OH MONDAY!

1. #ohmonday seems to come so quickly each week and instead of dreading Mondays, I wake up feeling invigorated and excited to be working in a field that I love so much. Thank you for being here and following my journey!

2. If you caught my Instastories over on Instagram about a week ago, you will have seen that I'm working on a HUGE retail project that I haven't told you much about. This is my first time working outside of children's spaces and I am designing a men's retail store in Yaletown, Vancouver that will be launching in Spring 2018. I'll be sharing more about this exciting project in the months to come but for now, here is a progress shot of the retail shelving and space as well as the amazing pendants and a fun mirror that were just installed!!! A completely different look than my kids rooms!

3. Back to kids...did you know there's only 29 days until Christmas?!! I am thinking of buying dolls for our girls this year. Here are some of the ones I've been looking at; do you know of any others that are lovely and soft and cuddly? Please tell me in the comments if you do!

4. Speaking of Christmas, our favourite personalized books are on sale (last day today) for 15% off! We are buying these this year for some of the little ones in our life as Kaia, Noelle & Xavier LOVE them. The Intergalactic Journey Home is our absolute fave.

5. Hope all of my friends in the US had a wonderful Thanksgiving full of family time. I'm feeling very grateful for our health, everyday opportunities and my sweet little crew below!

Adorable outfits from our friends at Petits Vilains.

Happy Monday...

GET THE LOOK {CHRISTMAS PLAYHOUSE}

Thank you for all the love on our holiday playhouse this week!!! I am so happy you love it as much as I do.

If you are thinking of getting a playhouse for your little ones for Christmas, I still love these wooden playhouses for this project.

If you are curious about how we achieved this look from the original playhouse, please find the details here.

01. // Playhouse; 02. // Birch lit tree; 03. // Boxwood wreath; 04. // Mini mugs; 05. // Welcome mat; 06. // Holiday garlands; 07. // Playhouse stools; 08. // Diamond rug.

KIDS CHRISTMAS WOODEN PLAYHOUSE

GET THE LOOK…

Our little wooden playhouse is all decorated for Christmas!!! You may remember the summer makeover of this cubby house from last year and I finally got a few things together to decorate it for the holidays. I had this idea to surprise the kids with a fun afternoon outside eating shortbread cookies and drinking hot cocoa and I am so thankful we did it before the crazy rain started because they LOVED it!

The white lit birch trees were such a fun addition that I will move inside later; one for the girls' room and one for Xavier's.

We swapped summer lemonade for hot cocoa and the menu changed to include cookies, brownies and candy canes (kids dream menu!). All three kids wanted to take turns 'serving' the others and the shortbread cookies were gobbled up nearly instantly.

I just love the unexpected colours in the peppermint garland from Pearl and Jane. It's so cute for the playhouse and would be equally as adorable as holiday decoration in a children's room!

I adore the little details in our playhouse: the tiny HO HO HO banner, gold drop garland and JOY banner are all from Etsy. So many creative makers that I love to support! I just had to include this photo of our youngest smiling broadly and poking over the door. 

If you missed the original makeover, you can find that post here. I hope you find inspiration and a little fun from our holiday playhouse.

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SUMMER PLAYHOUSE

OH MONDAY!

1. What a weekend! It flew by and we enjoyed so many sweet family moments amidst the downpour of continuous rain. Enough rain to make you want to crawl up in a giant blanket and never leave home (especially if you could look out these dreamy windows all day, right)?

Source: Pinterest

2. If you caught my Instastories on Saturday, you will have seen that our little wooden playhouse is all decorated for Christmas! I am so excited to be sharing the full reveal with you later this week, but for now, here's a tiny sneak peek.

3. Speaking of Christmas, I just bought three little felt mouse ornaments for the kids. Way too cute! We give new holiday ornaments to the kids each year on the day we decorate the tree. That way, when they leave home, they'll have a whole set of ornaments to take with them for their own tree! It's a childhood tradition that I grew up with and have loved to continue.

