Larrikin Jam

Hello friends! How was your weekend? Ours was pretty sweet. I have a little video from our Friday night jam to share with you. This weekends jam was awesome. Riley brought over a sky lantern because Aaron and I had never seen one before, have you? I honestly had never heard of these things but they are pretty cool.

So, we jammed and then eventually went for a walk to the park to fire up the sky lantern. Check it out:


The funny thing about this whole sky lantern was how Aaron and I were a little worried it would be dangerous. Like, what if it gets caught in the trees, lights everything on fire and we burn down the park/our yard? Or one of Aaron's worries was that because our house is under a flight path (planes fly above our house/area often), what if it gets in the way of a plane? Haha. Riley and I were laughing about that one. Some paper lantern taking out an entire plane?! Seriously.

But when I read up about these lanterns on wikipedia, it actually says this: "The city of Sanya in China has banned sky lanterns due to hazard to aircraft." Oh shit. For real? These things are hazards to aircrafts in China? Wow. Ok, not so funny if something bad actually happened but I just kept having this image of the paper lantern floating next to a plane, then suddenly the oxygen masks come down in the plane and you hear the pilot say: "Brace yourself everyone! Sky lantern in our path, we're going down!"

Anyways, it was a good night all around. The next day I was still laughing about the whole sky lantern causing a plane crash thing and sent Riley this text...

And this was his reply:

Haha, something we were laughing about all weekend. I know it's ridiculous but I find these things amusing.

Anyways, hope everyone had a rad weekend!
xoxo

Mason Jar Lilacs

One of my favorite things about spring is the lilacs. I love the smell of them and they just look so pretty. I really wish they would stick around longer than they do, but I'm happy to at least have them around for a little bit. We have several trees in our yard with lilacs, which is nice. One happens to be right outside our bedroom window, so if we're lucky enough to have a nice breeze blowing in our window, sometimes you get the scent of lilacs blowing in. It's amazing.

I found a mason jar lying around the house and thought of the idea to grab some lilacs and put them inside the jar so I can enjoy them in the house for a bit. So simple and so good.

1. This is totally not necessary but was just something I did at the time and it was pretty sweet. I have this huge bag of lavendar bath crystals my mom gave me and I thought I'd throw some in the bottom of the jar for extra scent and because it looked neat. So, I threw some of the lavendar bath crystals at the bottom.

2. Add some water to the mix. I actually put just a bit of very hot water first to help dissolve the crystals a bit and then added some cooler water after a few minutes.

3. Go grab some lilacs and throw them in the jar! So pretty and the smell is awesome. I just love it so much. This did only last a day or two, but it was so nice having this on my desk during that time. The cats seemed quite interested in this as well! They just smelled it but don't let your animals eat them as it wouldn't be good for them. :)

Those last few pictures are of some of the lilacs from our yard. Aah, so pretty!

Hope you're all having an awesome day.
xoxo

Blog Evolution

I was finally able to change over my blog design. It's not that it was complicated or anything, I was just having difficulty finding the time to do it. I always feel like I need a wide open schedule (or at least a couple hours) in case something goes wrong or something doesn't work and I need to figure it out. I am not super awesome with html but I've been slowly teaching myself things and I love it. I wanted to add some colour for spring, as my last layout was very black/white/grey based.

It's weird looking back at how my blog design has evolved. Especially from my very first design, which had a black background (and when it used to be called Kafe 80s). You can check out a couple of the oldies below.

I really love how much I've learned over the last year or so about html, photoshop and just designing in general. By no means can I do a ton of stuff but I can do basic things and just feel like I've evolved in that area. I know how to do so much more in photoshop now, not just photo editing related but actually design related or drawing related and what not. That little program is so awesome and can do so much more than I ever expected!

And I only have Photoshop Elements, which doesn't even have full photoshop capabilities. I highly recommend that program if you can't afford to get the full version of photoshop but still want something to work with. Take the time to learn things and it will pay off. I seriously didn't even know how to use layers until this last year and now I have no idea how I did anything without them.

Anyways, I made a Facebook page for my blog and a Hellocotton page. Please come join me on those sites, I'd love to see you over there!

Hope everyone had a nice weekend!
xoxo

The weekend

Hello friends! How is everyone doing? The last few days have been a bit busy. Friday night we jammed and then once we were done we headed out to the backyard and sat around the fire for a few hours, listening to music, roasting some food over the fire and just hanging out. It was good times. I think this will likely become a regular thing (weather permitting of course) after our Larrikin jam.


Other than that, the weekend was filled with cleaning - inside and out! We cleaned out a room in our basement that was towering with boxes of stuff and things we don't use. Does anyone else have one of those rooms? The one you just shove everything you don't want to deal with at the moment into? Lucky for us it was a free weekend here in Winnipeg. During Saturday + Sunday, people put things they don't want anymore on their curb, label it "free" and then other people go around taking what they want. It's pretty sweet and it was perfect timing for us.

We had so much stuff on our front lawn and people were taking it. Some people were hanging around waiting for Aaron to come out with the next box of stuff. People were like "Here he comes with another box, quick!" Vultures I tell you! But it's good. We got rid of a bunch of stuff and cleared up some space.

We also cleaned our yard some more. Our yard is quite large, so it's a fair bit of work but it's worth it. We planted stuff and got our garden area ready for when we get the rest of our seeds. Hobbes came outside and hung out with us the entire time as we worked, it was nice company.

I've been working on a new blog design too, which has also kept me busy over the weekend. It's almost done, just have to finish coding it. I think I will do that in the next few days if time allows it.

That's about it! What did you do this weekend?
xoxo

Downtown

I really like the area Osborne Village (pictured above) here in Winnipeg. I used to venture out into that area on a regular basis but don't really much anymore. It has a lot of cool little shops and it's just a neat area with a lot of character. Definitely one of my favorite areas, but not the favorite. The area I live in is actually my favorite area, home sweet home!

I took some photos while in the car the other day. Just random shots of buildings or signs as we drove by. I'd love to go around and take better pictures of our downtown area but to be honest, I don't feel that comfortable down there so probably never really would. These drive by photos will have to do!

That first picture at the very top of Osborne Village I took while in the car and it's probably one of my favorite pictures. I just love it. Even though it's kind of hard taking photos while in a car, sometimes you get a gem like that one.

Hope everyone is having a rad day!
xoxo

Photodump: From the Week

How was everyones weekend? Mine was pretty good. Aaron and I went to my mom's for the weekend. It's always so good spending time with family. We got home somewhat late last night though, which resulted in us going to bed later than usual so I feel pretty tired this morning. You know that painfully tired feeling? Ugh. That's what I feel like right now. Anyways, here are some photos of the cats and our yard from last week.

I love that picture of Hobbes in our driveway trying to swat at something. So cute.

There are little flower buds starting to show themselves on some of our trees and I'm excited for them to bloom! I noticed the lilacs are small but starting as well, which I love. It's so beautiful when everything is right in that stage of freshly bloomed. Everything looks gorgeous and smells so nice outside. I can't wait!
xoxo

5 Things...

1. Take pictures
2. Drink coffee
3. Tell Aaron I love him
4. Hang out with my cats
5. Eat broccoli and carrots

I love taking pictures and always have my camera on me. I drink coffee in the mornings... and I actually have a cup with a kitty on it like I drew up there. At least once a day I will tell Aaron that I love him. I visit and hang out with my cats throughout the day (I don't mean just in passing, like I actually go spend time with them...) and I eat broccoli and baby carrots each day, usually as part of my lunch.

What do you do every day? Have an awesome weekend!
xoxo