luck and bliss

New Year, New...

2012-01-05T09:36:00.002-05:00

You guys. It's that time of year again. You can't spit around these here internets without hitting some company or another hawking the "New Year, New You" shtick.
This morning it was Forever 21. Now, I love me some F21, but it seems to me that the average age of the girls lurking en masse in the store is maybe 19 years old? Or like Fetus. Can We use minus numbers?
Which makes me all
"DUDE. you're not old enough to HAVE an old you. Now get your dewy skin and perky boobs outta my way. I got cheap jewelry to peruse"
Now before I come off as a completely bitter crazy person (too late? oh oh.) I should say that my main problem with New Year, New You is that I like the old me.
I do.
Quite a lot actually. And it took me AGES to get to like the old me, having to get to like an all NEW me, well I don't think I have the energy.
Which is not to say that I don't get the sudden need to take 5 spin classes in a row and swim until I'm a prune. My festive All Pie and Cookie Diet and 3 weeks of gym dodging has caused me to jiggle more than I like to.
But that doesn't mean i want an all new me, it just means I should prolly think about what I put in my mouth and maybe do a bit more running around for a few weeks.
And I know that it sometimes isn't that easy. I REALLY know, I am a person who has been "overweight" and has had a complex relationship with food for my whole life.
But I'mma say RIGHT NOW. These aren't the things that define me. So changing them doesn't make me a whole new person. And that is all. Rant over.
I'm not going to get into the whole body image thing (at least not this morning) I need more coffee and I get so angry I spit a little. It's gross.
Now. New Year, New Shoe... there's a concept I can get behind.

Christmas

2011-12-28T11:57:00.000-05:00

It came! Finally! After roughly 20 days of 6.30-in-the-morning "is it now? is it today? is it today? is it? is is? IS IT?"
And you guys! It was for sure my best Christmas as a grown up, and maybe my best one ever. There were gifties and roast beast and fambly and chums and food. SO. Much. Food. And Lovely Little Things. And a bit of boxing day shopping with my sweetheart. (We hardly ever get to spend time, just us; so even though there were a squillion other people out bargain hunting, I got to hold his hand and it FELT like it was just us. It was super fun. Wait, is that too smooshy? Did you barf in your mouth? Sorry.)
Here's a picture of a Thing I Made to take the taste away...

It's a small talk shawl, what I made for my good friend (and my kid's honourary Granny) for Christmas. I like how it turned out and my sweetie saw it like this (pinned out, being blocked) and was all "OH hey! It looks like you steam-rolled an angel's wings!" Which is maybe sacrilegious? But completely adorable.
BUT, you know when's a good time to start as large and complicated project? Any time but two weeks before Christmas.

So. That's mostly what I've been doing, well that and a tiny bit of hiding, Hiding and thinking about blogging and what I do here a bit. My last post was kind of depressing, and maybe off-putting for some people? But I think I'm OK with that. In real life I do over-think things. And I WANT to live a well-considered life, even if I sometimes feel like a stupid, or give myself an un-necessarily hard time. Or am misinterpreted. So. I'm going to do that here too. And risk a swathe of unfollows. Because it's worth it, and the kindness and encouragement of strangers (whom I would, for serious, hug until the were a tiny bit uncomfortable) is totally worth it.
So, moving swiftly on.
This year looks like it's going to be (in the words of my kid) "Super-Rad". I have some pretty exciting stuff happening* and I pretty much can't wait to tell you about it.
But I can't JUST yet. So here's a picture of the new baby that I am auntie to...

His name is Brutus and he is entirely made of swagger and puppy parts. And smoochable wrinkles. He is, you guys, TOOMUCH. It's a good thing he doesn't live with me or his leggies would atrophy from his being carried around and smooched all the time. OK.
That is all.
x
*I'm not pregnant, that's always the first thing I think of too, so I'm just clearing that up.

2011-11-28T16:02:00.005-05:00

I need to apologise to someone.
She is unlikely to see this, but I want to put it out into the world anyway.
So, lady in the playground, with the pretty little pixie of a two and a half year old. Who we have seen in passing a few times and finally spoke to today. I'm really sorry. I choked. I really hope I didn't hurt your feelings.

As we were leaving the playground we talked about Teddy's balance bike. I asked how old your pixie is. We agreed that two and a half is fun-but-exhausting.
I asked if you lived around here.
And you were brave. You said yes, temporarily. You were staying at R- House. And I said "huh?"
And you explained that R- House is the Woman's Shelter over-that-way.
And that's when I choked. Not literally, but conversationally.
I said "Oh I didn't know it was there. And OH HEY, do they accept donations of baby clothes?"
And you were polite, and said perhaps, that there was a room of donated clothes. And you went to catch up with someone you knew and I wanted to kick myself in the ass.
I wish that I had said pretty much anything else instead of what I did; which was, to all intents and purposes, "OH hey, I'm a lucky, privileged do-gooder and you're a charity case".
Walking home I had that horrible mix of mortified and angry-with-myself, the kind that sticks in your throat and makes your eyeballs smart.
So. There we have it.

You know, today's post was going to be where I outed myself as a personal style blogger and waxed lyrical about the job of parenting and clothes and body image and yadda yadda yadda, I've been thinking about those things a lot recently. Perhaps tomorrow I will feel like words are my friends instead of chunky rocks to throw.

2011-11-16T10:56:00.001-05:00

This isn't really a post it's just something I want to remember.

So, my sweetheart set up these guys last night for my poor, bored bear (and me) to find.

It's Hank, Mr. Penguin and Leroy Brown (baddest dog in the whole damn town) doing a spot of camping. And it looks like some pretty fun times actually.

In conclusion, I love that man. Like, a LOT.

kids = ebola (and pinterest!)

2011-11-16T10:09:00.003-05:00

Preschoolers; they're adorable germ-laden plague-bearers. Nothing quite like a feverish, booger-beladen kid to put a crimp in one's ~~day~~ week. Seriously? A week? Poor baby is bored to tears. But he sounds like Lauren Bacall after a heavy night (which is actually completely rad, just not on a 3 year old).

And cause some terrible guilt.

The guilt thing is 'cause, I, um, didn't even notice he was sick.

We went out for Dim Sum with his Granny H, and he was a kind of tantrumy then kind of sulky. Both of which are really of out of character*, and both of which get pretty short shrift from me. It wasn't until we were in Holt Renfrew trying on perfumes-I-can't-afford that I noticed that he was sweating like crazy and had a blistering fever.

Yah. Nice job me. Apparently I won't be winning the Parent Of The Year award, AGAIN.

Oh well, he can start saving for the therapy now.

Oh, and he's infectious. Which means we've been hanging out in our jammies watching an embarrassing amount of TV. But it does give me time to lurk around Pinterest, cooing over the pretty things. Do you Pinterest? This is me right here, hit me up in the comments if'n you want to be chums? (on the proviso that I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing with the whole thing and I get distracted easily by shiny objects).

And lastly here's a quick shot of Betty looking artsy. And you guys? I don't mean to brag, but she sews through leather like it's no big thing. She's all "Sure, whatever lady, give me a real challenge, bust out the titanium". I love her. Even her font KILLS me.

* The "out of character" thing? It kind of blows the idea of child-karma out of the water. Given what a horrible child I was, Teddy should be cross between Taz and an angry orangutan. As it is, he's a pretty awesome little chap. Perhaps he's saving it up until he's in his teens?

33!

2011-11-07T21:51:00.001-05:00

You guys! I'm 33 today! 33! (I'm not complaining, so far I bloody LOVE my 30's)
I'm also not sticking around for long, I just wanted to tell you that apparently I don't learn! 'Member how last year my sweetie surprised the dickens out me with a party?
Well he did it again.
And I fell for it. Hook, line and sinker. Again.
And it was lovely, there was cake. And sangria. And funtimes. And that was after dinner at The Queen and Beaver (you should go! it's ace!)
There are no pictures (or if there are there may be sailor hats?) but I do have SOMETHING to show you...

Can you see what it is? It's a ring-bound manual for a 1969 White Company sewing machine. With less than 5 hours use on it. Still in it's table. With a heap of feet and accouterments. In TIFFANY BLUE.
Wondering why I might have such a manual? For such a machine?
YOU GUYS! It's because she is mine! And she shall be coming home with me on Wednesday. And her name shall be Betty (like Betty White; another awesome vintage broad, see?) and GOOD LORD but she's smooth. And you guys. I just about pee'd.
She is a gift from my good friend (and my baby's honorary granny), and I am a very very lucky gurl.
Ok. I'm going to go drink birthday chardonnay and snuggle on the couch with my sweetheart.
x!

Dirt Cheap DIY Boot Trees

2011-11-03T20:09:00.002-04:00

So. I have two problems with boots. And I use the term "problem" pretty loosely here folks. In fact lets go with So, I have two kinda-dumb-first-world-problems with boots.
The first problem isn't just me, it's just a thing that knee high boots do. See:

My boots flop over. Which wrinkles the ankles and makes the tops all flat and puts a crease down the middle. It's a whole big thing. And Not Cool.

The solution is Boot Trees (not trees that grow boots - though you guys, just the idea of trees that grow boots makes me feel kind of fevered).

Boot trees that you jam into your boots to keep them erect and wrinkle-free (oh my god. I just wrote "erect" on the internets. So, HI! If you came here via a google search for "erect", you're prolly in the wrong place, perhaps turn your safe-search off?).

Now, in an ideal world I'd have a full compliment of beautiful, hand carved, vintage boot trees. Or even just a bunch of these. In this world I don't, and I'm fairly unlikely to acquire 'em any time soon.

But that's OK! 'Cause there are a couple of different solutions.

The first, and my total favourite, is this:

Wondering what that is? It's flexible plastic chopping board of course! (Remember how I use them for EV.ERY.THING?) And all you do is roll it up and jam it down your boots. You could get all fancy and cut a rounded "V" shape out of the bottom. I didn't because most of my boots are flat.

Next there's the old "wine bottle down the boot" trick. Which is OK? I guess? But not ideal, because

It kind of puffs out the ankles in an odd shape, but doesn't stop the top of the boot from being flat. Also, having "hidden" booze in my closet makes me feel like my Alcoholic Granny - which, gross & kind of upsetting. Ok moving swiftly on...

Here's a shot of the difference between the choppin' boards and the wine bottles:

Note the unpuffy ankles on the choppin' board boot versus the bottle boot.
And lastly (and the cheapest way) is to roll up a magazine and jam it down there. It's not perfect but it'll does in a pinch.

And as for the second problem I have with boots, um. OK. Don't judge me now... but... I have 5 pairs of brown knee high boots, (OH, and one black pair too). 5 (and they're all... um, pretty similar actually).
It's a sickness.
I blame Duo Boots.
See, I am a girl with chunky calves, (not like baby cows, like the bottom parts of my legs, chubby baby cows are adorable).
Which means that knee high boots were pretty much a no-go for me, with the zipper-straining and the weird calf muffin-tops and the plain old "YAH, dude, these are never going to do up".
Anyway, my mum was all "you should look up Duo, they do different calf sizes".
I was all "WHA!? Why wasn't I informed!" and I had my first pair picked out before she'd finished her next sentence.
Now here's were I warn you before I send you over there. They're kind of expensive. Actually, not "kind of", they ARE expensive.
But.
They're your forever boots. My first pair have trotted happily through four Canadian winters, complete with mushy snowy salty grey slop attacking them, and they still look awesome. I take care of them, with regular waterproofing sprays and sticking chopping boards inside them and softly crooning love songs to them. But you do that when you pay a bloody fortune for your boots (or at least I do?).
So, if you have wide (or skinny) calves you should go check them out here.
And here's the good part. If you can wait till the new year, they have a BRILLIANT sale. They get to be, if not dirt cheap then "OH MY GOD I CAN TOTALLY JUSTIFY THIS" cheap. It's a heady time.
Just to be clear here, Duo isn't sponsoring me (mine is an unrequited love. Le sigh). I just happen to think they rock the free world and I'm not even kidding when I say that their boots are kind of a life changer (well they were for me anyway).

NOW! I'm off to go and lurk around Duo, pressing my nose against the (browser) window like a Dickensian orphan. Because, 5 is NOT too many pairs. no no no trala la la-I'm-not-listening-la.

Cowboy Chicken! "He's a chicken who is a cowboy guy"

2011-11-01T09:49:00.000-04:00

Halloween, maybe my favourite holiday. costumes+candy=funtimes.
Want to see how we rolled, costume wise?
WELLL! First we went to "Big Boy School" (the PFLC playgroup at our local school) Like this:

He's Biggles Bear, Flying Ace. And here's a tiny admission. There was no planning for that "costume" at all. The flight jacket and hat are just what he wears. And I grabbed a white "scarf" from my fabric stash and fringed the ends. But you guys. I love it. Love love. See, both my Grandpas (his great grandpas) were pilots. And my dad IS a pilot. (My mum has her P.P.L. and I have about 17 hours of a Private Pilots Licence too; we're an aeronautical family)

So yep, my kid is Biggles. I might have put on my outfit with Amelia Earheart in mind. Maybe. but I'm admitting nothing. (and it's a brutally unflattering shot, gah).
So that was the morning, and a thrown together outfit so Teddy wouldn't BOIL in the overheated school.
This is the real deal:

He is a "COWBOY CHICKEN! BWOCKKK!"
Which... OK?
I have no idea how he came up with it but he asked to be a "chicken who is a cowboy guy".
For the last couple of weeks the whole "what to be" conversation has been a source of superfuntimes, and there was some talk of a Space Robot, a zookeeper, or a "RacingCarDriverVRooom". But on Wednesday he declared for Cowboy Chicken and stuck with it when asked three times.
So off we went to the Dolla' Stor'. We scored the hat, the orange "feet", some craft foam and (my favourite part) a handful off-brand swiffer-type dusters.
I pulled those suckers apart and tacked them on to the sleeve of a white hoodie. And voila, softie chicken wings. I could have used a feather boa but I'm monstrous allergic.
I chopped the toes off the orange sockies and tacked on felt chicken feet.
The vest/waistcoat we had.
The chicken mask I made because the chicken masks at the costume shop across the road were kind of... sinister looking? and too big. I did manage to hot-glue a chicken nosehole to my hand. Not cool you guys. Not cool.
Anyway, it came together, it looked like this and it was a hit when we went trick or treating last night. So I'm calling it a win.

Oh No. Drums.

2011-10-26T14:21:00.001-04:00

Wondering what my sweetheart and my kid were doing while I lurched around the city pretending to be undead? Well. My sweetheart was having an attack of the crazypants.
He took Teddy to Long & McQuade, a music and musical goodies shop here in the city. And he let him do THIS:

Uh huh. That's a drum kit. And that's my kid giving it some; to the cooing admiration of a handful of his uncles.

Drums you guys.

The thing is, my sweetie is (at 39) learning to play the guitar. Which - maybe the hottest thing ever? He's spent six months working his fingers to nubbins while me and the dog sit around gazing adoringly at him like super-hairy groupies (what? I sometimes forget to shave my legs.)

Teddy is similarly impressed. I'm really proud of my sweetie for setting that kind of example to him. You know, the "it's never too late, you just have to work hard and practice and you can do anything" example. Well that and the all-important "guitars = adoring girls/boys/dogs" lesson.

But Drums? DRUMS? really?

Le sigh. Anybody want to open a book on how soon I cave on this one?

grrr arrgh - zombie attack

2011-10-24T14:25:00.001-04:00

You guys! it was Toronto's Zombie walk this weekend! And this was my 4th year of lurching and groaning along with the massed undead. As always it was a butt-load of fun. Kind of sticky, gross, fake-skin, candy-blood, hair-catastrophe fun; but fun all the same. Want to see my zombie outfit? It's pretty gory...

See? I'm a spa day zombie? From the Bates Hotel and Spa see? (because I like to mix it up, genre-wise).

It turns out that making a dressing gown out of two dollar store sheets is a Thing I Can Do. (Which is nice to know).

I used one of my super-precious pieces of Printable Iron On transfer paper to make the logo's (back and front) And the cucumber patches.

The face mask is not actually real, which in retrospect seems a missed importunity, as I could use both soothing AND firming, also possibly pore minimizing? But no. It was just green face paint.

It was COLD on saturday, so I have a bunch of layers on under my dressing gown.The first layer of gore on the 'gown is paint, the later, still-wet stuff is candy blood; but you guys, candy blood is pretty deeply umpleasant when you throw it all over yourself. It was like a symphony of cold-sticky-grossness all up in my hair and nack. Not cool.

If I was doing this again I would plump for the REAL fake blood instead of the candy sort, and I would have remembered to paint my dressing gown belt, and I would maybe make the eyeholes on my 'cumbers smaller, (But with a 5 k lurch and that many people, visability was an issue). But all in all, 4 dolla well spent I think.

I went with these two, a zombie 60's housewife and a zom-BEE (geddit?!)

And ran into a few other chums along the way,

Skirting the issue... A Refashion, 3 Ways.

2011-10-19T23:03:00.000-04:00

So, I accidentally did it again, disappeared from the face of the internets (sort of) for a month. But let's not talk about THAT! Oh no! Let's talk about refashions instead. Yah LETS!

Does anybody else miss Wardrobe Refashion like I do? I'm all sad and sigh-y about it over here. Got any go-to sites for inspiration? Do tell! (No really, please do tell, I need some inspiration in the worst way).

So, my most recentest piece of sewing of any description has been this skirt...
Here's the before*:

It's a bit big see? I bought it a while ago, when I was a bit bigger too, but it was always pretty big on me. And I prolly should have tossed it a couple of wardrobe clear-outs back. But it's cord, and paisley and soft and dude, I am about 3 pairs of shoes and a couple of meters of tweed away from an episode of Hoarders. So it's been sat in the to-be-fixed box for ages.

This morning I got onto that. In the super-easiest way ever.

I tried out three different styles before I settled on what I'd do with it.

Exhibit 1. The mock-wrap. I just folded the extra skirt over to one side see? If I was going for this option I would add a button and run a topstitch down the flappy egde.

Exhibit 2. The Sailor Gurl, two little pleats, a mess o' buttons = cute nautical funtimes.

And Exhibit 3. The 9 to 5. (because it has that Lily Tomlin in 9 to 5 thing going on. I just dragged the excess to meet in the middle, see?

This is the one I went with, SO, once I'd pinned it to size I just topstitched the pleats down like this:

(and I would have done the same thing with any of those other versions, ALSO! There's no chopping or hacking so if I change my mind and want to go back to one of the others I totally can just seam rip and re-do)

And that's it. A skirt that fits me.

And here's how I wore it:

That is with SUPER BRIGHT fuchsia tights and my favourite shoes and crazy-lady hair. (No really, there's a pencil crayon jammed up in there. Kelly Green, actually. It's my kids "bestest colour ever".)

*huh. Turns out that yeps, I did just post a picture of me in my chopped-up-Old-Navy-boy's-tee running shirt on the internetses. huh.

Zinged - Zung?

2011-08-31T00:23:00.002-04:00

I am a master at the 2am zinger. You know the kind? The perfect comeback, the world-quaking verbal drubbing, the ZING... That only occurs to me 12 or so hours after the situation I would have used it in.

It's brutal.

But I've been thinking, perhaps that's not SUCH a terrible thing?

I stumbled onto this post (via Angry Chicken, man I love her) and you know who can deliver some brutal, brutal smack talk? Authors. That's who.
Apparently canny wordsmiths are MEAN when you get 'em riled.
This list of the notable authors verbally decimating each other is entertaining reading... at first...
But then, well then it's sort of... icky.
Elizabeth Bishop slamming J.D. Salinger (#8) makes me wince,

8. Elizabeth Bishop on J.D. Salinger “I HATED [Catcher in the Rye]. It took me days to go through it, gingerly, a page at a time, and blushing with embarrassment for him every ridiculous sentence of the way. How can they let him do it?”

