You know you’ve officially hit peak adulthood when you find yourself passionate enough about kick-ass cleaning supplies, that you feel compelled to write a blog post solely on the topic.

But I guess if you’re here reading this, it can’t be that odd to get a little jazzed up about easy and chemical-free ways to get a little shine in your house.

After moving up from the city to the country, getting pregnant with our first country baby and welcoming Harlow into the Fournier Farmhouse, it seemed only natural that we celebrate her first birthday with a farm party.

Although it was hard to accept the fact that she was actually turning one, it did help that we celebrated before her actual birthday, because then I could still live in denial and pretend that we were just planning a fun party.

I am a huge sucker for tiny party details (you know, those little things that no one else notices but take a long time to make?), and I am really happy with how everything came together for this theme. So, I decided it warranted a blog post all of it’s own!

Ever since I posted a time lapse of me making baby food, I have been getting a couple questions about my process.

Choosing to make my own baby food has been one of the easier decisions in motherhood. It’s cost-efficient, doesn’t include preservatives, and makes me feel like I am doing something important for my daughter.

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.

As we all know, January is traditionally a time of reflection and goal setting, but this year instead of making specific resolutions, my family has decided to choose one word to focus on for the year. This was inspired by Ali Edwards One Little Word scrapbooking course and has evolved into something that we do as a family, rather than just personally. It gives us a more general idea of what we want to focus on for the year, and is something we see reflected in all aspects of our life.

Like any new mom, I am in awe each and every day watching this beautiful little girl grow and change. It’s so exciting to see her learning new things, responding to us with smiles, and becoming more aware of the world around her.

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?

Since moving into our new home last year, Will and I have started tackling larger DIY projects, taking advantage of the extra space we have to spread out (since working on a Toronto apartment balcony wasn’t the best option before!). These larger projects involve refinishing a few pieces of furniture, all of which we’ve placed in the nursery to prepare for our little one’s arrival.

When we picked out the colours for our nursery – black, white and mustard – we didn’t take into consideration the fact that baby things don’t typically come in those colours. So instead of hunting far and wide or changing our colours, we set out making some custom items for our little baby Fournier.

Since this is something I’ve struggled with for some time, I figured there must be others out there who have struggled with the same things at one point or another, so I thought I would share my 3 simple recommendations:

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.

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!

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.

Starting a Project Life album can be exciting and so much easier than you think. In this post, I will explore the things you need to get started and the tips and tricks I’ve learned for starting out. I’ve created this mini series to help those interested in Project Life learn more and perhaps start a book of their own.

Since posting my experience at Crop and Create and my intentions to use Project Life to document our first year of marriage, I have received a number of questions from friends and readers on what Project Life is and how to start. I’ve created this mini series to help those interested in Project Life learn more and perhaps start a book of their own.

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.

I have recently embraced the succulent life and am pleased to report I am actually keeping these little plants alive. As someone who can kill even mint (which is apparently very hard to do for everyone except myself), I am very proud of my little plant babies.

While on our honeymoon in Ireland, Will and I tasted the most delicious scones. The cafe was in a quaint town by the countryside, where we stopped to soak in the stunning sights of the Irish countryside on a hiking path along the outskirts of the town.

Dear Oliver-Sebastian,

We just celebrated our first National Puppy Day together and I could not love you more or be more grateful for your presence in our lives. I had the urge to write you a letter and even though you’ll never be able to read it, I am positive you know exactly what it will say.

Fitness is hard, especially during the dreary winter months. For me, I feel as though this winter has hit me especially hard; I haven’t been to the gym in weeks, I am missing my bike, and I can’t seem to get my butt off the couch!

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.

As most of my friends and family know, every year to raise money for the MS Walk, I knit and sell dish cloths. I have been knitting them ever since I can remember, and it’s one of the only projects I am confident knitting by myself.

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)!

Although I didn’t participate in Ali Edwards’ One Little Word workshop, I decided this year to choose one word to focus on for 2015. Choosing this one little word was no small feat. Out of the 1,025,109.8 words in the English language, finding just one that resonated with me was challenging and forced me think about the reasons behind choosing just one word.

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,

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.

Canadian summers are nothing without delicious Canadian s’mores. Who doesn’t wait all winter for that one moment when the marshmallows, graham crackers and melted chocolate come together in perfect harmony?

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).

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!

I’ve been eating eggs forever, but never learned how to cook a hard boiled egg until I was about 20 years old. I am very particular about runny yokes (in that I really don’t like them), which is why I now have this process down to a science. I won’t bore you with the details of how I got here, but instead I will simply share with you the best way to boil an egg.

It’s been almost 3 years since I started taking gymnastics, and only less than a year since I started taking classes regularly. I have a deep love for the sport and an insane amount of jealousy towards young gymnasts and their amazing abilities.

What a productive week! As you may have noticed, we had a lot of changes around here. I am so thrilled to have made the change from Polkadot Pirates to Sweet Green Studios and can’t wait to see where this goes.

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?

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. 

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.

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.

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.