Mortimer's Mom

important doll quilt swap information

to every one who has something to do with the Lemonade Stand Quilt Swap:

AT THIS POINT, THE ASSIGNMENTS HAVE BE MADE. I REALISED TODAY THAT ABOUT 6 PEOPLE WERE CAUGHT IN THE SPAM FILTER AND I EMAILED THEM. If you haven't received either a swap assignment OR an email from me today about being caught in the spam filter, then I DIDN'T GET YOUR EMAIL and you aren't on the list..... please contact me ASAP if you feel you emailed me and I didn't get it. I will close this swap tonight at 9 pm Eastern, for good. I am really trying to make sure I didn't miss anyone and went through all the spam folders to make 100% sure.... but at some point, I have to close it and just hope I didn't miss anyone.

If you did get your assignment, you are good to go. Except for one person who was contacted directly with a new partner, everyone else stays the way they are. We are simply creating a Group C for everyone that got missed.

Lemonade Stand Now Open (I'm hosting a quilt swap!)

When life gives you lemons.... host your own quilt swap!

Anyone Can Join, All Skills-Level Welcomed, Might Be Used By An Actual Child, Doll Quilt Swap.

the details are all over at Ubercrafty. If you have a craft blog, or you quilt, or you like me, please pass along the link to anyone and everyone you think might be interested. And you should join. Yes, I mean YOU! and You!

nothing like starting your Sunday morning with a slap in the face

Actually, I didn't. I started my Sunday morning with a very weary breakfast (something is up with my stomach. I spent all day Saturday lying on the couch in agony, but it seems to have passed during the night)

Then I got an email from Alisa, who apparently is also up at the crack of dawn on Sunday. Followed by an email from Tracie, who is REALLY up at the crack of dawn, because I'm pretty sure she's not even in the same time zone. So I was enjoying the little "pings" from gmail telling me I had new messages. It doesn't happen often on the weekends. The third ping wasn't so friendly though...

am a bit shocked that you are in a quilting swap. Isn't this a place where "quilters" swap their work? This is hardly an article of proficient quilting. Quirly & dorky for sure, but not anything anybody I know would want on their walls. Free-motion quilting should not be done by a novice with a plain background where EVERY mis-stitch will show. Consider a simpler approach & sew within your means. 

I'm guessing that jayne@comcast.net is also a member of the 3rd round of the doll quilt swap, otherwise, it would be totally random for her to comment on my last quilt. But seeing as the new round was just announced and we all posted links to our blogs, she must be one of the swappers. So if you are the one sending to her, BEWARE: she expects a REAL quilt, from a REAL quilter. Novices need to apply. Also, to the person who is going to get my quilt, I'm sorry you got me. Apparently, I don't what I'm doing and I don't belong in the swap.  so says jayne@comcast.net

EDITED TO ADD: I'm sure you'll all be SHOCKED that Jayne is in fact not her real name! But because people are idiots and don't understand the basics of IP tracing, I know who Jayne is. And she was even stupid enough to make a comment on her own blog about finding me "odd to be in a swap" and, this is the best part "reserving judgment for now" !!!! Way to reserve judgment there Jayne!

If you happen to  be in the Doll Quilt Swap III, I seriously hope that you are not the person making the quilt for Jayne. But if you think you might be, email me, I have absolutely no qualms about confirming it. I have withdrawn from the swap, because you see, Jayne was going to make ME a quilt! I don't want it.

Who needs 20$ Giraffe Shoes?

When it comes to crafting, I tend to be manic. Do nothing for months, then go completely gaga for a few days/weeks. The arrival of Gigi the Giraffe has launched me into an outfitting frenzy. Behold, Giraffe shoes and elmo-embroidered diaper.

  OK, even I have to admit that "branding" the giraffe's diaper was a bit much, even for me!