Elizabeth! That's the kind of thing that could cause a person to retreat into crazypants seclusion (sorry J.D., but yuh-huh).
I think what bothers me is that it seems cheap somehow to have the ability to write extraordinarily but to use your skill to hurt people's feelings. Like having the ability to fly but using it exclusively to fly around doing retaliatory poops on pigeons. (No wait, that actually sounds kind of righteous).

The rare occasion that I manage to spit out just the right mean at just the right time; I feel TERRIBLE about it afterwards. Even if it was deserved.
Because that's not who I want to be.
I'm not saying I want to hold hands with the world and sing Kumbaya and roast marshmallows but - wait, actually, WHY AREN'T I saying that? That sounds like funtimes. And I love roasted marshmallows.
I guess I don't really have a point here, this is just a long-winded way of saying that I think maybe my mum was right (she usually is) when she told us as kids,
"If you don't have anything nice to say then you should shut the f*ck up"
(For reals, she has a mouth on her to make a sailor blush, and it's incongruous 'cause she looks like such a lady).
BUT I think I would still like the ability to think up the instant-zing, because then I could feel all smug that I wasn't using it. Instead of just all hurt-feelingy.
How do you guys feel about this? Do you zap and regret? Or ZING and high-five? Or keep quiet then lay awake for hours staring at the shadow on your ceiling that looks like chubby-Elvis face until you come up with the perfect comeback?
And do you think it's different on the internetses? Where anonymity and time to plan a response seems to give people the idea that "DUDE. YOUR COUCH SO UGLY" is appropriate (hello Apartment Therapy commentors!).
I'm genuinely curious here. Thoughts? Feelings? Cuppa tea and a scone?

Oh hey! I just thought of something I wanted to add (I guess this whole thing is really jammed into my head but good)...
I read and follow quite a few blogs, some by folks who's politics, religious beliefs and lifestyles are different from mine. I can read a glowing "why I love Mitt Romney" post and completely disagree with it but still wish goodthings and funtimes for it's writer. BUT when one of the bloggers I used to read (I'm not naming names here), decided to write a scathing report, apropos of nothing about just why and how another blogger's project was lousy. Well, click. Unfollowed.
Ok, rant over. I think I'm done here.

...Because they ARRH! A Mini Boden Knock-Off.

2011-08-28T15:48:00.011-04:00

I do love a bit of Boden. Sure it's the uniform of the floppy-haired, home-counties male, but I have a soft spot for that. (I went to a British private school, those boys were my first crushes).
And I LOVE LOVE LOVE their kid's clothes. They're just plain awesome, fun and actually kid-appealing.
The downside is that they're bloomin' spensive. Maybe not so muchly if you can order them from the Boden USA site (and get free shipping, which they have RIGHT NOW(!) I'll wait here if you want to go look).
But getting stuff delivered to Canada means ordering from the UK site. And between exchange rates and shipping it just gets crazy. The above shirt would be roughly $50 CDN which, hah. No.

So I totally made a knock off.
Want to see it?

Ta-da!
My sweetie is not a big fan of skulls and crossbones (he's more ninja than pirate). So I went with a trail o'bones that goes around the back too.
I used

A shirt from H&M, - a two pack, with a solid navy one for $12.99... I think SO!
A pack of Wilton Easy Image T-shirt Transfers for dark fabrics (from Michael's).
And some Photoshop meddling.

And I like it a LOT. I'm super happy with the Pirate Captain Dog's face; I went for a hand-drawn-in-Sharpie kind of look and think it was pretty successful. I also think he looks more friendly than the real version. Though I wish I had made him a bit bigger.
The transfers were a bit erratic, I'm not sure if that was a me thing or a them thing. I used them to fancy up a white tee earlier this week, and they worked brilliantly.
This time I had a bit of scorching. It's not noticeable to anybody but me, but it's there. I don't know if it's because of the dark shirt. Or because I had the iron set too high or because I didn't wash the shirt beforehand (it totally says you should but I am RIDICULOUSLY impatient).
I still have 3 sheets of transfer paper left, and plans for more shirts, (next time I'll pre-wash and report back!).

ANYWAY. The transfers were roughly $15 for 5. The tee worked out at $6.
$9 V's $50. I'm calling it a win.

I should add that I DO I have some guilt about copyright infringement. But I think the 30% difference rule works here. You know, if your design is different by about 30%, then you can think of it as "Inspired by" rather than plagiarized. And I didn't just copy and paste. But yah. Guilt.
It's funny though, this knock-off /"inspired by" thing. I feel OK about this design and OK about posting it to the intenetses because Boden is a larger, successful company. I wouldn't even think about ripping off an Etsy Seller or an independent designer in the same way. Because you know, ICKY. Weird huh?
How do you guys feel about these issues?

This is also over here -

and here -

Wild and Precious

2011-08-26T00:10:00.003-04:00

Hey! You know when sometimes the world (and more specifically these here internets) gives you just the thing you need at just the time when you need it?
I love when that happens.
Like this see:

It's a Mary Oliver quote, and I got to it via these kids here. I was struck by it hard enough to go out and procure me some poetry (which actually is one of my favourite things ever, so it wasn't exactly a hardship).

I had been thinking about making some wall art EXACTLY like Tobi's since I saw it. But I have stencil fear. Or at least, very little stencil kung-fu.

So I CHEATED.

I whipped up this printable, I used a stencil font and meddled with it in photoshop to give it a "canvas" background. And t'morra morning I'm going to trot to the printer down the road and have it printed up HUGE - well 16"x20" - on paper and stick it in a frame and put it over my desk and feel pretty awesomely happy about it.

If you want your very own to print out then you can totally do that! I've saved it as a TIFF file (don't fear the Tiff! He's just big, he won't hurt you, he needs love too) over here on Scribd. It might take a bit of time to download but it will print in WAY better quality than just clicking on this image above and doing a "save as". Oh, and it's 8.5"x11" so you can use your own printer (hit me up if you want the bigger size posted too).

There's something about this time of year that just makes this line ring through my head like a bell, and it might make an ok giftie for someone about to go away to big kid school (um, that's college/university for anybody who isn't used to speaking 3 year old).

And actually, if you DO want to tell me what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life, well I would love to hear.

And hey, here's a high five so high and five-y it makes your palm tingle. I think you're pretty awesome.

faux rizzle - a fake flower upgrade

2011-08-23T17:18:00.001-04:00

Firstly of all I think I better do a little pre-emptive defense here, I know fake flowers are kind of a contentious issue. And you're either a do or don't. My mum is a decided don't (I put it down to living in France, where everybody always seems to have real flowers everywhere).

I am a do. And here's why.
1. Fresh cut flowers are expensive. Even grocery store bouquets. And they're dead-dead really quickly. So you'd think house plants would be the answer, But...
2. I kill plants. I don't intend to exactly. It's not like I keep them in the dark and whisper terrible things to them (ok so, yah I do, but still). But they die and then I have guilt. It's a whole big thing.

So that's my defense of fake flowers. Now on to how to make dirt cheap fake flowers look more fancified. First things first; rebranding! They're not "fake" flowers they're "imitation" or "silk"or oou! even better, they're "Faux". French = more classierer see!?
Now, the upgrade I'm doing here is on a couple of stems of Dollarstore phalaenopsis orchids. And here's the before and after:

The before looks like a stem of dollar store fake flowers, and not just because it has a taggie on it that says dollarama. The after is way more swankypants Restoration-Pottery-Hard-Barn-Ware like. (At least I think).

Want to try it?
You'll need:
A couple of stems of phalaenopsis orchids (but the fancifying techniques actually work for lots of other fake flowers too)
Some paint and a paint brush
A sharp thing and a flamey thing (scissors and a lighter are good)
Some plasticine/modelling clay
A receptacle.
Some rocks (or bark chips for authenticity)
(I happened to have everything but the flowers to hand, so my total cost was one stinkin' dolla. Which = yay!)

So the first step is to cut some bits off your stem. Some length from the bottom and a few of the bottom flowers too. My leaves just slid right off, but you can snip them off if you need to; save them for later.

Then take your lighter and hold the flame close (but not ON) any weird plastic taggy bits that are sticky out. I reckon it's prolly best to do this OUTSIDE and don't breath in any fumes. If things look a little bumpy that's OK, organic looking bumps are a plus here.

Next step is to bend the stem into the right sort of shape, I had a look at some phalaenopsis online and bent carefully, a bit at a time, til it looked about right-ish.

Next it's time to paint, I just used dollar store acrylic, I slopped it on, then blotted it off a bit for a mottled effect. Then I used an almost-dry brush to fade the brown into the brighter green of the plastic near the flower heads.

Careful not to get paint on the flowers and give them a bit of time to dry, in fact while they're drying you can do the leaves. Flatten them out, snip any loose threads away and melt up the edges some to stop fraying.

Almost done! Grab a hefty lump o' Plasticine/modeling clay jam it into your receptacle then poke your flower stem into it (you can add more than one stem if you like, maybe at different heights?). Add the leaves and poke them down firmly too. Like this:

Then toss some rocks or bark chips over the plasticine and behold your unkillable, swankypants new houseplant.

Oh and if you were going for extra authenticity you could pop one of those support sticks into the Plasticine too and clip the stem to it.

Oh, and I shared over a naptime crafers.

un-awesome

2011-08-22T23:37:00.001-04:00

You know how some days you feel like it's barely worth chewing through the leather straps? And everything you touch turns to wet kitty poops?
And your internets won't work all day?
and then you're making miso soup and the boiling water breaks your mug with a crazy bang and slops water on your toes?
And you don't do up the the cap of your Diet Dr Pepper properly and it leaks all over your bed, through the duvet and onto the mattress?
And then you're in the bank and it turns out that Jack Layton died, and all that other stuff seems stupid and your heart is a little broken?
Today was like that.
I'll be back tomorrow, to show you my new shoes and this:

Pillowcases to Women's Shortie Pajamas Tutorial - OR MC Hammer Loves My Jam(mie)s

2011-08-18T19:13:00.002-04:00

Not Hammer Pants

So. You know how sometimes you're getting your kid ready for bed - teeth are brushed, residual funk has been hosed off, softie chums extracted from who-knows-where - and it's time to wrangle an unwilling human into footie jammies? Yes?
And sometimes you're all,
"Break it down, OH-OH OH OH OH-OH OH OH OH. PAJAMA time. Can't touch this. WOAH WOAH WOAH OH OH OH OH. Can't touch this"
Because MC Hammer is hilarious and awesome, specially when you sing the lyrics to U Can't Touch This in a Jeeves and Wooster accent?
No? Just me?
Well anyway, this has nothing to do with that. This is a half-assed sort of tutorial on how to make a pair of womens shortie jammies from a pair of pillowcases.

So. Onward!
First you need to procure a pair of pillowcases. Mine came from the Dollarama, so yay for the cheapest ever. But it seems like random, last-pair-in-this-design-no-matching-sheets pillowcases are always around and on crazy sale.
Got yer pillowcases? Here're mine:

The first step is to unpick the stitching on your piller'cases. Have at them with the seam ripper; go on, you can give it some women's-tennis-grunting if you like, I don't mind.
Now you should have EITHER two great big rectangles or 4 smaller rectangles. We're making the top first, so put that other pillowcase someplace safe. But not TOO safe.
Hokay. So the next step is to make a few snips so your big rectangles resemble a camisole shape, sort of. Like this:

I eyeballed how wide the back piece should be and was off by prolly 4 inches. Because apparently in my head I have a giant Quasimodo hump? Maybe?
The front section will be gathered so it should be about 4/5 inches bigger than you are.
And SEW! Right sides together and whip up yer side seams. You could get all fancypants and french seam them for prettiness sake. Let's pretend I did that, kay?

So now you fold over and hem the raw top bits like this see:

And here lets pretend I folded them twice instead of leaving them raw edged like this. (Man, pinking shears made me lazy. Also, laziness made me lazy).

Ok. Time to do a spot o' gathering. And I'm using the sew-along-some-dental-floss method for this. I can't for the life of me remember where I saw this; but whomever invented it might need to go and collect their Noble Prize for Awesomeness. I've heard Stockholm is lovely this time of year.
Anyway, you sew a wide-ish zigzag along a piece of dental floss then gather it up all super smoothly. Like this see.

Then sew over your gathers to hold them in place.
Should be starting to look like a cami about now.
Time to add some straps. You could use a bit of bias binding, sewn over the gathers then extended to make straps (if you see what I mean).
But I happened to have this crochet trim and a powerful yen to use it. So I made straps like this:

Then stuck some more trim over the gathers and sewed up the bottom hem. An voila. Jammie top.

Now here's where the tute gets REALLY half-assed. There are about a million tutorials on making short out there in the interwebs. my very favourite is this one here by Dana of MADE. It makes sense and has pretty pictures and everything. My shorts look like a pair of elasticated waist short shorts. Pretty uninspiring, they just happen to be made out of a pillowcase. And there's not a power in the 'verse could convince me to model them on the intertubes. But lookit, this is what the jammie top looks like on your's truly

And that's it. I'm going to have Cant Touch This in my head for WEEKS. Awesome.

This is it, for a winner Dance to this and you're gonna get thinner Move, slide your rump Just for a minute let's all do the bump, bump, bump

Oh, and I shared here:

And at the new link par-tay over at Mine For The Making - DIY Diva Thursdays. You guys! FASHUN diys! I'm all over it like a bad smell!

Peachy Keen Mani - How To

2011-08-18T09:21:00.001-04:00

I'll be posting a tute later today, with Jammies, and MC Hammer. (But sadly not for hammer-pant jammies, though the idea has merit). But I just wanted to coo a bit over my newest obsession. See:

Fingers!
No. Not Fingers, I've had those for ages. My newest obsession is quick-drying nail polish. Because... Awesome. Plainly awesome. Sally Hansen Insta-Dry I have (non paid endorsement) hearts for you.
And I wanted to share how I squeeze an extra couple of days out of polish if (when) it gets chipped at the ends:
Like ZIZ, see?

I think they look like slices of peach and the in these clashy colours they have an early Fresh Prince vibe going on (What? That's a thing right?)

They're also super easy to do. You wait til your base colour is looking kinda meh and a little chipped. Then you swipe a layer of contrasting colour over the tips at an angle. The insta-dry works brill for it cause it's REALLY opaque and pigment-y so you don't need two coats. And done.

And now for a long-winded anecdote!

So, I used to only ever wear two colours. EVER. Dark red on my toes and light pink on my fingernails. And that as the law and the law was... actually kind of dumb, but whatever. It's just what I did.

Anyway, I was picking up some polish to go with my Maid of Honour frock and trying to decide between Ballet Slipper sheer and Icy Pink sheer when Teddy was all,
"WELLOW! Mummy! Wellow! and Green and BLUE!"
So I tried on a nailful of each and they were pretty and opaque-y and dried instantly, just like it says.
"Ooou" I said. But I bought the Ballet Slipper.
Then Teddy spent the rest of the day cooing over the pretty "Wellow" on the random nail I left painted.
So I picked up a "wellow".
Then a green. Then a bright bright pink. And a dark blue. And now I am powerless in the face of my addiction. (though I've been picking them up when they're on sale at like $4-5, which I justify in a "Hey, it's about the price of a Starbucks" way. Or by using my Drugstore points.)
My kid makes my life more colourful (and maybe braver) is what I'm saying here.

political animals

2011-08-11T22:51:00.000-04:00

This is something I wrote way back in the first few months of the year, and didn't post, it's a bit personal, and it has nothing to do with the stuff I normally write about here. But given how the rest of the summer has gone for me and the bizarro situation at home (in England) just now-ish, I figured what the hell. So that's what this is, the backstory is the revolution in Egypt, which I watched compulsively on the BBC for hours and hours...

I've been pondering some other things.
Like, do you remember the moment you became an adult? Or that you took your first steps to adultiness? (If the moment you're thinking of is a nekkid one then that's prolly not the one I mean.)
I mean the minutes, hours or days when your horizons broadened exponentially and the world turned into a place to be observed as opposed to a place to move through mindlessly.
Yah, then.
What's going on in Egypt right now has me thinking about this.
My moment came with a revolution too.
It was late December of 1989 I was 11 (just). It was the second Christmas that the Fat-Man-in-Red wasn't an unassailable truth for me; and I was still so practiced at believing that it almost felt irrational not to believe.
Both my parents, my sibs, my Auntie M and Uncle Ant and my brand-new cousin Gabe were ensconced at a villa in Centre Parcs (80's, English, middle-class Resort and Center O' Funtimes).
There are a few things that I recall about that holiday. A new teddy bear with a stern/charming face (named Edward, natch). Riding on the back on my dad's bike "yah mule yah!". Taking the big water chute for the first time. And the fall of Ceausescu's regime in Romania and the subsequent days of violence.
This is me then.*

We are a family of obsessive news watchers. And it was a big year for news. We watched as the Berlin wall fell. (2 days after my 11th birthday and the same day my teacher had confidently informed me that the wall would "never fall".) My mum let me stay up late to watch that, but what we saw reported from Bucharest looked different to Berlin; Berlin was all all joyous faces and mullets. The faces in Bucharest were a grim mix of blistering fear, and something that looked unstoppable, hope maybe. We watched tanks firing on Ceausescu's palace and my world got bigger, the concept of freedom solidified for me.
I, of course, had no idea what it was like to live anything but a life of privilege, no concept of what the realities of oppression were (thank goodness), but I could feel, and see - writ large on people's faces - the idea that some things were worth fighting - and fighting ugly and bloody - for.
That Look is in Egypt now; on the faces of women; and in my (over simplified) opinion, young men always seem to be shouting about something, when young women break down a lifetime of conditioning and start shouting on the streets, well that's when the world is about to change.
So I watch. Compulsively. For hours. Hoping for the usual things for the brave women and men on the streets, you know, peace, freedom, lives lived well and happily

*Oh my god. The sailor dress. Wowzers.

The Right Stuff - or Teddy's ROCKETSHIP Party

2011-08-06T11:15:00.001-04:00

My kid was born in February. You know, coldest, darkest, stinkin'est month of the year February. Lounging around on my balcony in the sunshine and warmth - which is totally what I'm doing now - I can barely remember how lousy it is to be cold.

So Teddy's parties will probably always be of the indoor variety (unless he adopts an official birthday, like the Queen. Which actually isn't that bad an idea, come to think of it).

Without the option of bouncy structures and water-based outside shenanigans, themes are where it's at. His first birthday was a Mustache party. His second was Monkey V's Robot. And never happened on account of copious amounts of sick (yay for birthdays in flu season. No wait, not yay.) And his 3rd was a ROCKET SHIP party. And it went a bit like this:

There were magnetic invitations to stick to the fridge, like this:

'Member the magnetic photo-backing stuff from this post? I loves it (in fact it might be my new favourite medium. It's my new clear plastic chopping board or contact paper)

And star cookies like this:

And planet-decorated water bottles like this:

And an extraordinary cake, (made by my good chum Sarah, whom, it turns out, is a bloody genius cake decorator) like this:

This lousy picture doesn't do justice to the extreme awesomeness of the thing, or the fact that it was three different flavours of deliciousness and had marshmallow fondant and a picture of my kid on it. For reals.

There was a photobooth wall, like this:

Made out of a plastic dollarstore tablecloth; with white stars and red planets -cut from plain white printer paper and recycled (as in, from the recycling pile) card - and double-sided taped onto the tablecloth.

There were (dollar store foam-core board) cut-outs of astronaut helmets, like these:

And a felt helmet for the birthday kid. Like this.

