{Lake Love Week} From the Cabin Kitchen Iced Coffee

Iced coffee? Yum. Iced coffee prices? Not so yum... I swear, I could drink Starbucks Iced Skinny 1/2 sweet Vanilla Lattes twice a day all summer! But really, my wallet can't. Plus there is no Starbucks at the lake (the only downfall!). So we have to make our own. Here's how I do it...

You'll need:

-coffee

-ice

-sugar or vanilla syrup or other preferred sweetener

-cream, milk, or other preferred soy or almond milk

Part 1 is to prepare your coffee. I have two ways of doing this. A - Make my coffee ahead of time and chill in the fridge (I do this with the morning coffee leftovers). Or B - You can make double strong coffee and then pour it into a glass of ice cubes until it's cold (double strong because the ice cubes dilute the coffee). 

If you're going to use sugar, mix it with the coffee while it's hot so it dissolves.

I use vanilla syrup, so it can added once the coffee is cold. I do this to taste, then add a touch of cream or soy cream to give it that milky colour and taste. The stronger you make the coffee, the more milk you can add to give it more of a latte feel. I had to try a few rounds to get my own recipe perfected!

Pour over ice and enjoy! Super simple and super cheap. It's supposed to be scorching hot this weekend so you can guarantee I'll be whipping up a few of these...

Are you fond of the iced coffee friends? Or are you more of an iced tea gal?

Thanks for stopping by for {Lake Love Week}, I've enjoyed sharing pieces of my love of relaxed cottage summer living with you. If you're new to this, here's the previous {Lake Love Week} posts to catch you up:

Gimli Cottage Tour
Casual Stripes Style Peek
Beach Beauty Musts

Have an awesome evening friends!

{Lake Love Week} Beach Beauty Musts

Hello all and happy Wednesday! It feels like the week is just flying by and to be honest - I'm really starting to feel the pinch of wedding to-do items as we head into the 6 week countdown. So I'm going to push it out of my head for this moment and put myself back into lake life mode! Thanks for all your support of {Lake Love Week} so far...if you're just tuning in, check out my Gimli Cottage Tour and my casual lake Style Peek.

Today we're talking about lake beauty. Some of you may ditch the routine altogether at the lake but I'm too vain for that (ha!) so I pare down my routine to some basics. Here's a list of what I pack and I what I leave at home.

 

Pack: A wide tooth comb, grooming creme and sun hats

Leave at home: the blowdryer

I can be a bit fanatical about my hair so the lake is the perfect opportunity to leave the blow dryer at home. It's like giving your hair a weekend off from everything - it gets to be it's true self. For me that's a touch wavy and very fine. I still don't love flyaways so I use a touch of grooming creme after I've combed out my hair so smooth it down. It's also my chance to experiment - so I'll often put it in side braids or wrap it up in a bun just to see how it dries! Don't laugh at me, I like to do that. Lake life forgives your bad hair days - that's what sun hats are for!!

Pack: sunscreen

Leave at home: perfume

The mosquitoes love the perfume - need I say more? No really, any trimming I can do on the routine is awesome but there's no sacrificing skin care. So after my shower I slather on the sunscreen (burns suck) and I'm good to go. Plus J is obsessed with the idea of wood smoke cologne for me (he wants to patent it!) so I keep my interfering scents to a minimum.

Pack: Lip and cheek tint, mascara, concealer, powder

Leave at home: Eyeliner

This is my absolute new favourite product. If you read this blog often, you know how much I love Benetint - a rosy lip and cheek stain by Benefit. I had been experimenting with cheaper options like Joe Fresh's cheek cream but the truth is - it just doesn't have the all-day staying power of a stain. I love to put on my stain and know it's going to last all day. So I've had my eye on the Posietint for a while - but was a little scared of the bright pink colour. Well it's so pretty! A lovely poppy pink that's perfect for summer and looks so good with just a touch of mascara and a fresh clean face.

See, just a hint of pretty pink colour!

Tell me friends - do you ditch the beauty routine on vacation and go au naturel? Or do you have vacation beauty must haves?

Hope you all have an amazing day!

{Lake Love Week} Casual Stripes Style Peek

Hello! Thank you so much for coming along on my Gimli cottage tour and leaving such sweet comments.  If you haven't taken a look yet, you can do so here!

Believe me, I know how blessed I am to have it and as such - I work very hard to fill it with things and people and activities that give me joy. But I've always been like that, even when I was renting a 350 square foot apartment in Calgary on my own or renting a room in a tiny flat in London with 3 other guys and a bar-size fridge (no joke). I surround myself with books and mementos and found objects that I've lovingly hunted for.  I hope you find ways to fill your life with joyful thing?

