Written by : Ingrid

It’s that time of the year, when our thoughts and hearts turn to our mothers, grandmothers, mothers-in-law, step-mothers, foster mothers, and even friends who give us motherly love and support throughout our lives.  Whether these special women are far or near, it’s a time to show them how much they mean to us and how much we appreciate all they have done for us and continue to do for us.

By sending a card, making a phone call, taking Mom out for afternoon tea or dinner, sending flowers or giving a special gift, we let her know how much we care.  There are many ways to make Mom’s day special.

We’ve come up with a few gift suggestions at the House Dressing Company, that may help you in choosing just the right thing for Mom.

The Thymes collection of fragrances are always a welcome and popular gift.  Lots of Moms love the Goldleaf range of products – everything from hand cream, soaps, perfumes and bath salts.  There are many other fragrances from Thymes – Lavender is another popular one, there’s Kimono Rose, The Essentials line, Moonflower and many more to choose from.

The specialty teas from Tea Forte are beautfully packaged and of high quality.  If your Mom drinks tea, she’ll love their range of herbal, exotic, organic and classic teas.

And, to go with those delicious teas, we have a fun mix of tea pots as well as sugar and creamers.

Candles and candle holders are a favourite gift too, and we have some lovely lanterns that are so pretty and perfect for warm summer evenings out on the patio.

We have lots of other gifty ideas for you and would be very happy to help you choose a special gift.

And here’s a gift from me to all the Mothers out there who take the time to read our blogs – a pretty bouquet of tulips along with a wish that you all have a wonderful Mothers’ Day with your loved ones.

Best wishes to all of you!

Ingrid

Written by : Ingrid

What a Spring we are having!  Wild, wild weather with strong winds, rain, hail and a bit of sunshine in between.  And that’s all in one day!!!  My girls always called these days “yo yo days”.  Four seasons in one day!   That’s springtime in Victoria though!  Keeps us guessing what it’s going to do next!

This is the time of year where our thoughts turn to Spring cleaning in our homes and gardens.  There is SO much to do at this time of the year, and dividing our time between the indoors and the outdoors is sometimes tricky!  Maybe that’s why the weather is off and on like it is!  It’s making sure we find a balance to spend time indoors and outdoors to clean away all the cobwebs of the previous winter months.

I love Spring Cleaning!  It’s so refreshing to go through room by room, dusting, polishing, airing out, cleaning windows, sorting things and getting rid of some items we no longer use or need.  It’s also a time where I find things tucked away in cupboards that I can find a new use for.  Things that I haven’t looked at in a long, long time like old silver teapots, trays, candle holders, mason jars, teasets, etc.  I like to sometimes group these items and put flowers in them or display them together in interesting little vignettes.  Spring cleaning is time consuming, but oh so satisfying once it’s all done!

We do Spring Cleaning at the House Dressing too!  We’re in the process of going through our warehouse/storage area, and gathering all sorts of goodies that have accumulated there.  It’s fun finding things and giving them a new look in the store.  We found a lot of great baskets and have decided to have a basket sale. They are all 30% off, and come in all shapes and sizes.  Great for storing items or just to look good in your home.

We found some very handy clear glass cake plates too – wonderful for serving up your favourite pies, flans, cakes and fruit.  By stacking a couple of them, you can use them to serve cupcakes on two levels.

Lots of clear glass candle holders and vases were in the back, waiting to be polished up and readied for display in the store.  We had fun sorting through them and finding new uses for them.  They look great with seashells, sand, coloured stones and flowers, grasses or candles in them.

Not only have we found lots of wonderful items that we know you will love, but we have some new pieces to show you too.

This new bedding is from Pine Cone Hill.  It’s beautiful, fresh and fabulous quality.  Pine Cone Hill has a really yummy range of bedding.  You are always welcome to come and browse through their delicious catalogue and drool and if there’s something in it you just can’t live without, we can order it for you the next time we place an order with them!  What a great way to treat yourself!

I love the seashore look, and to jazz it up a bit, we now have silver starfish, shells and sea urchins.  They make a very classy seashore statement!

These new ginger jars and floating balls are gorgeous too.  There are two themes – the butterflies on soft, blue/grey background and the more rustic bird and insect floating balls that look great piled in a basket or large bowl filled with moss.

Cards have been a huge hit here lately, and we just got a shipment of very funny cards by Shannon Martin and some very pretty lino cut print cards by Angie Lewin.  Such talented gals!  We always smile when we hear our customers laughing or giggling at some of the cards we have in stock.  We are all in favour of people having fun in the store!

So, back to Spring Cleaning!  I wonder what else I’ll find!  Do you enjoy the process or just the results?  Let me know what you do to make your Spring Cleaning easier and more effective.  I’m always keen to learn new tricks and ideas!

Until next week – happy cleaning!

