DIY Crafts: Branch Wreath (1st attempt)

Signs of the early years of Tranquil Dreams is coming back into shape this December as I get through some housekeeping for the blog going on in the background, I’m having this sudden urge to get back into doing some DIY crafts and also some cooking and baking planned as well. Its going to be (hopefully) a fun little December that will get back on track on all the positive things that I’ve always liked doing as a crafty and creative outlet that is a very wonderful release for me when I manage to put together something nice.

First project to tackle is a branch wreath. I’ve put together all the wreaths at our current home and while it might not be as economical as a store-bought one, all of mine are unique to what I want on there and how I want it to look like. Feeling like a bit of a change, I went for a branch wreath at Michael’s during the Black Friday Sale and picked up a bunch of wreath decorations to see what I could do.

Here are all the supplies that I had bought:

• Branch Wreath
• Wreath Decorations

There’s something very different from doing a branch wreath than doing a pine wreath. It has to do with the whole messy elements of trying to put all the elements in. Putting in the decorations is trying to find that spot to hold them in place while hiding the sticks holding them up also. I didn’t use any wire which you could get or go with using hot glue to keep them all in place. With that said, designing branch wreaths are more minimalist in some ways where less is more.

Here’s my first trial which didn’t quite look like how I wanted so it was quickly pulled apart to rethink and redo…

Back to zero, I did some research on Pinterest on how branch wreaths usually are structured and then thought about a new structure where I would go find some supplies that I had bought before but never used. There some gold hollies and berries that I had picked up a year or two ago at Michael’s at a previous sale but never found a way to implement in anything else.

The final branch wreath turned out like this:

The final one looks like this.

It is a very simple first attempt and I can see some places where I can improve at filling in the gaps and making it feel more full and giving it some more volume as well. Overall, I am fairly happy with it as it does have the fun little elements of Christmas that I like and its along the lines of what I wanted to do.

Branch wreaths are this very interesting element to discover because of the whole fitting the pieces into a more classy style and it also has this less is more element to it while giving it space for the branches to have its compliment to whats put on it. I’m definitely having some more ideas on what themed wreaths to do. But there’s still time to maybe spruce this one up as nothing there is set because I also like my wreaths to have the chance to change it up when I get tired of looking at it. This version doesn’t have any glued elements and just held from strategically placing them to hold in place by the branches under and some of the wired holders on the wreath decorations.

*As a side note, I am working on a second one as a gift so expect a post on the new one (along with an update if I do change something on this one). That one is looking a lot more refined than this first one in my opinion so far but the theme isn’t fitting in as well as I’d like it to so its still in the making. *

Boxing Day Haul 2018!

Lets start off right away that we are trying hard to keep our spending in check so this might not be the most exciting segment. This year’s boxing day sales started earlier than boxing day which is a tad odd but then at the same time, the deals weren’t exactly spectacular either so a lot of these were made after some thought. I have a certain measure for say games and movies as to what price tag I am willing to pay and how worth it it is to pick up.

With that said, boxing day is kind of a pre-boxing day and boxing day haul to pad things out a little. 😉

Pre-boxing day sale

Playstation store

• Fe
• Unravel 2

Fanatical

• Sonic Mania

Adidas (50% off deal)

All my gaming stuff was bought pre-boxing day sale mostly because Playstation and Fanatical both have these weeks and deal days set before the holidays and I ended up landing on these three games. All of them are games that I’ve wanted to play and it is in a price range that I’m pretty happy with.

Other than that, I got a new bookshelf from IKEA, the LAVIA for $24.99CAD. I’ve been trying to reorganize my books since right now they are running out of space and all over the place. I can’t say my new system is any more organized but I kind of like how it looks. It rounds out the look of my den. I’ll talk about that more once its less than a mess as the book organizing is still in progress as this goes live.

