Last weekend at the cottage Emily helped me put together lunch for the fam. It was so fun to do this together, she’s 8 now and a great little helper! She was also quite stoked to help with the blog. ? Scroll down for a few ‘hacks’ we can up with using stuff you just might find around the house, the kitchen, or the garage.  It was all pretty simple and not too expensive, BUT when we put it together, it looked great! I guess that’s why they’re called HACKS. On the Menu We made mini sushi-style BLT wraps, a hot dog bar,  and mini bacon grilled cheese using products from Butterball Canada we picked up at Loblaws. Simple Summer Hosting Hacks for Outdoor Dining   Make an outdoor table using an old door.  Use wrapping paper to decorate the table. Makes for easy cleanup!  Organize your napkins or cutlery with Washi Tape. There are HEAPS of colours/prints! Freeze lemons to use in cocktails. ??? No need to water down those drinks with ice!  Use a muffin baking tray for condiments.   Raid the dollar store for plastic plates and stack them. These same items were more $$$ at houseware stores.  Baking cups inside little mason jars for sauces. Heaps of colours in these making mason jars even cuter.  Put skewers in watermelon for easy snacking. I put them in the freezer so they were MAD CHILL. ☃️ If you loved this post LMK! Was fun putting it together. It was my first time trying turkey bacon which is 50% less fat than using bacon from pork. Found that it cooked a bit faster and made our meal a *little* healthier. The following day we used some leftovers to make cracked pepper maple bacon  that I’ll share in another post soon!   * post sponsored by Butterball Canada but Emily and I totally did this all ourselves!

Last week I picked up a gorgeous marble cheese board form The Drake Hotel. It’s real marble and very heavy. Perfect for dinner parties and taking Instagram photos. However, my BF decided it was a great cutting board and now there’s a couple lines in it from a knife. I started thinking about how I could make another cutting board with marble accents after seeing some marble formica for countertops online. I picked up a bamboo cutting board ($3), a plastic cutting board ($2), and a roll of faux marble for lining cupboards.  I did’t even know they had that stuff!   This was to test if it even looks good, if so, will get some of the fancier stuff from a home hardware type shop. It seriously took about 5 whole minutes to do this and now I’ve got a marble mousepad at work that is a great backdrop for photographing things at my desk. Make Something Marble Get marble wrap and something to put it on Put it on the thing Take a photo & show your awesomeness SEE HOW EASY THAT WAS OMG. YOU ARE A DIY WIZARD. Remember the awesome marble  laptop case I had ages ago? (It’s not avail anymore, sorry) I thought I would combine that concept and some supplies form my local dollar store. Well, it totally worked!   I recently got a permanent desk after working with 1188 for the last year and I wanted to make it nice. It’s so glam now! Look how great my coffee looks with vintage glasses on this wood/marble. OH SO FANCY. I know you probably don’t think of me a DIY’er but I actually make heaps of things. I’ll share more of them this year! If you give this a try over the weekend, I’d LOVE to know what you make. TWEET ME HERE. The…