I remember when my parents first told me I was going to be going to sleepover camp at the age of 8... let's just say that I was not too happy about it. There were a lot of tears and confusion about why my parents wanted to send me away for two whole weeks. My parents that summer put me on a bus to Glen Bernard Camp in Sundridge, ON with no one I knew on the bus. Now I can happily say that GBC is easily one of my favourite places in the entire world! Those tears definitely turned into a never ending smile as soon as I set foot at camp and it hasn't moved changed since. I spent the next 9 years as a camper filling my summers with canoeing, sailing, crafts, staying up way to late, and making countless friends. I have spent the last three years on staff at GBC and the good memories I have continue to grow. I love being on staff and it definitely lets my mommy genes loose a little which is a good thing in my opinion. Though there are definitely some days that the meltdowns or craziness of looking after 8 six-year olds gets to you, but I would not exchange my summers at camp for anything. Here are some of my favourite camp memories and moments from the last 11 years I have spent at my favourite place in the world...
I leave for camp on June 6th! So keep an eye out for more posts about one of my favourite places on the planet! There is no place like camp xo
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Spring has definitely come to Kingston so the spring outfits can start being pulled out of the back of the closet! The spring weather brings the end of school, and if my calculations are right I'm going to be done school in less then one month. So crazy to think about! This is definitely a nice feeling but it is also kinda scary... First year is almost over and I'm definitely going to miss my friends over the summer :( and I will definitely miss this view! This is the perfect outfit for spring or summer! I love these pants, I got them from a tiny boutique in Sanibel, Florida last year! The company that makes them is called Flyin Tomato. The usually wear these pants with white or cream on top because they are already pretty bold on their own! Perfect outfit for a perfect day :) The cardigan I was wearing is pretty heavy, so its enough of a layer to wear on cooler days! I truly do love the look of the open back and skinny straps of the tank with these pants though. I think this just reminds me of summer so I'm a little biased towards it! Hope you are enjoying the nice weather today! xo
I feel like people always have these made up bucket lists that are in their brains and buried away never to be accomplished because they seem too far fetched or unrealistic to even try. There are millions and millions of things to see and goals to be accomplished but because the may seem crazy or unachievable on paper people don't write them down or begin to work towards completing their bucket lists... so I am going to write mine down and hope to be able to achieve them over the course of my life. Sure some of them may seem far fetched or unrealistic, but that is what makes this a bucket list. A list of dreams that you can work toward and that will make you work harder to achieve them. I was inspired to do this by a new family of vloggers that I just discovered. The Bucket List Family... They are a family of four who last August decided to sell all of their belongings to travel around the world and complete as many of the things on their bucket list as possible. They make video blogs every week about what they are doing, where they are and the endless adventures they embark on. They also have two very adorable kids which always helps. I have watched every single one of these videos and I think they are impossible to watch without catching the travel bug pretty quickly. They inspired me to write down my bucket list and hopefully get started on it as soon as I can! There is something to be said about living life as you want, and not following the formula of life that so many people get caught in. I hope that one day I will have the opportunity to travel with my family like this! Here is one of their weekly vlogs so you can see what the Gees are all about... So here is my bucket list...
I am sure this list will grow over my life but for now this is my bucket list! I hope you can take the time to write down your bucket list and start to accomplish the dreams you have for your life. xo
I wore these ripped boyfriend jeans in "The Perfect Combination" post on Monday. When I first bought these boyfriend jeans they had absolutely no rips in then and honestly looked pretty boring and unflattering. I knew they needed some distressing so I took on the challenge of ripping them myself. I was honestly pretty nervous at first, I didn't want to wreck them or do something wrong aha but they turned out amazing and I am so so happy with them! Other then the jeans (obviously), all you will need for this DIY are a pair of sharp scissors and a pair of tweezers. These scissors are actually for trimming hair, but I found that they were very sharp and small enough to make the cuts I needed so I used them! The tweezers can just be any you have lying around your house! Step 1: Pick the spot in where you want the rip you are going to cut. You may need to put your jeans on first to get a feel for where your knees are and how they fit you. Step 2: Decide how big you want the rip to be and if you want it to be long or short. This may impact where you place other rips! If you want a longer rip you will need to cut a larger number of cuts but make each cut smaller. Step 3: Start cutting. Cut lines horizontally down the leg of your jeans... you want the cuts to be as straight as possibly across the leg because you don't want to cut the horizontal running threads. You can make these lines as far apart or as close together as you wish. Step 4: Once you are happy with the number of cuts you have made you can begin to pull out the vertical running threads with the tweezers as shown below. Make sure you pull out all of the vertical threads for the length you have cut. Step 5: Repeat step 4 for the entire group of cuts! Step 6: Repeat this for as many rips as you want on your jeans! Step 7: Put your jeans in the washing machine and dryer! You can tell the difference between a new cut and an old one in the picture below... old on the right and new on the left. The wash allows the threads to looks even more distressed and adds to the overall ripped look. Step 8: Enjoy your jeans! xo
