January 15, 2025

This & That | January 15: Holidays and The New Year

Nicole this and that lately, life lately, social saturday 0 Comments

Hello Dear Readers, how are we already at the halfway point of January? How have your first couple of weeks of the new year gone so far? Here’s what I have been up to the past several weeks…

Loving: The beautiful sunsets and sunrises we’ve had lately, though I haven’t taken pictures of them all. This sunset was on December 23rd and I was able to capture a small fraction of its beauty on camera.

Another couple of things I’ve been loving:

The new wax seal and gold wax I received for a Christmas (above). Now I have two I can switch between as the mood strikes.

The other book by Edith Holden, The Nature Notes of an Edwardian Lady (companion to The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady) which I received for Christmas. Now I have the complete set of three! I covered these three books in depth in this post. (I also received Maud: The Illustrated Diary of a Victorian Woman but it hasn’t arrived yet and although I keep refreshing the tracking number, it shows it’s still stuck in transit in Edmonton…sigh)

Making: I’ve started scrapbooking again. I mentioned this last year, that I sorted through all of my childhood photos and arranged them chronologically in a photo box. Now I’m putting them into 12×12 albums. So far I have completed 3 years worth of photos. It’s been fun pulling all my papers out again, and I also treated myself to some pretty new papers and embellishments.

Finding: I found three more of the these beautiful books at Home Sense! This time Jane Austen books. Now I’ll have to be on the lookout for Emma, Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park– do you think I’ll ever find them? Who knows, but I still couldn’t pass these up.

Eating: Christmas baking including cranberry and coconut tarts at Christmas and now fruitcake. I know fruitcake is a divisive holiday food with those who love it and those who hate it, but I love my mom’s recipe and look forward to it every year. It’s made with mincemeat and isn’t dry at all. I’ve been enjoying a slice every once in a while with a cup of tea and a book.

Reading: I haven’t tackled any of the books on my Reading Challenge list yet, but I have been reading some of the books on my TBR list, including the antique one pictured above, The Abbey Girls in Town by Elsie J. Oxenham. It wasn’t very good of a story, to be honest, but I suppose I am not the target audience as it’s a girls book. I don’t know when this particular edition was published, but I found it at a thrift store for a $1, and at least it looks pretty on my shelf even if I didn’t love the story inside.

So that’s about it for now. Getting back into the rhythm of things after holidays, planning and goal setting for this year and reflecting on the past year. Dreaming up new projects and endeavouring to finish up the ones I’ve already started…regular happenings for creative people, right?

What have you been up to lately? I hope your 2025 is off to a lovely start too!

November 12, 2022

Social Saturday | November 12

Nicole this and that life lately, links, social saturday 0 Comments

Hello and happy Saturday, Dear Readers. It’s a snowy day today, so it’s the perfect time to settle down with some books or blog posts to read. Here are a few I’ve enjoyed lately.

I recently received my birthday gifts and my Victoria magazine in the mail on the same day. I got these three new books: Nora Murphy’s Country House Style, Feels Like Home by Marion Parsons and How Not to Kill Your Houseplant by Veronica Peerless. I’ve really been enjoying reading decorating books lately, getting some from the library and now a few for my own shelf.

And, here’s a list of some more books that sound good…a few more to add to my never ending “To Be Read” list!

I liked this article from Verily Magazine about choosing a personal decorating style you love, rather than just following what is popular and trendy.

Also from Verily, I’ve filed away this one to refer to next time I need to stretch new shoes.

This was a fun peek into a vintage magazine from 1908, from Wearing History Blog. I always enjoy seeing the “ideal” fashions from each period portrayed in magazines and catalogues.

I loved this article about Marilyn Monroe’s style! She is one of the most famous fashion icons for a reason.

I have read, and written, a lot about fast fashion (you can read more posts in the “sustainable fashion” category on my sidebar) but every time someone talks about it, I always seem to learn something new. Mostly I learn that the fashion industry is very corrupt and has no incentive to change. I wouldn’t have bought from Shein anyway, but this video by Karolina Zebrowska definitely solidified that decision. Of course we all need to wear clothes, and we can’t always afford to buy ethical brands (I own some fast fashion pieces myself), but the key difference I see is in the attitude we have when we approach our clothing. We might not have the power to revolutionize the fashion industry, but we each do have the ability to revolutionize our own closets by choosing to buy only what we need and then loving and caring for those pieces well, no matter their price tag.