Boxing Day

Amazon

• Always and Forever, Lara Jean (ebook)
• Instant Pot 6qt 9 in 1 (waiting for shipment)

I’m not sure if Always and Forever, Lara Jean was a huge discount but I’ve been looking forward to reading the third book in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before series, especially since the Netflix sequel got confirmed, I’m even more excited to finish up these books.

Walmart

• Kong: Skull Island

Best Buy

• Pitch Perfect 3

I wasn’t planning on buying any movies but these two had pretty good deals, especially for Blu-Ray. Plus, I really liked Kong Skull Island so looking forward to watching that again, while I haven’t seen Pitch Perfect 3 but I have the other 2 so why not, right?

Michaels

• 4 Frames (Buy 1 Get 1 Free Deal)

I always look out for this deal at Michael’s, especially this year since we wanted to get all the artwork framed that we had bought earlier this year. I’ll do an update or something once we get that all figured out.

Finally, we wrapped up Boxing Day at IKEA which was surprisingly not so busy. At least in the evening when I went. I ended up picking up a lamp since the one in our den was broken a few months ago. Its a little dimmer than the other one we had but it still does the job. I mean, this was $10 so what more could I ask for, right?

That’s it for this pre- Boxing Day and Boxing Day haul.
Its turned out to be a good few things to recap but still, it didn’t break the piggy bank too much so I’m fairly happy with how it went.
I still maintain that this year’s deals both Boxing Day and Black Friday weren’t particularly impressive but maybe its because I’ve become pickier on pricing and what I buy, which isn’t a bad thing.

My Weekly Adventures: Christmas Is Just Around the Corner

November has come to an end. That was a quick and really busy month. Suffice to say, some projects and goals and that endless to-do list had its ups and downs. Its just how it is. The first part is accepting and being okay with it all. Not to mention, everything in general was kind of overwhelming so mentally, not in such a great spot. Its probably telling me something but I’m not going to discuss that because there are a lot of things on my mind right now as 2018 heads into its last month and I’m thinking a lot about 2019.

Blood in the Snow Festival (BITS 2018)

First time tackling remote coverage is definitely a pretty good experience. Unlike physically being at the festival, remote coverage is all about time management and working with embargos and getting things done in a timely fashion because there is nothing pushing physically to be done and its all more superficial. Blog technicalities aside, its also the first time working on Blood in the Snow Festival and it had a lot of interesting and intriguing movies to offer. Nothing that was disappointing but some were average and some were amazing. It had different genres and covered Canadian films which I love to dive into. Its only a few days long which is a much lighter festival but its a pity to not be on the spot to see all the industry panels and everything they have to offer. The variety of content alone makes it an interesting one to be present in person for.

With that said, all the movies have been reviewed:

• Altered Skin
• Alive
• Hammer of the Gods
• Montreal Dead End
• Deadsight
• The Hoard
• Fugue

With that said, a festival page under movies for Blood in the Snow Festival has been created now so you can find all the reviews HERE.

Black Friday

Black Friday was pretty calm this year. I didn’t go out with a huge intention of spending a lot so I found some deals that I thought were worth it to fill some of the needs and stuff. A few purchases were surprises but nothing that broke the piggy bank too much.

You can see the haul post HERE.

Christmas Decorations

Christmas is in full effect at our house. I only showed the new little bits of our place and the Christmas tree. I might have a little Christmas decorations thing in December but then its not a big change anyways.

NaNoWriMo

The week after I decided to do NaNoWriMo, things pretty much went downhill. After BITS 2018 came onto my radar and work got hectic and whatnot, that was it. I never expected to finish it in the first place but I had to put it aside if I wanted to at least have some normal sleeping schedule. Either way, I might actually work on that during the year afterwards. I have some nice ideas for my fanfic. I’ve never written one and sponataneity wasn’t really working. Either way, not feeling too bad about it. Something had to be give and this was the choice I had to make.

Next year though, I do want to get back to it and get some planning done beforehand.

