Tuesday Top Ten

 When I was younger, I used to love the summers for the long days, no school and sleep overs at my friends houses; now, summer is fun but I usually spend most of it sweating off my make-up or chugging water since I'm so dehydrated. Over time, my preferences have changed. My favourite outfit used to be a spaghetti strap tank and a little skirt from Hollister, but gone all the days of middle school and now I appreciate myself a trench, scarves and lots of layers.

Since my favourite season is starting today, I thought I would do my top ten today on my favourites for fall!

Favourite Jacket:

I actually bought this jacket last year from BeyondTheRack.com. It's so comfortable and you gotta love a faux-leather sleeve with a peplum accent, You can still buy it on ShopStyle for less that $100 dollars.

Favourite Scarf:

This scarf is the right mix of feminine and pattern; hounds-tooth floral is beautiful. It is not a heavy scarf as I tend to run a little warm so a lightweight material is still able to keep me warm. This scarf can be found at Indigo-Chapters and right now it's on sale!

Favourite Hat:

Nasty Gal Hideaway Panama Hat. 

I have a very big head so I have been looking for a hat just like this that actually fits! I think this would be perfect for a night out walking around or at the pumpkin patch without getting cold ears!

Favourite Socks:

Top Shop 

I love me a good, warm sock especially ones with cute print that you see out of the tops of booties or winter boots. This pattern is one of my favourites for the cooler season and I can't to start wearing all my wool socks!

Click through below to see the rest of the list!

High Five for Friday!

Happy Friday Everyone!!

I hope you all had a great week. Mine has gone pretty well (and fast!) which is nice and the weather is supposed to be BEAUTIFUL in Vancouver so I will definitely be heading to the beach at some point and try to make this summer tan last a bit longer. Here are the highlights of the week:

1. My all time favourite beer is the Granville Island brewing Robson Street Hefeweizen and it's always my go to. Before Mike left, he brought home some of these and I was like "Hey Day? What?!" Turns out they just renamed it and gave the packaging a little facelift. I'm alright with making things look prettier. Also, please note this was my friday night, Mike working late and me with beer and pizza in my pyjama pants at 8:00. What can I say, I'm a party animal.

 

2. I got to meet this sweetheart! I mentioned last week that Mike's brother and sister in law had their baby. Well here she is, Kenzie Rose. She's so adorable!

3. My sister helped organize the Terry Fox Run near my home town so I went and was taking photos and getting in on the fun and support the great cause.

4. Mike is on the other side of the province for a couple weeks and he's been telling me how it's going. This was a conversation we had on Monday about how he's been eating over there. You can kind of tell he is a picky eater.

5. Last night I had soccer practise but couldn't play because I hurt my foot during the week (of course I did) because a stick went THROUGH the bottom of my leather Steve Madden flats... while I was walking on asphalt.  I still don't know how I accomplished that. But I went to practise anyway and brought along some company! Harvey was so intrigued by all the little dogs running around the park but he behaved and accepted all of the attention he got from the team.

That's it for this week! I hope you all have a great weekend!

stay clumsy

xx jamie

Passport Stamp Picture

I love travelling and although there aren't too many places I have seen, I will travel whenever I possibly can. A few months ago, it came to the point that my passport expired and I didn't want to just throw it away. It had all of the stamps from where I had travelled and to me, was like a souvenir all to itself. So then, I had this old passport lying around with nothing to do and I thought I would give it a bit of life and show off these little reminders of where I had been and who I had been with.

This was a super simple project and it didn't take me long. An hour or two at the coffee table watching TV and was done in no time. All you need is your old passport (or whatever you will be using), paper, glitter, liquid glue, a pencil, scissors and a frame. I had all of this stuff lying around at home so it’s also a super cheap project as well!

First thing I did was cut out all of the stamps in my expired passport – there were some pages that backed on to others so I just chose which side was better and cut those ones out. Also if stamps over lapped, I just cut them out together because I liked the way they look.

Next, is where your handwriting skills are tested. I am not great at cursive so I roughly spelled out the word and then went back and fixed it up as much as I possibly could to make it look all right. Then, cover that sucker with glue. After one failed attempt, I figured out that a small steady stream a couple times works better than a heavy stream since the lines got really thick and then spread out so the letters lost all of the shape.

Now the fun part, cover the letters in glitter! I put all the glitter on and then I let it lay flat on the table, excess and all, to dry for an hour or so just to give the glue a bit of time to harden. After, I shook all the excess back into the glitter container, touched up a few letters and it looked great!

