Mr. Clean and I went garlic picking on Monday.  Most people aren’t aware that garlic grows wild in Ontario – you just have to know where to look for it.  Emeril Legasse cooks with this type of garlic.  It is also known as ramps.

We found a great little spot and within 45 minutes or so we were able to gather enough to fill 7 jars.  Enough for us and a few to share.  The worse part to me is the cutting and cleaning them at the end of the day.  I let Mr. Clean do all the “clean up”

Mr. Clean was all set up outside – the aroma from the garlic is amazing.

I caught alittle of Mr. Clean’s head in this shot (on the left).  He said if he knew I was going to take his picture he would have combed his hair.  I think he combed alittle to hard already LOL .

Here is what it looks like after the leaves have been cut off and it’s ready for washing and pickling.  YUMMY

I was also busy working on some cards for Mother’s Day, Birthdays, and our card class for beginning of June which will include doing a House Mouse on a candle.

This House Mouse stamp is one of the newest stamp of the month and I loved it.  I thought it was perfect for the candle we will be doing in our class.  We will do the candle with a gift bag and gift tag.

Ta

]]> http://www.youniqueblogs.com/uncategorized/vant-bite-neck/feed/ 0 http://www.youniqueblogs.com/uncategorized/market-market/ http://www.youniqueblogs.com/uncategorized/market-market/#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 23:23:36 +0000 Heather http://www.youniqueblogs.com/?p=1079 I love going to the St. Jacobs Farmer’s Market.  It’s such a fun way to spend the day.  I love the fact that we can get fresh produce for our guests at Younique.  Mr. Clean and I took along the wagon to the market so we could load it up and only do one trip back to the truck.

This silly cart generated so much conversation on the Younique facebook page it was quite funny.  It is the greatest buggy – it folds up quite nicely and can be used for so many different things.  We like to have it out by the studio door so our guests can load it up with their goodies from their car to the studio.

Loading up with strawberries.  These weren’t local but boy they were massive.   Gotta love my hair.  It was such a windy day I thought my head was going to blow off.

Beautiful colors.  Great for photos.

And here I am buying fresh chicken breasts and grain fed eggs.  There’s the hair thing again.  OMG girl buy a hairbrush LOL.

And I’ll finish off with a chuckle.  Mr. Clean and I went to the gym together today.  He usually plays squash and then just comes home and doesn’t shower at the gym (P…U…).  Today, because I was with him and I do shower he knew he would have to wait for me so he too showered.  Later on in the day he said to me “I didn’t realize the showers were so nice at the gym, they even have stools in there”.  I said “We don’t have stools in the showers in the ladies showers”.  “Yes” he said ”They even have hand held shower heads”.  DUH – Mr. Clean was in the handicapped shower -  I guess it was fitting wasn’t it.

Ta

H

In the meantime I am arranging my stamps.  You know you think you have a system in place for all your items but then after awhile you find it just isn’t “perfect enough”

Some time ago when I decided to part with my many many pairs of “corporate” shoes I decided that I would take the 100 + shoe containers and start to use them up in my craft area.  The main thing I wanted to do was organize my collection of stamps.  The stamps took over when the shoes were kicked out.

Here is a shoebox um stampbox in all it’s glory.  I put all my House Mouse, Kraftin Kimmie, Magnolias, Penny Black, Art Impressions, Stampers Anonymous, sigh…I think you get the hint.  I split them up by brand and then type (verses, flowers, halloween, birthday) etc.  This system has worked well but the problem is I still need to actually open up the container and rifle through to see what I want.  Then TA DA – I decided to switch over to the Stuftainers to use for my stamp storage.

We sell the stuftainers in the store.  The thick ones that hold the large wood stamps are $3.79 each and then the prices go down from there to the ones that are thinner that hold your cling stamps.

Here is the stuftainer filled with some House Mouse stamps.  I can now see all my stamps and I can stand these on their ends and label and away I go.  Clean and easy.  I have already filled 15 containers and need probably another 10 – could it be I have too many stamps?  NEVER

Ta

H

And with that comes, what else, spring cleaning.  It’s the time to clean up around the house and purge and to clean my work station and craft supplies.  I’m purging there too so if you want to stop in and go through my stuff you are more than welcome to.  You know what they say “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”.