And Gigi isn't the only beneficiary of my crafting prowess these days. BB had her first ever school picture today and everything in her closet is either ill-fitting or passed down from her sister. So last night, I let her have at the fabric stash from Super Buzzy, I picked a simple dress pattern from one of my Japanese craft books and here are the results:

  I have to say, the Japanese kids clothing pattern are so simple and sweet, they always turn out stunning. The girls both wore their dresses today (what? You thought I could make BB a dress without making one for Dumpling? Please!)

I also just finished knitting Gigi a tiny giraffe sweater... i think I've lost my mind. Thankfully this time next week, I'll be in Texas, hanging with Shelba and Bobbi Jo and a bunch of other gals heading to Canton.

This is why you need to listen in highschool math

I'm in the middle of preparing the loot-bags for Dumpling's bday party on Thursday (5! FIVE!!!!!) and I want to attache a little paper ball to each. I found the pattern on Heather Bailey's fabulous website. And because I wanted this to go fast, since I have to make 20, I bought a circle hole punch.

She has a fabulous pattern all worked out for a 5inch or 6.5inch FINISHED ball, but I need to scale it to work with my 5 cm punch. I have no idea why size ball I`m going to end up with, but it`s going to be smaller, because my circle is smaller than hers, which is fine.

Here is the thing. I am a math moron. I know my circle is 5 cm in diameter. Which I can work out to have a radius of 2.5 cm, or a circumference of 15.7 cm because the only thing I remember from geometry is C= Pi*D

But now I need to calculate the sides of my triangle. I know it's an equilateral triangle. And I pretty much figured out that inside the big equilateral triangle there are 3 Isosceles triangles with 2 sides of 2.5 cm and an angle of 120...... but I'm stumped! How do I calculate the sides of the triangle, so that I get a perfect equilateral triangle inside my circle?

If I haven't lost you yet and you know how to help me, PLEASE!!!! I tried Google but either the formulas don't work or I'm too dumb to figure it out....

AND THE ANSWER IS:

4.4 cm, which you can figure out by either:

Law of cosines= c*squared = a*squared plus b*squared - 2abCOS(C) so, Equilateral Triangle Side = 2.5*squared + 2.5*squared - 2(2.5)(2.5)Cosine(120degrees)

OR: scale the damned .jpg to 5cm and print it!!!!! thanks OmegaMom for coming up with a solution that was staring me in the face!

Clearly, Mila didn't read the last sentence when I wrote that I was too dumb to follow the formula!!! (also, how cool is that? mila is a former staffer who is sorely  missed now that she is busy doing some fancypants graduate degree in an other town, but still keeps up by reading my blog!)

I'm everywhere today

boy of boy! talk about having a popular day......

color and money

When I get bummed out, like I have been feeling these past few weeks, I take on a DYI project. Feeling frustrated? Bang on something! Feeling angry? Destroy something! Feeling blue and down? Throw some orange and magenta on the walls! Since I have banished orange and magenta from the blog, I decided to throw it up all over the walls of the guest rooms at the Kibbutz.  The details are over at Ubercrafty.

(In case you decide to skip the long narrative over there, let me just point out that those are TWO different rooms! I haven't completely lost my mind!) Also, mom and dad... Surprise! "your" room has been painted!

Now, onto a more serious topic... something that has been on my mind for a long time, ironically, probably since I first blogged about the Kibbutz... Back in the day, oh, 2 years ago now, when we first purchased our cottage, I got a troll dissing me. I don't remember the details, but it was mainly about the size of our second home, and basically, about the fact that we have money and how we chose to spend it..... Since I have been blogging, there have been very few taboos around here. I have blogged about every aspect of my life, my husband, my kids, my in-laws, heck, I've blogged about my period! But for some reason, whenever I blog about something remotely to do with our finances, I thread very lightly..... Even mentioning that we went to China in first class, with paid tickets, not on points, seemed to be taboo.... I didn't want to attract the attention.....

