5 easy ways to keep your house cozy this winter!

It’s January, the time of year that all the Christmas decor is put away, and your house get’s a bit of a ‘re-fresh’ as you prepare to hunker down for the rest of the long Canadian winter. Sometimes after you put all the bright and happy holiday decor away the house can seem a bit ‘empty’ or stark, so I’ve found one of the best ways to survive the rest of the cold weather season is to make your home as cozy as it can be. You don’t need to spend a lot of money to do this, just by using what you already have around the house, or pulling a few DIY’s from your sleeve you can make your home a beautiful oasis to warm up in as you watch the snowflakes fall outside.

1. Candles & yummy smells: This is probably my top tip to gain coziness which is why I am putting it first up on the list! After I tidy up dinner every night I love to light a candle and put it on the coffee table in our living room, as that tends to be where we all hang out in the winter evenings either playing card games, working on crochet projects, or watching hockey. The warm flicker always set’s the tone for a cozy night together. Certain smells can make the home so inviting also, if your not a fan of using scented candles, you can diffuse oils that have cinnamon, clove, and citrus in them, or make a ‘simmer pot’ for your stove. I am a big ‘smell’ person, and a house that smells inviting is what makes home feel like home to me.

2.Different textures of blankets and pillows: I like to use an old antique crate and fill it to the brim with different warm blankets, some fleece, some knit, and some furry and keep it by the couch. Then there is always something cozy close by to curl up with. Add to that some throw pillows in different materials and textures, and an area rug and you’re headed straight to cozy town, haha. I love to mix textures in the winter as it really gives that ‘homey’ feeling where not everything needs to match perfectly, but goes together nicely.

3. New & unique art and wood pieces: Switch up your regular wall art with something more suited to winter, that includes a favourite quote or bible verse, anything that you really enjoy looking at and makes you happy.  Display more family photos that you love in frames around the house.  Try making something out of scrap wood for either your walls or a little side table.  My husband recently made a gorgeous live edge wood coffee table and it really brought that rustic element into the house.  I also clearly love wood mosaics and we have just put this HUGE one up in our living room and truly love how unique it is, and how my husband made it with love of course!

4. Twinkle lights inside & outside: Never underestimate the power of twinkle lights!  Just because Christmas stuff is all put away, doesn’t mean the lights have to go away :) keep out your lights and drape them on your fireplace, or on window ledges.  Frame your windows with them, or put them in mason jars.  We also ended up keeping a little Christmas tree with just twinkle lights on it in our kitchen area,  and my kids just love it.  It adds a warm glow and definite coziness that is so needed in winter when the sun goes down so early.  We also keep lantern style string lights up on our back porch all year round, it’s always nice to look out the window and see that twinkle on a cold night.

5. House plants & greenery: When nothing is green outside, make sure there is something green and filled with life inside. Some of the plants that do the best in my house in the winter are cactus and succulents, money trees, evergreens and Ivy. They all need minimal water and sunlight and do well if you happen to forget about them for a few weeks ;) Having house plants also gives you something to care for and water and adds such a cozy ‘lived in’ element to your home. It’s my secret weapon of house decor and I’ll probably always have plants in my home till I am a little old lady!

  Try using some or all of these ways this season to help transition your home from Christmas to winter cozy and I know you’ll make your home even more inviting then it already is!  Making my home a desirable and lovely place to be is really important to me, it doesn’t have to have the newest trends, or the most expensive decor, I just want the things we choose to have in our home be things that we love and that bring us joy even if it’s a $15 wal mart pillow;)  What is your favourite way to keep a cozy home in the winter?  Comment below and let me know! 

stay cozy,

Shelley

Favourite Things of 2018!

Happy New Year friends! 2019 has arrived and brought with it lots of snow, ice, cold temperatures and a few sicknesses. Through the holiday we have been enjoying skating on the frozen lake, spending time together as family, and taking in all the beauty of the snow clinging to every tree branch around us. I love winter in the north, it feels like winter get’s to be who it really wants to be up here, and I just can’t get enough of it! I know winter usually get’s a bad reputation, but I truly love the beauty of it and I look forward to this season every year.

  Last year around this time I did a post sharing all about my favourite things and products of 2017, so I thought I’d continue the trend and share all about my 2018 favourites again, in a bit of a different more simple way this time.  There are some fun templates going around on Instagram right now and I found one by @shethespy that I really liked, so here are some of my 2018 faves…

Moment: At first I thought this would be a hard one, how can you pick ONE favourite moment in a whole year, but almost immediately it came to me, sitting on the Cavendish cliffs in PEI watching the golden sun setting was just so beautiful and it will be etched in my mind forever!

