While leisurely flipping through my June issue of Canadian House & Home this weekend, I fell in love with this Vancouver home belonging to designer Nancy Riesco and her family. Come take a peek at some of the beautiful pics snapped by my friend Janis (it’s so cool to see familiar names making regular appearances in my favourite magazines!) and you can see even more over at Pinecone Camp as well as in the latest issue of H&H, now on news stands…

All pictures by Janis Nicolay for House & Home. Design by homeowner Nancy Riesco.

All pictures by Janis Nicolay for House & Home. Design by homeowner Nancy Riesco.

All pictures by Janis Nicolay for House & Home. Design by homeowner Nancy Riesco.

I just love all of the clean lines, colourful artwork and bold pops of colour throughout this family home. It’s so bright and liveable, wouldn’t you agree? My week is zipping along and I’m doing my best to keep up. We spent a good chunk of the day in Vancouver yesterday, salvaging a Kerrisdale home up for demolition with Tracey Ayton (here’s a peek!), visiting with Chris at Stepback (if you haven’t been, you really must!) and then rushing home to pick up kids and zoom off to hockey practice. Ah, these are the days! Off to the shop now before some much needed R+R with my Spruce girls…we’re having our belated Christmas party this afternoon! Fresh toes at the nail spa and dinner on a sunny patio, coming right up :)

Ah, what a weekend! Temperatures soared to almost 30 degrees and it felt more like August than the first weekend in May! No complaints here…we soaked it up as much as we could. My youngest came down with a bad cold at some point (really not fair to be sick when it’s so beautiful out!) but sitting in a kiddie pool eating popsicles can do wonders! I got some much needed gardening in as well as some much needed rest. I’m actually feeling pretty caught up (minus the 3 loads of laundry I put off folding all weekend) and am relatively ready for the busy week ahead. What about you? How did you enjoy the sunshine and warm temperatures? Mother’s Day is next weekend and with three kids under 10, my expectations are never high but it always feels great to receive handmade tidbits, made with love…

Cartolina + Rifle Paper Co. cards at Spruce Collective

Better Homes + Gardens

Hitch Design

Parcel Post

Urban Outfitters via DesignLoveFest

The Paper Mama

Furbish

Quill + Fox

Isn’t that floral monogram especially lovely? It would be such a pretty DIY for a wedding or birthday party and looks relatively easy to make, bonus! Sometimes I think the best gift for busy moms “in the thick of it” is time alone. I can literally count the days that I’ve spent alone inside my house over the last ten years, strange right? But those rare quiet moments (without chores, cooking, driving around or other to-do’s) are such a treat. How will you be showing the special mama(s) in your life that you care? Enjoy this sun-filled Monday…how will we ever get any work done?!

So, here it is Friday again and I still don’t have a good name for this shiny new weekly post. Help please! Friday Faves…Weekly Round Up…Weekend Warm Up…yawn, yawn and triple YAWN!  What should I call my Friday edition? I’d love to hear your ideas since I don’t seem to be getting anywhere fast. This week felt a little stressful/overwhelming for some reason but we had a houseful of dear friends and kids over for dinner last night and I feel all the better for it. It’s amazing what good friends can do to restore the spirits, isn’t it? Here are a few of my favourite web finds of the week…

1. This print should probably be our new motto at the shop (we paint a lot of #$% gold!)…

Jay Roeder

2. This Mother’s Day tea party is far too perfect…origami butterflies,  anyone? Gorgeous.

Janis Nicolay for Poppytalk

3. We’re about to expand our clothing boutique at Spruce so I’ve got outfits like this on my mind…

Off of Broadway

4. Pretty taken by the geometric punch of this DIY pendant light…it would look great in Gabe’s room!

Vintage Revivals

5. Loving the curated collections in PJ Mehaffey + Dylan Hightower’s eclectic home…

Design*Sponge

6. Really trying to make my health a priority, exercising and drinking smoothies like this every day…

Camille Styles

7. Determined to break my current “black thumb” streak and get out into my garden…gnomes like this might help!

Tracey Ayton

And since at least a few of you seemed to like my mix tape last week, here’s another to help us roll into the sunshine this weekend! Pretty sure I’ll be enjoying at least one cool drink on my patio…how ’bout you?