As some of you are aware, a troll struck a very good friend of mind yesterday. No need for links, either you know or you don't know. There was even a second comment about yet another friend's vacations.... The woman is a TRAVEL AGENT! If she's not going to take fabulous vacations, who is? And you know what, even if she wasn't a travel agent......

Here is the thing.... I live a more than comfortable life. We are on easy street so to speak. Why should I be ashamed of that? Why should I not blog about buying a Kate Spade bag, or staying at a 5 star hotel when I travel, in first class? Anyone who has read me knows I still buy my stuff on the sale rack at the GAP because up until I married, I didn't have money. So I do know the value of a dollar. I go to work, I run a company. I could sit at home and go to yoga. Scratch that. I could sit at home and make yoga come to me, like every other yummy-mummy on my street. I could hire a nanny to move in and take care of the children so I wouldn't have to bother with them. But I don't. So when I do go out and splurge on a pair of shoes, or a dress, or a cottage, I want to blog about it. And I don't want to attract the ire of trolls!

My second daughter just started nursery school this year. Same school my first daughter attended, mostly all the same families. But this year, there is a little girl there, the daughter of one of the richest families in the country. A well-known family, a family that has businesses and charities named after them. This little girl gets brought to school every day by her assigned nanny. Her sibling has a different nanny. The nanny doesn't walk over to the school. They are driven, by a driver, who is not assigned to the parents, only to the children. Everyday, I am sort of stunned by it. Not because of the expense, but to me, if you are going to be that rich, wouldn't you want to free yourself up and spend every second you can with your kid? But see, that's the thing... that's just ME! And I'm not going to hold it against them! Are they supposed to apologize for being rich? They are generous, they give away plenty, so who am I to judge? (Though I must admit, watching the nanny and bodyguard/driver go apple picking with the kid was pretty freaking hilarious! I wanted to blog about it at the time, but I realized, it wasn't my place.)

So here is the thing. I have money. Some of my friends have money, some don't. If someone wants to blog about their shoes, their vacations, their handbags, they should be able to, without fear of judgment. Because the alternative is communism... that's the only way to be fair to everyone... yeah, I didn't think you'd go for that......

on a high

When it comes to most things in my life, I am either full-on or completely-off. There is nothing wrong with me (i mean seriously wrong, psychologically) but I definately have highs and lows... I have been in a high/manic/productive phase for a couple of weeks now. It started with the doomed weekend up north, when I found myself with hours on my hands and nothing to do. After sorting through the girls clothes (NOTHING up there fits them anymore!) I came across one of the first fancy sweaters I bought Dumpling. She wore it for her first holiday pictures. It was soooo adorable. But it wasn't going to get worn again and I just couldn't imagine giving it away.. But I AM NOT PUTTING IT IN A BOX! When we met Dumpling, my mom, bless her heart, gave me a giant box of clothes she had kept for 30+ years, all moth-ball smelling.... There was no way I was putting Dumpling in those, though we do have fun playing dress up with the highly flammable polyester couture!

Anyhow, the sweater. It was a sweater. It is now a pillow and a pair of mitts.

  I also made Dumpling her halloween costume this week. She will be trick-or-treating during our vacation to the Happiest Place on Earth, so appropriately, it's Disney TM! Of course, she's still complaining every day that she doesn't have the red hair yet.... I may pruchase a cheap wig, but i am actually tempted to knit her one. I saw a funny wig pattern in Craft magazine a while back and I could totally hack it to make it look more like Ariel, but I'm afraid she'll be too hot.

she is  very stoked about the fin!

  I haven't started BB's fairy costume yet. But I did finally cut into some of my  long-amassed Super Buzzy fabrics and made her a cute little top for school:

  the pattern is from one of my japanese craft books, also from Super Buzzy.

I also made a quick update to Ubercrafty with yet another project I whipped up last week.