Now, bring back your stamps and lay them out the way you want them positioned. I splayed them out in a way that it would look in a passport and really like the bold colour behind them to help them stand out. I didn't totally glue them down since (hopefully) I will have more stamps by the time my next passport expires that I could add on! All I did was put a dollop of glue on a spare piece of paper, and then dip my pencil eraser in the glue and stamp the glue to the back of each stamp. So they will stay in place but they aren't there forever.

I let the glue dry overnight since I was putting it in a frame, I didn't want the glass to flatten the letters and the next morning it was ready to go and I hung it on the wall. I am so happy with how it turned out!

Let me know what you think and if you would do this with your passport as well!

stay clumsy

xx jamie

Tuesday Top Ten!

The boyfriend is out of town working this week which means for me; having a big glass of wine, lighting lots of candles and listening (and unsuccessfully singing) non-stop to Broadway soundtracks every night. It also gave me a chance to scour the internet of "some of my favourite things" (see, the Sound of Music is always relevant!) and I thought that I would share my top ten!

If you know me, it doesn't take long to realize I am undoubtedly in love with Lauren Conrad. She is my style inspiration, showed me that cat eyes aren't that hard to do and if I could rock that blonde hair - I would in a second. She got married this weekend and I was more excited to hear that than people I actually know getting married. Anytime she's in the news, it will always be a favourite of mine, but that's not why this is number one. Paper crown is making bridesmaid dresses!! Look at these beauty’s! Heck, I would probably get married in any one of these. I love the neutral tones and the cut and shape of them.

 

The ladies at A Beautiful Mess know how to use DIY right but one of my favourite projects of theirs has got to be this Washer and DryerMakeover! Such a simple idea and it totally changes the whole look of a laundry room. Consider it on my to do list!

I am obsessed with this coloured hair trend and I am obsessed with Orange is the New Black. Haas anyone seen Dasha Polcano’s new hair? I absolutely love it – the bluey silver with a lavender ombre. It’s beautiful, now if only I can think of how to make it office appropriate…

Target. Can that be a favourite all on it’s own? Last Friday night, Mike and I went out for dinner and I asked if afterwards we could go to target and he said that’s not a date night thing and we did something else instead…BUT THEN… I saw this picture of Iggy Azalea and her boyfriend out for their anniversary and look where they went… I think I have an idea for our next date night!

I am someone who gets scared very easily and I mean, someone hides behind a corner, jumps out and says boo and that will bring me to tears. I cry when I get scared and not in a “I just lost my dog” sort of way, more like “there’s tears running down my face and I don’t know why” sort of crying. Well let’s just say this list from Buzzfeed was dead on about what it’s like in my world.

Halloween costumes, make-up tutorials and all that are in between will be filling our feeds on every type of social media pretty soon if they haven’t already. My favourite person to watch for these amazing tutorials and costumes has to be Kandee Johnson hands down, if you haven't seen one of her Halloween videos...get on that! 

 

Starbucks has gotten my name right a few times however it usually comes out Janine, Jimmy, Janice and so on, and this video had me laughing out loud. If you haven’t seen it yet, it has been one of my favourites this week. My sister and I went to Starbucks once and as her name is Elle, she told them her name and on the cup was a few awkward crossed out blobs and then just a large letter L. I understand where they came from but it made us crack up and we still talk about it.

There is no doubt that Mandy from Vintage Revivals is the queen of all things DIY but her last project takes the cake. I have seen a few projects on Pinterest about making over old trailers and campers but with her style, “the Nugget” is going to look amazing!

 

Surprise Sales. The best thing ever. I was just telling my friend how I wanted a staple bag for the fall that was really big, and can hold everything but also something I can splurge on. Considering my wallet is a $7 zip pouch from target and my purse is basically non-existent, I wanted to treat myself. Well, I splurge wasn’t necessary! While perusing Instagram on my lunch break, Kate Spade’s Instagram account had given a website for a secret sale and their deals were amazing! I got a brand new bag that’s nice and big without the big price tag! It was $200 dollars off, the bag was only $150 dollars! A bit of a splurge but this bag is my new baby! I am all for sales but this deal takes the cake for the next while. The sale continues until midnight on September 18th (Pacific Time!)