TV Show:  When we are winding down at the end of the day after the kids are in bed we do like to turn on Netflix for a bit, and so far this year we have enjoyed re-watching “The Office” and “New Girl” and we just started “Life in Pieces” recently too and it’s been pretty funny.  You can tell from that list that I like really light hearted, and funny shows at the end of a long day, if it makes me laugh then I am a happy girl!

Book: This past summer while sitting by the lake I read the whole ‘When Calls the Heart’ book series by Jeanette Oke and I hadn’t been engrossed in a fiction series like that in a LONG time.  If you like stories about pioneers and that time period you’d really enjoy it.  There is a also a show loosely following the story line on Netflix that is really good. I am now currently reading ‘The Ministry of Ordinary Places’ by Shannon Martin, I am about half way and it’s a really good read, I already know I’d recommend it!  I am a slow reader, as I don’t get much quiet time, so I just putter away and read bits here and there.

Movie: This was a hard one as I really don’t watch many actual ‘Movies’, if I do watch one it’s definitely going to be a documentary.  Anything about crime, conspiracies, nature, or people are my most watched, I know it sounds WEIRD but I am just a documentary freak!  One of my faves was “Making a Murderer’ Part 2, not really a movie, more like a series, but still very good.  If you get me talking about it I may never stop!

Song: Again SO hard to pick a song, so here are a few I’ve really enjoyed this year.  “Reckless Love’ by Cory Asbury, I had tears in my eyes the first time I heard it and played it on repeat for weeks.  I also love anything by Bethel Music (It is well, Ever be, King of my heart), as well as Elevation Worship, they both really get me into worship mode, and I love that.

Beauty Product:   I am definitely not a beauty guru, I usually have messy hair and wear minimal make up, but one thing I’ve done this year that I really liked was adding Frankincense & Copaiba Essential oils to my morning face moisturizer and I feel it’s made a big difference as far as brightness of skin, less blemishes, and less dryness.  I also discovered and started using a ‘Thai Deodorant Crystal’ you probably think I am a hippy haha, but it’s basically a smooth white crystal that you get a bit wet and then rub under your arms just as you would deodorant and it removes any bad bacteria which in turn means no sweaty smell. You can rinse and re-use it for years and it was about $10 on Amazon, so far worth every penny!  If it’s a really hot day I use a bit of regular deodorant on top of it too, and the combo works great.  If your looking to get rid of your traditional deodorant I’d definitely recommend it.

Wardrobe Piece: I am always about the leggings, they are just so comfortable for me as I am home teaching the kids most of the time, and it means I don’t even need to change before I do Yoga because I am already ready to go :) I also love scarves because they add something nice to any outfit, as well as my jean jacket, if I throw that on it makes any outfit look more put together.

App:  This year I discovered the ‘Dwell’ app, it’s a scripture reading app, and I have really enjoyed it, sometimes I put on some passages when I am folding laundry or cooking dinner, it doesn’t replace me reading the bible personally, but it’s great for getting in that little bit of extra time in God’s word.  I also really like ‘Down Dog’ for yoga practices (it’s on sale right now if your interested!) it plays music and walks you through a yoga practice, so all you need is your yoga mat and a quiet 15 minutes to do it.  I use the ‘Kindle’ app for reading books on the go a lot, and lastly my hubby just got me started on using ‘Wunderlist’ which is great for keeping to-do lists, grocery lists, and anything that keeps you organized.

Snack: Yummmmm snacks!  During the day I love to have some fresh celery and peanut butter, I guess it’s the crunchiness that I love, but it’s always been a ‘go to’ for me! I also love to grab some pretzels, citrus fruit or at night some popcorn to munch on.  Energy bites are also a fave here, whenever I make them they go fast!  Here is our recipe

Instagram Account:  This one was almost impossible as well, there are so many amazing, encouraging and talented friends that I love to follow on instagram, so instead of trying to choose one I’ll pick my husband’s woodworking account because I LOVE when he creates amazing things out of wood, check out @millerlakewood to see all his new and creative builds, hopefully soon a harvest table for our kitchen will be in the works!

Youtuber:  We used to be a a lot more into You Tube in the past, this last year it tapered out a little bit, only because it seems like youtube has changed a bit and it’s mostly people posting their brand deals.  But there are still some really good authentic channels, and one of those that I always love is ‘Brad & Hailey Devine’ their videography, editing and music is always top notch and I love following along on their travel adventures, one fave this year was when they went to the ‘Faroe Islands’ as a family and saw the Puffins!

So those are some of my 2018 favourites, I love reading other people’s faves, so I hope you enjoyed! If you post your faves too definitely tag me so I can check them out :) I love finding new fun shows, books and interesting products to read about. What was your fave new product of 2018? Share in the comments below..

stay cozy,

Shelley

Make your own Gingerbread play dough!

