Runs on Coffee and Cream

Comic Con season starts in March for me and goes right through to October. So I've been starting to sew regularly to stock up for the shows I'll be attending. I also placed a few orders the other day for new fabric. It's one of my favourite things! I cannot wait to get it in and start cutting it up.

I finished up a bunch of pouches over the last couple of weeks. I've started adding them to my Etsy shop the other day.


I also finished up these hobo bags the other day. I haven't added them to my Etsy yet but I'll be adding them within the next week or so.

For my birthday last year I received an electric cookie press. Since opening that present, I've had Adam bugging me to open it up and use it. See, I've never used one before and it seemed a little difficult so I kept putting it off. Finally at Christmas time I promised Adam and myself to finally pull it out and learn how to use it.

Of course, I had to try as many plates as possible with the cookie dough to see the designs. Some were definitely easier than others. But overall it was pretty easy to use. I followed the cookie dough recipe that came with the cookie press for butter cookies and they are super yummy!


The flower plate was my favourite. I love how they turned out.

I also made up a quick icing sugar and water icing to drizzle over the cookies. I used some red dye and heart sprinkles to make them more festive for Valentine's Day. I know it's not February yet but I don't see why I can't start baking Valentine's Day-inspired treats!

I need book suggestions! I'm all excited to go to the local library here this week to get a library card so I can start checking out books. I keep hearing about all these great YA books and I can't afford to buy them all. So my plan is to get them from the library. Some of them are quite popular so I might have to request them and wait for the book to come in. So in the meantime, suggest some books for me! These are some other things I'm loving this week:

City of Bones

I finished another audio book a few days ago - City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. It's the first book in The Mortal Instruments series. I remember seeing the trailer for the movie adaptation of this book and it looked good. Plus, I heard good things about the series and I constantly saw the books whenever I went to Chapters. So I thought I'd give it a try. It was really good. I'm a fan of supernatural themes and this book has it all. Honestly, the book was better than I expected. It was different than I expected from watching the movie trailer. But now that I'm done the first book I need to see the movie to compare it. I have the second audio book, City of Ashes, waiting to be listened to soon.



I hope you're having a wonderful weekend!
xo Jen

It's no secret that I have an addiction to cute things. I'm also a huge fan of a lot of animated television shows. Some of these animated shows (My Little Pony for example) are already really cute, but when you cute-ify other shows like Regular Show or Adventure Time, you've hooked me.

I absolutely fell in love with Natural Pop on Etsy when I came across their shop. The adorable charms melt my heart! I cannot get over how adorable Anne Marie, the owner, made Rigby from Regular Show. To be honest, I'm in love with pretty much her entire shop, but these are just a few of my favourites. Oh, and there's also some adorable plushies in her shop as well!

Like I've stated before, I'm a big fan of the The Carrie Diaries television show. I just caught up on the second season and I'm sad that they've cancelled the show after this season finishes airing. I'm really enjoying where the story is going and the character growth.

AnnaSophia Robb plays the perfect young Carrie Bradshaw. And I just love the wardrobe choices they've picked for her. Everything she wears is fun, colourful, and young! I adore all the dresses they put her in, especially when they add a petticoat underneath. Not that the clothes would fit me since she's a tiny woman, but I'd like one of everything she wears in the show.


Her full, curly hair is also awesome on the show. Carrie Bradshaw always had amazing, bed-head type curls on Sex and the City, but I just love the curly hair on AnnaSophia. Not often do I wish my hair was curlier, but she does make me long for a full head of curls.

Where have you been finding style inspiration lately?
xo Jen

A couple of months ago I was informed I won a giveaway from We The Sciencey! Now, I don't typically win many things. I find I'm usually bad luck. So when I do win I just feel ridiculously excited about it. I was so happy to hear I won and jumped up and down. See, I also didn't know exactly what I won which made it even more fun. I just knew it was amazing goodies from We The Sciencey's Etsy shop.... look at my prizes!!!


I'm so excited to use these stamps on packages and letters! I have a bunch of ink pads from a friend so I've already used these stamps in every colour I own... so many colours! If you're waiting on any letters or packages from me, just wait to see your envelope!


