Victory Garden Seedling Time

Since spring here in Canada is right around the corner, at least I hope it is, Colin and I have started the seedlings for our Victory Garden.  This year the garden will not be in beds, but in pots since there is no sunlight in my parent's backyard.

The seedlings have been planted in rockwool cubes which we are keeping inside a small humidity dome.  Since we are low on space and windows that get light, we have the dome on our desk in the bedroom.  The lettuce is already sprouting! 

We have planted lettuce and some herbs. We could not find seeds for the other vegetables that had not been genetically modified, so we will be going to the local garden shop when the time comes for planting.

May 24 weekend is the usual date to plant outside, but depending on the weather we may start a week or two early. 

 

    

Wedding Crafts on a budget

Well it has been a while since I last posted anything.  My wedding was last weekend so I have been a busy bee getting everything together!

 I want to make it clear that I was not trying to have a 'trendy' vintage wedding like so many people are doing right now.  I love the idea, but I wanted to try and make it look like my wedding decor could have been used in the 1940's.  During that time almost all resources were used for the war effort leaving civilians to make do with what they had, or make it themselves.  Since losing my job I actually ended up having to ration my money like many would have in the 1940's.  Good thing I had already picked out this theme for my wedding.  So this is a post about some of the things I made and how much it cost.

First I will show off my bridal bouquet

 My Mother In-Law had to specially order the purple carnations, which I thought was crazy! Carnations can be dyed any colour.  I had planned on using the beige coloured tulle That I used for my original bouquet post.  But I thought the colour was wrong, and I happened to have this white tulle, which happened to be wrapping from one of my bridal shower gifts.  I also put in some crystal picks I got on sale from Micheal's and wrapped the stem with the same ribbon as the boys medals. As I did not pay for the flowers I can't give the total price of my bouquet.  Here is the break down of what I bought

35 white carnations at $0.80 each - $31.64 with tax
1 Spool of ribbon using 40% off coupon - $2.40
Flower Tape using 40% coupon - $4 (3 spools came with this and I have 2 and a half left which means I only used about $0.66 worth)
Pins - $1.13 from the dollarstore
Flower Picks $5 
The cost without my purple flowers $43.79

Use coupons when you can! 

  I also made my own centrepieces to go with our WWII time theme.  

I found small mirrors at the dollar store to use as chargers. I have 6 mirror tiles from my brother's old house so I only had to buy 6 more.  The small jam jars and quart pickle jars were found at half price after last years canning season. When planning a wedding on a tight budget it is nice to have a full season beforehand to purchase 'out of season' items that you wish to incorporate into your decor.  The floating candles I made.  I thought I had written a post about how I made them, but I did not so I will later and link it back.  I used food colouring to make the water purple.  Inside the quart jar is a bundle of white mini carnations to go with the bridesmaid's bouquets. These were purchased from Costco for $10 a bundle.  Very inexpensive and went well with the theme.  I became very savy with Microsoft Publisher and created an air mail letter that soldiers were given to write home with.  One was placed at each table for our guests to write in. I printed off pictures of air planes flown in the Second World War and used them as table names.  The card stock was purchased on sale for 2 for $1.  We used 4 for the pictures and the small tent card with the air plane facts.  Since I printed the pictures out myself I did not pay for any printing fees, and The ink cartridges cost $30 which was used to make all the reply cards, save the date cards and address labels. 

Total cost for each of the 12 centrepieces was $5.30

To help keep the 1940's War Time Wedding theme alive I made some tissue paper decorations for the walls ceiling.

The dollarstore has a great variety of tissue paper for cheap!  Which was perfect for me since most decorations were made of tissue paper.  I did not want to pay $7 for one medallion so I just made my own by accordion folding the paper and then making it into a circle.  Easy.  I had created a stamp that looked like a postmark with our names on it and taped it to the centre of the medallions.   I found the letters on the Martha Stewart web page, these were used to label the guest book, table for cards and gifts.  I also made some tissue paper pom poms that were meant to be hung from the ceiling, but instead they were hung from the walls. 

I will post more once I'm organized. 