My kids love anything that is squishy, moldable and fun, and Mommy loves anything that keeps them busy with a productive activity for a long time! So play dough is always a favourite in our house, they love playing with it all the time, so I usually pick it up at the dollar store when I see it to have it on hand. The only thing about the store bought play dough is that it dries up quickly, makes a mess with little bits all over the floor and it doesn’t smell great either. We’ve tried making play dough ourselves before, but never found the ‘best’ recipe, until now!

  While I was thinking of fun winter activities to do with the kids I started looking up different recipes for gingerbread play dough.  After reading a bunch we decided to make up a recipe ourselves with whatever we had on hand, as a compilation of all the different recipes we read and it turned out great!  It’s the perfect soft texture and smells amazing! (but don’t eat it, it would be a BIT salty! haha)  so here is our no fail recipe for amazing and fun ginger bread play doh that takes minutes to make, but lasts for hours of fully occupied kids play time. (yesssss) 

Gingerbread Play dough Ingredients: (makes enough for 3 or 4 kids)

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup of salt

4 tsp cream of tarter

4 tsp cinnamon

5 tsp powdered ginger

1 tbls vanilla extract

3 tbls olive oil (vegetable or canola, whatever you have on hand)

2 cups water

1 medium sized sauce pan and a large strong metal spoon

We mixed up all the dry ingredients in a big bowl first, then added in the moist ingredients until everything was incorporated. In retrospect we realized you can just mix everything right in the sauce pan and cut down on your dirty dishes, so I would definitely recommend just doing that instead of transferring it from the bowl to the sauce pan. Once everything is mixed up turn your burner on medium heat and stir the mixture constantly with a big metal spoon. You will start to doubt that it will actually work, but just keep on persevering! Mix until it becomes one big clump that you literally can’t mix around anymore. Turn your heat off and take all the dough out and put it on a big plate. Let it cool a minute, then use your hands to really knead it all in together and you’ll be so pleased as you see it become the most soft and lovely play dough as you knead it.

  Once it’s all cooled it’s play time :)  I put out different cookie cutters, toothpicks and a roller and the kids had a ball for hours, they even had a fake ‘baking competition’  (they love watching baking shows on the food network so I think that’s where that came from!) When they were done playing I stored it in a big plastic container with a lid so they could use it again another time.  That’s it! It was honestly so easy to make, the kids mostly mixed it all up themselves with me helping during the stove top part.  Let me know if you make this play dough too and how your kids enjoy it! 

stay cozy,

Shelley

Our Favourite Christmas Tradition

When I think of Christmas traditions one of the first things I think of is baking with my Nan. She always included me in her baking and would effortlessly float around her kitchen making the most delicious things and make it look so easy. Every time I went to her house there would be something freshly baked, or popped out of the freezer that was baked last week, and it was always yummy and so nurturing. Baking was something I always enjoyed and I knew if I had a family of my own one day I wanted to bake for them too, especially at Christmas. Christmas baking is the time of year you make things that you wouldn’t normally bake, it’s not just banana muffins and zucchini bread (which are equally amazing) but it’s time for tarts and shortbreads and ginger snaps!

So every Christmas I would look up recipes on Pinterest, and try out new baking and it was always fun, but it was never just like my Nan’s. About 6 years ago my Mom and I wanted to take our Christmas baking to the next level, and we also wanted a way to let our Nan and Great Aunt’s special treats live on, so we decided to dig out their recipes and start trying to re-create them every year. The first year we started with my Nan’s delicious raspberry shortbread tarts (traditionally called ‘Maids of Honor’) and after much trial and error we started to be able to make them almost just like her. And thus Christmas baking day became one of our special traditions that we have continued every December. We get the kids involved, and many years they have been a big help as we bake big batches and need lot’s of little hands for help. We ended up making so much every year that it then became a tradition to start giving the baking away. I packaged up an assortment of the treats we made on cute plates with little cards and the kids and I would walk down the street a few days before Christmas and give them our to our neighbours and friends.

Besides the famous tarts some of our favourites we have made are shortbreads, icebox cookies, ginger crinkles, jam filled cookies, chocolate peanut butter balls, and this year we ventured to try an old family recipe for homemade cinnamon sugar donuts. After nearly burning my house down (kidding but not really!) we finally got them just right, and each bite of one we could just taste the memories flooding back! I love having this special tradition with my Mom and kids, and I also love how our dear family member’s recipes are living on and blessing others with hospitality and love. As we continue to do this every year, my hope is that one day my kids will carry on the tradition too and we can keep spreading cheer and making family memories together. Even though she isn’t able to do it anymore, I can still always picture my Nan in the kitchen with her sing song voice, perfectly styled hair and fancy apron, and it brings me so much joy. What special Christmas traditions do you have with your family? No matter how big or small they are all so special in their own way. Merry Christmas every one, I hope you have a beautiful holiday with your family and friends, and I’ll see you next Friday, until then…

stay cozy,

Shelley