Happy Hallowe'en!! I hope you are all ready for a fun Friday night Hallowe'en celebration. I hope you're celebrating. Please tell me you're celebrating? I'll cry. Don't make me cry. It's probably a better idea just to celebrate.

Need some last minute party decor?? Look no further than Canadian blog My Daily Randomness. This free printables package is an oldie but a goodie, and is sure to make your Halloween as stylish as you are.

I finally gave in a little while ago to the succulents trend. Specifically, air plants. There's a woman who sells them at my local farmers market and they're beautiful and apparently hard to kill. With my black thumb, I figured it was worth a shot. And I was so right!

Hallowe'en is only one week away! I hope you are all as pumped as I am to fatten the neighbourhood kids up with candy after luring them to your home. It's the one day of the year Hansel and Gretel would have had the right idea. Also, kinda creepy.

For those following me on Instagram, you were privy to photos of the dinner menu I put together for my fella's birthday. Over the last few months, we have developed a bit of a romantic relationship with all sorts of Mexican food, and so I carried that love into his birthday dinner. I couldn't resist following up last week's Dia de Muertos post with the full details (scroll down to the end for a Horchata recipe).

If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I am hella in love with Mexican folk art and Dia de Muertos culture overall. My fella brought sugar skulls in to my life, and from there an obsession began. An obsession with incredible food and vacation ideas. In other words, an obsession with no downside.

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The awesome sugar skull clock I had made for #dougalove's bday present. This baby is beautiful.

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While planning the perfect Dia de Muertos birthday dinner (details coming soon!), I stumbled upon an awesome Etsy shop with Rockabilly Dia de Muertos style art. The store/artist goes by the name Bones Nelson and totally rocks my world.

The style is vivid and unique, and the characters/stories the pictures tell are fascinating. There is a wonderful blend of colour, culture and cuteness that I absolutely can't get enough of.

Halloween is still two weeks away, so if you order asap it might not be too late to get your hands on some of this awesome art to have a classy Dia de Muertos celebration of your own.

Here are a few of the beauties I have my eye on:

Check out the Bones Nelson shop here: bonesnelson.etsy.com and follow the artist on Twitter here: @nelsonfineart


Happy Friday!

Happy Friday! Happy Friday-before-Thanksgiving (in Canada)!!!!

Thanksgiving is my favourite. By far. Pumpkins and happy thoughts and yummy food and twenty people in my house.... my favourite!

In honour of Thanksgiving, here are a few Etsy finds that will extend the cozy Thanksgiving vibes into what is left of the fall.





Also--just for fun--here is a gem you might not have realized is on the interwebs.




Happy Thanksgiving!!

So, every morning I get a delicious organic dark-roast Robin's Donuts coffee before work. It's roll up the rim or whatever you want to call it season, and today I won a free donut. Hoorah! The free donut is okay, but it reminded me to brag on the interweb about my fantastic winning streak over the last couple months.

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It felt like it would be this kind of day. #winning 😎

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Two of my favourite Etsy shops celebrated milestones in August and September with awesome contests. First up was Thunderpeep, who was celebrating 1000 sales in her Etsy shop. She promised goodies to whoever made the 1000th purchase, so clearly I couldn't resist. Second was Sea & Lake Paper Co., who was celebrating 500 Instagram follows with a giveaway. And guess what? I WON BOTH CONTESTS.

Yeah, I'm bragging. Straight. Up. Bragging. If you know the shops, you totally understand why.

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Michelle from Thunderpeep and I met up in person when I was in Toronto visiting family/Riot Fest-ing. If you ever have a chance to win "goodies" from Thunderpeep, enter that contest at whatever cost. Seriously. She hooked me up with an amazing selection of treats she had picked up at local shows, including Monkey Butter, tea, soaps, and awesome Etsy swag which is going to look loverly in my craft room. And she brought me some of her coveted wrapping papers, which aren't available in her shops because of tricky shipping, and a selection of cards from her fall line that hadn't made it online yet. That made me all sorts of happy!!

These are my favourites:




The Sea & Lake contest took place on Instagram and was easy as soup to enter. Re-gram and tag them, and voila. Instant contest entry. I won the third prize, which was a print, a greeting card, and a 20% promo code.

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I haven't made use of the 20% off promo code quite yet---- a whole lot of indecision happening. Ever heard of coupon-remorse? I might have made it up. It is essentially the feeling that you could have gotten "more bang for your buck" using a coupon. I am experiencing major fear of having coupon remorse.

Here are a few things I have my eye on:




So, aside from reiterating how much I love these two shops--winning all this awesome stuff taught me a lesson. It taught me that good things can only happen if you make the effort for them to happen. Truth be told, I am not really a contest enterer type person. And after the summer I had, I was super not a contest enterer type person. So these two wins made for an exceptional end to my summer, just in time for my favourite season. There are rewards to stepping outside your comfort zone sometimes!

I highly recommend you follow suit. Go do something you wouldn't normally do. Enter a contest. Stick your neck out. Good things will happen. :)

DUDE. I am pretty pumped it is October. October is hands down my favourite month. It has my two favourite super awesome holidays, and lots and lots of good birthdays. It also has pumpkins. And cinnamon. And scarves. YAY!

Seriously, folks. October is amazing.




To celebrate making it to my favourite autumn month after a fairly crappy summer, my sister and I planned a Zombie movie marathon for every Friday of the month.

ZOMBIE. MOVIE. MARATHON.

The only thing that could possibly make October more awesome is five Fridays in a row with zombie movies.

Choosing only five nights worth of movies was tough, however, so we made a point of keeping it a combination of light, classic, and at least partially kid-friendly. The kid friendliness is a must for us, since we wanted to both include my nephew and not have to wait until he is in bed to start the fest. We are old, people! Starting movies at nine o'clock means only one movie per night---mild kid-friendliness was a great solution to time limitations on movie marathon goodness. Of course, this meant having some wiggle room on criteria for at least a few picks... but we made it work. Also... this kid has seen some Walking Dead episodes without any adverse reaction, so we are lucky enough to have a tough kid around.

Because I love you all, I am sharing our fantabulous 5-weekend Zombie Movie Marathon schedule with you right here. No judging if you hate some of the choices--- we had four adults and a kid to please!!

I may not have mentioned this, but....I AM SO EXCITED!


Happy October! :)