And look at the pencil they sent me! And the adorable pouches for the stamps!

The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind for me. Before Christmas, we decided to launch a new site for the International Geek Girl Pen Pals Club. We wanted to move it over to Wordpress so we'd have more flexibility with it. Well we've been working day and night, all 5 of us and a few new staff members that joined in a week or so ago, on the design, moving over content, setting up bloggers, and just making the new site pretty! We launched the site last Saturday and it was a smooth transition!


You can check out the new site here. But one of the best things about the site is that we've added in achievements. We have achievement codes hidden throughout the site so when you find one, you can redeem the code for points. We've also included achievement points for things like 'first post', '10 replies', or participating in swaps and signing up for a pen pal round. It's been so much fun hiding them and having the members searching for them! It's become a bit of a competition with some of them haha.

We also launched Round 10 today to sign up for a pen pal, which you can sign up for here. I'm so ridiculously excited to see where IGGPPC takes us this year! 2013 was crazy fun and so exciting! With the new site being launched, a much better forum, more swaps, and extra staff to help, I can only imagine the things we can accomplish this year!

On the first day of 2014, I convinced Adam to go for a walk (I say convince because he was coming off of a night shift). It was freezing out! -35 or so. But it was so sunny and I was itching to get out of our place. So we bundled up and went for a half hour walk through Nickeldale Conservation Area.





 
You can see how high the snow was off the main trail in this picture. My boots just barely protected me from it.

Minutes after taking the above picture of Adam I fell flat on my face. Apparently my left foot found a hole beside the main path and I tripped. Besides snow going all over me, I was fine.

Honestly, looking back at these pictures, this was the perfect way to start the new year!
xo Jen

Hello! It's been a crazy and busy week for me and to top it off, I've been fighting a nasty cold the last few days. If I haven't been working, I've been spending most of my time inside. Anyways, here are some things I've been loving lately (besides the idea of breathing through a snot-free nose?! TMI?)

Craft Room Organization

One thing I've been trying to tackle this week is organizing my craft room. I have to start prepping for comic convention season and it'd be nice to start off with a clean and organized room. I've been day dreaming about the day I can have a proper craft room and not just part of the guest room. I want to put up so many shelves in my future craft room!

How gorgeous are these rooms?

This month and year have been off to a great start, but December was a lot of fun. Busy, but fun. How can it not be when Christmas is during the month and I get to wear big sweaters and drink hot drinks all day long?!?

I wore a ton of sweaters and layers all month:




I also dyed my hair a different shade of red... it's a much brighter red:

I worked on some sewing projects and other crafts:


We did more holiday activities:


We also got a ton of snow:



And I caught one of the many kitty fights:


You can see my Christmas photos here, December was a great but very cold month! I'm excited to see how the rest of January goes since there's a couple of fun things in the works (personal and professional)!
xo Jen

Continued from my previous post... Year in Review: Part 1

July:
I turned 29 this month. I took some time to reflect on starting my last year of being in my twenties and made a 30 Before 30 list. We spent more time exploring Sudbury and went for walks and swimming at the beach. I also had a table at ConBravo! this month. It was my first time at this con and I really enjoyed it!



August:
This month was super busy for me... we had guests come up to stay with us. We spent a lot of time outside, going for hikes or hanging out at the lake. I also received another awesome swap package! Fan Expo Canada was at the end of this month. It was a blast and I'm so excited for this year's con!

I received the best postcards in the swap package:



September:
The beginning of this month was spent squishing in the last bit of summer activities we could fit in... blueberry picking, Ribfest and celebrity-spotting at TIFF. I officially fell in love with audio books during this month and finished a few of them during this time. Autumn also showed up earlier than expected.



October:
This month was all about Halloween around here. I baked a bunch of Halloween and Autumn-inspired goodies, including Candy Corn M&M Cookies and Pumpkin Poke Cake! We went for a gorgeous hike at Lake Laurentian Conservation Area. We ended up carving a pumpkin and also threw together last-minute Halloween costumes for a party.