Sin

I have made arrangements and I am about to commit what I use to consider the WORST sin against old houses..... We are about to have the trim painted..... I know! I can hear you screaming at the computer! (ETA: I have no problem with white trim... I just always thought the sin was painting genuine vintage oak. People spend hours/days/weeks stripping paint to get back to the wood, why would anyone paint it? Oh. I'm about to!)

here is the deal. The main house color inside used to be yellow. Last year, we had everything painted out Wedgwood Grey (Benjamin Moore), which I absolutely adore and it totally made our house more modern and up to date. But the oak. It's every where. The floors are light blond and all the trim is that orangy-brown that is typical of 90 year old oak. It's nice, but it makes the house look very out of date.

So while we are visiting the Happiest Place on Earth for Halloween, the floor refinishers are coming in and sanding the main floor and the stairs (probably for the 2nd time only, maybe even the first. in some places, there is no finish left at all). But I am having them refinish in a dark brown. Not quite chocolate, but almost. There is actually a band of dark brown that runs in the main rooms, as an inlay. It won't be as dark as that, so we can still see the inlay, but it will be in the same family.

After we get back, I need to find a painter, and we will be painting out the trim, the bannister and the stair risers white. I haven't picked the shade yet, so if you have a good white to reccomend, please do so.

Here is the current look:

this is the type of look I'm going for, but not so traditional. so the bannister will be white as well, and you can't tell by my picture, but my walls are actually a nice dark grey-blue, so it will be a nice contrast.

So yeah... I'm going to sin.....

Buzy Buzy!

A 3 day weekend.... what to do, what to do????

First off, Dumpling now eats lunch at school, and they asked for a cloth placemat daily. Since it's a Kosher environment, I figured she would need 2, one for meat, one for dairy. I was just going to take a big placemat and cut it in half, but then, I figured I could do better. For the details, head over to the craft blog.

 

We also took the kiddos to the farmers market. it's always buzy there, like during berry season, but I have NEVER seen it as buzy as during TOMATO season. Wow! the italian families buying vats and vats of tomatoes, filling the trunks of the cars! I simplly couldn't resist and came home with this small 30+ pound bag of roma tomatoes. It took me about 4 hours of prep and 2 hours of cooking, along with the biggest plant of basil I have ever seen (it was as tall as Dumpling and as wide as Beach Ball!!!) to turn these tomatoes into a 10-container batch of homemade tomato sauce. We had it for dinner, it was delicious.

Corn is also in season. Beach Ball likes corn....

Just call me Junk-Mother

We have a great DYI show in Canada called Junk Brothers, where two brothers go out on trash day and pick up stuff people throw out, bring it back to their studio and turn it into something else. Like a stove into a hot-rod BBQ, or a decrepit desk into a really snazzy video game console.

Anyhow, today, I stopped by my former employee/friend's new apartment to check out her new digs, help her pick some paint colors and install some deadbolts. She was having some layout issues in her kitchen/dining room area, hoping to make a small home office in there too. She was going to move her flat table everday, changing it from her dining table to her desk. I told her that would not be great in the long run, because the minute she needed to leave a project out on her desk, she would find herself eating on the couch.

she did, however, have this great dresser in the corner. She didn't like it, it was too high to use as a desk or sideboard.....

  We headed over to Home Depot, where I gifted her with a basic wood saw. She purchased a piano hinge. We sawed off the front of the drawer, hacked away at the bottom a little bit, using a paint scraper and hammer as a chisel, and 20 minutes later, we had a snazzy flip-out drawer:

Here she is, sitting at her new hideaway home office, which will now reside in her Mortimer's Mom redisgned dining room. A little TSP and steal wool and that baby is going to be a prized posession!

In other news, I have been on a purging binge. I have totally decluttered the kids play room and the living room. Tomorrow, I attack the front hall and vestibule. We are clutter-people, we keep crap way longer than necessary, nd with 2 kids, it's just out of control. So I'm throwing it and giving away anything and everything that crosses my path. I will make a list of books I have and if anyone wants them, they'll be up for grabs. And the girls had a lemonade stand today, pictures later, must upload first.