Announcement: Christmas/Holiday Marathon

We head into December tomorrow. Like the last few years, I’m going to be doing a little holidays and Christmas marathon of sorts. I’m going to see if I can find some holiday themed books to end the year while probably go through some films on Netflix. Its slim pickings and mostly Hallmark type films but I’ll make do with what I can. This will be the official announcement for the marathon.

Some titles  considered right now:

• The Princess Switch
• The Holiday Calendar
• Bad Santa
• The Night Before
• A Christmas Prince 2 (I saw that its supposed to be released in December)
• Nailed It! Holiday (also coming out in December)
• The Christmas Chronicles
• El Camino Christmas

Thats it for this Weekly Adventures!
What have you been up to?

Christmas Decorations 2017

Its almost a tradition now to start off the holiday marathon with my Christmas decorations. There’s always a bit of the same and still manage to get some changes in there. If you’ve seen the previous one (and actually remember it), then there will be something new still. Christmas is a big deal at our place especially with my husband and his family so in our 9+ years together from dating to marriage, its been a huge part of our life and honestly, one of the most exciting times of the year when we do get to decorate. At the point of this going up, we still have some possibly outdoor decoration to put up but not sure when that is happening as outdoorsy wires and rigs are up to my husband and he hasn’t found the time just yet. Its our turn to host the family party this year so I’m guessing it will happen.

Let’s go!

Bay Window Lights

It seems fitting to look at the display for the outside. Our bay window lights haven’t changed using a layer of white and blue lights. My poinsettia has been the same for the last three years. Its a little sad but I’m hoping it’ll turn red soon. You can’t see it here but I ended up adding in a garland to line the bottom of the window and putting a candy cane decoration on the top.

On top of the stairs

One of our new purchases this year from Michael’s are somewhat rustic which matches our dining room ceiling that extends over our stairs. Its little people hanging on in their winter getup on some rustic string.

I can’t remember where I put this reindeer last year but I think it was in the den. This year we took away the candle and put it here by the shoe rack drawer by the front door.

On top of the piano are these singing chipmunks that when pressed sing Up on the Rooftop. On its side is a little gift from Starry Traveler which was a little puzzle and I put it together and decided to use it as display instead of ornament this year.

Our new wreath this year that I put together is with a empty wreath and wrapping around a garland of white poinsettia, adding in three elves, one little santa, two tricolor berries along with a bell ornament that I used to put on the tree but fills as a ribbon. There are some pine scented Scentsicles buried in it.

Dining Table Decoration

The santa here was bought this year as a possible tree topper but we decided to use it as a dining table decoration with some white beads as the bottom. The candle holder on the side is also a new purchase and used for the table decoration. We don’t have a big table so these items will move when we have the party.

Moving into the den, we have a little berries display with some IKEA shards in the vase to keep it in place. I have a red snowflake candle holder along with a little Merry and Bright panel.

On the other side by the closet door is the first wreath I made for the house. I added in some new Scentsicles. I couldn’t find the berry ones so I also used pine for this one as well.

Moving over to the office, I used to only have one strand of light on the bookcase but we found another smaller one so I connected it up and draped it over the new art I had put up this year. I love it as it keeps me in a great mood and motivated to get work done.

FINALLY…

To wrap things up, the christmas tree! We’ve had the same one as the last few years. Its a 7 foot Christmas tree from Costco. This year, we have the colored lights and then after a very painful hour, I managed to strand a shorter but brighter strand of LED colored lights around the middle. We didn’t get any new ornaments this year but did keep it between the fun and fancy ones and held off on some of the solid color ball ornaments.

That’s mostly it for this year’s Christmas decorations!
What do you think?

My Weekly Adventures #48

Its been a month since our last update! Honestly, the last one would’ve been just pure Fantasia Festival recap. I was going to put together a Top 5 or 10 films of Fantasia that I saw but after one recording, I just wasn’t happy with it so ended up putting that to the side. I still want to do something more for Fantasia Festival. Just giving it a little time to cool down as I catch up with some outstanding posts. Regardless, that is my own housekeeping and I won’t bore you further with it. On the note of housekeeping, the indexes for both books and movies are updated till the beginning of August so if you are looking for anything, you’ll find it there. I’ll work on restructuring that a little more by the end of the year.

