home shopping with jocelyn.

Yesterday Jocelyn and I made a quick trip to IKEA to look for some home things for our house in Kingston. If only we could have spent more time there.. there are so many inspiration items!!

A few items we decided we need to get include:
-a cocktail mixer to go with our bar (ya, there's a bar unit in our house..!)
-tealights
-wine glasses
-straws

All of which are aboslutely necessary for our candelit straw-drinking wine parties.. haha! But seriously.. I want all of the above. We only bought the tealights though (they are also practical in that if the power ever goes out.... just saying)

In all seriousness we did buy boring necessary things too like (pretty!) dishes, a shower curtain and shelves.

In other ikea news.. their pinterest board is GENIUS!

I haven't actually seen the physical copy of the catalogue yet (which is silly cause I went to the store yesterday and didn't try to find it), but it was fun to browse through it on pinterest. I think this is a mega cool way to advertise their contest! Just some more reasons to love IKEA :)

getting the house ready.

My new house in Kingston is a mess. Was a mess, still a mess, and will be a mess until we really move in. It's been partially cleaned and renovated, but still.. a mess. What can you expect? Four boys lived there before us, and it is a student house. It is what it is.

This past weekend I went down with my parents to finish moving in all the big items to my house. It was the last weekend we could, because we're getting rid of the minivan tomorrow, eep! I grew up in that car..!! But that's a whole other story..

Anyway, I moved the rest of my stuff to my house in Kingston, and found out that my landlord didn't redo the flooring like he said he would..!! Sadface. So I called him and he said he's been having issues getting the contractor to come in.. so I could either risk waiting til labour day weekend and see if he can get the contractor in before then, or redo the flooring over Christmas. I said Christmas. Bummer, though. But I think I want to suggest that he redo the flooring in the living room downstairs instead of upstairs hallway/my room because the carpet downstairs is way grosser than my room flooring (even though my room floors dip down in the middle.. haha!) I set up my room and I have 2 desks... but I think I will use desk #2 as like.. a printer/school supply storage station thing.

Awesome possum.

flowery-tree wall decoration

I am slowly decorating my room, and I finally have a new part to share! The last thing I shared was my jewellery organizer which was more utility than decoration, but still looks nice nonetheless.

I now have a purely-for-decoration tree on my wall! It's beautiful!

Do you remember the napkin flowers I made earlier this summer? Well here they are being used for their original intent.

I created my tree out of bristol board pieces, and attached them to the wall. I'm a big fan of non-permanence, just in case I want to redecorate at any point. Bristol board is much more hassle free than paint (not to mention very cheap). Then I put my flowers on the wall to pull everything together. They (sort of) match my bed, see?

The great thing about the flowers is that I was able to also cover up parts of the bristol board where you could see two different pieces being attached.

Finally, my empty wall is not so empty anymore!

ikea

The US Ikea Catalogue for 2012 is out!! I don't know when it was out, but I just stumbled upon it while browsing for furniture. My mind is currently on "furnish Kingston apartment" mode. I'm looking for the cheapest, easiest stuff. Mostly I'm going to use stuff from home, with additions from Ikea and Wal Mart. I have yet to decide what is a necessity, what is just useful, and what is simply for aesthetic reasons. I'm on a student budget here! I wish I had the money to decorate to my heart's desire.


I can't wait to get the 2012 Canadian Catalogue! I love mail! I love catalogues! I love Ikea!

Anyway, I got some cool ideas from the Ikea catalogue for both functionality and decorative use. I already have a few items from Ikea, but might just dash back again to buy some more small items (hooks, hangers, and the like). All my decorations are going to be hand-made, or from Dollarama (boxes, bowls, jars, etc). I will make a Michael's and Dollarama trip soon. Dollarama trip will probably wait until I am in Kingston, and have furniture. It seems silly to decorate when the apartment is still lacking furniture.

I just flipped through the 2011 Ikea catalogue from various different countries to see if they were any different, but the images are more or less the same with a few variations in wording. It is just too funny!

aus: where you make memories
uk: where you make happy memories
aus: where life happens
uk: where life revolves around you
aus: where you dream
uk: where you love to dream
aus: where you keep that essay you wrote in 5th grade
uk: where you keep that stuff you can't bear to part with
aus: where you can be yourself
uk: where you can just be yourself

I have decided that the British are more creative, whereas the Aussies like their simplicity.

Another really amusing thing I found on the Ikea site was this: The Ikea e-Folder set where you can organize your desktop using Ikea furniture. Hahaha!



There is a GIANT Ikea near my house being built right now. It is to be the biggest Ikea in Canada.. maybe even North America? I'm kind of excited for it to open. It'll be like a mall on its own, or an amusement park of sorts. It will certainly give people an excuse to grab some food to eat after an exhausting trip through Ikea though!