Therapy, MM's style

The last couple of days have definitely been therapeutic for me. It's been a shit year so far, let's face it. Between the BB rejection, the B12 debacle, the husband in the hospital, the busted knee followed by surgery, both dogs having "incidents" and Dumpling turning 4 going on 14, it's really been a shit year.

So I've been doing things to recharge MY batteries lately. First, my oldest friend K visited for a few days, and then the Urban visit was a major highlight. We had such a good time, it was relaxed and easy going and we got along just like on the computer. After they left, there was a void. So I went to the movies. A lot. There is something about being by myself in a dark room with a story to escape for 2 hours. For me, that's what a therapy session is.

Also, yesterday and today, I went back to my sewing machine. My Doll Quilt needs to be mailed out tomorrow and I've had a pillow case project in my head for weeks now. if you are interested in such things, both projects are up at Ubercrafty.

Finally, a reader who happens to live in my city and is an OT came to my house yesterday and did a session with BB ****. Most of the delays that we documented a few months back have been caught up. Yeah BB! Her knees are still locked in certain positions and she crawls funny, but thanks to M the Amazing Babysitter, she's already playing dog in the park and except for her language, she's pretty much on par with other soon-to-be 2 year olds.

***How nice was that? She read my post way back about BB being at a one year-old level and offered to come over for a second opinion. We have been working with BB on her delays, but to have someone else, who is weeks away from her own referall come over and check it out, it was soooo sweet! Thanks again N!

Startling Orange

You might have missed the press release, but the inevitable is about to happen... The lovely D of Hope Springs and I have decided it was time to let our husbands meet and spend time kvetsching about public bathrooms, the proper way to do dishes, and obscure baseball statistics that nobody but the two of them care about. They have, in fact, met once before in Chicago. But this before Herb was a blogger, back when we didn't know he was just as quirky as Mortimer's Dad. So this time, the geekiness and oddness will be let loose.

So with such dignitaries coming to stay with us, I decided it was time to turn out guest room from an all-purpose storage room with a spanking-new mattress standing on its side to, you know, an actual guest room. Past guest have stayed in the attic, which is lovely, but the bed is a pullout. So a while back, we decided that we would actually make a proper guest room. We purchased the mattress after the basement reno and sort of never went anywhere after that. Last night, we were watching the premiere of HGTV's Design Star (it's Canada, we get everything later!) and we saw a bedroom that both caught our fancy. Bold but not bright orange, with chocolate accents. Coincidentally, we have already purchased a dark brown headboard, which is sitting in the box in the hallway.

Off we went to Home Depot, where we zeroed in on Startling Orange immediately. A small pint of a nice brown called Wild horse will be used as some sort of accent. And because the basement bathroom is a nice hospital shade of salmon (the previous owners loved 2 colors: bright yellow and all shades of salmon), we will also infuse a bit of personality to that room with something called Green Crush. The overall color pallet is very Jonathan Adler. It's bold and fun and totally appropriate for the basement, which is pretty dark. (I wish I had the guts to do the rest of the house like that, but I might get tired of it if I saw it all day everyday)

The first coat is done and it already looks fantastic. I'll show you as soon as I'm done. What? Don't you always re-do your spare room before your guests come to stay? I'm hoping this will appease The Goddess....

Commiting a Sin Against Martha

Sidenote: the pasta was delicious! Way better than boxed stuff!

I have been buying/subscribed to Martha Stewart magazine since issue #4. (Hey, I'm in Canada, it took me 3 issues to get track it down!). Except for a few months after University when I let my subscription lapse for lack of funds, I have every issue. In a really crappy particle-board bookshelf (Martha would not be proud). Over the years, I have gone back to them, re-read them, search for stuff in them. They have been great for information and inspiration. But you know, it's 2007 and everything is on-line now. And the crappy bookshelf is now falling apart. So I needed to rehouse the magazines somewhere else.