Without further ado, let’s see what went on this past month! 🙂

Fantasia International Film Festival

A Ghost Story

Q&A David Lowery – A Ghost Story

Q&A Eric Valette – Le Serpent aux Milles Coupures

Q&A Origami Cast & Crew

Q&A Chris Peckover – Better Watch Out

Its obvious that the first thing to talk about is Fantasia Festival. It took most of July and overlapped the last My Weekly Adventures. Here’s some of the photos that I took from the Q&As. I did more recording than pictures. I’m thinking of compiling something out of it but working on that. Maybe it’ll be too late when I finally get around to it. However, you can find Fantasia movie reviews both in the Movies section or the drop down to Fantasia Festival, which will queue up all the last 15 posts or something about it.

If you look back at the Fantasia Festival movie list before I started (this post HERE), a good 40% of it probably had changed for many reasons. However, the original plan was around 15 movies and I watched about 14 and had an extra post for the short films. Things worked out quite well, I’d say. I will however get the Top 5 or 10 films list done soon. As I’m writing this, it feels necessary to give it a final wrap-up even if its late.

What made Fantasia Festival even better, other than the press pass was having my best friend join me for a day and my husband join me for two movies for back to back weekend date nights. I’d say this event coverage was pretty awesome! 🙂

New Blinds & Decoration

Seeing as I managed to spare some normal expenses in July, I decided to achieve the 2017 goals of changing our kitchen curtains which were lacy white curtains to actual blinds. After some discussion, we got the dark brown bamboo blinds and they are fantastic and match our color scheme perfectly. We just forgot to get a small one for the door but we will live. However, on our trip to Bouclair (a home decor chain in Quebec), I found this darling decoration on top. In case you haven’t realized, I love the word dream so one more thing to add to the den as I slowly transform it into my little world.

Sessions 375 x Ile Soniq

August is like the music festival month. The first weekend kicks off with Osheaga Festival and then last weekend was Ile Soniq. For those who don’t know, I’m like electronic music quite a bit. I’ve been listening to it and honestly as the years gone by, I’ve become more selective. I’ve always wanted to go to Ile Soniq but never really had the chance, mostly because I don’t want to go to these events by myself. However, Phoebe (aka The Starry Traveler & my co-host of Battle of Ingredients, which will return from hiatus very soon) dropped me a message and said that there was a free event in celebration of the Montreal 375th birthday called Sessions 375 x Ile Soniq En Ville. I met up with her at a midpoint and headed there with her and her bun bun. She has the goal of exposing her little one to all kinds of stuff so we didn’t go into the event grounds because of long line-ups and crowds and safety purposes but we watched and listened from afar and it was good enough for us.

The evening ended with a meal and I’ll be sharing a post on that soon. We have two foodie posts coming up. 🙂

Matsuri Japon Festival & Brossard Cultural Fest

Takoyaki

Every year, Matsuri Japon Festival and Brossard Cultural Fest lands on the same day so as usual, my friends and I head out to these events. First stop for lunch is Matsuri and we shared all those foods and my friend had some noodles also, which is not here. The day was incredibly local showers since we were in and out of rain and seriously one patch would have rain and the other would not.

Next up at Brossard Cultural Fest! We just made a little walk around, had a natural juice popstick and then got rained on a little and then left for home. There were some cute bouncy inflatable things every where for the kids and it was so awesome. My fave was the giant T-Rex but there was also a huge tiger, etc. Super cool stuff!

