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. 

Peachy Keen Mani - How To

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.

The Incredible Magnetic Boy

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.

Man Gift Four - Eye Eye Captain!

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

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

I suspect that this guy might have been the problem.

"mmmm... shoes"

Small Animal in the Spirit House,

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.

The Randoms...

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.

Fetch me an Ewok

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.)

From Hair to Eternity Two

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.

HEY Dragon!

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?

We Was Dapper!

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!

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

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

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!

Grumpy. Old. Men.

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.

One of Those Days

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!

Proud...

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.

Bounce

Yup. been slack. but you guys, BOY IS IT EVER HOT HERE.
I love it. I lufff it. I EL OH VEE EEEI it!
30 ° C (feels like 36 °) makes me a happy. It makes my skin sing little songs where every word is "awesome tra la la awesome la"
So I've mostly been doing that.
We had a Canada Day/Pride double whammy too. It felt like a whole week of noisyfuntimes shenanigans in my 'hood. Mostly 'cause it was.

On the 1st we went over and celebrated Canada day with Ontario's newest Canadians in Queens Park. I LOVE that there's a ceremony AND bouncy castles. Here's my bear getting his first bounce on:


On Friday we took a stroll with chums down to the harbour front where there were tall ships. Ships! Tall ones! and pretty!
I gave some thought to a career in piracy. The swashbuckling kind. Not so much the Somalian warlord kind.

Saturday and Sunday are the big deal days for Toronto's pride week. We live in the heart of the village (it's a great place to live) but it gets crazy NOISY round here!
We hung out on a neighbour's balcony (our own overlooks a stage and was a bit ear bleedy) had a few drinkies and watched the shenanigans in the courtyard.


So I think that's us mostly caught up. How the devil have YOU been?

How public opinion sways...

Well, MY opinion at anyrate.
I don't know if you caught any news coverage of the G20 protests yesterday. It's been a BIT messy out there (though we still managed to shop for a potty for the bear, have dinner with chums and go out for some drinkies).
Anyway, here's how my opinion sways...

This is shot from my bedroom window. Looking over to the southeast corner of Queen's Park. Where police used rubber bullets yesterday.

I was a bit cross. Rubber bullets seem a tad draconian and I wasn't too impressed with our chief of police labeling all protesters either criminal of naive. There were some important messages lost as the media fixated on JUST ONE MORE SHOT of those burning police cars.

BUT then I saw this shot from just around the corner:


Not the TIMMIES! Noooooooooooooo. You FOOLS! Where will I get my food-like breakfast sammich NOW?
Rubber bullets? PAH! FETCH THE WATER CANNONS.
Image from Citynews

OWNED! The Lilly Pulitzer Knock-off Rematch!

'Member the giant fail Lilly Pulitzer knock off dress I made earlier this week? This one? With the boob distortion and the shortness?
WELL.
I've just finished the rematch and... SUCCESS! (It's not quite as cute as Suzanne's but I'm OK with that)


I hacked the dickens out of the pattern. Did a bit of swearing. Put the zipper in the side. Kind of fell in love with double layered facings (so tidy!). Did a bit more swearing. Wished fervently for a dress form. Realised I'd cut my lace too short. Did some SERIOUSLY filthy swearing (the lace actually cost three times what the fabric did. It wasn't SUPER expensive but you know... I'm cheap.) Pieced some sodding ggrrrr rashen-frashen lace together. Finished that sucker, then accessorized it with the cutest/weirdest dog I know.
And voila. I don't know it I'll be making this again in a big hurry. But I think I'll be wearing THIS one a bunch.

Oh and hey, Ian and Kate? I'm going to be dressing your dog up in a frock and making him have a tea party with me.
No. Really. I am.