There were COSMOnauts for the grown-ups (see, like cosmonaut, but with Cosmopolitans, see? see?You guys, that still makes me smirk) And Cosmo-NOTS for the non boozing crowd (that makes me smirk too! hearts for puns.)

We made the cocktails by the pitcher, using large slugs of vodka, triple sec, lime cordial and low calorie cranberry juice, over ice, the cosmo-nots were orange juice, cranberry juice and a dash of lime cordial over squished up ice.

There were, I vaguely recall, other decoration type things too, and food maybe? But I (of course) forgot to take pictures.
At any rate, Teddy was fairly thrilled, and hijinx were had and the photobooth pictures turned out well. So I'm calling it a win
My sweetheart turns 40 (!) in a months time and I'm scrambling for an idea for that (his last two parties were superfuntimes, with secrets and red balloons and Grumpy Old Men).

been a while...

2011-08-05T09:43:00.000-04:00

So, I accidentally neglected my blooge for O, 'bout 6 months. But here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to distract myself with a picture of my kid, get a bit caught up, THEN... pretend it NEVER happened.
What never happened?
EXACTLY!
So here's my kid and me driving a tractor - you may not recognise him on account of how he's turned into PRACTICALLY AN ADULT.

So. there's that, now about the catching up part. Expect a slew o' posts that make not-a-lot of chronological sense.

And some politics.

I have, up to now, avoided politics 'round here but it's been a very politisised early summer for me so I'm going to talk about it. And some of it is contentious; so I won't be offended if you're all

"WHAT THE DEUCE? This woman is the worst kind of wishy washy liberal. I must unfollow her IMMEDIATELY, if not sooner."

But before that there'll be a picture heavy write up of my kid's 3rd burfday party. And me bragging on my HOLY-COW-I-DID-A-TRIATHLON! prowess.

So, consider yourself fore-warned.

Also? you guys? I've missed you and I hope your summer has been BLOODY BRILLIANT so far.

Waterloo Sunset

2011-02-16T14:57:00.001-05:00

Well hi! Did everybody have a smoochy and super romantical valentines day? Ours was pretty magical.

Hey, did you know that my sweetie and I met on Valentines day? We did. 14 years ago. 14! By random chance at the end of a night. You know the Pulp song Something Changed? Like that.
Instead of going home we wandered around London; from bars to cafes and from Leicester Sq to Waterloo Bridge. It must have been cold but I don't remember that; I remember laughing until I snorted and never wanting the night to end. When the tube started running the next morning I was at least halfway to being madly in love.
We were practically babies. I was 18 (a cynical, city-bred-riot-gurl 18, but still 18). And of all the things that I chose then, (dubious outfits, terrible hair, the WRONG degree course) my sweetie was the best choice I made. Maybe ever. And I would choose him again and again. Then, and now.

Wait, where was I?
Oh yah! So Monday was SUCH a romantic night. We put the bear to bed. My sweetie cooked a feast. I put on something swishy. We used a tablecloth (swanky!). And we necked on the couch while watching Downton Abbey. It was PERFECT.
Part of my sweetie's giftie was kind of dumb but funny (at least in my head it's funny). He was in desperate need of new sockies, so I got 7 pairs (one sockie per year!) wrapped them up and made him a card with a pear on it that said WE are my favourite pair. Then totally chuckled to myself. A lot.

(You can't really see it but the paper is shiny and the pear has gold leaf on it. MAN I love shopping for swanky paper. I completely crack out and touch everything. Sometimes I sniff it. But Curry's frowns on licking the paper goods. Or, uh, so I've heard. )

royalty and poetry

2011-02-11T15:04:00.002-05:00

So, this is what I've been doing with my paws just recently,

It's for my sis (don't look Sarah!) and it's only half finished. The pattern is from Claire at the Crochet Spot (love those guys!), and it's way easier than it looks and SUPER instant gratificationy (my favourite.) I'll be overdying it, maybe yellow, maybe tourquise; something springy at any rate.

The other thing of note (well, to me) is that my bear has discovered rhyming. When left to his own devices he will roll words around on his tongue, making up rhymes or finding them and making himself laugh out loud,

"tree, snee, PEE".

Which, you guys, makes me ridiculously happy. See, I am a person who likes poetry. A LOT.

I like to write it (don't worry I won't inflict it on you). I like to read it. I like to memorize it and the say it out loud to myself when I'm in the shower (what? that's a thing!). If I have a particularly strong feeling I like to read poetry that resonates with it. I don't have a favourite poet and I don't even have a favourite era but if it's meaning condensed into the succinctest form then I'm all over it like a bad smell.

I particularly like an anthologie, because, you know, eclectic = awesome; and it's like being allowed a peek into its editors head. (if you're similarly inclined then two of my favorites are the Staying Alive and Being Alive by Neil Astley (this isn't one of those buy-it-and-I-get-cash things, I just loves them)).

normal

2011-02-08T22:08:00.001-05:00

Hoo boy! How did 3 weeks go by? What have you guys been up to? Obsessively watching the coverage from Egypt? Snuffling down and avoiding the snowy snowiness? Brick training for yer triathlon? Rearranging your wardrobe? No wait, that's what I've been doing!

And I finished my TBI story. Done. It was so difficult that I got stress blisters on my hands (my own personal brand of crazy) but it's done and I hope that it will be useful. I might stick all my TBI stuff on one page and whack it in my sidebar. In case anybody is curious or (oh man, I hope not) in the same sort of situation. On the plus side, writing a novel with smooching and a happy ending seems like cake in comparison.

I haven't made anything! In fact I haven't even finished the stuff I was working on, but I'm slowly getting back on track.

And my bear is turning 3! THREE! I have no idea how this can possibly be; but apparently TIME just happens.
We have a rocket ship party planned and I've been making magnetic invites with a kind of MCM, nuclear-age thing going on. And planning theme cocktails; COSMOnauts for grown-ups and COSMO-nots for the non boozy crowd. And a photobooth with space suit helmet cutouts. And dressing our door as a space ship hatch. I may get all crazy and make Teddy as space suit, but we'll see.
And my ma is going to be here! Which is so awesome on account of Teddy has been talking about her constantly since September (Grammie makes cake? We make a cake for grammie? Grammie reads stories? Grammie drive a van? A Wolgs-wagon van?)
And we're all potty trained around here! (Wait, TMI? Maybe? I DID mean Teddy.) Bribery is an ugly word. But you guys, it was straight bribery.

And that's pretty much it. I've been wardrobe remixing like crazy on account of The Big Cull. I'm keeping track of the whats and wheres (and wears); if I can't work something at least two ways it's OUTTA here. (I'm LOUSY at this though so it's taking some willpower.) And let's see, this post needs a picture so it doesn't look all nekkid...
How about some FEET? Two pair. Kind of matching.

And the real story is...

2011-01-22T01:21:00.000-05:00

I'll get back to the sort of blogging where I make stuff sometime soon, instead of the "hey, look at my kid and my sweetie" diversion tactics. Maybe. It has been a kind of a brain squeezing week for me. I am working on something that is HARD.
I'm writing something for my therapist, her name is Ramona and she is awesome. If you or your family ever need to be put back together after a Traumatic Brain Injury (and I can't tell you how much I hope you never do); then Ramona is your guy.
Right now she is working on a thing, a Field Guide to Brain Injury if you like, from a family's perspective. And she asked me contribute from my perspective.
I am genuinely honoured to be asked, but it's hard for a couple of reasons.
Firstly because it was not a superfun time; excavating those feelings from back then, then honing them down into words, the right words, to tell the story with honesty and integrity. Not so easy.
And I guess that's the other part of it. I do not want to fail. Because if someone had handed me a book that said, "this is the deal with brain injuries" on that shitty day in September, that might have helped. And to have the opportunity to help, that's a big deal.
And mostly what I want to say is,
Alive but broken is hard.
But alive is not nothing.
And alive and moving forward is the only thing.

x

Eggsactly

2011-01-21T08:51:00.001-05:00

Two days ago I was attacked by a VICIOUS EGG. I was. It came out of nowhere and sliced a bit of my thumb before whispering "This better learn you" and then peeling away in a waiting Jag.

OK maybe not the last part, but I sliced my paw on pretty much the roundest, fragilest thing in the world. And I made the mistake of telling this guy:

His response?

"Oh no! That must have been eggstremely painful"

Guess how many ways there are to put egg into a word? A million. And two days later he's still at it. It's gone beyond a yolk.

There, I Fixed That For You

2011-01-20T15:07:00.000-05:00

What's small, blonde and has the destructive power of 10 angry tigers armed with chainsaws?
Here's a clue:

whud'up?

And here's what this guy does for shiggles when I'm busy making a new slip cover for the couch (and therefor totally neglecting him)

There, I fixed that for you

That too.

And here's a bit more of a sneek peek at the reason for the radio silence and the child neglect. New couch covers. Dude. It's a LOT of work. but I love them so much. Actually I like the original crazy floral too, and this couch has a good story too, maybe for some other time.

Oh Olay, can't we all just get along?

2011-01-18T10:23:00.002-05:00

You guys! It's time, I feel, for a broad, sweeping statement based on dubious anecdotal evidence!

And here it is... I think maybe the folks at Olay hate Canadians. And I don't say that lightly (ok fine, yah I totally do say that lightly).
But see, Olay makes a thing-that-changed-my-life (they're not paying me here, thought they totally could - I've have no moral compass. No. Really.)
Their Complete Care Touch of Max Factor Foundation stuff is The Bomb. Moisturizer, sun screen, make-up. Three awesome things. One hamfisted once-a-day application. and DONE.
I LOVE this stuff.
I love it so much in fact, that I stole my first bottle from my mum, (see, I wasn't kidding about the moral compass thing).
And last month I squeezed the very last speck out of the pump and thought dude, I better go get some more of that soonest, if not sooner.
So I trotted down to the drugstore and hit up the Olay section. And nuffink. I even took the bottle with me so I knew what I was looking for. Nope, nada. I nabbed the makeup girl and was all "cough it up lady!" but apparently NOPE. Not available in Canada. But, according to her the Olay Total Effects 7 Signs yadda yadda with foundation is the same kinda deal. So I got some of that.
The verdict is... boo. I'm not saying it sucks, but it sucked on me. Orange, and slithery in texture and orange and slithery and YUCK. $30+ and I can't use it. I was cranky about it.
So cranky that I whined to my sweetie ALL day, "WHY? WHY don't they have my stuff here? WHY?"
All day. He eventually had the pained expression of a man in the middle of chewing his own arm off, I think maybe he deserves a medal of some kind.
So I did some research, found out that they hadn't actually discontinued it (HATE that. And I'm talking to you Floris perfumes), And that it's available in the UK and Ireland but not in Canada; leading me to believe that Olay hates Canadians (I will admit that this is a mental leap).
Anyhow, I hit up my European contacts (my mum!) and had her send me some. And it arrived yesterday and now my skin is happy.
I can't really remember what the point of this post was, and as a person who's facial cleanser comes in a bright pink bottle with dancing turtles on it; I dunno how qualified I am to offer makeup advice.

OH and I had my haircut! I kind of love it. Maybe I'll take some pictures and do a round up of From Hair to Eternity.

OK rant over and here's a picture of my dog-faced girl, being ridiculous with her chum Leroy Brown (he's baddest dog in the whole damn town).

Felt Pierogies... mmm

2011-01-13T09:48:00.001-05:00

Is there anything in the world more awesome than dumplings? That was totally a trick question, OF COURSE there's not!

So. Pierogies (actually at my house they're called "Pierogies... mmm") My bear is an enormous fan and he happens to have a play kitchen that needs stocking. So I whipped up a plate of felt Pierogies...mmm for him.
They were crazy-super simple and they could do double duty as Ravioli or Jiaozi or Gyoza depending on how you roll.
You'll need:

Some cream-ish felt (I use eco-felt for most everything, it's cheap and it does the job)
Some fiber fill. (I actually cannibalized a dollar store camping pillow for mine - lots of stuffing for dirt cheap)
Co-ordinating thread

You could make these with a sewing machine in seconds, but they're almost as quick to hand sew.

First you'll need to cut a circle of felt, (mine is 2.5", I drew around a cup). I used my pinking shears 'cause I think it looks cute, but it's not essential.

And...

you're done!

Next up is Char Siu Bao. mmm. huh. I don't seem to be cruising past this dumpling thing.... mmm.

Sure, it looks like nailpolish...

2011-01-12T23:31:00.003-05:00

And OK, I guess technically it IS nailpolish. But it also happens to be part of my triathlon training regime. No really, it is.

But firstly a tangent! You know, it's funny; I would never, ever (like I'd-rather-chomp-out-my-own-tongue ever) say to someone who had just had their first swim lesson "OH HEY. Good job fatass, there's another thing you suck at".

I wouldn't say it to someone I disliked. I wouldn't say it to a stranger and I sure as hell wouldn't say it to a friend.

But it's actually the mild version of what I was telling myself after my first swim lesson (on Nov 1st). Was it true? Maybe.That first lesson was TOUGH; I like the water just fine and I could swim enough not to drown. I didn't however, like jamming my head under the water and exercising vigorously. Or even just putting my head under the water, period.

But I did it. I turned up, I learnt some stuff and I did the best I could. If you had done the same thing I would be telling you how awesome you are RIGHT NOW. In fact, consider yourself told.

But I spent three weeks dreading going to class and practice, and then having nightmares about the race. Not like subtle "and this giant anchor tattoo represents your fear" nightmares. Oh no. Like "I swim and swim as hard as I can but I still don't come in under my time and I get disqualified and all my friends and family are so NICE about it that I would rather have drowned". That kind of nightmare.

So, I did this mental exercise thing with my homegirl Ramona, where I had to talk myself through my swim like I was someone I liked, you know, "Hey! Good for us! We didn't drown and we're totally getting better! Woo. You go us-girl!".

So I've been doing that and tonight... I KICKED MY DISTANCE'S ASS. For seriously. And um, I've been a little slack over the holidays (OK REALLY slack) which leads me to believe that the problem before wasn't my fitness level or my breathing so much as it was my brain. And now I can officially tell my brain to SUCK IT.

How does this relate to nail polish? Well for me pretty toes help me get my head ready for the swim. I feel more comfortable and confident with red toe-claws. So I do that. Also with the shaving my legs. In fact I prepare for the gym kind of the way I prepare for a date with my sweetie. Only with less high heels and smooching. heh.

When I'm doing the actual swim, spin (bike) or run. I don't let myself give me a hard time. I bust out my internal soccermom (only not the scary kind) and she stands on the sidelines yelling encouragement (she's SO embarrassing!).
Seriously though, my deal is that if I wouldn't say it to my kid, I can't say it to me. And so far it's working out pretty well.

So, you guys? How do you get yourself psyched up to train/work out? Do you give yourself a hard time or are you "yay for me!"? Any pre-game rituals I should know about?

(Oh and the oil stuff is for my face after the chlorine roshambo. It's the bomb.)

Christmas Leftovers - Faux Frosted Glass Jars

2011-01-10T14:27:00.015-05:00

I loves me some Christmas leftovers. I totally do.

Turkey = good.

Boxes of Lindt chocolaty thingies = better.

Plastic candy jars with lids = best.

See?

And if you're thinking "Dude. Really?" then stick with me here...

I picked up three of those guys from the Dollarama before Christmas; I'm guessing they were meant to be used for gifting homemade treats. I, however, have no homemade treat skillz. So I didn't do that with them. Instead I did THIS:

Buh-bye christmas-themed plastic item! Hullo classy frosted glass apothecary jar with year 'round storage usefulness!

And the BEST part about these? All I used to transform them was some nail polish remover and a clean kitchen scrubbie. Which I happened to have on hand. Which means free. Yay for free!

So, I used the nail polish remover and a bit of paper towel to wipe the print off of the plastic. You could totally stop there. That looks like this, see:

Otherwise, grab your clean kitchen scrubbie and rub gently on the surface of the plastic in small circles until you've reached your desired level of opacity (You guys! I LOVE the word opacity. And I hardly ever get to use it.)

If you were feeling kind of fancypants you could mask off some areas with tape (or say, heart shaped stickers to make a VALENTINES candy jar?)

And that's it. Done. I'm using mine as STUFF holders in my bathroom, (yay for unbreakability!)

How are you using your Christmas leftovers?

Oh and I shared over at Melissa's (complete with embarrassing spelling mistake. GAH!)

And over HERE too!

Play Kitchen In A Bag

2011-01-06T17:27:00.008-05:00

Hey you know when is a good time to decide to make your kid a play kitchen? Any other time than 7 days before Christmas. (You might have seen this lapse of sanity in my twitter feed. If you see anything like it again, do feel free to give me a good hard punch and a "seriously?")

See I got started making felt sushi, ('member?) and that was super fun. So I made some edamame. And that was fun too. Then I saw a tute for broc-a-trees on exactly the same day I thought "huh, we could use some brocs" (uncanny!). And then we happened to pick up a little set of pots and pans when we were at ToysRus (more about those later). Then things might have got a bit out of control.

I gave some serious thought to an Ikea hack of a bedside table but I just couldn't make it work size-wise. And then I saw this roll-up version at Balancing Everything and was all "OH YAH YOU DID!" and I did a little dance and that was that.

So, I give you... The Play Kitchen in a Bag!

Now obviously the real props here go to Jessica. The only things that I modified on her design was to add knobs that turn. (um, notice the deliberate mistake in the shot with Teddy; I totally didn't add the second knob 'til after he got it!)

I used three layers of white, medium weight felt for the base and I sewed the elements, sink and faucets on with a close zigzag stitch after I stitch-tacked them down.

Then I stuck the top layer on the bottom two base layers and zipped around the edges with the same zig zag stitch (no turning inside out for me, I'm too lazy).

Next I poked two grommets ($1.99 for a pack of 14 from Fabriclnd) through all three layers of base felt (yay for whacking things with a hammer!).

I sewed the big buttons onto smaller buttons through the grommet holes. Leaving enough slack so that the big buttons can be twirled all the way around.

And voila!

Wondering what ELSE is in the bag? WELL...

We got this set of pots and pans and tools from ToysRus (they're OK but not awesomesauce. I wish we'd have held out and gotten the Ikea Kids Duktig sets).

And some baking supplies (and some cookies):

A couple of pasta dishes (felt farfalle and ribbon basgetti) and some brocs, cauliflower, beans and carrots for sauteeing:

Also eggies for frying (inspired by Heidi's tute actually), the sushi and SAMMICH fixin's . The pink thing is Montreal Smoked Meat, or you know, ham.

And lastly, a bottle of dish soap and a scrubbie, for the unlucky guy on KP duty.

Talking of KP, when it comes time to clear up, the food goes into a take out container

And everything else goes into a clear plastic box,

And the whole shebang goes into the shopping bag!

The Bear mostly cooks "veg-bill curry" and "clown chowder (it's like clam chowder but infinitely creepier)" and "I making PIEROGIES mummy. Are they awe-sum?" Mmm pierogies. Yes, yes they are awesome. Actually I should make some felt pirogies right now. Also maybe some real ones. with butter. and bacon. and butter. hooboy.

Lastly of all I wanted to say that if you're stocking a play kitchen then you could do worse than hitting up your dollar store. I scored this stuff at the Dollarama, and the clear box to jam it all into too.

So, yah, I'm doing a triathlon...

2011-01-06T01:15:00.007-05:00

So here's where I'm going to talk a bit about this triathlon thing I'm doing. If you're feeling all "WHATEVER lady, I came here for the crafts" then you should hop over to One Pretty Thing about nowish, I guarantee Rachel has something awesome to look at.

Otherwise, I'm going t'be talking about me me me here for a minute...

So yah. A triathlon. It's just a tiny one, teeny distances, super rookie-friendly. It's called a Try-A-Tri. They prolly have cupcakes and hugs for everybody. But you guys. I have/had the gut wrenching terror about it.