Game Warp – Instagram Fun

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Been thinking about replaying all the #NeedForSpeed #gaming #franchise. Can't say we aren't a fan, right? Which NFS game do you like? – Kim #selfie #socialexperiment #videogames #ps #ps2 #ps3 #ps4

A post shared by Game Warp (@gamewarppodcast) on Aug 2, 2017 at 7:06pm PDT

Not sure if I had mentioned it before but Game Warp Podcast has a Instagram. We mostly share random gaming stuff that we come across and hope to expand our platform a little more. Earlier this month, we decided to do a little social experiment, thought up by my fantastic co-host to see if we took selfies and held some random gaming stuff, we could get some more views. We ended having quite some fun with it and I’m thinking of doing that again. Mine turned out pretty good, which is so rare so I even changed a few of my profile pic to this one.

Yes, I know shameless promotion again! You got it! If you have Instagram, go and give us a follow! 🙂

Cute Kitty Pic

Upcoming:

• Battle of Ingredients (summer hiatus ends)
• Foodie Restaurant Recaps
• Movie Double Features
• TV Binges
• Books
• Top 10 Fantasia Films Seen

That’s it for this My Weekly Adventures (more like Monthly)!
What have you been up to?

My Weekly Adventures #41

2017 continues to fly by! The whirlwind of crazy is a ton of fun but it is getting a tad hectic. Gaming, writing, editing and still lots of behind the scenes stuff. I feel like a lot of it is the residual work from the busy month of March with the course and weekend away for Comicon. However, the gear is turned on now because as it gets warmer, I’m gearing up to train and go out for more frequent runs and hopefully go for a 5K run. Not too confident about a 10K yet. Aside from that, I need to step up the game for hopefully giving the Grade 10 piano exam a last hurrah. I wish I could pick up my courage and share some of that journey but I’ve come to terms that I’m a little too self-conscious to do it. Plus, I’m pretty sure that I’m ready for the most part in general, except all that gets affected by how much confidence I have in myself and I just don’t want to get shut down by all those horrible people that pop up to hate which is obviously not so much in the blogosphere as if I put it on Youtube. Way too much to justify that choice but still, that is my reasoning, rational or not.

Moving on.. Let’s get the recap going!

 Hanging Out with Friends

For those of you who missed it, I went out for a Sugar Shack thing with my girl friends. It was pretty cool. We don’t get every year like some people do  but this experience was much more pleasant that the previous one that we had. You can get the full details HERE.

The Friday after, I went out with my best friend who I haven’t seen for a few months. Growing up, grown up responsibilities, career and life changes all factored into this. Although we did text once in a while, we still had a lot of catching up to do. It was great to hang out with her as always. Its nice to know that there’s always the best friends in your life that are comfortable to be with no matter how long we haven’t seen or talked. Its a pretty awesome feeling. We had our dinner at La Cage which is a sports bar. We grabbed some drinks and ate some alright food.

New Furniture & Decor

I’ve been having an indoor plant issue because of the whole cat eating plant situation, a lot of plants had to all stick around the fenced bay window area. Its starting to get really crowded. When I took a trip to IKEA to pick up a replacement table for the basement that broke, I saw this beautiful bamboo plant stand and since its tall and small platforms, it means that I can fit plants and my cat can’t access it as well, plus it fit well with the orchids which she really doesn’t care much for. It was a bit of a hassle to put together but its done and working out great! Not to mention this spot in the house genuinely gets no sun but lots of light so it works for the orchid temperaments.

Of course, the final two pictures are also framed. My husband surprised me with these frames for my birthday and now they are sitting on top of my office so that whenever I doubt myself, i just looking up and it’ll remind me to keep moving forward. Most of all, its really because I love these art so much. Obviously, I do, or else I wouldn’t have bought it but so pretty. We just have one more wall to decorate in the office now. I suggested for my husband to pick up something at the Montreal Comiccon when we go this year (hopefully he will come with me).

Advanced Screening & Movies

The review is already up for Unforgettable and I mentioned it briefly, but I saw this movie in advanced screening and the experience was fantastic. You can find the review HERE.