So the first area for purging was the magazine pile….or should I say piles.

Hi My Name is Heather and I am a magazine addict.  Ever since I was a kid I have been addicted to magazines.  My aunt worked for a Publishing company in Montreal and she would get us tons of magazines.  You know when they change the magazines in the store and put out the new ones they end up with a pile of magazines leftover.  My aunt was able to get us these magazine as long half the cover was removed so they couldn`t be resold.

As a child she would get the Jack and Jill magazine for me and then we went into comics (TONS of comics).  We would try to get away with reading our comics at the kitchen table but my dad would catch us.  We would then pass all these mags on to someone my dad worked with who lived in the country on a farm and so all the kids around there would enjoy the comics too.

From comics I went into the Teen magazines.  Okay now I`m really going to show my age.  Teen mags with David Cassidy, Davey Jones, Leif Garrett, wow..long time ago.  Then I was allowed to read the True Love magazines and then Police crime and so one.  Up until my aunt left the company all my mags were free.  But alas the magazine monster was created and I`m still hooked but now have to pay for them all.  Ouch.

Cooking magazines, scrapbooking magazines, digital magazines, weight loss magazines, and so on.  the piles don`t take long to become mega piles.  Then I spend the time clipping out of the magazines and now we are ready to part and say goodbye to the old….

But the excitment of the new arriving is an adreline rush.  No roller coasters for me, just lead me down the magazine aisle in Chapters and that`s exciting enough for me.

Back to purging I go.

Ta

I do get alot of ribbons and trims into the store but I have to say that Len’s Mills has a great selection of trims and the prices are great.  I purchased a whole wack of trim to fill up Yolanda (and if you don’t know who Yolanda is you will have to ask me) and I also needed trim to do up the Disney albums I am working on as kits for a class and the online store.

Here is some of my new treasures

I love these trims.  I love to look at them and you can see all the great choices for Disney.  But I have to say I especially love this one

I have a photo from when Mr. Clean and I went to the Royal Fair and I took a picture of a crying cow.  Now I can’t wait to do up a layout with the cow and this trim.  Pretty neat isn’t it.

But, drum roll please, this, this one is sooooo gorgeous

Isn’t this something.  They had it in a variety of colors but I chose the beige because, quite frankly, I don’t even know what I’m doing with it yet.  While they were cutting all my trims I just kept touching this one with the satin and feathers and kept saying to Mr. Clean “Isn’t this beautiful?”.  For some reason he wasn’t as excited as I was – not sure why.

I have to say that this is why I love traditional scrapbooking.  Digital is fine to play around with and plan layouts and maybe for the vacation books.  But nothing compares to doing traditional and having the ability to touch the pages with the wonderful elements.  It’s just not the same with the flat look of digital.

I also did a layout this week of my sistah in Mexico and now I’m wanting my vacation to hurry up and get here.  We are all ready for the break.  Just a few more LONG months to go.

1. Because once again I’m behind in paperwork
2. Once again I’m trying to do 6 months of entry work
3. Because I have to swallow my words from last year because I said it wouldn’t happen this year
4. Because I would rather be working on my scrapbooks
5. I would rather be creating

I think 5 reasons are enough.

I thought I would get to it yesterday but we had customers for the day and, really, I just didn’t want to do it.   As each day marches by I wake up feeling worse from the pressure to get it done.  So to quote Nike “Just do it”.  Today is D Day.   I know that once I get started it won’t be so bad…it’s just getting started and today is the 18th of April and I meet with the Accountant on the 25th so chop chop Heather – get ‘er done

I  love the quote by William James – it’s true that the eternal hanging of an uncompleted task is daunting and I’m such a list person and get such satisfaction from highlighting and crossing out the items on my list.  I have to say that this has been on my list way way too long.

You can probably tell how much I hate to do it just by the length of my blog LOL.  I’ll just keep rambling all day and then I won’t have time to “Just do it”.