See, way back in '09 the very second post I ever wrote was this one. It's about the first aquafit class I ever took. Now, Aquafit (then later Deep Water Running) was the only exercise I ever stuck with for more than 3 months. On account of how it's FUN. Swishy, mermaidy, fun. It genuinely changed my life.

Then in June of last year I realised that swishy-mermaid-fun wasn't cutting it anymore. So I took a spin class, and I did Julia Jones 5K training plan. I wrote about that here.

Those first sessions were barf-inducingly hard, but I kept at it and they got easier. And eventually they even got to be FUN. Running with my fuzzy dog girl on warm summer evenings - genuinely nice. WHO KNEW?!

I had planned on doing a 5k race in September. But by early July I hit a big-deal-for-me milestone, 3k (there was a sunset, it was pretty, I didn't puke; you can read about that here). And by August a 5K run was just what I did on a Friday. I guess I still could have done a race, but racing was never really the point for me.

So, cut to October, I'd settled into my running/spin/pilates routine, I guess I must have seen something on the internetses and the idea of a triathlon passed through my mind super briefly, like REALLY super briefly. But here's what happened, as written to my good chum Ian

me: So I was idly wondering about triathlon, and talking to Elliot about it 'cause M (his ex) used to do triathlon.And he and Andy both rolled their eyes in a YUH HUH way(*they DID. Polite incredulity totally yanks my chain).
Ian: you could do a triathalon. The secret to these things is that once you reach a basic level of fitness, it's all psychological
me: I didn't really want to before but now I'm like, "WHAT? Yes I could. Sure, I'd be the world fattest, slowest, triathlete; but I could finish a sprint race"
I might have to learn something a bit more effctive than old lady swim, but essentially the distances are just a spin class and a friday run. So I'm pondering.
Ian: Your basic front crawl isn't that hard. You can totally do a triathalon. And it'd be worth it just for the "I told you lazy fatasses* I could do a triathalon" effect.
me: I KNOW right?

So, I did a little more research and hit upon the Guelph Lake Try-a-Tri. And I'm in (or I will be once registration opens for reals).

And I managed to coerce another chum into this same gig. She's training for a half marathon anyway (crazy!).

So that's that. I think maybe I'm going to do a few more posts on this, but I won't be offended if you skip them. And here's a picture of my Non-Human training partner, so this post doesn't look all nekkid.

What's funny is that this girl could kick a triathlons' ass. She run's 16-19K with Ian. She swims like a fuzzy fish. And she's super happy doing it. The bike is the only problem, though I betchu she could manage on a Big Wheel. Hmmmmm.....

* for the record, neither of those boys are actually fatasses. They are skinnny men who can eat whatever they like. Which is WORSE!

The Incredible Magnetic Boy

2011-01-04T09:34:00.007-05:00

Hey, you know what would be awesome? Being able to magnetize my kid and stick him to the fridge so he couldn't get into shenanigans while I was doing the dishes. What's that? You're calling child services? Oh. Did I say awesome? I meant awful. bad. terrible.

Le sigh.

Turns out there's only one socially acceptable way to stick your progeny to the fridge. Like ziz...

This is part of the magnetic, dress up-able bear set that I made Teddy's grammie for Christmas.

This isn't a tutorial exactly, on account of how I use Photoshop like a chimp trying to tie a bowtie; you know, with honking rage and tears of frustration.

But what I did was take a picture of the shortpants there against a lightish backdrop. Then I meddled with it a bit in Picnik (so much less scary that Photoshop, and free!).

Then I used photoshop to cut and paste it onto a white background and go around the edges of my bear in white. I used a biggish brush with a blurry edge.

I took pictures of some of the bear's favorite things, like Mr. T-bone Walker up there (you can call him T-Bone, he's cool like that) and a few different hats, his bear ears, fire chief and yellow hard hat. I also scavenged a flower and a balloon offa the internets.

I outlined them in photoshop too then I resized them and moved them all onto the image of the bear, so I could make sure they fit him like. Here's where most of the honking howls of frustration came in.

Next I used Picnik to make a word -bubble that says "HI!" and a heart with "I Love Grammie" in it.

I saved my files as jpgs then printed those suckers down at the drugstore. You could use your own printer but mine is LOUSY and for 19c a pop you can't really go wrong.

Once I had them printed I cut my images out then stuck them on sticky magnetic sheets, trimmed the magnetic backing and voila, fridge-ready.

Presentation wise, I stuck them on a bit of card with some rolled up tape and popped them in an envelope.

I might ALSO have made my guy chums some Vargas Girl pin up magnets for their fridges using the same technique. And that might have looked like this... (Look away now if you're offended by scantily clad women or copyright infringement)

But I'm not admitting to anything on account of how those images do have copyrights and googling "Vargas Girls" will show you some genuinely nasty things and may acquire you a virus so bad that it decimates your computer and makes you cry like a baby at the thought of losing every single picture you have. Or, ahem, so I've heard.

Festive!

2011-01-03T12:16:00.005-05:00

You guys! We had us a Super Extra Awesome Funtimes christmas! Really, genuinely brill. With food and chums and The Fat Man and peanuts for reindeer (reindeer're all about the protein, flying requires muscle mass baby.) And gifties for my bear and chums and eating and eating and eating and chums. and REALLY BIG DEAL legal news (the good kind, I can't wait to tell you guys about it) and a New Year Soiree. And lounging around and reading books of dubious educational merit . And And And... Awesome.

Also a tiny bit of heartbreak. The switch to the big boy bed. Holy cats you guys! SO hard. (Teddy was stoked but I had to keep sneaking off to snivel.) And a writing assignment that must be good for me because it's brutal. I might get up the gumption to talk about it here in a bit.

Oh yah! I almost destroyed my computer and the ONLY copies of our pictures (um. backing up is a good idea. Turns out.) but my HEROIC sweetie and a good chum's BOY SCOUT PREPAREDNESS saved the day (thanks Ian).

I did miss my brother something fierce, he was gallivanting (GALLIVANTING I tell you!) around Europe. But he's home soon. Also! I have nefarious plans to lure my sis and her sweetie over here soon. Ok fine. Not that nefarious, I'm just going to ask her in a wheedly way a squillion times until she caves.

So far this '11 has been great and I have some REALLY BIG PLANS. Triathlon. Banjo. The BOOK. Driving (I'm not so excited about the last one).

Oh and hey! Want to see how many of my favourite guys it takes to cut down a toddler's hockey stick? This many!

OK, now I'm off to see what YOU'VE all been up to.

Man Gift Five - Gobble, Chew, Slurp

2010-12-20T07:56:00.006-05:00

While I've been doing a bunch of stuff I can't blog about (sneaky giftie stuff). It's gotten to be only two big sleeps until The Fat Man In Red arrives. (2! How?) Which could mean EITHER that it's time to freak out and panic. OR that it's the perfect time to whip up some last minute edible gifties. OR BOTH! (yay for multi-tasking.)
These edible gifties are my Ma's contribution to the Man Gifts canon. Which is a a GOOD thing; because while my cooking is distinctly average, my mum's is EXTRAORDINARY. (Dinner party for 25? Done. Baking for the local cafe? NO PROBLEM. Deliciousness in general? BINGO!)
Also, there's a good chance that anybody who has tastebuds will like these. So they're not man exclusive.
Hokay. First up is...

Chocolate nut and fruit squares

150g milk chocolate
150g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)
100g butter
4 T golden syrup (or corn syrup)

75 g blanched almonds roughly chopped

50 g dried cherries OR cranberries OR giant raisins

75 g BROKEN graham wafers not crushed

100 g white chocolate broken into pieces (do not melt)

grease and line an 18 cm pan (you could stick it in the freezer while you're making the goodies)

Put the first 4 ingredients into a heat proof bowl, melt in microwave or OVER saucepan of simmering water. Mix well until smooth.

Add 2/3 of each of the other ingredients, pour into pan.

Scatter remaining ingredients over the top.

Chill until solid.

Turn out and cut into squares.

For variation use toasted pecans instead of almonds

use wafer biscuits instead of digestives or use gluten free cookies

Sounds good right? Also easy.And you could round the giftie with some savoury snacks. Spicy ones. num.

Spicy Pumpkin Seeds

2 cups raw pumpkin seeds (the hulled ones)

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp cayenne

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp chilli powder

1 tsp salt

1 T lime juice

Heat oven to 375c.

Toss all the ingredients together in a bowl and then spread on a baking sheet

Bake, shaking the pan once or twice until lightly browned 5 - 7 minutes. You'll need to watch these. Like a HAWK. A hawk with a monacle and an interest in spicy pumpkin seeds.

Cool, store in jars.

Only make these 1 or 2 days in advance of giving. So nowish would be perfect! You could stick these in plastic bags and pop a topper over them. Perhaps this one here? (Rudolph loves him some chilli).

A $12 Rental Bathroom Makeover (again)

2010-12-16T22:18:00.013-05:00

Way back when, ooou a squillion (ok like, 3) years ago, I had a rental bathroom that I hated. And while my first choice was to SACK IT LIKE CARTHAGE. I didn't. (I'm restrained, see!)
Instead I used $20 dollars worth of dollar store stuff. And I fixed it. You can read all about it right here. But here're the previous before and after shots:
We still have that same rental bathroom; but since then we've had a new bath and shower and tiles put in. But the hideous early 60's sliding door'd cabinet is a keeper apparently.
SO, that's the backstory. On Wednesday night I was whipping around the dollar store for supplies (adhesive photo-magnet backing, but that's a different post) and I spotted some sticky mirrors and had a lightbulb moment.
So, I picked up.

3 self adhesive mirrors- $2 a piece
4 plastic placemats - 2 for a dollar
3 new hand towels -$1 each
a lidded glass jar - $1
AND a big sheet of vinyl butterfly wall sickies - $2
Total = $12

The first thing I did was cut the placemats to size to use as new sliding doors, then I just stuck them over the same backing I used before (the skinny for that is here).
Big change already, and it took all of about 5 minutes.

Now, the slidey doors don't really need handles; but I happen to have some pushpins (you know, the kind for corkboard?) in the shape of teeny weeny birdies. I bought them 4 years ago from the dollar store but I've never used them for anything even though I LOVES them. Anyhow, I stuck them through the new doors and secured them with a tiny spot of Mighty Putty (like off the teeeveeeee!) Et voila. Door handles.

Then I gave the wall a quick clean and dry and stuck my new mirrors on. I was worried about how sticky they were but the answer is DUDE. PRETTY STICKY. So I lined them up careful like, and bam, another big change (If you're a renter and need to undo the stickiness, try giving stuff a blast with a hairdryer before peeling it off).

Next up I needed storage, so I dragged in some metal flowerpot buckets from the balcony(they were originally form the dollar store, anybody else sensing a theme emerging here?), and stuck stuff in them. Tubby toys? BINGO. Hairbrushes? YUP.)

I also popped stuff like Pointy Metal Objects and hair bungees in the little jar I got. Then bunged a bit o' ribbon round it.

Next really big thing was the shower curtain. I have only just recently got over the opaque shower curtain = certain death by serial killer fear that's plagued me for years. (Thanks Hitchcock you big, jowly, jerk).
Anyhow, I happened to have a piece of fabric in my stash that I love a ridiculous, paralyzing amount. My ma brought it home for me from Sardinia when she was there ( I know right!) and it's a pink and paisley patterned cotton and it feels BLOODY GLORIOUS.
But I love it so much I couldn't decide what to do with it. At all. And it's just been sitting there in the drawer. So I whipped it out, folded it over and used a handful of safety pins as curtain hooks and stuck it over top of the shower curtain we had up already. Now I get to see it everyday and I can still make something out of it next summer. And when my chums ask if I'm wearing a shower curtain I'll be all "YAH I AM!".

OK, back to the bathroom. The last thing I did was scatter butterflies all over the joint. I wanted it to look like one of those Victorian specimen boxes had come to life and gone nuts in there. And just so you know, random is HARD for me. I am a Person Who Likes Symmetry; but I like how they turned out more.

And that would be that. One bathroom. Half an hour. $12.
In case you're curious, this is what is written on the door (um, prolly best not to look too close at the pictures if you're easily offended, the girls there are Edwardian nudey shots (100 year old porn!), a gift from my sis and the start of a my collection)

And lastly, I just wanted to say something on the subject of renting; we've been in our current apartment for 4 years and a few days. Which you guys, has gone RIDICULOUSLY fast. We never really intended to be here for so long, and there are/were plans for buying a place. But you know how it is right? In addition to the Insecure Jobmarket Two-Step we've been dancing a few rounds of the Visa Application Tango. I know my sweetie is eager to get our own place but our lives here have been brilliant so I'm not in a hurry.

sneak peekery

2010-12-16T00:23:00.006-05:00

You guys! Want to see a sneak peek of my new bathroom do over?

Pink! Black and white florals! Glass with grosgrain ribbons! Shiny new mirrors and my TOTALLY favorite part... BUTTERFLIES! (also tiny weeny birds!). It's so girly! My sweetie looked a little bemused when when I yelled for him to come look (I didn't tell him I was doing it), but he says he likes.
The best part? Half an hour and $12. And job done.
It's the second project I've done today that came out as well as I hoped it would. SO yay for productive days.

Man Gift Four - Eye Eye Captain!

2010-12-14T09:19:00.008-05:00

These are more of a silly-thing-stocking-stuffer than an actual giftie, and I feel kind of cheaty calling this a tute. BUT I've given these to a bunch of people for various occasions and they're grin-inducing. So onto the list they go!
Ready?

Yup. That's it.
You grab a bag of googly eyes (I got mine from the dollar store), a handful of magnets (also from the dollar store) and some strong glue.
It's a good idea to stick your magnets to something metal before you apply the eyeballs, to make sure you're putting the eye on the wrong (repelling) side of the magnet. Next add a spot o' glue and an eyeball, then let them dry for a good while.
And that's it.
Presentation wise, you can stick them on bit of card with a face on it. And voila, anthropomorphic EVERYTHING! Is it a microwave? NO! it's Sir Nukesalot! Is it a fridge? No! it's MR. FRIDGE! Is it...

I've also made sticker versions. You can buy eyes with adhesive on the back already, but I use double-sided scrapbooking foam mount (cut into circles slightly smaller than the eyes) which means they can be stuck onto uneven surfaces. Like this:

And all of these.
I'd just like to note that the stickies are removable and don't damage surfaces, so while this might look like a spot of vandalism, technically it's more sort of Littering With Intent. (and I never mess with things that might compromise other folks safety, like warning signs or fire hydrants.)

Made of Weird

2010-12-14T07:55:00.003-05:00

My kid is pretty bizarro. And it makes me ridiculously happy.

I suspect that this guy might have been the problem.

"mmmm... shoes"

Shiny, lucky (and kinda rambly)

2010-12-11T00:54:00.010-05:00

You guys! This weekend has been super shiny and awesome. With tree acquiring and salt dough and tree trimming and bunting making and friends and dinner and cocktail hat making and and secret santa-ing and a hors d'oeuvre and 25 people squeezed in here. SHINY I tells you!

The tree was acquired early Friday morning from City TV's Charity Tree Deal. Whereby the kids at City fill up Dundas Sq with Christmas trees (and this year a SUPER jaunty tenor choir - LOVED those guys) and sell Christmas trees to raise money for The Food Bank. Which just works for me on a bunch of different levels. Firstly of all, the getting up early and walking down there, all bundled up makes it seem like an occasion. And the square smells so GOOD. And we get our tree and we get to make a donation to a charity that's a pretty big deal for me.
As an aside, can you imagine how difficult it would be to have to worry about something as basic as feeding yourself or your family? I'm IMMENSELY grateful never to have been in that position; but you guys, I feel like all that is is luck.
Where was I?
OH YAH! My sweetie carried the tree home two and a half city blocks for us, hoisted over his SHOULDER. And oooh la la but that man looks good getting his lumberjack on. Mouth-dryingly yum. Then of course we had to grump and wrangle about where exactly we were going to put it. (I won!).
The bear was WIGGLY with excitement about the whole process. And was an enormous help putting the lights on the tree. He's available for a modest fee if you're looking for a short blond to help out by standing on wires and cooing
"Izz so boot-a-wul (beautiful). You see? you see? Ours tree is Boot-a wul!"

Next came a foray into the unknown for me. We made salt dough! I'd never done it before, but I saw the how-to over at Aunt Peaches (have you been over there? YOU SHOULD! Really, she makes beautiful stuff, but even better, her writing is extraordinary; I went for the paper flowers and stayed for the laugh-out-loud-with-a-dash-of-heartbreak storytelling. I'm a fan.)

Anyhow, the bear and I whipped up a batch of salt dough gingerbread chaps. Only some genius (me) decided to add a bit of food colouring to the dough. They turned out the same anemic, fleshy pink as my legs after a long winter. Not cool. Creepy in fact. Like a trayful of nekkid faceless people. But we painted them a nice gingerbready colour on Friday night and we're all agree to never mention it again.

On friday night I also made a bit of bunting,

And some smooching paper birds.

And Saturday morning the bear and I made craft paper gingerbread guys to decorate for our secret santa shindig.

And lastly I got WAY overdressed for that self same party. See:

And I made a cocktail hat! Well technically I stuck 3 dollarstore coasters on a dollarstore headband and painted them black. But I'm totally calling it a cocktail hat! See:

It was a fun time. And you guys are all invited for Our New Year's Soiree!

Hey as an aside, I worry a bit about sounding smug when I write about the nice stuff in my life. BUT, I AM lucky and writing it down helps me remember that I am, and it helps me to pluck the shiny, awesome moments out of the drab ones. That said, I TOTALLY won't be offended if you skip the Lucky Me posts!
x

Monster? Owl? Rabbit?

2010-12-08T15:09:00.007-05:00

You guys, the time has come, I feel, to have a frank discussion about the awesomeness of interchangeable eye'd stuffies.
Because if not now then WHEN!? And if not us then who (wait do I mean whom? Maybe I do) and if not...
OK, so really all I wanted to say was that these guys here KILL me with their cuteness.

They're called Oddbods, and their eyes and badges are interchangeable. I'm a fan and I think maybe you should check them out HERE.
I have this theory that Mildred Brown and Eric have some kind of EPIC love story going on (WAY more epic than Twilight) but I could be wrong, see what you think and report back?
On a slightly less crazy note, these guys are made by someone pretty awesome, to whom I am tenuously connected and for whom I wish good things. So yay for Nikki.
x

Man Gifts Three - Farah Makes... a BAG!

2010-12-06T10:36:00.003-05:00

Squee! You guys, we have a guest! (The bloggy kind, so I don't have to change out of my sweats or clean the house or anything!)
Farah from over at Farah Makes Stuff is AWESOME (she's got sewing GAME!).
Today she's been kind enough to come on by and share the skinny on a Man Gift that is pretty much, oh, the bomb. It's useful, cute and appliqued and comes complete with instructions that ACTUALLY make sense! ( I know right!?)
Ready?
Take it away Farah!

Hello luck and bliss readers!

My name is Farah, from Farah makes Stuff. I was soooo honoured when Erin asked me to do a guest post for her man gift series. I have been reading her blog for a while, and on top of her adorable writing style, I love her creativity and resourcefulness! Plus, she lives in the same city as me! Toronto for the win!

Sewing for a man can be a challenge, but since I have 2 very special men in my life, I am always up for that challenge. My project is a man-bag (murse?), or a special, masculine, custom bag for your man and his iPad. I first made this bag for myself, but when my husband got an iPad, we realized it fit perfectly. So a few tweaks on the pattern, and an applique chosen by the man, and we have the iPad Man-Bag.