As this post goes up, the theatre broke down on Friday  night because of power outage and I ended up having my tickets refunded for The Fate of the Furious, however, fret not (at least more for myself), we are heading out to see it tonight (this post should go up Sunday). I’m pretty stoked. I know its over the top and the series is starting to spiral a tad downwards towards some really absurd phase but I still like them a lot for exactly the reasons that it might not work for others. Regardless, the review should be up next week some time.

Next Cook-off Gathering & Belated Birthday Gift

Its the long weekend as this post goes up! Last night, we had our second Battle of Ingredients dinner party thing. As I mentioned before, it was a maple syrup theme. If you missed the first one, you can find it here. As I said in there, this is a work in progress so the structure is not always a battle among us but rather a battle of how to use the ingredient and so this one is a collab effort to put together a full course meal in our own way. My husband and thanks to our friend who brought his little portable retro console over, had a blast of nostalgia and lots of fun. As for the food, the post will be up in the coming week. We have decided to make this a monthly event so should be fun.

My friend also gave me a DIY belated birthday gift. I love My Neighbor Totoro and she made a little jar or glass holder for it and its adorable. It actually matches perfectly with my new art on my wall and she didn’t even know about my new stuff.

Cute Kitty Pic

Upcoming:

• New Segment: All About Adaptations (for real this time)
• Reviews (Movies, Books, etc)

What have you been up to? How has your Easter been?

Happy Rooster Year!

Happy Chinese New Year!

After a week of overtimes and coming home to massive cleaning, its a day to celebrate and rest and dinner with my mom, of course. It will be a ton of fun and we are excited to go chat amd eat together.

This entire week consisted of a lot of tidying up and getting the house ready. Flowers somehow were quite hard to find. Although I did end up with three bouquets of them.

Decorations are pretty much the same as previous years for the most part. If only my Chinese calligraphy was better, I’d make some myself.

Today’s just a short post to share some of the floral arrangements here. They are simple this year but believe it or not, it was actually pretty hard to put them all together.

Happy Chinese/Lunar New Year! Its the Year of the Rooster! 🙂

Happy Chinese New Year!! Its the Year of the Sheep!

Today is Chinese New Year! Although I’m not the cook when it comes to these things because my mom is the boss.  I just felt like I should share some Chinese New Year decorations.

Since I’m STILL in the midst of moving to my new place.  Final moving date set for March 1st tentatively….but I’m set about 80% positive it’ll happen because I’m plain sick of having my life divided into two.  This year, I had to take care of flower decorations for both places 😉 Sad thing when Valentine’s Day is around the same time is that its incredibly hard to find flowers so I couldn’t find the lilies that I wanted and this year, our flower selection is different from previous years.  Change can be good and it still works out good 🙂

Lets start with my own place’s decorations.  Not quite as abundant and it was taken with my smartphone.

Dining table flowers: Carnations and tulips

Chinese New year Decorations

Decorations in the living room: Carnations and Chrysanthemums

C hinese New Year Decorations

Window decorations: Peruvian Lilies

Chinese New Year Decorations

Sorry for the poor lighting.  I didn’t play around with it too much on my phone. Next year, I’m going to get a little more decorations and have earlier prep 🙂

Moving on to my mom’s place,  I didn’t put all the decorations because its literally EVERYWHERE! But here’s a few pictures from last night taken with my DSLR.

Flowers

Tulips

Carnations

Peruvian Lilies

Chinese New Year Decor

Chrysanthemum

Now to wrap up the post, last night’s Chinese New Year Eve dinner with dishes including fish, lotus root, chicken..all having their own good meanings.

Chinese New Year Eve Dinner

Like always, my mom makes the best meal! It was so yummy! 🙂

That’s it for now!

Happy Chinese New Year!

May the Year of the Sheep bring you lots of happiness, awesomeness and success. 

Psst..another Oscar review coming up in the afternoon! Remember to check back! Appreciate it! 😉