. Oh Sparkle…

You can see his previous scars and new breaks. Poor little Sparkle.

It didn’t even cross my mind to get rid of him because how can you turn your back on a ceramic reindeer in his time of need!? So, I put my thinking antlers cap on and decided that I’d glue him back together and add some… well, sparkle to hide his wounds.

Here is my arsenal of medical supplies.

I used the crazy glue (right) to piece Sparkle back together and lucky for me I had further plans because at this stage his gaps were more like crevices.

Yikes! So, I added some glitter to hide Sparkle’s scars. If you find yourself doing a similar surgery in the future I’d suggest making sure your glitter is ‘fine’ (see glitter pic above) versus the courser larger (old school) glitter. It creates more a shimmery effect and the pieces will stick better since they are more ‘powder like’ in consistency. Great for hiding boo boos.

I won’t bore you with the surgery details as I’m sure you have all applied glitter before. But it basically went like this – brush glue on, sprinkle on glitter, tap off, repeat. Don’t forget to do this over a paper plate so you can easily fold the plate in half creating a trough to pour your excess back into the glitter container.

After he rested in recovery Sparkle looked like this!

Dare I say I’m even more in love with him now?

And here he is taking his rightful place on my Christmas mantel (which I blogged about here).

What a cutie. I guess I should really call him Glitter now but we all know that that’s just a bad Mariah Carey movie so it wouldn’t be fair. Plus he looks like a ‘Sparkle”. Yes, my ceramic reindeer is a male. And I call him Sparkle. Could be worse?

{Non-hate clause: I actually like Mariah Carey}

This weekend I finally got to decorate our mantel for the holidays!

Introducing our ‘merry mantel’.

** read this post to the tune of “White Christmas” ** Why? ’cause it’s fun that’s why 😉

link party

… okay, “Christmas”, It’s the best time of the year!

HAPPY DECEMBER 1st! Our little guy is awaking to an advent calendar today. His first (he’s two and a half). Unfortunately I’ll be at work so my husband will get to enjoy all the fun with him!

But, back to the task at hand….
We may not have snow but this girl’s got balls (and I don’t feel awkward typing that – no, not at all).

As you may have noticed, I’ve been busy creating our winter planter. And the best part? Aside from the fact that I get to say something that makes me kind of squirmy (fun right?) is the cost! Or lack thereof! This whole look only cost about $10. Not too shaaabby (did anyone else just hear the Adam Sandler song in their head?).

I already had the large balls from a previous year and I used to hang them as giant decoration with our Chrismas lights on the house. However, after years of dropping them and one especially rowdy New Years Eve party where they became soccer balls (ahem, cough, Kev’s-friend-who-shall-remain-nameless) they had seen better days. In other words, I had cracked balls. Or my balls were on crack? No, sorry, the first one. Although they do sort of look like they are on steroids no? I wouldn’t really know, I’m not that kind of gal. I just thought it sounded funny. And I ramble. With me yet?

Anyway, the planter has the curly willow and pussy willow all year round so that was zero dollars… The red berries were about $5, purchased at a local garden centre. The red branches were also about the same. So if you’re good with math (I’m not, so I married an accountant) you will see we’ve already reached our grand total.

The pinecones I already had from a past Christmas arrangement. I used three large ones here.

I kept them from diving out of the planter to meet (yet another) untimely death by using some fishing wire as you can see below. I loosely hooked the balls around some of the branches to stop them from tipping over the edge. Since they are plastic they are very lightweight so the branches easily hold them. Oh, and it’s probably apparent but I just stuck the branches and leaves into the dirt. They are all just ‘cut’ so there is no real planting involved. Due to what they are they don’t seem to dry out before the season is over. How is that for easy maintenance!?

The greenery I ‘borrowed’ from the woods behind our house. And lucky for me, they weren’t charging that day.

The wreath on the front door is one I made a few years back by simply winding two large ‘berry garlands’ (found at Michaels craft store) together to create a simple wreath form.

It’s actually my Autumn wreath but I think it works better with the planter than my winter one does so it looks like it’s staying out for another season!

And that’s it! A simple porch makeover that when combined with taking the photos, writing this blog post and saying ‘red balls’ a bunch of times makes for a very effective way to procrastinate doing laundry. Oh. Laundry. Right. Drats.

But it’s SOOOO much prettier than laundry. Maybe I should just wear the balls and give the wreath to Kev? Umm. Scrath that. Laundry. Stat.

For those of you following along, you’ll know that this past weekend we escaped for a weekend of R&R to Whistler (see day one here).

Day Two we awoke to SNOW! It looked so beautiful falling lightly down and was just so peaceful. A beautiful silence broken… by a wimpering dog that wanted to go out for a potty break.