Ingrid

Written by : Ingrid

Hi everyone – Happy Earth Week!

I’ve been researching Earth Week today, and it’s been great to find out what it’s all about.  Earth Week started 40 years ago in 1970, in an effort to raise worldwide awareness about our increasingly fragile environment.  This year, more than 1 billion people in 170 different countries are expected to take part in all kinds of environmental events and rallies.   This year, Earth Week is from 17th to 25th April, and Earth Day is on 22nd April.

This is a great time to raise awareness as well as remind ourselves again about being eco-friendly in our own homes.  As individuals, there are so many ways we can improve the way we deal with the environment in our own houses and backyards: everything from using eco-friendly cleaning products, composting, recycling and being energy smart.  Other ways we can make a difference (and I’m sure you know and practise most of these already)  include:

.     supporting local and organic foods that are in season and to eat less meat (healthier anyway!).

.     When doing the laundry, we can save a lot of energy by washing only full loads in cold water and hanging to dry whenever possible.  Nothing smells better than clothes and sheets that come off the line after being in the wind and sun all day!

.      Install ceiling fans and programmable thermostats.

.      Vacation, travel and work as close to home as possible.

.      Take short showers instead of baths and close the water taps when you are brushing your teeth.

.      Walk, cycle, car pool and use public transportation.

These are all common sense things that we have been hearing about for years but sometimes, we just need to remind ourselves about these simple actions and get back into the swing of them again.  Sometimes it’s easy to fall back into old habits and ways, and we need a bit of a wake up call!  I know for myself, there are some things I’m really good at, and some that I think I get lazy about.  How about you?   I’m pretty good at putting on an extra sweater and socks instead of turning up the heat in the house; my husband and I are great recyclers; I’ve been composting garden and kitchen waste for years and then using it on my garden, and I don’t keep the tap running when I brush my teeth!  I love buying local veggies and fruit and am trying to cut down on meat.  However, sometimes my shower is a bit too long; I fly home to Australia every year; and I drive my car to and from work.

We can be eco-friendly about how we decorate our homes too.  By buying low VOC paints, we are doing the environment and ourselves a favour.  Fabrics for upholstery and curtains are increasingly being made of sustainable materials like bamboo pulp, organic silk and cotton and even from recycled plastic pop bottles.  Upholstery foam made of soy has the same quality and longevity as petroleum-based foams.

Some carpet manufacturers are using more natural materials such as vegetable cellulose combined with recycled nylon fibre for strength and durability.

Linoleum is making a comeback!  Unlike petroleum-based flooring products, it doesn’t emit harmful gases.  It’s made from natural materials like linseed oil, pine resin and wood dust.

At the House Dressing, we have several eco-friendly products that you may be interested in.  The Thymes Essential line has a wonderful assortment of beauty products that have no parabens, SLS/SLES, no propylene glycol, no synthetic colours, no petrolatum and no animal derived ingredients.   All the girls at the House Dressing have tested these products (aren’t we lucky!?) and we all love them.  I use the face polish and face lotion, the Hand Scrub (after coming in from gardening all day) and the body scrub.  It makes me feel good to be using an exceptional product that doesn’t have all the nasty things in it.

We have these wonderful bamboo cutting boards too, which are also eco-friendly.  Bamboo is an attractive alternative to the widespread cutting of forests.  It absorbs very little moisture, doesn’t shrink or swell and is harder than most hard woods.

Our Adirondack chairs are made from recycled plastic – another eco-friendly product!  Using recovered materials in manufacturing saves energy and reduces greenhouse gases; recycling produces less carbon dioxide, it lessens the number of trees harvested and lessens the impact on landfill sites.

We also have a large number of eco-friendly fabric samples from Rowe Furniture to choose from, if you order a sofa, loveseat or chairs from them.  They are mostly made from 100% organic cotton and the colours and patterns are lovely!  You can also buy this fabric by the yard.

I hope you will give Earth Day (22nd April) and Earth Week some serious consideration and like me, try to do better at being a conscientious friend of the environment.  How do you do you show that you care about the environment?  I’d love to hear from you!  In the meantime HAPPY EARTH WEEK!

Ingrid

Written by : Ingrid

Have you ever wondered where glass comes from and noticed how much of it we have in our lives?  It’s quite amazing when you start thinking about it – everything from the jar that holds the morning jam, the mirrors in which we brush our hair and teeth,  windows, car windscreens, light bulbs and so many other practical items.  Hard to imagine our life without this wonderful manmade substance.

I learned a lot by researching about glass.  It’s fun to find out new facts about things we take for granted every day of our lives!  Did you know that glass is a combination of sand (in the form of silica) and other minerals that are melted together at really high temperatures.  Other materials can be added to produce different colours or properties.  It can also be coated, engraved or decorated.  Chemically, glass is more like a liquid, but at room temperature, it actually looks and feels like a solid.  Weird eh?  At high temperatures, it becomes soft and liquidy, and this makes it easier to pour, mould, blow or press into all kinds of shapes.

