Target Vase

Target: "Bringing you things, you never knew you needed until you saw them on the shelf!"

We were in Target buying . . . flour . . . butter and wine (you know the staples ;). When a quick trip down the Home aisle resulted in the cutest vase I've ever seen! It's honeycomb pattern was so subtle, and you know I'm a sucker for white ceramic.

There were two sizes, a Large and a small size. I picked up the small size for $16.99. Although it's pretty darn big.

As per usual I'll be enforcing our One in / One out rule. Meaning We bought a new vase so one of our old vases is on it's way out.
Lee did remind me that the exact words out of my mouth when I saw my new vase were:

"I will get rid of every vase I own if I can have this ONE vase. 

It's . . . . sooooooo . . . . cute!!!" 

Okay so I'm not getting rid of all of them, but one for sure . . . maybe two!
I hope you have a great weekend filled with honeycomb vases from Target. ;) haha

Baking Cupboard and Flour Tea cups!

With the realization that our baking cart wouldn't work for us I decided to re-organize our baking cupboard. I used the Ikea Korken jars, I love that they are glass. I know that most food storage plastic is safe (especially if it's not going to be heated) but I like the extra security of glass.

The jars are really well priced, at $2.99 for the bigger jars you see and $1.99 for the smaller ones. Which put our grand total at $45 for the cupboard.

We store our nuts in the small jars, I know that nuts keep longer in the freezer but we only buy small amounts at a time and use them fairly quickly.
The small jars also hold, our dried fruit, our chocolate chips, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa, etc . . .
The larger jars hold, our different sugars, bread crumbs and things like that. 

That's all well and good but what about the big bags of flour and sugar???
We use to store the flour and sugar in plastic containers from Ikea . . . seen here.  They looked great all lined up, but it was really difficult to get a measuring spoon in (in fact the 1 cup spoon wouldn't even fit in). As well as you couldn't fit in an entire bag of flour into one container, so we were having to store the container and a half bag of flour . . . not very efficient.
I found 3 large glass containers at Homesense. They are elegant but also super functional because the flour container can hold two 5 lb bags of flour easily, and the sugar container can hold almost as much!

I wanted to find super cute measuring spoons to store in the jars but I had a really hard time finding cute ones (after all they'll be on display inside the glass container). I found three bone china tea cups at our local antique store. I got them for $1 each because there was only 3 and they didn't have saucers.

I took one cup and filled it with sugar then I dumped out the sugar into a measuring cup, it measured exactly 1 cup. So I know each tea cup is One Cup. I still use measuring cups or spoons when I bake but sometimes in cooking you just need a sprinkling of flour, and having a little cup inside is super handy! As well, if a recipe calls for a cup of sugar I can just dump in a cup without getting the measuring spoons out.

I was really enthralled with the idea of a baking cart, but I can't lie I am really happy with our baking cupboard and new containers!

All time Favorites

Writing a blog is so much fun, but between projects it can sometimes be a stretch to post every weekday. Don't get me wrong . . . I can ramble on and on about HOME, but I'm never sure what's useful rambling and what's just plain rambling. That's why I LOVE reader questions. The way I see it . . . if one reader asks a question, there are probably more readers who were also wondering.
Today's question came from multiple people in the comment section of our How we organize all the books post.

 I was wondering, could you make a small selection of your favorite books for each of your 

personal categories?

1) Your Custom Homestead I know it's available on kindle, I'm not sure if it's available in book form, but any way you get your hands on it . . . it's good. I really enjoyed this book.
2) Simple Country Wisdom, I bought this book for my mom for Mother's day last year and I loved it so much I bought a copy for myself! It has some great photography and some great tips!
3) Happier at Home, this is the second book I've read by this author (the other book being The Happiness project) both are really great! Serious Love going on here!
4) Radical Homemakers, this was a bit weird for me to include. There were parts I LOVED about the book, and there were parts that I really didn't like about the book. But for the parts that I loved, this book is definitely worth a read. If you decide to read it I would LOVE to know what you thought of it.

I spent almost my entire teen years in sweatpants. I played a lot of volleyball as a teenager (it's actually how Lee and I met) I spent almost everyday in the gym so wearing something other than sweatpants never occurred to me. But once I was out in the working world I had to fend for myself and it was a steep learning curve . . . one I still struggle with. These Books helped . . . these books and a great pair of leggings!!!

5) What you wear can change your life, this is the first personal style book I ever bought . . . I was in my very early twenties and saw it on Oprah. It worked really well for me, one of the girls has the exact same body shape as mine (with all the same good spots and trouble spots). But I really think this book will work for everybody type.
6) How to have style, a recent find for me. It's great!
7) No Brainer Wardrobe (link found on sidebar), it's a fabulous e book that I loved so much they are now an affiliate of ours! It was exactly what I needed at a time when my life was a bit busier than I would have liked.
8) Gorgeously Green, just an amazing book! Mostly about earth friendly beauty products, this book breaks it all down!

I have a weird love of finance books. I really couldn't explain why, I have just always LOVED to read books on how to save money, and how to invest money. Very weird I know!

9) The smart Canadians guide to saving money, obviously more for Canadians. But if you are Canadian it's an amazing personal finance book. In my little opinion, the best personal finance book.
10) The Wealthy Barber Returns, a classic personal finance book for a reason!
11) America's Cheapest Family. While I don't use every tip in this book, I found this family inspiring (which is all I can ask for from a book . . . to be inspired!).
12) Smart Couples Finish Rich, we buy a copy of this book and attach it to the the gift we bring to every wedding. We use it instead of a card, and write a little message inside the book.

Right now I am really into what I will refer to as "Simplicity" books. Basically just books about simple living, slowing down a bit, and making sure the way we currently live is supporting the kind of people we want to be and life we want to live.

13) Buddhism Plain and Simple, this is the best book on Buddhism I have ever had the pleasure of reading. It was exactly what it promised Buddhism plain and simple. It was so informative but not at all boring. One of my favorite all time books. 

14) The Power of Less. An amazingly inspiring book, I loved every page. 

15) The New Good Life, I've read a couple of John Robbins' books they are always super entertaining. This one has everything from recipes for a smaller waistline to a chapter about the question of whether or not to have babies. 

16) Less is more. Basically a book of essays about valuing free time, no debt and simple living.

Those are some of my favorites and should keep you reading well into summer! ;) 

Here's what I've got lined up for the next few months: 

Simple Living: One couple's search for a better life

The Modern Day Pioneer: Simple Living in the 21st Century

Live Simply with Children

Small is Beautiful