Happy Halloween! It's Elara's first Halloween this year, and our second year of giving out candy and decorating the house. We even got to pick our own pumpkin this year. Lots of festive fun!

​We decided to make Elara the Queen of Hearts for Halloween. It actually all started as a joke, as she has a shirt with a collar that wouldn't stay down (as seen in the photo below). I thought it looked like an Elizabethan queenly collar, and from there we thought she would make a good Queen of Hearts. We already had a dress with hearts all over it, all we needed was accessories to make the costume complete! She makes a pretty cute queen, and she definitely rules this house with an iron fist. 

I hope you have lots of candy and Halloween fun this weekend! 

Check out this remodel of a 1980s house in Israel. The architects, Shachar Rozenfeld Architects, have taken out a lot of the curving windows and brightened it up with bigger glass walls and sliding doors. This makes the new living/dinning area more open, with an easy transition to the outside patio. See more of the transformation at Contemporist. 

 This past weekend we visited the Evergreen Brick Works. If you have never been it's definitely a neat place to check out. There are great paths to go for hike, and lots of fun little gardens to explore, as well as a store and coffee shop. And every weekend there are a ton of activities. While we were there we browsed through the weekly farmers market and had some lunch sitting out in the beautiful sun by the pond. There was also an Etsy market going on this weekend that was fun to wander around. I even picked up a cute fox bib for the baby. It was a super fun afternoon out!

I have been playing with the idea of adding wallpaper to the power room on one wall, but that stuff is expensive! Not to mention I have never put up wallpaper, but I have heard it can be a reason to file for divorce haha. So we decided to create our own design by simply using painters tape and paint. We knew we wanted a geometric design, as those were all the types of wallpaper we were drawn to. So we stuck different widths of painters tape all over the wall. Then added a silver grey paint by rolling overtop of the tape and wall. The result is quite dramatic, as you can see in the photo above. We still need to do a few touch ups as some of the paint bled under the tape (of course), but overall I think it looks good. You can't see it until you go into the room, so it's a bit of a surprise.

We are thinking of adding yellow/orange paint as well, that will match the picture of the scooter (seen below). We might paint in a few of the shapes on the wall or add extra lines in the new colour, we haven't decided yet. The colour that matches perfectly is called Behr Splendor Gold (seen below).

I'm really liking this effect! The wall was really plain before. This new pattern brings interest and brightens up the room.

I love these little nooks for storage and visual aesthetics equally. This shelving system is called SuperMod. So neat how you can stack them up anyway you like. They were designed by Sebastian Misiurek and Arianna Lebed of Simplus Design using 3D printers.  Lots more pictures at Contemporist.

About:
SuperMod is a 3D printed modular wall system which creates a versatile aggregation of storage that is equal parts function and beauty. The wall fluctuates between different sized modules to accommodate various types of storage needs, making it an ideal place for your favorite books, plants, spirits and more. The wall makes an excellent partition, that can divide space or stand on it’s own to enhance it.

Images: © Alan Tansey

I love fall, it's my favourite season. So many great occasions happen in the fall, including my birthday. Here are my favourite things about this season.

Painting walls is such a chore, yet it is a great way to change the look and feel of a room for cheap. The prep work of taping all the edges is time consuming and doesn't aways have great results. Most tape at some point will bleed under, making more work for yourself in the end. I'm proud to say we have done away with taping in our house, and after so many paint jobs we are now painting pros. Here are a few techniques for painting tape free!

• Make sure you have a good, clean brush, with no fraying bristles. We also like to use a large brush.
• The brush should be angled.
• Dip the brush into the paint about 1/2 an inch deep, so that only the tips of the bristles have paint on them.
• Knock some of the excess paint off  by using the side of the paint can, but still leave a fair amount on the brush. Just so it's not dripping.
• Grasp the brush lower around the metal that holds the bristles. Not by the handle. This helps with control.
• Place the brush against the corner where the two walls meet, and angle away from the wall you don't want to paint.
• Slowly, with consistent pressure, glide the brush down the wall. 
• Add more paint as needed and continue. 

Designer Oszkar Vagi from Budapest has created Little Nest. A cradle made of felt and leather, that hangs from the ceiling. This would have been amazing when baby was still small. Looks so cosy, and the best part is you can rock them to sleep.

About: 
Egg? Cocoon? Capsule? Cradle!
Shaped out of one single wool felt piece, the cradle hugs around the baby as a protective shell taking care of their peaceful rest.

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you had a great long weekend. We had a lot of fun on Sunday as we visited a pumpkin patch, wandered through a corn maze, went on a tracker ride, and picked our own pumpkin. Then in the evening we had some good friends over for Thanksgiving dinner.  Elara had a great first Thanksgiving! 

This is a pretty neat idea to add in the empty space between floors. And what a fun way to relax! Just like a giant suspended hammock. This two-level apartment is located in Mexico and was designed by Proyecto Cafeina.  See more at Contemporist.