Here we have a nice, masculine, messenger bag style satchel, which can be gussied up with an applique, or left simple. Inside is a padded sleeve for an Ipad (or heck, maybe even for another electronic gadget) plus room for a wallet, keys, comic book etc. The applique can be suited to your man's own interests.

Or make one for your self. I made this pink one (minus the iPad sleeve) almost 2 years ago and use it as a purse very often.

What you need:

-Main fabric (A) - About 1 meter of a heavy cotton (home dec weight, denim or twill would be great. I used Corduroy)
-Lining (B) - About 1/2 meter of lining, I used black twill, but a lighter cotton would work)
-Ipad sleeve fabric (maybe 1/2 meter?)
-a bit of poly batting
-24 inches of twill tape
-a bit of velcro
-for applique, scrap of fabric (you could use the lining fabric), and some Heat n Bond
-some metal snaps or buttons
-a bit of bias tape

Cut List:
-from main fabric (A),
cut 1 piece 12 x 20.5 inches (front/back)
2 pieces 9 x 2.5 inches (sides)
1 piece 12 x 18 inches (front flap)
1 piece 8 x 58 inches (this was the width of my fabric) (strap)

from lining (B),
cut 1 12 x 20 inches (front/back)
cut 2 9 x 2.5 inches (sides)

on the side pieces (both the main fabric and lining) round one of the shorter edges so you have a U shape. I traced around a round pin box to get the round shape.
On the front flap piece, round all 4 corners (i used the same pin box to round the corners)

from the twill tape,
cut 2 pieces 8 inches long, and 2 pieces 4 inches long

Sewing Directions (1/4 inch seams)

1- Sew front/back piece of A to side pieces of A by easing the longer sides of the front/back piece to the U curve of the side piece. Do this for both side pieces. You will find that the front/back piece is a little bit too long and there will be extra fabric. Ensure the extra fabric is on the same side (at the back) for each side.
2 - Repeat step 1 with the lining pieces B
3 - Turn lining assembly right side out, and put into main fabric assembly, matching top raw edges, and side seams. pin in place. Trim extra length on the back so the edges line up all around. (the extra length is there to allow some room for error in sewing around the curves on the side pieces, we don't need it anymore). Sew lining to main bag around top edge, leaving a 2 inch gap on the top back for turning.
4 - Turn bag ride side out through the gap, press lining inside bag, and slip seam allowance of the gap in. pin gap closed. Top stitch around top of the bag, closing gap as you stitch. set bag aside.
5 - Lay front flap piece face up in front of you, and decide on applique placement. The 12 inch shorter edge is the bottom/top of the flap piece.

let's take a break now and discuss the applique. The applique on my bag is a Cactaur, which is a monster from the Final Fantasy video games. My husband picked this design. On the pink bag seen above, I appliqued an asterisk on the bag, because I thought it matched the graphic print of the fabric. Make sure the applique is a simple design, as you don't want to be sewing anything too complicated. A mustache? a Muppet? perhaps a star wars emblem? How about a giant squid? or even an apple. You could even do a monogram.

Google the picture you want, and look through the images to find one that will work. Once you have selected your image, trace it onto the paper side of the Heat n Bond. (I put my paper right up onto my computer screen and trace it with a felt tip pen, instead of bothering to print it first). Remember that it will be backwards when ironed on to the bag, so ensure your picture is flipped. Cut out the heat n bond loosely around your picture, and then press it (paper side up, iron on silk setting) onto the back of your applique fabric. Now cut out the applique fabric and heat and bond at the same time, being as precise as possible. There. You made an applique. Now back to the sewing instructions.

6 -Peel the paper off the back of your applique and place it face up on your front flap piece. The applique should be only in the lower third of your flap piece, and be clear about 1/2 inch from the edges for seam allowances. once you are happy with the placement, iron in place. You can go hotter than the silk setting this time to make sure it really sticks.
7 - Edge stitch around the perimeter of the applique. This may not be necessary if you are using the permanent (ultra) heat n bond, but I like too anyway both for definition and for security.
8 - Fold your flap piece in half, right sides together, matching corners, so the applique is in the inside. You should now have a 12 x 9 flap piece, with a fold at the top, and rounded corners at the bottom.
9 - sew around the sides and bottom of flap, leaving a 2 inch gap on one side for turning. clip curves before turning.
10 - turn right side out, press flat, top stitch around perimeter, closing gap as you stitch. Flap done.
11 - pin the flap to the top bag of the bag. The top of the flap sits outside the bag, about 1/2 inch down from the top edge of the bag.
12 - stitch flap in place by top stitching close to the edge of the flap.

13 - make strap. Fold strap piece lengthwise in half and press. fold each raw edge into the center (as if you are making really big bias tape) and press. Top stitch around entire strap, tucking raw edges on short ends in as you sew.

14 Stitch strap onto bag on the sides by sewing a box with an x in it on the strap. The straps should be sewed on the inside of the bag.

15 - Add some snaps or buttons (and button holes, of course) to the bag to close it up and you're done your bag! Stop here if you man has no need for a padded iPad pouch.

For the padded iPad sleeve
1 - cut two pieces of fabric, 17 x 10.5 (one lining, one main), and one piece batting a bit bigger than that.
2 - place the lining fabric face down. place the batting on that, then the main fabric on top, face up. make sure edges of lining and main fabric line up, batting should stick out a bit around. pin in place.
3 - add some quilting stitches through the whole thing to hold the layers in place, starting from the middle and working out. I stitched vertical lines 2 inches apart. Use a walking foot if you have one. If not, should be okay anyway.
4 - Once it is quilted, trim off excess batting, and fold in half, with the main fabric to the outside. you should have a pouch which is about 8.5 x 10.5.
5 - use a serger, or a zig -zag stitch close to the edge to sew up up the side seams. I stitched on the outside with raw edges showing because i did not want the bulkiness of a seam on the inside with the iPad. if you prefer, sew wrong sides together and flip right side out. You could also finish the side seams with bias tape, but my sewing machine would not go through all those layers.
6 - finish top edge of pouch with bias tape. iPad sleeve done.

Straps to hold iPad in bag
1 - sew the soft side of a small square of Velcro onto one edge of each the longer twill tape pieces, tucking in raw edge under velcro. sew the prickly side onto the shorter pieces the same way.
2 - about 2 inches from each edge, pin the shorter twill tape pieces in place on the top back of the bag only, not on the flap. this picture may help understand where they go. The bag is inside out here. The straps are placed on that little 1/2 inch overlap we left on the inside when sewing the flap in place. Place it so the velcro is face down when the straps are pointing down towards the bottom of the bag. sew in place.

3 - sew the corresponding long pieces of twill tape onto the bottom of the bag, also about 2 inches from the sides, and close to the back of the bag. This time your velcro is face up when the strips are in place. see this picture below. when sewing, the stitches will show on the outside of the bag, so make sure your thread matches the bag. Again, the picture shows the bag inside out.

4 - slip the iPad in the sleeve, place the sleeve in the bag and secure in place with the twill tape straps. Ta-Da! you have now made a custom man-bag with a secure, padded iPad sleeve. And there is room in front of the iPad for your man's wallet, blackberry, and comic book. He'll love it. I promise.
I know I am not very good at writing instructions. Please feel free to email me with any questions, and let me know if you make the man-bag!

OK! Me again. Didn't she do well! (You should go on over and hit the folla' button.)
Thanks THIS MUCH for sharing Farah.
x

monday. huh.

2010-12-06T08:25:00.002-05:00

monday. yah it is.

Suckfest of a weekend here, with the snivelling and the facegoo and the snorting and the missing out on Christmas movie watching parties and the one eyeball constantly leaking from sinus pressure so I look like a sad, squinty, bloodshot-eye'd pirate. Arrrh.

whine whine whine whine WHINE.
And weeeeeee're done. Hope your weekend was WAY more awesome.
x
Also, I'm hustling over here this morning (and hooboy there's good stuff out there today).
x

Small Animal in the Spirit House,

2010-12-03T12:02:00.000-05:00

I was just thinking about something I'd almost forgotten and then I though OH crap I better write that down or it'll be gone.
You know how we love the ROM right? Me and that short blond. Well one of us only loves 98% of the ROM. The other 2%, well...
The lobby of the ROM has a space called the Spirit House, it's a darkish space with crazy angled walls and bouncy acoustics. And there's a permanent Art/Sound Installation Thing (wow, they should let me write the brochure). It features sounds. Random sounds. That bounce off the walls and reverberate and actually are kind of awesome.
Anyhow, back when I was waddling, hefty, miserable pregnant I would go in an perch my swollen caress on the sophisticated-but-uncomfortably slithery chairs in there.
And fetus Teddy would completely love it. He would either instantly settle down and stop kicking me in the organs. Or he would wake up and rock out, depending on the sounds. He appeared to particularly like the deep base sounds. It was nice thing to do at a time that was otherwise frankly kindoflousy.

So, when I took him into the Spirit room for the first time post- womb, I kind of expected that he would like it.
Yah.
Not so muchly.

The first sound was a grumbly purr then a deep, bear-type growly noise. And apparently whatever is programmed into small animals to make them fear large growly ones works just fine in Teddy. Because he completely lost his noodles. And tried to climb into my face. Whimpering (apparently full-on screeching makes you an easier target) and shaking. I got him out of there instantly AND I managed not to laugh at him (that gets me a parenting award right?). And we haven't been in there since.
The whole thing made me think about the fact that infants are kind of snack sized for the big carnivores or hell, even an Eagle with the right can-do attitude.
I don't know where I was going with this, I guess I just mean Babies - Squishy and Delicious.

I don't know about now though, this guy looks like he could beat an eagle in a bar fight.

OK. Done here. Carry on.

Man Gift TWO - Leather 'Tache Keychain

2010-12-02T21:57:00.002-05:00

Just for the record this giftie doesn't HAVE to be mustache shaped (if you're suffering Movember burnout or you aren't into awesomeness). Essentially all you're doing is sewing two pieces of leather together and adding a taggy to hold a keyring. And voila, nice tactile keyring in the shape of your choice.
It could be pretty much anything.
I just like 'taches.
And I've given these as Man Gifts with some success before...

Ready to get started?
The first thing you'll need is some leather. Mine started life like this:

Well OK, I guess technically it started life as a cow, but at some point it became a handbag that I found at Goodwill for $4.99 (but It was half off day so I paid $2.50). There is enough leather here for a few projects.
So I hacked it up.
Now bearing in mind that all my leather working experience is "huh, I wonder if that'll work?" And it sometimes ends up with "OH CRAP! IT'S ON FIRE!" these are a few things that I found useful when prepping my leather to work with.

Clean is good. And it's way easier to clean a whole handbag with leather cleaner (or a damp cloth) than it is an itty bitty keychain.
Don't quote me on this BUT I found that ironing the rough side of the leather made it a bit easier to handle when sewing. But test a patch first.
I kind of don't love specific leather needles. In fact I had better luck with a ball point/knits needle than with the leather specific one.
You know the extra strong thread? Gutterman does some? You don't need that. In fact my leather and machine both HATED it.

OK. Next step is to find your shape. Not tooooooo detailed unless you're looking to make yourself crazy, because you'll be leaving some space outside of your stitching line. I made my 'tache template freehand. But this is the internets! There's cool stuff everywhere!

Next you'll need to mark your design onto your leather. Pencil/pen works fine for this.

Just make sure there's enough room for your design on the two pieces of leather (of roughly the same colour and texture) with wrong sides facing. You only need trace your design onto one piece of your leather.
The next step is optional. But I like to sew the two piece of leather together, so I don't have to worry about them slipping. Like this see:

Now the next step is to sew your design. Sew through both pieces of leather along your template lines (if you want sewn details do them on each single piece of leather separately first).
This is the point where you should decide where you want your loop bit to go (the bit that you'll attach the metal circle too). All you do to make the loop is fold over a piece of leather (this is WAY easier if you iron it a bit first). Then sammich it between the two main parts of the keychain, where it well be caught up in your stitching.
Now it' time to sew! (you've set up your stitch and tension already on two layers of scrap leather haven't you? OK. Awesome.)
You should go slowly. Really slowly. Fast won't win you anything but howls of rage and wasted bit of leather. Ask me how I know (and notice that the next picture is of a different piece of leather... and that it's scraggly because I apparently don't learn) SLOW IS GOOD! Also, you don't have to use a contrasting colour here, I did for tute purposes (this keychain is going on my keys, not under the tree) a shade that matches is more forgiving.

Right! Now you've sewn 'round your design and caught your loop; it's time to cut your shape out. Best to use sharp scissors and to give yourself some wiggle room. Also, cut through the layers that the loop is sammiched between separately.
The last step is optional, but I like to finish off the raw edges of the leather with my trusty brown acrylic paint pen, applied really carefully. I bet a Sharpie (maybe even in a contrasting colour) would work really well too.
And voila! One keychain/super useful portable disguise.

The Randoms...

2010-11-30T08:46:00.005-05:00

Quick. Somebody hide me. There's a BOX (a whole BOX!) of Twinkies in my kitchen. Whispering seductively to me in Barry White voice
"MMM. Oh Yeah baby. You know what I'm talking about. Huah"
Why would I have box of twinkies in the house? Well I wouldn't. But my sweetie who A'ly has been wearing the same size Levis since he was 18. And B'ly DOESN'T even eat Twinkies is apparently a compulsive shopper. If you put it by the checkout he's going to pick it up.
Anybody seen my willpower around here?

Also. You might know that I am a tiny bit alarmist when it comes to my kid getting sick. (Who isn't right? right? right?) It turns out that the only person in the world who's more alarmist about Teddy's health than me is my brother. The kid had 5 little red spots yesterday. And I was all "hmmm rash? Chicken Pox?" (turns out it was neither).
But Elliot was all "MEASLES? BUBONIC PLAGUE!?".
I dunno if it's a brain injury thing or a plain old him thing. But it actually made me feel better (it's nice to be the less nuts one sometimes).
And because posts need pictures... here's a picture of the Dog Faced Girl spending some quality time with a chum.

Man Gift ONE - Leather Patch Scarf

2010-11-28T23:39:00.015-05:00

Hokay! We're rolling.
The first Man Gift project is quick, easy and a blatant designer knock off (a triumvirate of fun!) The "inspiration" for this scarf looks like this:

Cute right? Suave with just a hint of geography teacher (totally my favorite flavour).
It's A Maison Martin Margiela Leather Patch Scarf. And it can be yours (or your sweetie's) for the bargain price of three-are you kidding me- hundred and ten dollars US.
OR you could make one that looks a bit like this:

With buttery soft suede and a boiled wool mix that's so soft it's like it's made of kitten parts. For about $15-$20.

Wanna try? You'll need:
4 Suede patches (two ovals two rectangles) OR one "recycled" suede/leather item (coats or skirts give you LOTS to play with) OR suede/leather by the meter.
Scarf weight wool mix. You could either use the length (selvage to selvage, approx. 150cm) which means you can get away with using just 20-40 cm (be aware of patterns) OR you could buy 1.70-2 m it you want a longer scarf or if you're making a few scarves.

The nice thing about buying the smaller amount is that you can get The REALLY GOOD STUFF (you know the wool blends that are so expensive they make you kind of sweaty? Doesn't happen to you? OH.) Anyway the small amount combined with a 50% off sale at Fabricland means that the scarf is seriously luxe feeling but only cost about $12 (and 40 cm is enough to make two scarves).

The first step is to get your straight lines marked out:
I folded selvage to selvage, then marked my line with chalk.

(just as an aside, when I asked the lady in FabricLand for really straight cut she acted like I'd peed in her cereal and was super eye-rolling rude. But this is what a straight cut looks like there. So whatever lady... Phew good to get that off my chest.)

Right. Once you've got your STRAIGHT sides cut you should have something that looks remarkably like a scarf. Mmmm and soft.
With a boiled wool like this you could actually just leave the edges but I think that frayed edges look more scarfy. So I did that next, see:

The next part depends on weather you're using premade patches or recycled leather.
to make your own patches the first thing you do is make a template. I used a little serving dish to make mine. Mark your cutting lines (bog standard pen worked fine for me, chalk made a mess).

It you're using an old jacket or skirt bear in mind that the "wrong" side of the leather might be just as soft and less marked. And that you can rebuff suede (or make it even softer) with a clean, dry plastic scouring pad, just lay it down on a flat surface and scrub in little circles.

Next cut your patches out. I used my pinking shears because the patches on the original scarf have pinked edges but you totally don't have to, leather won't fray.

Right. Got your patches? Good. The next step is to sew those suckers on.
Getting the patches to stay in one place is half the battle here, because using pins will leave holes in your leather.
If you have some of that spray sticky stuff (um, the kind that quilters use? What is that called?) then have at it. But DO check if it marks on a scrap first. If not you could either...

Just wing it, holding you patches and fabric firmly and going really really slowly.
Or
Use a bit of tape like this:
('scuse the lousy picture)
I used low tack masking tape and I stuck it to my shirt first to make it even LESS sticky. And of course I tested a whether it left marks on a scrap piece of suede first (nope it didn't). You need to stick it down as close to the edge as possible as you'll be sewing INSIDE the tape.

And... Sew away. ( I don't have a picture of this step - not enough hands) But I can tell you that I bought special leather needles for my machine. And then totally forgot to use them. So a regular needle works fine, turns out. The other thing is that you should go SLOW. Really really slow, adjusting and making sure you're flat when you need to.

Well HEY! almost done.
I put my patches on different sides. Like this see:

So the wearer can have softie suede next to their neck, and the oval patches are still visible. But you can do whichever.
A voila. One Man Gift!

Oh, and I shared here, here and here.

Manly Man Gifts

2010-11-27T15:47:00.007-05:00

I'm pretty sure that I'm preaching to the choir here but firstly of all, Handmade gifties = finest kind.
They say, "Hey, I love you and I spent some time making this with my hands because you're awesome".
Which is easy when it comes to the girl types and the under 10's on one's list (and by "one's'" I totally mean mine).
But you guys. Crafting gifties for men folk over the age of 12 or so. YEESH.
So with that in mind, over the next three weeks or so I'm going to be working up some tutes for manly manly Man Gifts! And because I'll be making them the prerequisites are super easy and relatively quick. Quirky, useful, funny or beautiful (or a combination of those things) is a bonus.
They're all things that I have either given my boys (to good response) or they're things that I'll be giving them this year.
If you want to play along feel free to grab a button from the sidebar there ->
or hit me up with suggestions or links (ooou yes! links please!) to what YOU'VE made for the guys in your life in the comments.

Now! On to the projects...
First up a Designer Knock-off Leather Patch Scarf
Secondly, a Leather 'Tache Keychain
Third, a guest post and a MAN BAG (murse!?) from Farah Makes Stuff
Fourth, get your GOOGLY on with Googly Eye Magnets.
And watch this space!

Whining and MAN GIFTS

2010-11-26T10:11:00.008-05:00

Gack you guys. Just Blah. Sickie at our house. My poor bear has some kind of germy double whammy; apparently JUST a faceful of snorty snot isn't where it's at this season, OH NO. All the cool germs now come complete with a dose of the whistling-squits.
So that's fun.
Plus side, hanging out in the warm and letting my kid watch TV means I get to have cuddles and do some hand sewing/crochet/poly clay meddling. But I haven't actually FINISHED anything. Or at least nothing I can show you yet. Though it turns out that most of the people on my "Nice" list are the kind with those XY chromosomes. Making stuff for guys. DUDE, way tougher. One Pretty Thing's gift guides are rad, but I am working on a couple of my own ideas too.
If you're a guy who knows me you should look away RIGHT NOW.
No really.
Right now.
I can tell.

Are they gone?
OK good. Ideas like...

A leather patch ribbed scarf
Leather 'stache keychains
"Enamelled" pinup girl cufflinks
Hand Grenade mittens
Wallets (I am so excited about this)
And here's a picture of a the ONE finished Hold-My-Hand mitten. (There'll be a tute for these) The embroidery that looks like it was done in a maximum security wing is totally optional.