1. Churchill: The War Within
2. Tegan + Sara: How Come You Don’t Want Me Now
3. Cayucas: High School Lover
4. Miike Snow: Animal
5. Vampire Weekend: Run
6. Me In You: Kings of Convenience
7. We Are the Tide: Blind Pilot
8. Plug In Stereo: Oh Darling
9. Stars: Hold On When You Get Love, Let Go When You Give It
10. Gotye: Save Me

We’ve got plenty of sun and a random heatwave in the forecast so it’s time to dig out the flip flops and get some colour onto my pale winter skin…very much needed! We’ve got 3 kids birthday parties and a Cinco de Mayo shindig packed in over the next couple of days, what do you have planned? So Cheers to the sunshine, Salut to good friends and Cin cin to a Happy Weekend :)

Admittedly, I’ve been feeling spread a little thin these days…again, I know! As I spilled to my partner Elisa at the shop yesterday, I’m really good with lists and deadlines (I’ve got good hustle!) but the reality of being a store owner/mother/wife/friend/daughter/etc/etc/etc is that my lists will never be done.. It’s mostly exciting but I definitely do have my moments of feeling overwhelmed. During one of these “moments” the other day, I dropped everything and did a spontaneous Spring cleaning of my daughters’ shared room. As most parents can relate, hearing yourself make the same pleas to “tidy up” and “put things away” gets very old, as do the teeny bits and bobs that my little hoarders-in-the-making seem to endlessly collect. So, while the girls were outside on the trampoline (sneaky!), I emptied every last nook and cranny in their room and eventually found some order amidst the chaos. It felt so great to organize one entire room from top to bottom! Sometimes it takes clearing the physical cobwebs to rid yourself of the mental ones, would you agree?

A Beautiful Mess

Obviously, I’m a lover of collections and displaying what you love but there’s a fine line between a curated collection and plain old clutter. Art and objects need room to breathe to be appreciated and a little space is good for everyone ;)

The Marion House Book

Style At Home

Dear Me via We Heart

Stylizimo

Linus Bikes via DesignLoveFest

Academy Tiles

Are you drawn to minimal displays or are you of the more-is-more mentality? Or do you prefer to hide it all behind closed doors? Either way, it’s always good to reevaluate all of the goods that we collect over time. Whether that means emptying a single shelf or an entire room, putting back only what you truly love and/or find useful is so refreshing. An ongoing challenge, most definitely! Speaking of challenges, my girls were thrilled to come inside and find their room so neat and tidy! They’ve been trying to keep it in exactly the same state ever since….although, we’ll see how long that lasts!

How was your weekend? Mine was full (in a good way) and it’s time to jump right on into a fresh new week. Can you believe it’s the end of April? I honestly don’t know where the month went. It’s raining now but Scratch that….the clouds miraculously disappeared! And there’s plenty more sunshine in the forecast, drawing my eye to bright colour bursts and bold spaces. I can’t seem to get enough of layered texture and patterns and have become mildly obsessed in my hunt for the perfect Persian rug to add some flavour to our living room. It’s out there somewhere!

 Style by Emily Henderson

Fjeldborg

Isn’t this dish collection amazing? Love the shallow open shelves too. And I just bought a bright green filing cabinet from the shop (it actually didn’t even make it in the door…went straight from Elisa’s trunk into mine!) but love the idea of spraying multiple filing cabinets a bright colour for more functional storage like the yellow ones below…

Country Living

Camille Styles

Vintage Revivals

Janis Nicolay

Laure Joliet

Isn’t that honeycomb wall incredible? My girls would be in heaven if they had  that in their room! Is that enough colour to cheer you up this Monday morning? I hope so. Time to refill my coffee before tackling the first of several to-do lists. Enjoy your day :)