4. Now that Christmas is on the mind, I'll be updating the HOLIDAY SHOP and adding new gift ideas. Keep checking back if you are looking for gifts for the little ones in your life.

5. Leaving you with this Monday thought:

Have a great week everyone!

OUR CHRISTMAS CARDS {WITH MINTED}

*Thank you to Minted for sponsoring this post. All wording, photos and opinions are my own. 

CHRISTMAS PHOTO BY Amanda Haddow Photography

I am SO excited to share this year's annual Christmas cards with you all, my favourite yet! These simple and classic holiday cards from MINTED are absolutely perfect; I couldn't be happier with them. The moment I opened the box and saw them, I knew I chose the right photo and template. A couple of weeks ago I shared an outtake from the actual shoot and when I saw this shot, I knew right away that this was the one of the kids I would use for our cards. Isn't it just the sweetest?!

Last year, I shared tips on how to how to get your Christmas cards done early and this year, I want to tell you the steps and thoughts that I considered when setting up for the photoshoot and then ordering our holiday cards online.

For the shoot:

1. KEEP IT SIMPLE: the important thing is making the experience fun and getting the kids excited for the upcoming season! Put on Christmas music and pull out your best knock knock jokes...they still work perfectly for photoshoots with our kids! Here's one our kids think is hilarious:
   

   "Knock knock"

   "Who's there?"

   "Mary"

   "Mary who?"

   "Mary Christmas!
    

2. CHOOSE COORDINATING COLOURS: When I pulled out outfits for the kids, I knew I wanted to keep things classic this year and so we chose light grey, red and added a hint of green with the wreath. I love how the gold foil-pressed lettering pops with the simplicity of the card. Gold is my favourite metallic for the holidays and I add it in wherever I can!

3. PLAY HOLIDAY MUSIC: Our kids LOVE Christmas tunes year round and when I tell them we can put a little Michael Buble on early when we take the photos for the cards, they are always VERY excited!!! It secretly gets me in the mood for the holidays a little early too.

4. CHOOSE A BRIGHTLY LIT ENVIRONMENT: If weather permits, an outdoor shoot is the best! This year, the rain was pouring down on photoshoot day and so we choose a well lit wall next to the brightest window in the house to snap a few photos of the little ones. Good lighting goes a very long way to capturing a great photo!

That's it! Follow those four steps and you are set to capture your cuties in a shot that will be the feature of your holiday card.

When I went to the Minted site, I was blown away by the vast number of template options. Sit down with a glass of wine (or tea!) and take your time in choosing a template that works with your chosen photo. Since my photo was shot with white space at the top, it made sense to have text at the top of the card and therefore eliminated options where text was at the bottom (which helped to cut down the decision making). I loved so many templates and I knew I wanted to see the wreath on the card so although I love the middle one below, I decided not to go for it due to the wreath not fully showing. My favourites were Merry Scriptmas, Simply Shining, Simple Frame and of course the template I ordered, Merrier than Ever. It was a hard decision, I love them all!!!

One of the biggest differences this year is the system Minted has for addresses! In the past, I have struggled to get out cards sent out to everybody and this year, I had to collect all of our addresses at the time I ordered the cards so that they could be printed on the envelopes...how amazing is that!?!! It literally took a day to message everyone and get the addresses together, probably in part that I wasn't doing it late into December and when I opened the package to see all of the envelopes labelled and addressed, I almost feel this is the best part. I will write a Christmas greeting on the cards, pop a stamp on and head straight to the mailbox...SO much easier than having to write out all of the addresses! I love this system and now have all of our addresses in one place for future cards.

If you noticed the super cute cocktail napkins in some of my photos, I found those at Minted too. They have lots of fun holiday decor to add to your order so go take a look!

Right now and through the weekend enjoy 15% off holiday cards with code BEMERRY.