Sushi Combo B - or "I can't believe I'm doing this again"

2010-11-22T16:10:00.006-05:00

Is craft amnesia a thing? Maybe? I'm going to go with yes it is. Because what else could possibly explain the fact that I am making ANOTHER all-hand-stitched felt Christmas present for my bear?
Here's the rational,
Just recently Teddy has been ALL about the play cooking and play cooking needs play food right? (Right? Right?) And my kid's favorite food in the whole world is... sushi.

OK, firstly of all, I KNOW that makes me sound like a pretentious urbanite. In fact I just rolled my eyes at myself. But I can explain! Honest I can.
It's not like he honks down slabs of sashimi (well, aside from tuna, kid loves him some tuna) he just likes avocado Maki rolls and Eel nigiri and Miso Soup with big chunks of "tofes" (soft tofu).
Which when you break it down isn't that crazy, it's just rice and food that is squishy.
And I've been taking him to the sushi place for lunch since before he could sit up by hisself. Because I LOVE sushi (I lived in Japan for a while). And my sweetie DOESN'T like sushi, so Teddy and I go at lunchtimes about twice a month, and he's really good company.

This was taken almost a year ago, his hair is EVEN crazier now.

So Yah. That's why I'm making felt sushi. Want to see how it's coming on?

Like ziz! California rolls, partly finished Nigiri and Tamego.
I kind of love them. And they're super fun to make.
I've been making the design up as I went along and I thaught maybe I'd write a tute. BUT a quick cherche around the internets turned up this one from Carrie at Tao Of Crafts that is completely awesome. I'm SO making some edamame! Cuuute!

Claus, Coach, Karma and... Shoplifters?

2010-11-21T19:42:00.006-05:00

You guys you guys! It was the Santa Claus parade here today. And I LOVE it. Floats and The Fat Man In Red and crowds and freezing one's caboose off. I genuinely heart it.
(We saw our first Santa Claus parade here in Toronto, it just so happens that both apartments we have lived in in this city have been spitting distance to the parade route. Co-ince-a-dink? Yah, but still!)
At any rate the parade always makes me feel a bit Miracle on 34th Street. Which this year meant dressing in a vaguely vintagey way. See:

Not quite 1947, or Maureen O'hara (hellFIRE but that girl was cute!) but I felt in the spirit of the thing. So I'm calling it a win.
I also got to wear my new mustard yellow Cardi, which is actually what I wanted to talk about.
This yellow cardi has been slowly making it's way to me for MONTHS. Months I tell you!
It all started in late September when I saw this:

It was a poster for Coach (the handbag company, not the means of transport) on a bus stop on Bay St. I walked past it then had to turn the kid and the pooch around and stare at it for a while, all mesmerized.

"Look" it whispered, all seductively like, "Winter doesn't have to be totally bogus, there can be thick tights, and cardigans that are awesome and skirts and skipping in exotic locations and stuff. Come on Erin, it'll be funtimes".
"Oooou" I replied.

You guys. It had me. And I'm not easily had by high-end advertising (or mainstream fashion stuff).
Now of course I wasn't going to go out and actually shop at Coach. Heh. That would be crazy. But I did make myself a skirt. This one here:

McCalls M4783, (which is the bomb BTW).
And I've been wearing purple leggings with everything. But the cardi escaped me. I've only just weaned myself of an mostly black wardrobe, and I didn't own anything yellow. at all.
(hoo boy this is a rambly post, I do have a point and I'm making my way to it, honest.)
So, I'd been keeping my eyeballs peeled for a mustard yellow cardi. Or scarf or pretty much anything really. Anyhow I went into Winners this Saturday with a kid-free half hour and a burfday gift card (exempt from WR!) burning a hole in my pocket. And there's a guy standing by the door clutching a gift box of perfume, and I was all,
"Huh. That guy's about to boost that".
And then he did.
So I went and found the security guard and I told him. Because I HATE shoplifters and screw Mr. Paris Hilton Heiress Gift Set.
Anyway, apparently the sparkly unicorn of serendipitous shopping likes a tattle tale because my new mustard yellow cardi was the first thing I saw when I turned around. Karma? Who knows.

Fetch me an Ewok

2010-11-18T14:41:00.006-05:00

I have a question and it's a big one. An important philosophical one. The kind of question where the answer defines you.
The question is:

Which of Princess Leia's outfits do you like best?
(What? You were looking for actual philosophy? You might be in the wrong place.)

I ask because today I accidentally dressed like Leia on Endor. Well maybe not exactly like, but I definitely had a rebel forest moon vibe going on (in my head that's a thing!).
See this is what I wore:

If you look behind me you can see Dilly's Ewok-esque buttocks. Heh. Fuzzy.

It really was unintentional, the Leia thing. I had day two hair and a whim, so I watched a video about Heidi braids (this one) then stuck my hair up. It took a couple of tries. The fist attempt looked like my hair had lost a fight with my hands. A bad fight. In a bar. Armed with pool cues and dinosaurs. But then I got it and it was actually super simple.
The outfit choice was totally subconsious. But it's made the day funnerer. I've been doing REBEL laundry and REBEL banking and I walked my Ewok.
Endor Leia has always been my favorite. She rides a speeder bike, she takes an imperial stronghold whilst vastly outnumbered and she wears a poncho. Those are all thing that are awesome.
My sister is also on Team Endor Leia; look how she rolls in a 5 dollar, 1 hour costume:

Completely awesomely. Isn't she beautiful? (Super talented too. We should talk about her cross stitch design some time. It's extraordinary). And her sweetie is lovely.

So, DO TELL!!
Which Leia outfit? What do YOU think your answer says about you? I have some theories, maybe we can compare.
If you're stuck for inspiration check out this. So. Freaking. Awesome.
And just for reference, nope, you're not allowed to choose an Amidala/Padme outfit. We don't discuss those movies here. (Did you see my eye twitch? I have new trilogy issues.)

Handbag Rehab

2010-11-17T13:46:00.005-05:00

OK, this is just a super quick one to remind myself that meddling with my hair isn't the only thing in the world. (Dude, it takes actual time! Who knew!??)
So, one super simple handbag rehab.
Here's the before:

Brown, leather, Aldo, free (scored from our laundry-room recyling area). It's not terrible, and I was all "meh, it'll do". But those pocket flaps bothered me a bit. They aren't functional (there's no pokey bit on the d ring) and I think the studs make it look... not awesome. I would have left it well enough alone except I saw a woman in the elevator with a remarkably similar brown leather bag WITHOUT weird hardware that looked completely awesome. And was all inspired to do this:

What I did was, unpick the stitching on the pocket flaps, there was a bit of glue too, but I just rubbed/peeled it off. I was, of course, left with stitch holes in the leather, so I grabbed a needle and some thread. Doubled the tread over and stitched away. When I came to the middle bit I just kept going and joined up the lines, like this:

You might have noticed that my stitching is slightly darker than the before photo. That's because my inspiration bag had dark stitching; and I happened to own a fine-tipped acrylic brush pen in dark brown (I can't for the life of me remember why). So I VERY carefully inked over the stitching in the darker colour (the after picture above isn't QUITE finished).
And lastly I tidied the whole bag up a little, snipped off any loose threads and scuffy bits then gave it a quick wipe down with some leather stuff. Then I stuck all my crap back in it and continued to treat it with wonton disregard. (The fun part about free stuff!)

Oh and I done shared here:

From Hair to Eternity Two

2010-11-16T15:26:00.004-05:00

You guys! Today = no ponytail! See:

And thank you heaps for your suggestions and brilliantness.
Just to be clear, I won't be all "HEY! HEY! HEY! LOOKIT MY HAIR!" everyday. I just thought I'd set out some ground rules for myself in writing. In a stern tone of voice. So I'm not tempted to flake.

From now until January 1st 2011 there will be no ponytails for me. And by this I mean that if I'm dressed then there will be no ponytail. None. nada. zilch.
No staying in my jammies all day to avoid the "if I'm dressed" part.
Updos are OK but they should involve a little more thought than "meh, whatever".
No doing my hair to go out then instantly jamming it back in a pony when I get home.

There are some exclusions, ponytails are OK when:
Cooking, operating heavy machinery, playing with open flames or wrangling baboons (they're notorious hair-pullers). Also during Pilates class or when I'm training (I'm training for a triathlon, did I tell you?)

So those are my rules.
If you want to play along then that would be awesome (you don't have to follow my Sternly McMeanypants rules!) I've set up a From Hair to Eternity Flickr group, (mostly just to keep myself honest) and you're entirely welcome to post your non-pony dos to it.

From Hair to Eternity - Wherein I attempt to ditch the ponytail

2010-11-15T14:27:00.005-05:00

Hey guys? I've had me a hair epiphany.
See, I was checking back on my wardrobe remix photo's and came realise there's a ponytail (or sometimes a smooched up bun - fancy!) in EVERY SINGLE photo.

Which would make sense because that's the only thing I ever do with my hair. I seem to have a permanent hair bungee dent and my idea of complicated grooming is occasionally running a brush through the mess before sticking it back up in a ponytail.
So I was pondering that when I found THIS. Marigold from Hideous! Dreadful! Stinky! is calling a moratorium on the Ponytail. For the rest of the year. Which seems like forever away but totally isn't.
So I am IN! I'm calling it From Hair to Eternity. Because I am nerdy. And 46 days of no ponytails seems kind of like an eternity.
Last night I worked up some determination, gave myself a stern talking to and stuck in some pin curls. (while singing The Other Woman by Nina Simone - awesome, but TINY BIT bleak).
I heart me some pin curls, they make me feel all vintage sassy. Like ZIZ:

And here's how that worked out,

Brushed out and pinned up a bit. (Huh, I look pretty cheerful for a woman who's in the middle of asking a toddler if that's poop she can smell)

But this RIGHT HERE is where I run out of inspiration. SO, I kind of need your help. I'm looking for suggestions, favorite tutes or just inspiration. I can't afford a kickass new haircut, I can't just give into temptation and have another crew cut (like I did when I was 14) on account of Maid Of Honour duties. But I might be flexible on colour. Maybe.
Help a girl out?
x

Monday Linkage

2010-11-15T08:39:00.002-05:00

This shiny, not-so-sucky monday I'm doing a bitta linking. Specifically to here

And here

who are you linking too?

Raspberry Lemonade Mittens

2010-11-13T15:01:00.015-05:00

Hey are you guys keeping up with Grosgrain's Embellish Your Knits Month? So awesome and she makes it look super easy. You might remember how I was having a hard time with some cardi refashions (and a unicorn)? WELL, I like to think I'm an adaptable sort of girl. I figure if life gives you lemons, then you make raspberry lemonade martinis. And then whine loudly.

So in the spirit of THAT I decided to use some sweater refashion leftovers (read "collateral damage") to make me a set of THESE:

Mitties!
They were super-simple, gratifying and ridiculously quick. AND these might be the girliest things I've ever made; even though this sweater used to belong to my sweetie, (yes it's pink, but he's plenty comfortable and confident enough to wear pink. And look super hot. Really. Yum.).

Anyhow, I think they'd make pretty good gifties. For guys too, if you made them out of a not-pink, rugged, marled, lumberjack/fisherman/bear-wrestling sweater and trimmed them in something manly? Like iron fillings and shark teeth maybe?

Either way, here's how you make them:
First you'll need a felted sweater (I just hacked the arms off of this one and stuck them in the hot wash and dry with some towels. Job done.) One with ribbing at the cuffs or the bottom works best but it's not essential.
Then you'll need to turn your sweater arms inside out and figure out the shape of your mitts. Like this:

Mark the length you want and the space between your pointy finger and your thumb.
(You can totally make them a tighter fit by drawing more closely around your wrist and sewing new seams instead of using the existing seams. I wanted mine pleated so I didn't.)

Your markings should look something like this:

Next you cut along the blue line there (but not along the red one).
Then you sew along the red lines. I reinforced the join of the "v" by sewing over it a few times.
Now you should have something that looks like this:

Next you carefully snip the V shape out (as far down as you can into the valley of the V).
If you're making new side seams it might be an idea to turn them right side out then try them on before you sew up the new shape.
Here's what that might look like:

If you're making a version for guys you could stop here. Or maybe finish off the tops with some manly manly blanket stitch or um, barbed wire or something.
I hand stitched a little pleat into mine. Then popped a button on the pleat. I also added a bit of dollar store cotton crochet lace, (same stuff I used on my duvet cover rehab). And voila, warm paws and girlyness.

Unbreakable

2010-11-10T14:02:00.009-05:00

Today I had to do something unbreakable. Not like the movie. I'm kinda "meh" about that movie; and I am both a super hero fan and an M. Night Shyamalan apologist, well, except for The Happening. That was brutal. Seriously? Naughty trees? SERIOUSLY?
Wait... where was I?

Oh yup. So today I had to get me a super quick fix of something unbreakable to try and regain my mojo. Over the last two day's I've irrevocably pooched two cardis in attempts to make them more awesometastical (it looks so EASY when Kathleen does it).
So, I needed easy (really really easy) confidence-boosting, instant gratification.
Enter this guy:

It's a shirt see?
With kind of a ruffly bottom and a ribbon belt tie. (Also a weirdly cropped photo. I have a messy house and hair that looks like it was styled by angry monkeys).
I of course forgot to take a before picture (been that kind of day) but I do have an example of what it was like.
The bottom had elastic shirring like this:

Which can look the cutest. But not on me. On me it makes a shirt look puffy. And ball shaped. And rounded. And completely undefined. Which is not my best look ever.
So I Just unpicked the 'lastic thread (and actually I managed to get it all in one piece, so a shirred scarf is next on my list).
I ironed the newly un-elasticated ruffle bit.

Then I tried my new shirt on. It was still a little shapeless, so I stuck a belt around it; but that squished the center ruffle. So I grabbed a couple of pieces of grosgrain ribbon and stitched them on under the ruffle,and voila, new shirt; nothing broken, no wet kitty poop.

Missing...

2010-11-10T10:42:00.006-05:00

Um, guys? Has anybody seen my craft mojo around?
It's pink and it looks like a angry, misshapen unicorn.

If you see it will you ask it to come home please? Because for the last two days everything I touch is turning to wet kitty poop. And that is NOT useful for getting stuff done.
Fanks.
x

Ooou! Did you see? Pretty...

2010-11-09T20:57:00.006-05:00

Hey you know when a brand new blog starts SUPER strong and lays on the awesome? I LOVE that.
Specifically, did you guys find Speckless yet? You should you should! Lookit the CUTE:

Eggies! Totally making one of those.
Set of these too.

And Heidi has a great eye for the pretties and an etsy shop that I could live in. What I'm saying is awesomeness. And you should maybe visit.
x

Surprised? YAH I was!

2010-11-08T07:46:00.007-05:00

You guys! I totally got HAD. I got surprise birthday partied and I had NO IDEA. And it was the most fun ever.
First some back story...
My last two birthdays, through nobodies fault really, have been pretty lousy. Last year there was super fun swine flu, and the year before that turning 30 was a non-event.
So this year I asked my sweetie to take me for High Tea at MoRoCo, (MMM CAKE!). The plan was to get all gussied up in a tea dress and make my sweetie wear a tie.

Any how. On Saturday my sweetie told me he had booked a haircut and did I want to come and lurk around the Anthropologie store next door I was all "HELL YAH I DO!" (dude! Anthro!). So there's the hook.
So on our way there Andy pulled the "oh hey, can we stop here? I have to pee" card and dived into a mall entrance. And that would be the Line.
I was all "of course". And I followed him down some step, through some doors and past a few arcade games. I was still pointing to the washroom sign while I did a total double take at my chums shouting SURPRISE. There's the sinker.
I was totally surprised and so happy I almost lost it and howled like a baby right there. But I didn't instead I...
BOWLED!
Andy had organised a vintage Americana themed bowling party. The alley was perfect and he roped my very good chum Sarah into balloon decorating duty. And there were animal noses! But most importantly of all there were a bunch of people whom I love. Kicking my ass at bowling.

And here's the man himself, examining the score board.150? Yah, that would be my guy. (Also his hands in this shot make my palms sweaty and my mouth dry. yum.)
And lookit here's my kid, who's score was DOUBLE mine.

After bowling we can home for chili dogs and beers and noisy fun times, then went on to my brother's OWN surprise party. Which was EXTRA fun too.
I know I say I love this city a lot, but I think what I really mean is that I love our lives here and our extraordinary friends and how lucky we are.

Lucky. But not at bowling.

P.S. You guys, I'm really glad that a trip to Anthro is a wear-something-niceish occasion for me. Sure it's dorky but there could have been sweatpants.
x

What's a good title for a post about boobs?

2010-11-05T09:15:00.013-04:00

Cute, but p'rolly not going to cut it

Hokay, to start us off a little boob philosophy.
Firstly of all, I should note that I'll be saying boobs, "the girls" and occasionally breasts; see, I was raised in a strictly NO CUTESY EUPHEMISMS household. No "foofy" "hoo-haa", "pee-pee" or (true story) "lady garden" for the Filby kids. Which means that I'm totally comfortable saying breasts, penis, vagina, et al. but I find the euphemisms hilarious. Particularly boobs. Those two O's are like adorable grammatical slapstick.

Secondly, you know how you feel about your boobs? Have a think... is it all shiny, positive, yay-for-me, happiness? No? More mild dissatisfaction? Well guess what. EVERYBODY I ever measured felt the same way. I mean it, everybody from first-bra tweens to older, sensible-bra'd women and a transgendered woman who had just gotten her ALL NEW boobs. NOBODY was happy with the girls.
To which I say.

YOU GUYS (and also me). KNOCK IT OFF.
You have good breasts.
You do.
They're the only ones you get and they're awesome.
And anybody who says any different better leave NOW.
OK. Are we clear?
Your boobs = great.

Now I've got the crazy harangue out of the way, lets talk a little bit about sizing and measurements. To get your measurements you're going to need...
For step one:
A tape measure.
A mirror.
(optional) a good chum or your sweetie
A bra that you feel comfortable in (not padded or lift-uppy though)
For step two:
The shop with the largest selection of underwear (in your price range) in town.

Step One.
You'll need to whip your shirt off. You can leave everything else on. Though I once had a lady strip completely nekkid. She was mortified when I asked if maybe she'd maybe like to put her pants back on... so yep. You can leave your drawers on.

Now you need to run your tape measure under your boobs. Under where your bra band is sitting. If you need to lift the girls up to do this, do. But keep your arms neutral otherwise. You need to keep your tape measure as straight as possible here (this is where a mirror or a good chum come in handy). Like this (but with YOUR arm down) :

So. My number here is 35, which means that I round UP to 36 (odd numbers always round up to even ones). I actually feel a bit weird and cringey posting my numbers like this. But I am going to suck it up. BECAUSE... It's just a number. It can't hurt me and it doesn't say anything about me other than the bra size I wear. And it's kind of important not to fudge here, no holding your breath and yanking the tape measure. It's the path to no fun-ness. I KNOW this because as a size 42 who couldn't psychologically let myself be anything but a 38 I was really uncomfortable and shopping for new bras was a BRUTAL exercise in self-loathing (sound too dramatic? You should (not) try it.)

Ok. So you have your band measurement. Awesome, because from here on out everything gets ARBITRARY.
and I really can't be emphatic enough about this. Completely ARBITRARY.
Measuring with a tape measure is half-assed-MAYBE-this-will-give-you-a-clue AT BEST. So with that in mind here's where you measure.

Got a number?
Now the (totally arbitrary) way to figure out your cup size is to work out the difference between your band measurement and your breast measurement. And every inch that your boob measurement is larger than your band measurement is a cup size.