I am excited about starting the Spring cleaning in the house (yes you heard right) – nothing like bright clean windows and the smell of “Fresh” and that will be the next project I work on.  Oh and I am refinishing the chairs in the dining room.

We purchased these chairs at an auction and I tried steam cleaning the fabric but they just don’t want to come clean so I purchased some beautiful french Toile fabric in black and white and I’m going to finish the chairs up.

Here is a before picture

Beautiful old chairs that just need some loving…..next week

Ta

H

A very busy weekend for us with Scrapfest at the Kitchener Memorial Aud.  Please stop by and see us.  I have been going back and forth on what to do for a make and take.  This is the first time that we are offering this and I’m just in a panic that I either did a crappy job picking a project or it’s going to go well and I have underestimated how many we will do in the day.  I guess we will find out soon enough won’t we?

I just love these zippers -deserved a second posting.  We have cut them all and prepped for the make and take.

I should call it a night and try to get some sleep – day will start early tomorrow.

Ta

H

What a busy busy month this has been.  I had surgery this month along with back to back to back bookings for Younique Country Retreat.  We had lots of teachers booked in during the week of March break that kept us hopping.  So after not having a Monday off in a long time I took the time today to regroup – but still feel guilty.

Why is it we have to feel like we need to be doing something every minute of every day?  Is it just me?  Is it part of being a small business owner, wife, mother or just being a woman?   As much as I do in a day I always wonder how I can do more and can’t help comparing myself to others and how much they accomplish in a day.  I have thought about reducing the amount of sleep I get to try to get in more hours of  “workable” time in a day but with going non stop all day I do find that I need the 8 hours of sleep a night.

We are also trying to get ready for the upcoming Scrapfest event in April at the Kitchener Aud and like last year I have a number of things that have to be ready as we sponsor the event with freebies from Younique.  We are also trying to design our booth for the event and that in itself can be stressful but it’s a fun kind of stress (I know, I’m crazy).  It’s exciting to plan everything out and see how your booth comes together and how others will view the booth when they see it.  So this is where my focus is for the next couple of weeks.

We also have Easter around the corner and my family will be coming for Easter dinner.  During that time we will be going over the details for the next big crop in November.  Yes we have a theme and no we aren’t sharing it with you – yet.  There will be a contest in April that will give you (if you are signed up for the event) a chance to win a prize by guessing what our theme is.  We are approaching half way sold out so sign up now and you can win prizes for contests we will have over the next couple of months.  The event is on Saturday November 10th 2012.  Hope you can join us

We have so much new paper in the store you must come out to see it all.  Bo Bunny, Authentique, My Minds Eye, Kaisercraft, Basic Grey and so much more.

Thanks to Christine for sharing these layouts that she did using On The Go by Bo Bunny and the new Authentique line.

I love this paper.  It actually is not just geared for boys, it’s a fun line that has some great color for summer layouts as well.

 What a great job Christine did with this paper.  I love the layering she did.   I can’t wait to play with the paper myself.

Ta

BTW – stay tuned for details on the upcoming Suzanne J Dean event in November

Mr. Clean has a birthday today and although some days we chuckle that we are both falling apart I’m glad to be falling apart with him.  He is my best friend and so I made his favorite cake for dessert tonight.  Carrot cake with a buttermilk glaze and topped off with a Cream cheese frosting.

And back to Mexico…..

I have to share with you this great dress form I got at Home Outfitters a couple of weeks ago.

I though it was perfect….perfect to hang my ribbons on.  We have the ribbons in the store in a basket and you just have to rummage through it to find the perfect one.  This will allow me to have them hanging and make it much easier to view them to find just the right one for your scrapbooking page.  I have had it for 2 weeks trying to figure out just how to complete the project.  And so I thought I better just jump in and get it done.  Here are some photos in it’s various stages of completion.

 and now almost completed and ready for the store

It really looks kinda neat but it’s hard to tell from the photo.  It’s definately a conversation piece and has caught the eyes of everyone that has come into the studio.  What do you think?