Another thing that gives me joy is easy dressing at the lake. Like 'one piece of clothing easy dressing'! This striped cotton tank dress gets packed into my bag every time we load up for the cottage. It's perfect for me because it's cool, comfy, it defines my high waist (elastic though for comfort), it covers my bra straps (busty girl must!) and it's cute.  Speaking of busty, let's be honest here - I know I am. And there are probably fashion 'rules' about not wearing big stripes across an area you want to minimize. But the rule about {Lake Love} is that there are no rules - it is IMPERATIVE that you feel amazingly comfortable.  Remember that friends.

Back to the subject at hand - I can wear this dress it into town to run errands with a beachy tote (above) or while I'm painting trim around the cottage (below). If I put my bathing suit on underneath it's a cover-up, if I throw on a pretty cardi or flowy scarf in the evening -  it's a little fancier for ice cream and a walk on the beach. The possibilities are endless!

 

When I'm shopping for clothes, I look for little details that make it special, like the fact that it's navy and not black stripes, plus the pretty little ruffle along the neckline. I picked this dress up last year at Old Navy for less than 20 bucks. They are my go-to place for comfy, cheap cotton lake gear. If you're ever thinking - I really need an easy summer dress and don't want to spend a forture - head over to Old Navy! Plus they're so cheap that if they only last one summer, it's all good!

Striped tank dress - Old Navy

Navy flip flops - Joe Fresh

What do you throw on to stay cool and easy? Where do you find your perfect summer lounging dresses?

Thanks for all your positive feedback about {Lake Love Week}, tomorrow I'll be chatting about my fave beauty products to bring to the lake - and those to leave at home!

Have a most lovely day friends!

{Lake Love Week} Gimli Cottage Tour

Hello and happy Monday friends! I'm so excited to give you a little tour of my favourite place on earth - my Gimli cottage. Since I talk about it enough, I thought it only fitting that you got a little peek for yourself. And what a great way to kick off {Lake Love Week}, a series of posts to share my love of lake living.

For those of you who are far away, I live in Winnipeg, Canada. Gimli is a tiny little beach town one hour north of the city on Lake Winnipeg, the 6th largest freshwater lake in Canada. We call it the 'inland ocean' because when you look out on the water, you can't see anything but blue waters and a hazy horizon. I bought a cottage 4 years ago when I moved home to Manitoba from Calgary's booming real estate market. I had an amazing opportunity to invest in something special, my very own beach house in the middle of the prairies, and I haven't regretted it for a moment since.

When I first bought it, I picked up this fun painted sign and it's served as my inspiration and colour palette for what I envision the cottage to be. I love the shades of washed out blues, greens, sand and cream.

My favourite place about the cottage is the abundance of huge windows that let sun and breeze in from both sides and the 12-foot ceilings that make the little space seem huge. I've filled it lovingly with my favourite things, my favourite colours, my favourite memories - all on a minimal budget full of thrifting, garage-saling, antiquing and graciously accepting freebies.

*my sister made me that quilt below and that pull-out couch has been lugged around with me for over 12 years!!

*that Ikea coffee table below was something ridiculous like $16 and I bought the modern couches covered in nubby tweed fabric off Kijiji for a steal!

* when I first moved in I painted the kitchen this deep lake blue and even did the glass tile backspash all by myself! Don't look at it up close :)

*the bathroom paint was my biggest colour risk but every time I shower I feel like I'm in the tropics!

It's really important to me that there are lots of cozy places to lounge, whether J and I are alone or have guests - both inside the cottage and out!

My other favourite thing about the cottage is that it's turned into my library. I've packed the bookshelves with all of my fiction and music books. If I was renting a cottage, it would be my dream to walk into stacks of books...heavenly!

The furniture is mismatched, thrift store finds, vintage pieces and upcycled treasures, like this gorgeous dresser and a magazine rack I painted in vivid turquoise.

The hodge podge of artfwork is very near and dear to my heart. It runs from the whimsical, like this watercolour I painted the first year I lived here...

To the gallery wall of travels, showing pieces I've collected from Brazil, Guatamala, London and more.

To the art of my norther heritage, like these whale soap stone carvings, inuit paintings and moose tuftings from my time in Thompson and Churchill.

And a playbill from my performance in The Vagina Monologues in Calgary, such a special time.

 

I've decorated the space with small touches of natural inspiration, from dried branches and seashells to hints of nautical living.

And last but not least - a super comfy bed. This is always my splurge...a nice firm mattress, crisp cotton sheets and a huge cuddly duvet. It makes me WANT to sleep out here and read in bed all day.

 

And there's me snapping pics around the cottage! Yup, those are my lazy pajamas and it's probably like, noon...gotta love the lake!

Thanks for coming along on my Gimli cottage tour - hope you enjoyed it!

Tomorrow I'll be bringing you a super casual outfit post for {Lake Love Week}, so come back soon!