On me this measurement is so wrong as to be laughable. My band size is 36" and my breast measurement is 41".So I should be a DD cup. Which would be awesome. but I'm NOT. I wear a B/C cup depending on where I am cycle-wise. A few things can throw this measurement off. A round back (like mine), weight on your armpits (yup, I got that too), broad shoulders, hell, pretty much anything.
So the key is to move on to....

Step Two.
Hit up the lingerie section.
Now what I used to do is bring a woman the same bra in a few different cup sizes. Then we'd start with the smallest and work our way up until we got the fit correct. Also note that depending on your breast shape you should try a few different styles of bra. Balcony bras work better on a small, high rack. And a plunge style works well on a bigger boob, or if your fullness rides to the side.

The first thing you need to do is adjust the straps on the bra you're trying on. Not too loose is the key here BUT the straps shouldn't be gouging your flesh (owwie) and you should be able to jam your fingers t'ween your strap and your shoulder.

Once you've got the bra on the first thing you need to do is make sure you're IN it. Which means
leaning forward a bit. Sticking your hand into your bra between your boob and your bra on the outside, (armpit side) and hoicking the girls forward, then shaking em' like a showgirl.

Now. How are we doing?
1. About that band size; is the band laying horizontal or is it hiking UP at the back? If it's hiking then you need to go down a band size.
2. Where are your underwires? If you lift your arms up and have a look at where your boobs start and your armpits finish, THAT'S where your underwires (or the edge of the cup) should be sitting. The wires (or cup edge) should be laying completely flat to your body all the way around your boob. If they're not then you go up a cup size.
3. How about yer pits? The cup shouldn't be tanglin' with your armpits at all, but if you carry extra flesh there (me! me! I do!) then you need to be careful that you're shaking into your cup properly. Nobody needs their bra to give them another set of under-armpit boobs.
4. Whats going on up top? Are you muffin-topping over the cup? Up a cup size. Are there wrinkles? Down a cup size. Neither working for you? Then try a different style.

So to recap, your perfect fit should be level on the band (the band does most of the support work) it should be smooth on the cup, not muffin-topping anywhere and not wrinkled. Any kind of pinching or horribleness anywhere is a deal breaker..

And lastly if at all possible your underwear should make you feel like "woo! I got's my pretty drawers on today!" which is not to say that sensible is a bad thing; but if you put on a bra and it's super comfortable but you find it so ugly you die a little inside then you need to take it off and keep looking. The Oh well, nobody will see it rule does not apply here. YOU will see it and you're somebody.

Ok. So this post was the length of a novel. And kind of bossy. Good job if you made it all to the way to the end here!
Hit me up in the comments or send me an 'mail if you have any questions.
X
P.S. If you're looking for a nursing or maternity bra then there's a thing I wrote about that right here.

The chart of arbitrary numbers is from here.

In which I fix some tights... and say crotch a bit

2010-11-04T10:33:00.007-04:00

Can we talk about underwear for a second? OK? good.
Actually, I'm kind of surprised that we haven't talked about underwear before now... Did you know that I used to be a bra fitter for Marks And Spencer? Yup I did. I've seen more boobs than Ron Jeremy. I was good at it, and it was a useful skill. Hell, I'll measure you up soon as look at you! You know about the double-hoick-lean-forward-and-shake-it rule right?...

(... Wait wait wait... this wasn't supposed to be a post about boobs, but if anybody is interested let me know and we can talk about boobs and bra sizing in detail.)

OK. Back on topic. I wanted to talk about tights. Thick, cottony, only-good-thing-about-winter, tights. I recently bought a few pairs. But I had kind of a problem with them. See, I have quite long legs.Which means that tights do this thing where the crotch (heh "crotch") starts at mid thigh on me but the waistline comes up to my boobs.
Which, you guys, not a good look.
So I figured out a super quick fix. That's actually easier to see than describe.

See? suggestiveness aside, here's what you do...

1. Turn your tights inside out
2. Set your sewing machine to a zig zig stitch.
3. Sew a U shape like THAT. If your tights have a "fully fashioned gusset" (dude, is there a creepier phrase in the world? I think not.) You need to make sure you've got both the front and back fairly even.
4. Snip away the extra.
5.Try finding another polite word for crotch. Fail.
6. Put them on and rejoice in the ability to actually move your legs.
x

The Skirt That Was In My Head

2010-11-03T22:43:00.010-04:00

HAH. Got it done!
You know, the musing I was doing in that earlier post? About what I want to be wearing now?
Well for the last AGE I've had a skirt in my head.
A high-waisted, a-line, red one. Made of soft corduroy. With a Lily Tomlin in Nine to Five vibe (in my head that's cool).
Kind of like this one, Anthro's Hop, Skip and Jump skirt $78 - which is not too crazy expensive.

Or this one the Finishing School Skirt , also by Anthro also $78

But you know what's cheaper than $78? A meter of red corduroy I picked up at Goodwill last year for $1.98. And a pattern I already happened to have, McCalls 4783.
Here's my version:

I extended the waist UP an inch and a half (using the "meh, looks close enough" method of pattern adaptation).
I made the skirt less froofy and more gentle-a-liney.
And I added kind of off-center line thing (yah it IS a technical term) by folding over a little pleat and topstitching it down.

While I was making it the skirt tried to kill me a couple of times (I have pin-related WOUNDS!) but it came together fairly easily and now I LOVE it. Love Love it. I want to hold it's hand at a midnight showing of Pulp Fiction and make it mix tapes. Here's it in action today:

I had to wear thick tights, but it's super comfy and I managed to wear heels all day. Which is a win for me!

clean-up on aisle 6

2010-11-03T13:18:00.005-04:00

Hey you know what I hate more than house work?
Nothing.
At all.
Fortunately that kid doesn't feel the same way. I was fixing a pair of tights real quick (we'll talk about that later) and when I came out this is what Teddy was doing:

Me: Ah? Bear? What are you doing?
Teddy: (rolls eyes) I CLEANING!
Me: huh.
Teddy: YUP

With an entire package of wet wipes. And a dump truck apparently (which is a bit drastic, it wasn't THAT grubby).
I wonder if he does windows?
UPDATED. He DOES:

More thrift store karma, and some musing

2010-11-02T20:39:00.011-04:00

This might just be me, but there is totally something about this time of year that makes me want to scour thrift stores. (Not like clean them, just look around in them, scour is a weird word...)

I think maybe it's because autumn makes me want to dress like my Auntie M or my ma in the late 70's. Which, doesn't mean a lot to you guys, so um, think west coast, granola, feminist, whip-smart, potty mouth'd, sexy. With paisley. And good boots.
Still not clear?
Like this:

Germain Greer, 1974, Tuscany( image)

And this:

Margret Atwood, 19??, but she STILL dresses with enviable badassery, (image)

And lookit these suckers:

Ms. Atwood's shoes. Swoon. (Image)

So, thrift stores is where I'm shopping (H&M also has a few things but I'm still off the buying new - WR4life baby!).
A few weeks ago I had a couple of bear-free hours, a giant vat of sugary coffee beverage, comfy shoes, pointy elbows and some steely-eyed determination. Prerequisites for a successful thrift store haul.
But I also reckoned I'd hedge my karmic bets. That is, I figured out what we'd been buying for the bear most urgently, (footie jammies, sweaters) grabbed some of his old ones and took them with me to drop off. I was mostly thinking how crappy it would be to need warm fuzzy jammies for your baby and to not be able to afford them; pretty crappy I imagine. We really are lucky.

Anyway, apparently the thrift store dryads were happy enough with the trade, 'cause I scored these
(badly photographed) goodies:

The first one looks way better in person, I've worn it a BUNCH already. The second dress is kind of a tough one for me, I love it, and it kind of makes me feel like a Shieldmaiden of Rohan (heh, ubernerdy!); but it's tough to find the right situation to wear it.
Got any tips for Good Thrift Karma?

HEY Dragon!

2010-11-01T11:52:00.006-04:00

You guys! Halloween! Firstly of all, the cute:

It was Teddy's first time trick or treating (And mine too; we didn't do it when I was growing up in London) So YAY for vicarious candy scoring and dressing up.
He's a Dragon, and I'm The Paper Bag Princess.
This is my "Seriously? You burnt my castle AND stole my man?" pose:

I layered up later, so as not to freeze to death.

We wandered around Cabbagetown, and it was pretty much perfect! (at the risk of sounding like an UberNerd, it looked JUST like that episode of Buffy where they become their costumes. But without the killing and rampaging.)
Teddy scored big, and now we have enough sugar in the house to make a whole preschool hysterical and to put a hole in my willpower.
And hey, the whole weekend was another post's worth of brill. How was YOURS?

I Heart the Weekend

2010-11-01T10:39:00.007-04:00

This weekend = SO. MUCH. FUN.
Friday was a gig by the boys (The Black Devils Brigade, their button is on the left there, see? You should click through if you're into awesomeness at all). Our chum Ian was home from Big Kid School (Queens), my sweetie and I got to go out AT THE SAME TIME(!), a whole gang of our chums were out and there was dancing, hollering and hi-jinx. And maybe a few drinkies.

Saturday morning was breakfast at my new favorite greasy spoon, and YAY for the restorative powers of bacon. And also for Teddy ditching the booster seat like a big boy.
Saturday night there were TWO parties, (which is a big deal for a person who doesn't get out a lot!) And I got to dress up; I hadn't really planned to, but I decided to at the last minute and reprised my outfit from 2006 (I was mostly just happy I could get it done up!) I completely neglected to get pictures but this is it then:

(I'm NOT an air hostess - I got that a lot. It's a ~~vintage~~ RCAF uniform. )
The first soiree was at our friend Mike's and it was maybe the most sequined party I've ever been to. Fun. The second was a little less sequiny and ALSO fun.
Sunday was drip-fed coffee, racing to Walmart for paper lawn bags, whipping up a super-quick costume, and scoring CANDY! I hope your weekend was as awesome!

The Democracy Tunic to Dress Tutorial

2010-10-26T22:26:00.016-04:00

Yesterday was a bit gloomy you guys. We have a new mayor, and I'm not a fan.
I love me some democracy, it's a privilege and I am thankful for it. Even if sometimes the result sucks. And to folks who don't vote I say "pheh" (and I totally roll my eyes).
Yesterday there was a polling station in the lobby of our building (yay for LAZY democracy!) Which means I could have gone and done my voting in my jammies BUT I have a "no jammies farther away than the garbage chute" rule , so I threw on this instead:

It's a tunic. You can tell on account of how it barely covers my bum. And is shaped roughly like a potato sack.
Now, tunics and I are not really friends, in fact we're barely even passing acquaintances but this is different. This is something I've had since I was pregnant and it has some pretty crazy history for me. But it is quite obviously too short, and I would have felt really uncomfortable going any farther than the lobby in it. So a refashion was in order.
I did this to it
Want to see how? Hokay!
Firstly of all I just happened to have some lightweight black cotton from another dress refashion project that exactly matched the tunic. You'll need a fabric that matches (or contrasts if that's how you roll ) depending on how much length you want to add a meter should be plenty.
Then you'll need to
1. Fold your dress in half straight down the middle.
2. Pop your folded-in-half dress onto your extra fabric, matching up the folds, like this see:3. Mark out however much more skirt you want, making sure you follow the line of the existing skirt (in this case it's a slight A-line). Replicate the curve at the hem on your new skirt bottom, and match up the curve at the top too. Don't forget to add a bit to your sides for a seam allowance (the solid line should be farther out. Oops!)
4. Mark out you skirt with chalk or pins. or just go crazy with the scissors if you're brave.
5. Snip! You'll need to cut out two skirt pieces.
6. Whip! Turn the new skirt pieces right-side-together then sew up the side seams so you have one piece of skirt. Press the seams open.
7. Pin the new skirt into the bottom of the old skirt, right-sides-together. Like ZIZ see:

8. Sew around the bottom of the skirt, where you've just pinned. Press the new seam UP. Try it on, admire your handiwork then hem it as you normally would.

And voila! Tunic to dress. Giving that sucker a waist instead of a sack shape is the next step. (I'll stick that tute up tomorrow, on account of some WAY to dark pictures and some shenanigans with Ernesta the body double).

If you don't have any fabric that matches your tunic you could go the obvious clash route and stick two different prints on the bottom, (kind of like in the original of this tunic).

Not The September Issue

2010-10-24T11:17:00.011-04:00

So. I've been thinking a bit about fashion. Mostly because at this time of year I get all "GAH WHAD AM I GONNA WEAR" almost everyday. Le sigh, I miss summer.
But here's my problem. I'm not a big fan of fashion magazines. They make me feel bad. (oh hey, look how nerdy I sound).

Which is not to say that I don't think fashion matters. It DOES. I'm just not sure that the ridiculous self importance of designers and vicious, industry-wide, body type standards are worth subjecting myself to.
I used to consume Vogue et al like crack; but these days I feel pretty disconnected from breakable-looking adolescents wearing $1000 t-shirts.

So my inspiration comes from other places, actual humans for the most part. I'm p'ticly talking about the Wardrobe Remix pool on flickr. LOVE those girls. Finding it two years ago was a pretty big deal for me.
Anyway. Inspired is what I'm saying and just recently I've been SUPER inspired by one blogger, Vanessa, who's tagline is Big Girl Small Budget Tiny Town. (I realised I was clicking/thinking "favorite" on pretty much every outfit she posts and was all "huh, I hope this doesn't make me look creepy" )
This is how she rolls:

Unintended creepiness aside, Vanessa has a LASER eye for detail (and a bargain), she's fearless about colour and a good photographer; more importantly though, she has that unfakable thing, genuine style.
You should totally head over and say hi.

Gerrr Argh

2010-10-24T10:16:00.008-04:00

Yesterday we ZOMBIE WALKED. Brains? mmmmm BRAAAAINS! And it was as super fun as always. Thousands of the undead lurching around Toronto, what's not to love?
This year I went for a Zombie Mime thing. Because you guys, the only good mime is a DEAD mime! Here's me, pre-leakybrain lunch:

and meddling with my gore-stained gloves.
And us guys, looking like we just ate the Reservoir Dogs (complete with candy blood mouth dribble. It tasted like EVIL. Super super yucky)

The outfit was dirt cheap too (naturally).
I used one very old (kind of insalubrious) plain white tee - stolen from my sweetie's vestie drawer
A pair of black trousers I already had (they remained relatively gore free)
A cardigan - ditto
beret - ditto
A pair of white cotton gloves - $2 from the costume place (the dollar store has them too with the cleaning and painting stuff)
Some black ribbon from the stash to make braces (suspenders) like this see:

I just safety pinned them to the trews.

The trick with the shirt and gloves is to give them time to dry before you have to wear them (or get paint literally everywhere in the world) I mixed up a bit of red and a spot black paint, then thinned it with water, put my shirt on and drizzled the gore onto myself. It's a good idea to jam a plastic bag or something between your skin and the shirt. Gravity will sort out the drip patterns (just like on CSI, but with less Horatio).
Then take it off carefully and let it dry, if you only want ick on one side of your shirt then best leave the plastic bag inside.
And that's it. Apply lurching walk and add braaaaaains for fun times.

Um. There's an elephant in here. No really, there is...

2010-10-19T19:01:00.004-04:00

I LOVE this city for lots of reasons but today especially because of elephants.

Our local park, Allan Gardens, is not normally a pachyderm playground. In fact lots of the time it's full of drunk guys shouting and peeing. But the thing our park DOES have is a Palm House.
And today the Palm House was all dressed up like a Sikh temple (pretty!) for a movie set. But that wasn't the first thing we saw. Nope. This was:

Sure, she's pretending to be a lighting boom (she's totally down with the crew, no diva moves for her) But she's DEFINITELY an elephant.

I stopped and did a massive double take, and was all
"TEDDY! There's an elephant!"
He looked up from the business of scooting along on his bike with a "say what now lady?" look
But then I hoisted him up and showed him and his mouth made an O.
"Elephant"
"Yup baby, it's an elephant"
And here's the conservatory, all gussied up:

It COMPLETELY made my day.

We Was Dapper!

2010-10-18T15:48:00.005-04:00

Oh yes we were! See:

Dapper.
And was it fun? YAH it was!
We congregated as a dapper crew, and paraded our chapeaus to the Baskin Robbins. The short kid up in front there chose his own.

Teddy: strawwwbee. Stick please.
Me: Um, he means a cone of Very Berry?
Awesome Baskin Robbins Guy: Yep. A stick.

Anyway, after ice cream we went had a BOARD GAME SMACK-DOWN! Complete with trash talk,
"I OWN Taboo. Oh YAH? YAH! Hey, is it ON? I think it sounds like it's ON. Bring it!"
And that was fun too.
So what about you guys? Did you Dapper Hat? Do tell!

Millinery Yo!

2010-10-14T23:58:00.004-04:00

OK, maybe actual millinery is a bit of a stretch, but you guys! I made a HAT! Want to see?

(yeesh the mirror is grubby. I'm going to blame monkeys. Rampaging monkeys. Who use a lot of hairspray? Yep. those ones.)

So, I've been thinking about making a hat for ages (since last Dapper Hat Day actually). I decided that if I was going to give it a go I should do it NOW, so I could wear the sucker for DHD if it went well (or pitch it and never discuss it again if it went badly).

I used this pattern from Martha

And as I'm not a tiny cherubic child, I blew the pattern up to 275% then hacked it about a bit. I used a few sheets of dirt cheap recycled plastic felt. And I made a muslin first. Want to see it?

Pretty hot huh? It's kind of, fleshy coloured. And my sweetie declared "YOU made a PECKER hat!" uh huh. I kind of did. Then I put ears on it. OK. Moving swiftly on...

Once I was happy with the basic shape of the muslin I took it apart, cut out the "real" felt, then pieced that together. I didn't bother with the zigzag stitch like Ms. S suggests. My hat has an inside and an outside. When that was done I simply tucked the raw edges of the hat under and top-stitched them. The I whacked a few decorative leaves on it and called it a night.

To recap:
One free pattern (I didn't even bother to print it, just traced it off the screen - lazy like)
+
about $2 worth of felt sheets
+
an hour
=
One kind of cute cloche hat*

For any actual milliners out there who are tutting and head shaking, I know that this isn't the real deal, but I learned HEAPS just by doing this. When I remake this hat, (which I totally will, they're kind of like crack) I will be using real wool felt. And I think I'll maybe interface it with woven interfacing to stabilise it. Maybe bang some grosgrain ribbon around the bottom on the inside? Any other hints would be awesome.

*and a creepy picture of me in a pig/penis hat on the internets for all the world to see. Bargain!

So Damn Dapper

2010-10-13T17:22:00.008-04:00

You guys! you guys!
It's that time again!
The most suave day of the year! It's DAPPER HAT DAY! Wooo!
For those of you who aren't my ma or my sweetie (pretty much the only people who read my blog this time last year) then let me explain/recap.
Dapper Hat Day is a Holiday I made up last year. And it's super fun times. Here's the skinny from last year...

"This (Friday) 15th of October I declare to be Dapper Hat Day. The day where you wear a dapper hat and maybe go for an ice cream.

So you're probably thinking "riiight?".
but see, Dapper Hat Day makes perfect sense, and here's why:

Winter is coming and winter is lousy BUT it does give you the opportunity to wear hats. Celebrating Dapper Hat Day is, I purport, a nice way to look winter in it's steely-Grey eyes and say
"Yeh, whatever Winter. Check out my HAT"

AND this time of year wearing hats is still kinda novel and awesome and you don't have to concern yourself with earflaps or practicality or nuthing. Just the DAPPERNESS.

And how are we defining dapper?
Well that, my chums, is up to you. Any hat that you might look at and think "Man alive! This hat is dapper - as hell/all day long" Well then BINGO!
for example:

A toque*? Meh.
A toque with a FEATHER on it? GRACIOUS yes!