My last favourite for right now is the new COLORsensationalMaybelline Lipsticks in The Buffs. I have already gotten 5 of the colour since I started with one and I just keep picking more up every time I go to Target! I’ve got the shades: Espresso Exposed, Untainted Spice (my fave!), Truffle Tease and Sin-a-mon - in that order below. I use them on their own but I also build them on top of my other lip colours to tone down the colour and make them more nude. Officially Obsessed!

 enjoy the rest of your week!

stay clumsy
xx jamie

West Coast Trail

So we did it! 

No blood, lots of sweat and no tears and we completed the West Coast Trail! The whole trip itself couldn’t have gone any smoother. We got on the trail with ease, we didn’t forget any vital pieces of equipment and neither one of us hurt ourselves (I was waiting to see when I was going to sprain and ankle and it just never happened, hurrah!).

I have lived on the west coast of the mainland my entire life and every night when we stopped for camp, I was still breathless at these beaches! Like come on, how pretty is this?

The West Coast Trail is definitely a difficult trail; there are log bridges covered in moss, mud pits that you have to get to the other side not knowing how deep it really is, and of course everybody’s favourite, LADDERS! I never used to think of ladders as something that was very difficult since usually you only go up or down the ladder once and then you are done however, having a 45 pound back pack on and 50 feet of ladders, it changes things a bit. Can't you see how much I love ladders? and just look at Kelly's excitement... that photo makes me laugh every time!

Within the first day we had already gotten into a routine. Once we got to camp, I would start dinner and a fire and Kelly would set up in the tent and in the morning it was the same. It was perfect because near the end of the trip, we didn’t even need to think about what we were doing and camp practically set itself up. We usually finished hiking each day around 3 or so which game us lots of time to explore the beaches, take a nap in the sand (my favourite pastime) or just hang out around the fire. I'm also so glad I brought a waterproof camera since the tidal pools were amazing!

One of the best things about doing a trip like this is the people you meet. We met lots of different people from lots of different places; there were students from Ohio and LA, an older family of 6 from Edmonton and everything else in between.

Don’t get me wrong, I love hiking and the outdoors but that doesn't mean a girl can’t be clean! While many of the hikers we met, chose to go au natural for their entire hike, which just didn’t fly with us. Kelly found this awesome environment friendly shampoo bar and brought some homemade soap so every other night we put on our bathing suits and jumped in the creek to have a quick soap up. Having clean hair on the trail just made you feel so fresh every morning plus standing in the creek while lathering up, helped our poor blistered feet feel a bit better.

 

All in all, it was a great experience and something I can now check off my bucket list. I couldn't have had a better person to go with, we both love hiking but at the same time we both had the same faces on every time we saw the ladders ahead.

stay clumsy

xx jamie

High Five for Friday(s?)

Hi guys! I'm still here I promise!! :)

If you have been on this blog before, then you know that I just did the Westcoast Trail on Vancouver Island with my bestie and it was the first real vacation I took in over 2 years not including little weekend trips here and there. What's a vacation without a 75km hike and blisters? I was happy to be away and then I have been in recovery mode since, coming home from 6 days of hiking made me feel like I was walking like a baby giraffe! Even more clumsy than usual (if that is even possible) but now I am back and getting projects prepared for you and spending way too much at Target and Michael's on craft supplies rather than the latest fall fashions but hey, isn't that they way it should be?

Since I have been gone a couple weeks, I thought I would give you some highlights of not only this week, but since I have been gone!

1. We started the trip out in the best way possible. If there is anyone from Vancouver/BC out there and if you have taken a ferry to Vancouver Island, you know that missing the ferry is the worst possible thing. Well we missed it...or so we thought! We were three cars back when they stopped the line and I was so disappointed when all of a sudden one of the ferry workers points us out of the line and puts us on the ferry! The advantages of your friend owning a Yaris! You wouldn't believe the excitement in the car over getting on the ferry but hey, it's the small things that count right?

As you can tell, I was excited!! We needed to inform everyone we knew :-)

2. Finishing the trail was the best feeling in the world, I will have a post next week about the whole experience but it was awesome to say the least. Here is a tired looking picture of me at the very end (yay!)

3. Just as soon as I came back, Mike had to go out of town for work but it was fine since we had a nice date night before he left!

4. I was happy to go back to work because it is so nice having a routine in place and get back into rhythm! Plus, all the air conditioning in my tower help!

5. I found out this morning that Mike's brother and wife just had their second child and it's a baby girl! I will get to meet her soon and it's all just so exciting! :-)

Well that's all for now but thanks for checking in!

stay clumsy

xx jamie