A natural form of glass occurs within the mouth of a volcano.  This happens when the intense heat during an eruption melts sand to form Obsidian.  This substance is a hard, black glassy type of stone.  Man first used this material as tips for spears.  Glass has been around for a long, long time!!!

Glass is used extensively in decorating with everything from glass tables, mirrors, candlesticks, vases, ornaments – you name it.  I’m sure you could make a list as long as your arm of all the glass pieces you have in your home.  What you do with these pieces is really whatever looks good to you and your imagination is the only thing that will limit you.  Glass looks best when it is kept clean and sparkling.  I use a bit of vinegar and water and it makes them sparkle and shine.

This is a picture of a beautiful, old pottery vase that was my Mum’s.  She gave it to me when I was in Australia in February and I brought it home in my suitcase, filled with socks, underwear, t-shirts, and a prayer that it would arrive unscathed!  I love this vase – it’s full of memories of my childhood home and my Mum using it to display her flowers in.  The two glass floats were found on the beach near Sooke by my Mother-In-Law and my husband when he was a little boy.  I like the way these pieces look together.  It’s fresh and airy and the soft greeny blue glass complements the colour of the vase.

Wandering around the store, I found some lovely pieces of glass that I thought you would like to see pictures of and maybe inspire you to make your own glass vignettes at home.

Another piece I really love in my home, is this large hurricane.  In the winter months, I fill it with wee pinecones, at Christmas time I fill it with baubles or fake snow and a candle.  At this time of the year, I fill it with sea shells and my one pretty little red starfish.  It’s amazing how something as simple as this can set the tone for your decorating style, and it’s fun to use your imagination!

I hope I’ve got you thinking about glass and it’s many uses – both practical and creative!  Have fun… use your imagination and let me know what you have created!  I’d love to get ideas from you too!

Have a great week!

Ingrid

Written by : Ingrid

Hi all – hope you had a wonderful Easter weekend.  It was good to have a couple of days off with family and friends, to relax, read, go for a walk/run around the lake, eat good food, drink some wine and enjoy a couple of afternoon naps!

Do you take naps sometimes?  Some people are great nappers (my husband is one of those people!) and others say they feel yukky afterwards if they have a nap in the afternoon.  I’m in between.  I find that if I’m really tired from a long week or late night, a 20 minute nap in the afternoon is refreshing and helps me to get through the evening.  I sometimes feel a bit guilty doing it, because there is always so much to do around the house and garden and sometimes I feel napping is a waste of time.  However, it gives me a little power boost and that’s worth it.

My daughter sneaked in and took this photo of me and my little buddy Tucker grabbing a quick 20 minute nap on Easter Saturday after cleaning the house for a few hours.  I am lying on my old couch which I find very comfortable and a perfect fit for me.   It’s a bit small for my husband, who is 6′3″ so he prefers the sofa in the living room or heading upstairs to lie on the bed.

There has been a lot of talk about napping in the press lately.  Researchers have found that napping can increase your intelligence, make you more patient, have less stress, better reaction time, better memory function, and naps are good for heart health.  Apparently, in countries where afternoon siestas are common, there tends to be less heart disease.  Needless to say, my husband was so happy to get this information!  It has given him lots of reasons to have his naps which he loves so much.

All this talk about naps got me thinking about comfort during naps, and what constitutes a good napping couch or sofa.  What else is important for napping – things like throws, toss cushions, low lighting?  We often have couples come into the House Dressing and very often it’s the man who is quite concerned about the “nap-ability” of the couch they are looking to choose.  Hmmm…. so that being said, what is a good napping couch?

First of all, size IS important!  Most people like to stretch out on their sofas, so choosing one that is long enough, would help.  A sofa with a chaise lounge would fill the bill too as would a free standing chaise lounge.

Fabric is another important consideration.  Something soft and plush is nice to lay on (and sit on too!) especially in the winter months, when we tend to nap more.  A slipcovered sofa or sectional done in one of the washable fabrics, would be a very good idea, especially if the dog (like my little Tucker) likes to snooze with you!  The covers are removable and can be easily washed.  Another incentive for comfort would be to get a couch that has a feather wrap option for the seats.  Rowe furniture has this option, and it really makes a difference to the cushyness of the sofa overall.

So, how do you feel about napping now?  Is your sofa good for napping?  Do you have all the accessories to go along with your sofa to give you a good, decent nap?   You are welcome to try out our sofas, loveseats and even chairs, to see how they fit with your snooze style!  We’d all be happy to help you in this venture!

Until next week – happy napping!

From Ingrid