 

Testing Workout Videos - Video #2

Since I wanted just a plain old aerobic workout video without dancing, I looked for a step aerobic video. I do not have a step, but I can at least still do the movements without the step.  For this test I chose Step Aerobics Step by Step with Jenny Ford.  I have done this workout once, and so far I really enjoyed it.  Will keep you posted with my progress at the end of the week,

Workout Video #1 Review

I know,  I have not posted anything in a while.  I did do the workout video Burn Fat Fast Cardio Workout every day.  I did think I was going to get more coordinated as the days went by, but this was not the case.  I found myself losing drive to complete the movements and thought the dance moves to be a little silly as time went on.  I'm not coordinated and don't need all that extra fluff.  

However, if you are coordinated, like to mix dancing with your workouts this would be a good change to your routine.  If you can get past the super happy voice of the instructor.  The video did it's job in terms of making me sweat and get my move on so to speak.  But I lost interest when I wasn't able to do all the movements.

So my rating this video for someone like myself, who is not coordinated, can't dance or hold a beat would be to bypass this workout video.  Too much going on and when I was getting confused with things and then the added happy high pitched voice of the instructor made me frustrated.  Even thought I did get worked out, I hated knowing I had to do this video and lost motivation.

But, if you like to dance and can do more than one thing at a time this video could be for you. 

Ring Bearer Pillow Alternative

As mentioned before I like to do different things when it comes to my wedding.  I also don't like the idea of something being useless or gone to waste.  This is why I didn't want to have a usual ring bearer pillow.  I wouldn't know what to do with it afterwards,  and I would have 2 of them since 2 of my nephews are my ring bearers.  I would never dream of using them as a throw pillow or put it on my bed.  I'm not a frilly person.  I had seen some great ideas, of bound books, and paper flowers. But what would I do with them after, and I need to keep this wedding as inexpensive as possible.

While I was out last week perusing my favourite and yet not so favourite store I found these wooden hearts. I bought 2, and each on was under a $1.  I knew I had some twine and figured I could make something interesting for the ring bearer pillows.  I wrapped the twine around the heart making it slightly messy on purpose, I don't like perfectly neat crafts.  

  I then looked through my stash of ribbons and found a nice lacy one with gold edges and tied it through the middle of the top, so the ring will hang in the empty space in the centre.  









After the wedding we can use the hearts ti hang on our wall in the bedroom, or as our 'First Christmas' ornaments.  I think they look wonderful and I'm glad to have made a good ring bearer pillow alternative. And it was very easy and inexpensive.

Aug 22, 2012 Weigh In

I'm very elated with my weight this week!  This morning's weigh in was 162.8 lbs!  I've finally lost all the weight I gained from when I went home to my parents house.  Took a few weeks, but it has happened.  I'm almost in the 150's, I think i was 21 the last time I weighed in the 150s.  This is so exciting for me.  

I still don't notice much of a change, but I look at myself everyday.  I think tomorrow I might do some measurements.  But it is really nice when I see someone I haven't seen in a while and they notice I have lost weight.  

I'm hoping the video I have been doing everyday is helping,  I will rate it at the end of the week and pick a different one to do next week.  I really want to get rid of the back fat,  yesterday I tried on my wedding dress, and it was pouring over the back of the dress....not attractive.

Testing Workout Videos - Video #1

Since I have to increase my cardio I have decided to test out exercise vidoes.  As I do not have a lot of money and there is this wonderful thing called the internet with millions of free workout videos I will be searching the web for something that makes me sweat, keeps my heart rate up, and is simple enough for me to follow.  I'm not coordinated at all!  

This week I'm going to start off with a video I found on YouTube called  Burn Fat Fast: Cardio Workout uploaded by BeFit. The girl is very up beat and I will say it was kind of funny to listen to her.  But the name of the game is getting in shape, it's only 20 minute workout so I would recommend doing your own warm up and cool down, just to make sure you are in your target heart rate for 20 mins.  There were some funny booty shakes that I wasn't able to do but perhaps by the end of the week.  I was able to follow the instructions for the most part,  there was a movement towards the end that I just wasn't able to get the timing and direction right. 

I will do this workout every day until Saturday and tell you if I get better at it, and if I can stand her upbeat happiness.