Dirt Cheap DIY Boot Trees

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"

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

x

faux rizzle - a fake flower upgrade

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.