Bedroom Update

After buying our new bed, it was evident that we needed some new furniture to fit around it. We bought two new dressers (Hemnes) and a shelving unit (Besta) from IKEA in their black-brown wood finish. I really like how it all came together. Now all we need to do is hang some art on the walls!

The Black Keys

One of my favourite bands is The Black Keys and they had a concert in Toronto last night. Of course Pat and I went! It was amazing - they played so many great songs and I danced away to the whole set! My only complaint is that I wish it had been longer!! Here are a few photos from the evening:

Heidi Braids

Right now, this is my favourite way to do my hair. I wash my hair every second day, so on "wash days", my hair is down and straight (and half air-dried). On "off days", I usually just pull it back into a ponytail (or half ponytail), since that's the quickest and easiest way to deal with it. But sometimes, I put in an extra five to ten minutes and braid it. This is my favourite braid:

To achieve this look, I separate my hair in two sections (based on my usual side part). Then I do two rounds of a french braid on one side (i.e. take the top half and separate in three - left over middle, right over middle - pick up a third of what's left and cross over then repeat for the other two sections, leaving no hair loose). As soon as all my hair is incorporated, I finish braiding, pulling straight up / over my head so that the braid is in the right position for the Heidi braids. I usually use one bobby pin to hold the braid on top of my head before working on the other side in the same manner. Then it's just a matter of pinning the braids so that the ends are completely hidden under the opposite braid. A coating of hairspray keeps everything in place.  

I feel so "put-together" and cute with this hair! It's perfect for a night out or special occasion yet still completely appropriate for work. I've lost count on how many compliments and "how do you do that?" questions I've received when sporting this do! LOVE! 

Sketchbook Pages: Words

Back in May, I started a new "black" sketchbook - a plain sketchbook with a black plastic cover from some generic big box store. I think I have at least half a dozen of these already filled. They're my go-to everyday sketchbook. For this one, I decided to challenge myself to include words on every page - partly as a way to practice different fonts, partly as a way to record some favourite quotes. Lately, I've been adding a few more doodles and drawings instead of just writing the words out. Here are a few pages (I'll show you the latest page later when I've finished colouring it in).

Our New Bed

A few weeks ago, Pat and I went to The Bay and bought a much-needed new mattress. I thought for sure we had a queen - Pat had his doubts, but not enough to measure... until we got home and realized our old bed was a double. Oops! So then we had a week before the mattress was delivered to find a new bed (luckily all our linens are queen-size - hence my initial confusion)! We considered splurging on a whole bedroom set, but couldn't find anything nice enough in our price range.

IKEA to the rescue! We bought a somewhat cheap bed that we can always replace later when our budget allows. I chose it based on the lovely dark brown wood and the angled headboard/back-rest - which, of course, considering our luck with the whole ordeal, is more than half covered by the giant mattress (despite the low profile box spring and lower setting when building the bed).

Our next challenge: fitting the queen in our bedroom! We decided that tucked into the nook made by the curved windows was our best bet:

I love it! Of course, arranging our dressers, chair and things is another matter (hence the mess in the photos)... one we might solve by buying some more furniture and purging some old clothes. I'll be sure to share some better photos once we have the room (somewhat) complete!

Sketchbook Pages: Flower Girl

I've been meaning to share this sketchbook page for a while (I finished it in July), but the photos were spread between my old and new laptops and that seemed too great a task to accomplish. But now that I'm actively working on my goals (and keeping track!), I want to blog more regularly. So this page is going up! And really - do I need to share all the steps that happened before? Fun as it is to see the evolution of a page, the finished product is the prize. So here it is:

I absolutely adore how she turned out! The textures are amazing and I just love her face and all the framing flowers! A true summer girl!

Roughly, the layers are as follows (from what I can remember!):

1. gesso
2. collage (mixed papers in greens & browns)
3. gel medium (with stencils)
4. paint (all my usual colours: brights in the background covered by black Plaka and highlighted in her flowers, shirt and brushes here and there)
5. pen and white Sharpie doodles to finish her face
6. splatter of black India ink to pull it all together and add a bit more texture