A 20 year old, sweat stained, Adidas baseball cap that I swear to God, SWEAR TO GOD I am going to "lose" mister? Nope.
A lovely trilby? You betcha!

AND we shall be celebrating Dapper Hat Day with a spot of ice cream. Because nothing says "In your eye Winter!" like seasonally inappropriate ice cream. If you'd like to join us well then you SHOULD! You totally totally SHOULD. We'll be parading our fancy Chapeau to The Baskin Robbins on Church at 7.00 and you could meet us there lovely (possibly imaginary) internet peoples!

Or you could stay where you are, pop a dapper hat on, choke back a little ice cream and take pictures to send me so I have a super happy. If you happen to be in say, Ireland or England, (HI Mama and Sarah!) you make the whole affair international and thus loads, loads better.

*Toque is Canadian for beanie. Also, lookit ma! I speaks Canadian!

So that's the deal and we're doing it all over again.
HATS! ICE CREAM! DAPPERNESS! Got the general idea? You are OF COURSE completely welcome to join us in spirit of in real life at 7.00pm right here (we'll be the folks in the hats, looking dapper.)

Halloweened

2010-10-12T20:15:00.006-04:00

Ta-DAH! I'm all halloweenied! (heh, "weenie")
Pretty excited about the we'en this year (most years actually, but this year particularly) and here's why:

My friend Sarah's mama, Judy, scored Teddy the dragon suit, and I love it so much I can't barely stand it. He just happens to love it too (he's already asked to wear it twice) but I would be putting him in it even if he hated it.
Because I love it THAT much.
He's a dragon and that means I get to be... A PRINCESS!!! or a KNIGHT!!! I'm cool with either (I'm using "cool" very loosely here, I actually mean "the nerdiest ever").
And the whole-dressing-to-match-your-kid thing? I'm doing that until homeboy is old enough to set the bear trap to stop me leaving the house with him!
Last year was a bust for various reasons but here's a quick retrospective of Teddy's costumes so far:

2007

See, he's a pumpkin. A vomit-inducing pumpkin. Might not seem so scary to you, but being pregnant scared the crap out of me. Spooky for sure. And...

2008

Teddy is a chimp. And I am famed primatologist Jane Goodall. (See? I have a safari shirt and a hello my name is Jane Goodall badge.) Which I thought was HI-larious. But literally NOBODY else found funny.
Now, I'm going to need some pale pink tulle, a traffic cone and a BUNCH of candy corn. We're on a deadline here people!

'scuse the mess

2010-10-11T18:39:00.002-04:00

S'cuse the mess folks I'm decorating for the 'ween. Creepy Circus Sideshow is what I'm going for, come on back for the spooky sometime tonight or maybe tomorrow!
(OK, fine, definitely tomorrow; between Photoshop and HTML I might be spending tonight howling in frustration, but it all adds to the ambiance! )

Grumpy. Old. Men.

2010-10-11T08:44:00.009-04:00

A while back I dropped a teaser for the Grumpy Old Man party that I threw for my sweetie's birthday. Now I'm finally getting 'round to the rest of it. Firstly of all I wanted to site my sources, I ~~totally stole~~ was completely inspired by this idea here.

This is the invitation I threw together (but in the interests of full disclosure I should say that nobody actually got these, everybody knew the plan before I could so much as turn my printer on, and the guest list kept growing, which was awesome) BUT, If you do your own grumpy old man party and you want to use these just shout.
The plan was to print these on cardstock and line basic dollar store envelopes with newspaper print paper ( real newspaper is a bit grubby).

The inside text read:

Wear your pants THIS HIGH
Order the prunes
Say "whippersnapper" and mean it
But most of all come and celebrate (My Sweetie's) 39th Birthday like a

Grumpy Old Man

The Plan was for everybody to dress up as grumpy old men then meet up at the local 24hour, all-you-can-eat Breakfast Buffet for brunch and hijinx, then go on to play a spot of mini golf (in deference to the bear and my lousiness at actual golf!)
Our brilliant chums outdid themselves on the dressing up front, here's some of the gang

The transformations were pretty incredible, this gent is actually my very pretty friend Sarah

Mr. And Mrs. Turd Ferguson gave the performance of the day.
And it turns out that my brother is actually probably going to look pretty good as an older man.

Are you wondering about the birthday boy? Well, the day's theme was surprise for him, and while he WILL dress up under duress (because he's the best ever) I didn't make him this time. So he and his bestie (who had to come from his nightshift) looked like adorable whippersnappers!

If you've got a powerful curious about the rest of the pictures you can see my facebook album here.

Not a Quilt

2010-10-08T14:27:00.009-04:00

Poking through other people's stuff without the B&E and subsequent costly legal fees = Yay!
What I'm saying is that I love a bit of yard sale action. Where we live doesn't have a lot of actual yards; BUT when the buildings around here have a yard sale they co-ordianate days and they go large. 700-1000 units in a relatively affluent area with a majority gay, aging population - BINGO for yard sale awesomeness.
So that's the backstory, this is the result:

I scored three fat quarters of this floral cotton for the princely sum of 75 cents. It was tucked into the bottom of a box of other fabrics (I bought most of them too) I love it crazy much. In fact I might have found it, squealed, ripped it from the box, cradled it protectively and cooed mineminemine at it whilst growling around me. Maybe.

I'm not much of a quilter, but I knew from pretty much the second that I plucked it out of the box that I wanted it to be a dress. A dress a bit like this one.

I used New Look 6803, (I happened to have bought it for another project, but that's a whole 'nother post) and meddled with view C.

I had to hack the pattern a bit to make there be enough fabric, there's a seam down the front but it gets a bit lost in the florallyness. I also had to piece together the bottom otherwise we'd have been talking tunic or indecent exposure, but again the print makes it barely noticeable.
This is it with different accessories, And the worlds glummest expression

In my head it's more sort of 60's with the kitten heels and skinny belt. I'm giving some serious thought to a pair of cream ribbed schoolgirl-type tights. But that might be... gack? weird? costumey? Opinions are welcome folks.

Counting Down to 32

2010-10-07T00:13:00.000-04:00

So. Today would be the 7th of October. Which means that in 'sactly one month I will be 32. Which, aside from setting off submarine klaxon noises in my head, is actually OK. Really. I mean, 32 beats the hell out of the alternative doesn't it?
So, I've given myself a blog-based birthday present. See the shiny? With the flashing? And the Orange? (LOVE orange!)
That's my to-myself birthday present.
This is what it's all about:

12 years old. Which was 20 years ago for me, 20 brilliant, shiny years for which I am immensely grateful. SO.
I'll be leaving it up until November 7th. (And hey fambly of mine, if you were wondering what I wanted for my burfday, then VOILA!)
You can find the rest of the skinny here, and the rest of the videos here, and the check out the stuff for passing the message along right here.
x
P.S. smooches at these girls here for passing this along.

2010-10-06T09:00:00.005-04:00

So I guess I was a bit gung ho in my last post. (OK, fine, I was smug!) But things got considerably suckier for the rest of September. A few not-fun things happened, the scariest of which was my sweeties daddy, Teddy's Bankie, having a stroke.
He is doing remarkably well now, mostly because he's a super-tough nut. And the hardest worker I know. But I know that it was terrifying for the people who love him.
I know it's been tough for my sweetie to see his daddy as breakable.
It seems to me a terrible design flaw that humans, who are so precious, aren't made of something tougher that juice and bones. Titanium. Or maybe that stuff that Wolverine is made of... That's what we SHOULD be made of.
Anyway, what I ment to say is safe and healthy, that's it. Everything else is gravy.

Anyway, here's a picture of this kid I know who's so big I barely recognise him (and um, crazy hair) :

September!?!

2010-09-07T08:14:00.004-04:00

Hello Chaps!
um, yes. I DID rather disappear into the summer. It was a corker, really, BEST SUMMER EVER. There was sunshine and lurching around the paddling pool and picnics and playing out and running and a trip to The Piny North and more sunshine and a brand new library card for my bear (sob. next stop is a driving licence... he's so BIG!)
There was a big step forward for my brother (he's in school today; I'm so proud I could snivel) and more sunshine. And Pilates (PIRATES! ARRGH!) class. And some moving for our chums (which is a mixture of yay for them and boo for us). And a birthday party that was a giant heap o'fun. and and and...

Now it feels like back to school time, all poignant like and like I want to be sharpening brand new pencils and giving in to the auto-didactic spasm, (Anglo-Saxon history = fun times!).
I'm feeling a little bummed about the upcoming Big Wardrobe Switchover. Perhaps a few refashions are in order.
Ok. enough about me! I'm going to race around and see what you've all been up to.
xxx

P.S. Here's a bit of a taster of the Grumpy Old Man party that we had this weekend for my Sweetie. (More on that to come!)
x

8 Questions, finally.

2010-07-28T13:03:00.007-04:00

Ages ago the lovely Andreae from With The Crickets done tagged me with 8 questions. I've had rather a brutal case of the MEHs for the last few weeks. I haven't really wanted to make or do anything in fact mostly all I've wanted is to shovel carbs into my piehole and read 1950's ballet books (what? that's a thing!) but RIGHT NOW seems like the perfect time to knock that nonsense off. And do something actually fun. Like answer some questions about me me me me me.

So. First question:

1. Is there anything you've ever eaten that was so delicious that you think of it and go kind of misty-eyed to this very day?
YAH there is! It's sun dried sheep's cheese. Made by my Maltese honorary-Grandpa, dried in racks on his flat barn roof or kept soft in salted water in the kitchen. It's glorious. Tastes like summer. and warmth. and fat, happy babies. and sheep a bit.

2. Are you a city person or country person? Half and half? Why?
City. City. City! I love the city (and specifically I love this city). I love being able to walk everywhere. I love public sculpture. I love that there is always something to see or do. I love how kind this city is. And that you can throw a rock from my house and hit a few different types of extraordinarily good food. And that if you get tired of noisy cityness it's a skip and a hop and a jaunty ferry ride to the islands. And MUSEUMS! I love being walking distance to the ROM. I like streetcars. In fact I just like the WORD streetcar, so much sexier than tram (I like tram too, but I like streetcar more). I like having this many neighbours, lots of whom are very good friends. I like that I can't walk around the block without running into someone we know. And that folks in the shops know us (and certainly Teddy) by name. It's a crazy mix of tiny-villageness and anonymity.

3. You know how, before you actually have kids, you have all these parenting principles ("I'm going to home-school/make all the clothes/never buy junk food/bury the tv in the back yard"), and then when you actually have to raise a kid/kids, you end up kind of abandoning said principles? Do you have any of those? Do you feel guilty? Liberated? Indifferent?
Heh. One or two. Turns out my house is not a haven of wooden toys and genius design, with nary a piece of plastic to be seen. And I'm OK with that. Really I am. A lot of the stuff that I expected and wanted early on in my pregnancy went poof after my brother's accident. And I'm OK with that too, in fact I think yay for adapability. I figure doing the best you can with what you have is the most you can hope from yourself.

4. What's the loveliest place you've ever traveled? Could be wildly exotic or comfortingly local.
I've been lucky enough to have traveled a LOT. But my favorite places are the ones I've been to with my sweetie, madly in love. Paris for the first time with him, where we barely made it out of the hotel room (ou la la my blushes!), and we ate cake for breakfast at 1.30 in cafes near the Sorbonne. Or the Altas Mountains at this hotel, where it smells like roses and I said "sure, why not!" to an important question.

5. Okay, same as Sigrid: Laundry tips? Please?
Line drying. Finest kind.

6. Do you have a life plan, or do you just sort of truck along?
truck truck truck. I don't EXACTLY believe that the world will purposely bite me on the ass if I make a plan; but I do find myself keeping an eye out for low flying geese and open manholes when I do.

7. Would friends of the teenage you recognize the current you? Would you still get along?
Friends of the teenage me are friends of the current me. In fact the person who occupies the best friend space in my head is someone I have know since I was 7 or 8. (Hey Philip, if you happen to be reading this, I love you. Also, I have a poop story to tell you.)

8. Any novels to recommend for an almost-seven-year-old girl? What were your favourites? Which are you looking forward to sharing with your own kid(s)?
I've been thinking about this one LOADS. I'm a firm believer in the the power of literature to build better humans, and I made a list!
Some of these are better as read along with yer folks books, I don't know if most almost-7 year olds go for that, but we TOTALLY did. Mostly cause my ma is BRILLIANT story teller.

1. The Julian Stories, sweet, funny, still-quote-it-to-your-sibis-25-years-later good.
2. The Borrowers Books by Mary Norton. Because tiny stuff is just cool
3. The Wind in the Willows. I literally can't wait to read this to my bear. Our childhood copy is sat on his shelves.
4. Anything By Dick King-Smith, his warmth and humour is even better than I remember it being.
5. and of course ANYTHING by L.M Montgomery... the first book I ever stayed up too late reading was Anne of Green Gables, but I like the Emily books better.

OK that's me done.
AND I'm passing the whole gig on to:
Liz over at Little Dash, who's writing style is as charming and awesome as a raucous-laugh-after-a-dirty-joke. and who throws a brill party by the looksa things.
Renaissance woman Affi'enia at blue frog sticks who sews, knits AND plays in the dirt, farmer style!
Stephanie (who's new table I literally want to steal) of Made in Australia By Stephanie
Erin from Howl, who inspires me keep running (and to not stuff cake into my face!)
And of course Emme. Who is a hero. An honestly and truly one.

And my questions are...

1. Is there anything you feel nekkid without? (aside from clothes!) For me it's painted toenails, even in the winter, I just feel better with two coats of dark red on my piggies.

2. Books, magazines, games, comics, pieces of art that made you who you are today? Hello Sassy magazine. Talking of which, have you seen this?

3. Monkey or Robot? Which would you rather have?

4. Food you make when the poop hits the fan? Do you cook/eat for comfort?

5. How did you meet your sweetie? Is it romantic? (Will I need a tissue?... no really, I cry at everything).

These next two are the same as Andreae's

6. Do you have a life plan, or do you just sort of truck along?

7. Would friends of the teenage you recognize the current you? Would you still get along?

8. Could you show me something pretty? Please?

Here's a random picture of some balloons that I strung to a tree on the island at a BBQ last weekend. because posts feel naked without pictures.

Lacy Linens

2010-07-26T14:28:00.009-04:00

If I had all the money in the universe. I would buy 365 sets of 600 (million) count cotton sheets and duvet covers. And I would have a robot who would iron them and put them on for me and maybe spray them with lavender and plump up my pillows and bring me chocolates and trashy novels to read and puppies to play with and generally do my evil bidding.

What I'm saying is that I like nice new linens. But the ones I like I can't, as a general rule, afford.
I wanted to make a duvet cover and a set of pillowcases that had a Restoration Hardware/Pottery Barn, Laura-Ashley-with-a-touch-of-quirky, mismatched, stolen-from-your-grandmother's-hope-chest feel to them. And naturally it had to be on the cheap.
Here's what I came up with:

Wondering why they look that wrinkled? Yah? This is why:

And also this:

ANYWAY...
I used
A dirt cheap fitted sheet set (one flatsheet, one fitted, 2 pillow cases. In white, naturally.*)
Another flat sheet, (you could use a plain ready-made duvet cover)
About10 meters of cotton lace trim ($1/2 meters from the Dollar Store in three different designs)
Some long strips of stitch witchery (the iron-on adhesive stuff)
A handful of plastic snaps/poppers

First you take the flat sheet that will be the TOP of your duvet cover and lay it out on the floor. Then you do it again and again because your dog and baby instantly leap on it squealing and wagging. Then you decide that maybe doing this at naptime would be more sensible.

Next you mark out where you'd like your trim to go. My duvet cover has two big squares, one inside the other. You can get all math-y and work out the numbers and measure or you can eyeball it and hope for the best. (Guess which one I did.) I used a bit of white chalk to mark my lines but if you have a fancy pants disappearing pen thingy then awesome.

The next part is actually kind of optional. Depending on how brave you feel. You could simply pin your trim on along your lines and have at it with a sewing machine.
OR use your long strips of stitch witchery to stick the lace on BEFORE you have at it with a sewing machine. I did the latter.
I found it easier NOT to start at a corner, and I like the way the turned edges look (there are other ways to turn corners).

Oh, and I know you know, but don't forget to flip the stitch witchery the same way UNDERNEATH the trim.

Once you have your lace in place. Whip around it, pretty close to the edge, with a medium sized stitch on your machine. And that's the top bit done (or the whole thing done if you used a pre-made duvet cover). Stick the top good-sides-together with the other flat sheet. Whip around three sides and add a handful of poppers (or ribbons or buttons) along the bottom and voila. New duvet cover. The Pillowcases are the same thing but on a smaller scale.
Just get your robot minion to iron the lot and you're all set.

I've also been thinking that this would work really well with a heap o' cotton doilies, scattered randomly about on a crispy white cotton. Yup. I am DEFINITELY keeping my eyeballs peeled for doilies from now on.

* I am weirdly scared of dark coloured sheets. I know it's crazy. BUT, in my head dark sheets equals heavy. Therefor I could be CRUSHED LIKE A BUG under a navy duvet cover. Like a bug I tell you. Crushed.

One of Those Days

2010-07-15T21:37:00.006-04:00

Today's post is brought to you by wet raccoon poop all over my dog and sewing a hole all the way through my own finger.
That is all.

Wait, I should just add that the raccoons around here appear to have a diet of meaty pizza and and over-proof rum. Sorry for putting THAT in your head, but seriously, not as sorry as I was to have it under my fingernails.

Fetch me my Eau de Poop!

Yoga? MAYBE!

2010-07-14T12:38:00.004-04:00

Hey remember how this used to be a blog where I made stuff and sometimes even used my sewing machine? No, me neither!
So. Lovely sunshiny weather and athelticalalal feats aside, I made something!
Actually it kind of related to both of those things... it's a hack down of a long sleeved tee (because it is hot NOW and I am in total denial about the existence of Winter . Winter? WHAT WINTER? tra la la!) into sleeveless yoga tee. As discussed before I don't actually DO yoga but I'm thinking I might have a stab at it, maybe. And this shirt just seemed yoga-y to me. So there we go.
Here's the before:
A hand-me-down from my lovely chum Sarah. In a colour I like a lot.
I whipped the sleeves off and tidied up the edges. Ruched the shouldery parts, which took care of any gappiness at the front (pretty sure nobody needs to see my uh, "Asanas" when I'm doing my downward dog).
Then I ruched the sides too. It's not showing up so well on Ernesta here (she's not terribly flexible, she really COULD use some yoga). But it is pretty flattering when it's on. Disguises the lumpy with more lumpy, if you see what I mean.

So that's that. if you want a play by play on the physics of whipping sleeves off then give me a shout. (Or check out make it and love it's tute. A-dor-a-bul!)

Proud...

2010-07-10T21:04:00.004-04:00

That's me. Super, extra proud.
Yesterday my mama did her SECOND Julia Jones 5K training session.
I couldn't be prouder if she's run a marathon in heels. Because that FIRST session is tough. And I don't know about you, but for me, the hardest thing I've ever done in the gym was getting through the doors for the first time. So snaps and hugs and hooting and hollering for her, and her chums who are running with her.
I'm also feeling kind of proud of myself. Yesterday I ran the farthest I've ever run in my entire life. 3 km. Without stopping or crying or barfing in my hands. I kind of snuck it up on myself and I didn't PLAN to keep running after the first 1.2. But I did. Mostly because of this...

Prettiest sunset ever. Pink and shiny and lovely. And while I technically know that sunsets are caused by SCIENCE STUFF, this one felt like a present from the universe, maybe not JUST for me, but a BIT for me.