In this video by The Minimal Mom, she asks a great question to help with decluttering!

I came across this quote yesterday and thought it was timely, considering my post on Wednesday.

“Be satisfied with the fact that although your art or talent may never be accepted by the world as anything ‘great’, and may never be your career, it can be used to enrich your day by day life: enrich it for you, and for the people with whom you live….and come to the recognition of the fact that it is important for you to BE creative in this area to the extent of your talent: important for you as a person who IS a creative creature.” – Edith Schaeffer

Also by Edith Schaeffer, I really liked this one too.

“If you have been afraid that your love of beautiful flowers and the flickering flame of the candle is somehow less spiritual than living in starkness and ugliness, remember that He who created you to be creative gave you the things with which to make beauty and the sensitivity to appreciate and respond to His creation.”

And finally, revisiting one of my favourite posts, “Home”, from one of my favourite bloggers, The Palest Ink. She has a beautiful way of weaving words with Biblical truths.

That’s all for today’s post, and I hope you have a lovely weekend!

October 1, 2022

Social Saturday | October 1

Nicole this and that life lately, links, social saturday 0 Comments

Happy Saturday, dear Readers, and welcome to October (My favourite month!) How was your week? I’ve got a quick little post for today because I wanted to share a couple of links with you all.

The first is this calligraphy course I’ve signed up for! I’ve always wanted to learn calligraphy, so when I learned about this modern brush calligraphy course, by Becca of The Happy Ever Crafter, I was so excited to join! I’ve got my supplies ready, and can’t wait to learn a new skill. The class starts on Monday, so there is still time to join if you too want to learn calligraphy!

And the other link is to this article from Verily about the recent Persuasion Netflix film. I didn’t watch the movie, and had no intention of doing so, but I did really enjoy this examination of why this “modernized” version of one of my favourite Austen stories was such a miss, and how Hollywood fails at presenting different kinds of heroines.

Well, that’s all I have to say today. I hope you have a lovely weekend, whatever you’re up to!

February 6, 2021

Social Saturday | February 6

Nicole this and that life, life lately, social saturday 0 Comments

I can’t believe it’s already the weekend! This week seemed to go by fast for some reason, even though I wasn’t particularly busy. I didn’t do much this week other than work and sew and read…not a bad mix though, right?

This week I finally decided to just go for it…. and sewed a t-shirt! This might seem like a relatively easy project, and it did go together quicker than I anticipated, but I was intimidated to start because I was afraid that the knit would be hard to manage and it wouldn’t turn out well. I know the hem is kind of wrinkly, but it will always be tucked in, so I don’t mind that. There are a few things I will do differently for my next project, but all in all, it turned out way better than I thought it would!

Janey of Atomic Redhead re-opened her vintage shop this week, with a few changes; she is now selling downloads of vintage cards! She has such an amazing collection of vintage ephemera, including valentines and other holiday cards that she decorates her home with each year…what a great idea to do digital downloads of them! She has quite a few cute valentines, if I hadn’t already made my cards this year, that would have been such a great option. You can browse her Etsy shop here.

Lauren of Wearing History has been putting out so many good blog posts lately! Here is another one I enjoyed this week, about how the “cottage core” trend of late is a reiteration of similar trends of days past.

As I’ve been sorting through my hard drive for my year long goal of finally organizing it, I have been looking through pictures and realizing that I really should print them out, so I can enjoy looking at them. I’d also like to do a family history album of sorts, with photos of my grandparents and other relatives, so I found a few photo albums this week. Vintage photo albums so much prettier than modern ones, aren’t they?

Well, that’s about all for this week. We’ve got an extreme cold warning in effect here (-40 celsius!) so I think I will be spending the weekend cozied up by the fire with a cup of tea and a good book. How are you planning on spending your weekend?