November:
As soon as Halloween was over, I was in the Christmas season mindset. I decorated early, set up a Holiday Card swap on IGGPPC, and started my Christmas shopping. Winter arrived pretty quickly here. I wanted to live in big sweaters and just lots of layers! Before the really cold weather hit, I was able to wear my Pac-man leggings out a few times. I'm completely in love with them!



December:
I started the month off with some Etsy updates and a discount code for my shop. I finally showed off my amazing cross-stitch Wolverine necklace. I was in full-on Christmas mode and spent a lot of the month watching Christmas movies, drinking hot chocolate, baking, sending out Christmas cards, and checking out Christmas lights - including the Festival of Lights. I baked pies and lots of cookies! I had a wonderful Christmas with friends and family, which was the perfect way to end 2013.



I may do a Year in Review like this every year. Looking back and re-reading old posts make me realize how many amazing memories I made and how much fun I had during the past 12 months. It was a crazy busy and eventful year and I'm so grateful for all of it.

And I wanted to thank you for reading my blog, supporting me through comments on here and on all social media. The support I've received online has been incredible <3

I have so many plans, goals, and ideas for 2014. I'm very excited!
xo Jen

Over the last couple of weeks I've been making lists from 2013... tracking Etsy sales, calculating what comic conventions I did and want to do this year, and I also made a list of some big events that happened to me this past year. It was nice to look back at the year and reflect on every thing personal and professional that happened in my life. I thought it would be fun to share my 2013 review in a post... but I'm going to split it into two posts so I don't overwhelm everyone with just a giant one. I have to say, it was fun and interesting to go back and re-read posts from the last year. A lot of things changed over the past year and mainly for the better.

So here we go....

January:
It seems I watched a lot of TV, fell in love with Etsy shops, sewed, and did an awesome Sweets Swap (the first of many from the year)!



February:
This month was pretty similar to January but we went on our first road trip to Sudbury this year. Adam was invited up to do their physical test for the paramedic job position they had open. Little did I know I'd be moving there 4 months later.



March:
We took another trip up to Sudbury this month for Adam to do the written test for the job position. I also had Toronto ComicCon this month which was my first con of 2013!



This month was also a turning point for me because the International Geek Girl Pen Pals Club started up during this month. I was super excited when I heard about it and signed up right away. I didn't know then how this club would change my life.

April:
April was jam-packed! I started working for the amazing ladies at IGGPPC! I was offered a staff position and it honestly was one of the best things to happen to me in 2013 - professionally, personally, creatively, and even emotionally. Three weeks into working for IGGPPC and I shared and gushed about the happiness I had found!

I also received so many awesome packages this month, including this adorable LSP! Oh, and I started watching Doctor Who this month as well!



May:
I did a new craft show in May, Art-O-Con, in Burlington. It was a lot of fun and I got to spend the day with Adam and Mary.



Adam was offered a paramedic job in Sudbury at the beginning of this month. It became a whirlwind month since we had one month to pack, find a new place, and Adam started training up North right away. During this time I ended up cutting off a good chunk of my hair. Initially I loved it, but I've been growing it long again for the last few months.

June:
We made the move to Sudbury at the beginning of the month. I spent a lot of time unpacking and arranging our new home. We did a bit of exploring in our new city too. I also had to keep up with convention prep since Niagara Falls Comic Con was this month and I had a show in July and August as well. Niagara Falls Comic Con proved to be really successful and lots of fun! I'm excited to do it again this year.



To be continued....

I hope your first few days of 2014 have been great!
xo Jen

Happy New Year!

Do anything fun last night? I thoroughly enjoyed my night, though it would have been nice to have Adam home since he had to work. I spent the evening in with the kitties. I watched a bad, but good, chick flick, some episodes of The Carrie Diaries, ate some chocolate, and drank tea. It was a welcomed evening since things have been pretty busy between work and visiting family over the holidays.

Normally we stay in on New Year's Eve. We're not big on parties. Though, I've always thought it'd be fun to attend a New Year's Eve party where I could dress up. A fancy house party or buy tickets to a dinner and dance. If I ever had the opportunity to dress up for New Year's Eve, I think wearing a tulle skirt would be ideal! They're so pretty and feminine and I'd feel like a princess wearing one. It'd be the perfect way to end a year and enter a new one!