When I first got pregnant, I wasn’t looking forward to mat leave. I was nervous about leaving work and being out of touch with the industry. Now, I couldn’t imagine anything less than having a full year with my constantly changing daughter.

Last year, I went a little crazy at the dollar store and bought some cheap wreaths that I just didn’t love enough to put up again this year. They looked cheap and I wanted something a little more special for Harlow’s first Christmas (i.e. something that would look great in photos).

Being new parents, we understand that babies get a lot of great stuff from friends and family, and don’t necessarily need a ton for Christmas. So when we decided to do a Secret Santa gift exchange for the babies in our baby group (comprised of five other couples that we met through prenatal yoga), we knew we wanted to make something more ‘out of the box’ for whomever we drew.

Getting ready for mat leave was (and still is) a weird concept for me. For someone who has worked non-stop since turning 14, sometimes even three or four jobs at a time, the idea of taking a year off seems like a bizarre concept. What the heck am I going to do with all this time?

Call it nesting or just call it a phase, but I have been on a sewing rampage lately. If you follow me on Pinterest, you might have noticed my increase in sewing-related pins for both home decor and to plan for the baby.

It’s starting to look a lot like Christmas at the Fournier Farm House! Between decorating the house, a busy season at work and having less daylight, I’ve found myself reading a little less this month. Perhaps the train has been lulling me to sleep more often than I thought! Or maybe this time of year has me wanting to spend more family time with Will and Oliver.

Sometimes starting a Project Life album is the easiest part; it’s the maintaining and keeping up with it that can be the most challenging. In this post, I will share the tricks I use to make maintaining and keeping up with my Project Life album easy.

With each passing year, I am finding myself reaching new milestones that I would have never guessed I would be experiencing at this point in my life. When I was in Europe in 2012 after graduating from University, I wouldn’t have believed you if you told me that in 3 short years, I would be married and living in Toronto with my husband and a great dane, living my dream life with my dream job.

I had forgotten how awesome library cards are.

Being back at the Florida condo, it’s just part of the routine to visit the local library on a regular basis during our stays. It shocked me to realize that back home, I don’t even have a Toronto library card, and I’ve been living there for 3 years!

Preserving memories is something everyone does, whether it’s by posting and sharing on social media, storytelling, or in a more obvious way – by creating memory books. No way is more right or effective than the other, and finding the way that’s right for you and your story is just a means of trying new things and discovering what works best for you and your story.

To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and my dual citizenship, I thought I would most a couple more photos from our honeymoon vacation to the Emerald Isle. 

One of the 25 things I want to do before I turn 25 was to write random notes of kindness and send them to my friends and family. Well, what better time is there to spread the love than Valentine’s Day?

For our honeymoon, Will and I decided to go on a fun driving adventure to a place both of us have wanted to go but haven’t had a chance to yet: Ireland. We rented a car, drove around the whole coast, stayed in B&Bs and had the time of our lives.

With the colder fall weather making an appearance here in Toronto, Will and I thought it might be time to start looking into jackets for Oliver-Sebastian (our Great Dane puppy)

Thanksgiving is always a time to slow down and reflect on the many things we have to be thankful for (other than the long weekend!). This year, I have TONS to be thankful for, and thought it would be a good idea to make a list of the top 10 things – although it’s going to be very hard to narrow it down.

Last week, I celebrated my 24th birthday. It was my champagne birthday (turned 24 on the 24th) and although it’s not a big milestone like a 30th would be, it was still a reminder that the years seem to be passing by quicker with every year. Since there’s only less than one year left until I am a quarter of the century, I thought it would be a good time to make a bucket list of the top 25 things I want to do before I turn 25.

With only a couple more weeks to go until the wedding, it’s hard not to be excited about going away on our honeymoon! Will and I planned our trip about 8 months ago, and the hardest part about the whole thing was just deciding where to go. 

If you live in the city like me, you might soon find out that making a campfire on your apartment balcony to roast your marshmallows is somewhat frowned upon by the by-law officers.

Last weekend, Will and I traveled to Chicago and then to Wisconsin to pick up our new puppy, Oliver-Sebastian. We left Toronto at 2 a.m. on Friday morning and after a (surprisingly) fun drive, made it into the city for 9:30 a.m. It was perfect timing because we could enjoy the whole day in Chicago, starting with breakfast at Sunny Side Up & Coffee Shop.

Since getting my Silhouette Cameo, I have been more than a little intimidated by all the possibilities. I was very excited to try a couple different mediums, and so during my Buffalo trip, I purchased a vinyl starter kit (on sale from Jo-Anns).

Don’t get me wrong, I love Canada and am a very proud Canadian, but there is no country that loves their crafts as much as America does – and if you love crafting and scrapbooking, I love you!

It’s National Scrapbook day on Saturday, and coincidentally I have been getting a lot of questions from my friends and family about starting their first scrapbooks.

On our drive up to Ottawa this past weekend, we rocked out to Lorde, Fun, and Mumford and Sons, among many other artists. It was an amazing playlist for our 5.5 hour road trip, but one song in particular got me thinking. That song was Below my Feet by Mumford and Sons. In case you haven’t heard it before, here are the key lyrics:

We recently had to move my Grandma to a nursing facility, and my Mom and Aunt have been trying really hard to make her feel at home. This is hard to do for many obvious reasons (i.e. you’re moving a whole home into one room, you need to go through everything and sort things out, etc.), but hardest of all is not being able to bring many things into the new room with her. 

It has been a while since I have had a nice day of scrapbooking, but with Will’s friend Alex in town and the house to myself, yesterday was the perfect day for crafting.

So I have completely fallen in love with this blog Something Turquoise. She has tons of awesome DIY crafts for weddings that Will and I have already jumped into. Here is a link to the tutorial that we used to create our toothpicks we will be putting in our cupcakes at our wedding.

So it has officially been just over 3 weeks since Will proposed, and it feels like I have exchanged my scrapbooking time for wedding preparation time. This past weekend I finally found some time to sit down and work on a page for my travel scrapbook.

What a week! I am officially on Phase 2 of my intense workout/meal plan (Yay! I made it past Phase 1!) and haven’t had time to write a post in a week! Where has the time gone?

Often times I find myself doing pages for other people; whether its my mom, my cousin or the dude sitting on the street corner, it seems like I am always finishing scrapbooks for everyone buy myself.

Here’s a page from our travel book.