Hope everyone had a great weekend! I needed a little break from life on campus so I headed home for the weekend on Friday afternoon. I find that a weekend at home honestly re-energizes me for so many reasons. I find that even the little things, such as showering in a nice shower, eating home cooked food and just being able to lounge around with family help in a huge way. Port Hope, my home town, is about an hour away from Toronto and is definitely considered a town. It is pretty tiny but definitely has a lot of great character and small town charm! I loved driving around to take these pictures. My perfect combination is a pair of white converse and ripped boyfriend jeans. I never felt comfortable wearing boyfriend jeans before this past year... I always felt that they were too loose and unflattering. They have definitely grown on me! This is definitely one of my go-to outfits for the transitions between seasons! Either between fall and winter or winter and spring, it can either be worn on its own or with a coat or light jacket for a colder day. Today, in between locations for pictures, I had on my black North Face vest as an additional layer and I was the perfect temperature. I am still not a fan of the overly ripped jean look, so I made these myself to make them exactly as I wanted them! The whole process is pretty easy once you get started, it is just time consuming if anything! The tutorial for these jeans will be up on the blog on Wednesday! Happy Monday! xo
Its pretty easy to say that I love my bedroom at home! I grew up in the same bedroom, in the same house until we moved almost three years ago and I definitely took advantage of making this bedroom entirely mine. My bedroom growing up was pretty much what you expect from a child or young teenagers room! I had a loft bed for many years growing up (which I loved at the time), it was a colour that I picked out when I was younger and it didn't have a lot of design appeal. I loved it for what it was, and I still miss my old house and that room because it holds a lot of amazing memories! Though, I am so so happy to have had the opportunity to make this room what I wanted! I knew I wanted a soft tiffany blue colour on my walls... but this was what I first picked out! Yikes! Definitely not what I wanted and I knew that immediately. So my mom and I went to the paint store the same day this colour was painted on my walls to pick out new paint, and the new colour was painted the next day! I am sooo happy with how my walls turned out in the end :) the colour is calming and soft and exactly what I need for my bedroom! We decided to only paint it on three walls to make the small room feel a bit brighter and bigger. This huge window in my room adds so much character and light so I really wanted to make it a focus in the room! So I hung very sheer and light curtains to keep the room bright and to not add any weight to the window. I added this star lantern that actually hung in the kitchen at my old house! The window is without a doubt my favourite part of the room and Im so happy with it! Many of the pieces in my bedroom are actually 'do it yourself' pieces. This sweater box used to be quite unattractive compared to what it is now. It had a light wooden base with a multi-coloured striped seat and overall it was just old looking. So I repainted the base and then unscrewed the seat and reupholstered the cushion with a light grey suede fabric. Overall a pretty easy fix and 100% worth it! I also repainted my mirror on the vanity, my desk and my side tables. The side tables were light wood before as well so I painted them white and then covered the tops in a grey striped fabric. Overall my room is very light and airy with minimal colours and patterns. If you read my blog post about my dorm room at school you can easily tell that my strategies with both rooms was very different. I think both rooms reflect two sides of my interior style. My dorm room is more bohemian with lots of colour and prints, while my room at home is very clean, white and bright. I love both so I guess you will have to wait and see how I make my room next year my own! xo From spending the last 6 and a half months at Queens, it has honestly made me think a lot about my time in high school. Many people always talk about how they would not go back to high school for anything, and that it was an awkward and uncomfortable time in their lives. I have quite the opposite outlook... I loved high school! While not every day was an remarkable as the last, for the most part I loved my school, and I loved the experiences I had and the people I had the pleasure of meeting. I went to Trinity College School in Port Hope, ON. I not only attended school there for 8 years of my life (grade 5-8), but I also grew up on the boarding campus because of my mom's job! I can say on a daily basis that I miss my memories from high school and many of the people I met while I was there! So here is a little recap of my time and some of the reasons (plus a lot of pictures) why my high school career was so memorable to me! I believe that I gained many great, and some of my best, attributes and skills from attending my high school. From being able to speak in front of over 500 people, to being a leader by example, to learning how to not sweat the small stuff, I have gained so much! I was honoured to have so many experiences to show my leadership and have opportunities to develop as a person. I am forever thankful to the school for allowing me to grow and develop skills that will last me a life time. I was honoured to meet so many remarkable people in high school. While I may not be in touch with every single one of them on a daily basis, I know that our relationships in those 4 years were valuable. I still have so many friends who, though I may not speak to regularly, I know if I needed them or wanted to catch up they would be right there with me. I also have people in my life from high school who I do speak to on a regular basis, and these are people that I know my life would not be the same without and I am forever grateful for them. These are the people who I know will be with me for life and I know I am lucky to know them. Friendships in high school are tricky... You change so much over the 4 years and everyone is changing around you. But the people who stick with you, those are people you will be friends with for life. I was also honoured to meet so many remarkable adults over the past 8 years. The impact they had on my life at a high school student is unlike anything else. The advice, opportunities and love given to me by these adults was an