What I'm loving this week | one

*Photo source unknown

This is what's been inspiring me lately:

1. An easy How-To guide for being transformed by books. -Seriously take a look-
2. This lovely manifesto, because we all need to stand out sometimes.
3. The prettiest DIY project! Who knew Party Hat Necklaces where that easy to make?
4. This lovely lady and her gorgeous beauty blog that makes me want to get up and play with makeup.
5. Let's get real with our feelings. Love, relationships, self-worth and a lovely letter.
6. The always amazing Naomi Davis sharing a little bit of her days with her kiddos over at Small Fry Blog.
7.  Oh Happy Day! has got to be one of my favorite blogs ever. I can't get enough.
8. A mouth watering feature of Call me Cupcake on Aileen's blog At Home With Love.
9. The most amazing corky house I've ever laid eyes on. Featured on my last post.

What's inspiring you this week friends? Please feel free to share your source of inspiration for this week on a comment below.
Happy weekend!

Oh hi flowers!

Why can't I be you* // A small but beautiful plant set up // Yummy homemade popsicle recipe // Little girls that dress even better than myself *Massive sigh* // Flowers a-plenty // Colourful home decor to live in summer al year long // Blackberry-lemon Gin & tonics // I need this in my life.

I've been in a floral high lately and I tell ya I ain't complaining. I find myself feeling a little bit happier, merrier and cheerful when I see those pretty patterns or smell those awesome scents. I feel the need to incorporate them to my everyday life and that's exactly what my summer mission is. (Well, more like summer somewhere else in the world. It's been raining like crazy around here but I won't let that get me down). 

Flowers really do make me happy.

What makes you happy lately?

*No source. If you know please let me know!

Photos take from Pinterest. Please go follow me there!

20 Minute Doodle and a new Domain

I know, I know this happened a couple of weeks ago but it's never not exciting. I changed domains to Foxandarrowdesign.com and so far its been great!

I've been working like a crazy person and a lot of exciting new things are coming up. I'm also working on some DIY for this holidays coming right around the corner and I have a lot of big new ideas written down everywhere waiting to be developed.

To all of my old and new friends, customers and everyone reading I really hope you'll like everything that I've been working on because I'm doing it for all of you.

I wanted to ask you guys what you think about me including the Google Friend Connect widget on my blog?  I don't even have many followers over there (probably like 2 or 3 actually) but a couple of people asked me why I didn't and I honestly couldn't think of a reason. 

I realize that I kind of made sure that following my blog in a different way was nearly impossible. I just really thought no one would be interested in following my blog regularly and now that I see that is not the case I would love to make it easier for new readers as well as people that's been following my blog since it started so follow along and be part of Fox and Arrow as much as I am. Ive never added it before because I feel silly not having many followers there and I kind of just went with the whole Bloglovin' thing but seing that Google Reader might be gone-zo by the next week or so and the bigger part of my blog visits come from there I thought I might as well try something new. So what do you guys recommend? Do you guys think that with Reader disappearing, GFC will eventually will too?

I'd love to hear your feedback as to who I can make this blog better and fun!

Pretty DIY Paper Placemats

I keep planning ways to make Valentine's extra special this year because it's probably the first time ever  that I'm in the mood to celebrate. I've practiced making heart shaped cookies, paper garlands and even pink pancakes and I can't get enough of it. That's why I decided to make some pretty quotes paper placemats to keep it romantic!

I had such a hard time when I was thinking about what to draw on the placemats. I kind of knew I wanted a hand written quote but how to decide when there are so many good quotes out there? I searched and searched and nothing seemed good enough. I finally came across Oscar Wilde's book "The Happy Prince" which I love and instantly remembered that pretty quote:

'Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and a richness to life that nothing else can bring'

It's a pretty long quote and I wanted the placemats to be simple so I went with my favorite part and trashed the rest.

Next I had to decide how to write it. I'm known for my sucky penmanship but I am studying and practicing calligraphy so I was pretty sure I wanted to incorporate that. I kind of went with my gut and improvised. I got it kind of right the first time I tried so I went ahead and traced it back on Kraft paper.

I did encounter problems in the process the main one being that when I started tracing with a sharpie the first time and it bled SO much! You couldn't even understand where the lines went and everything became one horrible blob so I had to start all over again and trace it with a thin marker that didn't bleed. But after that it was a breeze.  It took me 35 minutes in total from the moment I started sketching on a piece of paper.

So there it is! I'll be sure to make more for our Valentine's dinner. What quotes should I include? What are your favorite ones?

Valentines Favorites (DIY & Printables)

Ah! Its that time of year again. Valentines is just around the corner. Everyone seems to be prepping for some romance, dusting out the fancy dress and shoes, making plans and the room starts to smell like flowers and chocolate. Nah! Not really but seriously, Pinterest is one big pink and red explosion and I'm totally digging it. I'm a sucker for pretty DIY tutorials and printables.

Here are some of my favorite DIY Valentine's pins so far:

1. // 2. // 3. // 4.

What are your favorite Valentines tutorials and printables around the web?

DIY: 15 Minute paper heart garland

This is a really simple garland I did today for Amelia's wall. I've been meaning to decorate it with beautiful prints and watercolors and I even got the frames but unfortunately I haven't had a lot of time to order/print/make and that bare wall was beginning to drive me crazy. Today while we were playing 'name the color' with scraps of color paper I took out the scissors and started cutting shapes for her to name. The shape that stood the most for her was the heart. She could recognise the colors a little bit easier on them than on any other shape (not sure why?) so we ended up with lots and lots of little hearts that I didn't want to throw away.

I started with a piece of cardboard and a pen. I drew a small heart and a slightly larger one and cut them out. Next I traced them on every piece of paper that I had. I intentionally tried not to trace them properly so I would end up with different ones as I think it looks prettier and makes it a little more personal.

Once I was done tracing I simply started cutting. Again, trying to not be exact and trying to modify every heart's shape. A couple turned out amazing, others not so much so I had to trim them a little bit to get them to look better. This step was the one that kind of slowed me down (if you can call 4 minutes slowing down) because my scissors where acting stubborn and also Amelia wanted to go take a nap ;)

The next step was simply glueing them together with a little bit of glue stick. I chose to mix them and tried to make the colors clash so it would pop out a little bit more. Arrange them in the order you're going to hang them and then turn them arround. Get ready to attach them to the yarn.

I whipped out my handy dandy glue dots (I love them!) and sticked them on the back of the paper hearts, once I attached the yarn carefully leaving around 2 inches between them (give or take). I soon noticed that my yarn would not stay put and would curl up again so when I turned the garland around, the hearts would turn with it. My solution to this was to put on a little weight on the back of the hearts so it would make them stay where I wanted. I did so by adding a couple of cardboard squares to the back of the hearts using the same glue dots and made sure that the hearts were not bending back. *For future reference: I would think of making the hearts in a heavier material like cardstock or even cardboard.


This is the end result! I intentionally made a small one so when I eventually get around to hanging up all the prints we have laying around I can still hang it there.  Amelia loves her heart garland and actually laid in her crib for hours pointing and screaming at it (homegirl does NOT like staying in her crib unless she has to). She giggles every time I mention the garland so Im pretty sure it was a success. And the best of all? It took only 15 minutes!