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).

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.

If you’re like me, you might hoard creative ideas on your Pinterest board, but not actually get around to making anything or expressing your creativity on a regular basis.

If so, here are some intentional ways to be more creative this year:

Since moving up to the country, we’ve been busy getting settled into our new home and routine.

To start off – since I am sure you’re wondering – the commute has been going well! It also helps that the winter has been super mild, making the drive to the GO bus and train station easy and enjoyable. We’ve settled into a nice schedule and things couldn’t be better!

Last year, I posted a gift guide for the crafter on your Christmas list. This year, I am switching things up and posting a round-up of all the awesome gift guides from around the web for last-minute gifts for all the loved ones on your list.

Here are the best of the best when it comes to gift ideas for the holidays:

Looking for something easy, affordable and beautiful to make for the loved ones on your list, but don’t know where to start? It doesn’t matter if you’re not able to sew, knit, or paint, CreativeBug.com has the best instructional videos to make any awesome project seem easy for any skill level – even newbies.

This past month and a half just flew by, along with a lot of my books! Still no library card, although I will try my best to get there this weekend if possible!

Whether you’re a graphic designer, scrapbooker, artist, crafter or musician, I believe it is important to immerse yourself in your art to improve and grow within your medium. In my opinion, part of this essential immersion process is becoming a member of a creative community either of your making or by participation in an existing one.

Since getting my Cameo Silhouette machine last year, I’ve become obsessed with all the projects you can do in minutes with ease! Lately, I have fallen in love with chalkboard vinyl and have been using it everywhere.

As any proud Irish citizen would, I celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a fun green craft. This year, I decided to dust off my paints and try something new. With my trusty Silhouette Cameo, I made a Subway art table runner template and got to work painting my way through the muslin runner.

Once again, it’s that time of the year when I break out my knitting needles and get to work knitting up a storm of dishcloths. For a cause so near and dear to my heart (check out my original post on it from last year here), it’s a way to not only raise money in memory of my Grandpa, but give back to others living with MS.

Valentine’s day is coming up, and I have to admit that I am more excited than other years to celebrate. For myself and Will, celebrating doesn’t mean buying chocolate or roses (although the first year we were dating, he did surprise me with a huge bouquet of them at work)!

I always thought I was a bad procrastinator in university, when I would be up all night the day before an assignment was due, hopped on energy drinks just to keep my eyes from shutting.

For those who don’t know, my husband Will is a super talented photographer. Although he makes his living shooting commercial and product photography, he has recently re-introduced himself to the family, wedding and newborn photography scene.

Time flies when you’re having fun!

And that is certainly the case in my marriage. I cannot believe that we have already been married 2 months. On one hand, it feels like just yesterday that I walked down that aisle, but on the other,

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)

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.

August 23, 2014 was definitely the best day of my life thus far. It is the day I married the man of my dreams and officially became Mrs. Sarah Fournier. After months of planning, crafting, and dreaming, the day finally came. Here are some of my favourite photos from the day. I wish I could post them all!

I first started thinking about writing this two nights before the wedding as I was nose deep in sewing a stuffed goose, putting together the seating chart, creating the vow books, and the many other projects I was scrambling to finish. I decided against it, mostly because I had no time, but mainly because I needed to wait and see if it was all worth it.

Will and I are in love with the new Stockyards shopping plaza in Toronto. Although some stores are still under construction, it’s a great one-stop-shop located conveniently within the city limits.

This Canada Day, I have decided to celebrate like an American on Independence Day! I am a proud Canadian, and I know how lucky we are to live in this multicultural nation of ours.

If you’ve ever had a long conversation with me, chances are the topic of my craft room has come up! I am absolutely in love with how this room has turned out, and although it becomes a dumping ground for wedding crafts and storage at times, it is the one place where organization is key.

As we inch closer to the wedding, our planning focus has shifted from the bigger items (venue, date, dress) to the smaller details. Now that we are making decisions on decor, one of my main deciding factors on what to DYI for the wedding is whether I will be able to use the items both at our reception and afterwards.

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).

Since moving to Toronto almost two years ago, I haven’t been able to buy scrapbook supplies in the city. There weren’t any local Michaels stores and I found that boutique art stores had huge markups with a small selection. I stopeed looking for new stores until I found...

Potato stamping is a time-tested and crafter-approved way of creating fun and budget-friendly projects. After much trial and error, I have developed some tips and tricks for using potato stamps, and I am so thrilled to be sharing these with you here on Sweet Green Studios.

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!

This topic has been on my mind for quite some time now, especially with my upcoming nuptials. Sometimes it’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that in just over 3 months, I will be changing who I’ve always been. Growing up with the name Sarah, I was never the only one at school, work or dance. I have always been Sarah Folk or Sarah F.

Mother’s Day is a time to celebrate those special women in our lives that clothed us, fed us and loved us through thick and thin, for years and years, to make us into the people we are today. Mothers have the hardest job, and growing up with a single mom, I can appreciate all the crazy things moms have to deal with.

To celebrate what might be the best made-up day in the world, I have made an exciting addition to my craft room. Can you guess what it is?

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.

And it wasn’t exactly what I had imagined.

On Friday afternoon, after a week of flexing at work to make up for the extra hours away from the office, Will and I packed ourselves into our (new) car and headed over to the Creativ Festival at the International Convention Centre in Mississauga.

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. 

Every day I struggle with motivation. I am the kind of person who gets something in my head and needs to completely finish it before I can resume any normal activity. This is probably why I experience my creativity in bursts every couple weeks.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about what spring in Toronto looks like. To many, this means dusting off their bikes and going for a ride around the city or going for a run on the docks. But, with only 30 days left until the MS Walk, spring looks a little different to me.

I’ve been working on a new secret project lately, so having a great mellow playlist to work to is essential. Here’s a breakdown of what I’ve been listening to lately:

Okay, so I have kind of gotten a little carried away with my newest project and haven’t had much time for blogging (or really much of anything else for that matter). But here I am, and I am proud to announce that I have been successful in keeping up with my crafty resolutions of 2014.

To get myself in the crafting mood, I have created a playlist of awesome songs that are pretty hot right now (at least to me they are). As I was listening to them tonight, I thought it would be a great idea for a blog post, so here is a list of the top three songs/artists that I’m listening to these days:

It’s been a while since I have had time to post on here, but with a new year comes… well, new resolutions that I (really) hope to keep. They say the best way of fulfilling your resolutions is to tell other people about them, so that you have someone to keep you accountable, so this is exactly what this post is about.

Some brides have a hard time getting their fiance motivated to help out or become interested in wedding planning. Fortunately, I am not one of those brides.

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 been a while since I have blogged, and here is the very exciting reason why!

This week, I would like to share with you a great blog that combines the efforts of a number of talented crafters and scrapbookers. This blog is WriteClickScrapbook.com and is quickly becoming one of my go-to stops for inspiration and layout suggestions.

If you’ve never heard of Ali Edwards, you are definitely the one missing out. Ali is a scrapbooking and crafting guru who also happens to have a great blog that I highly suggest you check out at aliedwards.com. I specifically love her Project Life pages that she has been posting. 

Welcome to Polkadot Pirates (now Sweet Green Studios)! I am really glad you stopped by. I started this blog as a creative outlet, for an easier way to share my crafts with family and friends, and to connect with other crafty folks!