experience that I will never forget. Those moments are more important to me then any lesson in class or game on the field. I'm grateful for the role models that I had the pleasure of looking up to! They are remarkable human beings! School has always been a family affair for me! And I could not have imagined it any other way. My parents both worked at my school while I was growing up and having two siblings who also when to Trinity it was truly a family affair. While there was the occasional difficulty, I loved having my entire family on the same campus for the majority of the day. Experiences that I experienced, I was experiencing right along side my parents and siblings. I had the opportunity to travel to Europe with my mom, go on hockey road trips with my dad, and see my siblings accomplish things on a daily basis. It was amazing to share this experience with them by my side! TCS... Traditions. Community. Shared Values. In focusing on the traditions, I was lucky to be apart of so many during my high school career. Both the formal and informal ones played just as important of roles and they made my high school experience better every day. Morning chapel is something I miss now, but looking back I loved the feeling of being together as an community in one building on a daily basis. Fun traditions such as pep rallies, skate day, house olympics and planned school dances were amazing to not only attend but also to have the opportunity to organize and make better. I am grateful for the opportunities I had outside of the classroom as well. At Trinity, sports are a huge part of our daily lives and it was an honour to play for multiple teams over my four years. I developed a love for team play and leadership through action by playing on these teams. Field Hockey and Rowing hold many of my favourite memories from high school. Being so invested in a field hockey game that you can't help but throw everything you have into that one game, you do it for the people you are playing with. I was lucky to have these opportunities growing up and I'll never forget the moments with these teams. My high school experience was amazing, and I would not trade it for anything. Though I had my bumps along the road, I am forever grateful for the memories, experiences and people I gained from the entire journey. xo
We celebrate birthdays, where all you have to do is not die for 365 days -- and yet we let people who have made our lives better walk around without knowing it. The quote above was said by Drew Dudley. I saw him speak this weekend at the Queen's Canadian Leadership Conference at Queens University. I was extremely fortunate to be on the Executive of this conference and it was amazing to see the entire conference come together and turn into the inspirational event that is was. The weekend was filled with remarkable speakers, thoughtful workshops and dedicated people. Drew Dudley was one of these remarkable people I had the privilege of listening too! Drew creates cultures of leadership by helping organizations and their people plan to matter. He spoke about a hypothetical situation in which an unknown observer was following you around for one month. In this month you were not aware of this person, but they witnessed every single interaction you had over the course of the month! Drew asked us if this had happened to us, what three words would you hope the observer would use to describe you. He then asked us to come up with an action-oriented question to be able to measure if we had lived up to those words each day. This made a huge impact on me because I believe in not only living each day to the best of your ability, but also in recognizing other peoples importance in your life. Drew Dudley's TedTalk So I have decided to share my three words or values that I hope to live by on a daily basis with you. It took me a bit to think of these and make sure that they were the most important to me, but I think they describe not only the current me, but also the person that I wish to be on a daily basis.
I hope you can think of three words or values that you want to live by on a daily basis. Living each day to the fullest is easier when you are living the kind of life you want to live.
xo Necessities for the fall definitely include rain boots and a coat, sunglasses and some other fun pieces to round everything out! Spring also marks the beginning of bathing suit weather :) Here are some of my favourite new pieces that I've been wishing for recently! xo I love these joggers! They are ivory linen and can easily be dressed up or down! They are from ILY Couture founded by one of my favourite fashion bloggers Hello Fashion! The whole line in worth looking at! I have been loving these lace up flats for a long time! These one from Steve Madden and the pointy toe makes them a little more dressed up! I work at a summer camp all summer long and will be heading up there early June! My job this summer is working on teaching swimming and life saving so I will be standing on the dock and teaching in the water for up to 6 hours a day! I love how sporty this swim suit is, perfect for swimming lessons! Always wanted a Patagonia pullover and this is the perfect one! I love the look of the Kiini bikini's, but this one is more tone down on the colour palette which I love! These cute Hunter boots are the mix between a Blundstone and a rain boot and I love them! These will be perfect for a raining spring day! I saw this sports bra in store and immediately loved the look and style of it! It could be worn as either a sports bra or swim top and the mesh adds interest. My perfect spring dress is a light material with long sleeves! Keeps you warm enough but never makes you too hot! This dress would be perfect with either white converse or sandals. These matte black sunnies are the perfect accessory for the summer! Transparent rain coats are on trend and this one still leaves you not having to worry to much about what you are wearing underneath!! Its from Hunter and is perfect My friend Annie has a couple of necklaces and bracelets that have this aesthetic and I love the fringe and the beads! This colour pallete is also lovely and calm looking! I can 100% see myself throwing this on over a bathing suit this spring and summer! Its the perfect coverup and the pom pom detail is so cute!
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Thought For The Day...Jenna TraugottDaily dose of pretty details and inspirational looks. Queen's University student graduating in 2019. Archives
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