So, I bundled myself up and took her out for a nice walk. It was the perfect start to the day. Absolutely breathtaking scenery and so invigorating. But cold… and coffee-less, so after her bidness I continued back inside and set things straight – all while documenting as was my goal this weekend (to play with my camera – as mentioned in my earlier post). Now that’s my idea of a good time 🙂

With the coffee brewing I turned my attention to breakfast. Kevin had brought up an assortment of fruit, cereal and biscuits. Yum!

Aren’t the colours in a fig so pretty? I love the shades of pink, brown, cream and that vibrant green together.

After we relaxed and got our selves ready for the day, we found out the touristy thing we were going to do for the day was closed due to bad weather (there had been some recent storms).

So, Belle (our dog) convinced us that she needed to go out and play in the snow again and we obliged. Kevin walked ahead as I went snap happy with my camera.

I love how these shots look like they are (almost) black and white!

The mist looked really neat as it settled above the tree tops.

Looking back towards the hotel from our lake stroll…

I love how red the branches in the foreground are.

And a ‘happy dog’ shot…

We spent the afternoon doing some more relaxing after this walk (tough life). Then we were off to dinner at the restaurant in the hotel.

Of course I got sidetracked on my way down by pretty things in the hotel entrance.

Cool table base – so rustic yet modern with the glass top. And I thought the light fixtures were gorgeous. Um, yes please.

Dinner was Ah.Maze.Ing.

Luckily we had finished our main course and I was busy admiring the wine selection when…

we got a call from the front desk that our dog was whimpering loudly and barking up in our room. Oh. Awkward…

So dessert ended up being room service. Luckily they deliver 😉

And I was so enamoured with it that I forgot to take a picture. Woops.

Hopefully tomorrow on day three :).

We got away this past weekend for a belated 5th anniversary mini vacation. We’re lucky to live close enough to Whister (gorgeous home of the 2010 olympics) that we can easily escape there for a weekend of R&R.

So, our little guy had a weekend of grandparent surfing (thanks Grandma’s and Grandpa’s) and Belle (our dog) and Kev (the husband) and I (I) headed off for a snowy retreat.

We stayed at a beautiful place called Nita Lake Lodge and the plan was basically to do as little as possible! RELAX! Slow down the hectic pace of every day life and just BREATHE. It was grand.

Kevin was happy to hunker down and have a movie marathon and I really wanted to play with my camera this weekend and experiement. I’ve been meaning to explore it forever as I love photography.

So please indulge me as I share some pictures of our fantastic getaway.

First up, the lodge. Our room was a ‘one bedroom lake view’ and was like a little mini suite. Gorgeous! It faced Nita Lake and the view from our room was spectacular.

bedroom – love the dark colours.

What a grand bathroom entrance! And the floors had under tile heating. I’ve always wanted that!

The tub was a huge soaker and you could soak and look out past the bed at the view. Which was….

aaaahhhh.

Here are a few shots, first of the entry (and Belle waiting for Kevin – such a daddy’s girl). I love those armoirs and inside the first one was a little kitchenette – complete with granite countertop! The second image is the main living area.

I love westcoast style interior design.

The first evening we relaxed, ordered room service and watched “Crazy Stupid Love” (so funny). Then I went out on to the deck with my (well, my friend’s) tripod and played with the settings on the camera. I have a Canon XSi and external flash. I tried various combos of the two and did a bunch without flash as well. I love pushing the camera to see how far I can go with it (without the flash). It’s such a challenge and so fun. Here are a few of my favourite photos from the night.

I’ve put the camera settings below each for anyone interested. The first and last shot were taken with my 18-55 mm lens and the ones inbetween were taken with my 50mm fixed lens.

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
(Flash, iso: 400, ss: 1/60, fstop: 3.5)

Bokeh!
(Flash, iso: 400, ss: 1/60, fstop: 2.8)

I love how the snow looks like little sparkles.
(Flash, iso 1600, ss: 4 secs, fstop: 7.1)

And here is the SAME shot but with different settings.
(NO FLASH, iso, 1600, ss: 13 SECS, fstop 7.1)

It creates such a different feeling doesn’t it!? Such interesting light.

I love this last photo as it was taken at around 11pm in the pitch dark yet you’d never know! With the camera on the tripod I turned OFF the flash and set the camera to 1600 ISO with an fstop of 7.1 (same as the above shot). The shutter speed was set to 25 seconds (almost twice as long as the image above).

So that was the end of Day One! Already relaxed (after only about 6 hours up there) I went off to sleep excited about Day Two. More to come tomorrow!