Except, I don't live alone anymore. I don't live alone with my husband. We live with 2 kids and 2 canines, and the 6 of us have an incredible amount of crap. So after the last basement reno, I started considering maybe it would be time to let them go...... But I couldn't do it.

So instead, tonight, for no reason except the fact that I had 4 issues lying around in the breakfast room, I started committing the ultimate sin against Martha: I started going through the magazines, cutting out the pages I wanted to keep, and, it pains me to admit this, recycling the rest..... I know! Martha herself once answered the question by saying you should keep them intact and pristine, not clip them!

But I came up with an hopefully Martha-approved solution: I got very pretty binders, and a big ole stack of page protectors, and I'm cutting the whole pages and putting them in page protectors. There are 3 binders: Food, Crafts and Good Things/Other. So far I've only gone through about a dozen magazines, but I kept only about 30 different pages or sets of pages, so really, I'm glad I'm doing this. For example, i don't garden, at all. So there are at least 2 issues per year and 10 pages per issue that are of no interest to me. And I really don't think I'm ever going to re-read the 17 page in depth research on weather-vanes.

I hope Martha forgives me.

Black is not the new black

Further to my bathroom makeover, I went shopping for bathroom accessories: something to hang the toilet paper on, something to hang 2 hand towels on, something to disguise a couple of extra rolls of toilet paper and finally, a garbage can.

You know what? Apparently, people don't like black accessories in bathrooms. Even the mega-Umbra does only one set in black, and it looks like bent twigs. Not the look I was going for. I went to specialty stores and big-box places: all chrome or white. The high end places had catalogues we could order from, but I am not spending hundreds of dollars on a former coat-closet!

I found some cute floating shelves that will serve as open cabinets. I will have to find something to camouflage the rolls of TP on them. And since I'm not thinking black crochet doilies, I will be on the lookout for some sort of black box that will fit 2 rolls. I did drive to an architecture salvage place and found a set of black ceramic accessories from the 40s (TP holder and soap dish), but it's meant to be tiled into the wall. So my dad took the Dremel to it and made some holes so I will be able to screw them in tomorrow.

Finally, I bought this mirror, which I hung vertically instead. I'll show you the final shots tomorrow.

Wanna use my bathroom?

This is really more of a DYI project than a craft project, for now. But as you will see, it can evolve into an arts project....

Our main floor powder room used to be a coat closet. The previous owners took a 1920's house with one bathroom and did their best to stick toilets wherever they could. So the former front hall closet became the smallest, peach-est powdered room ever. I hate peach. HATE it. But it's a 3 by 4 powder room, so I let it be and closed my eyes whenever I went in there. Except a few weeks ago, I had enough. So I ordered this.

yesterday, I took everything off the walls and patched them. I changed the two light fixtures because the cheap blue ones that were there were totally useless (though it made the peach more bearable). This morning I primed because years of DYI TV shows have thought me you should always apply fresh primer before you wallpaper. Then, I wallpapered for the first time in my life. I still need to get a new mirror and some black accessories like a soap dish and towel ring. Also, what will go up first: a picture, a drawing, kids scribble?

GYCO April

My April Aprons are documented on Ubercrafty.

Get Your Craft On! MARCH

March's theme for Get your Craft on was RECYLE.

At first, I was stoked. I love making something out of something that had a previous life. But then, as I started thinking about what I should actually make, I was stumped. I couldn't think of anything. At least nothing I hadn't already tried or wouldn't be able to accomplish (I refuse to start anything I can't finish - I have enough WIPs to last a lifetime)

Then I got busywith the Dumpling's 4th bday, so I figured I would be totally lame and do the ultimate act of recycling: presenting you guys with crafts projects I've already done but never blogged about! I didn't have any pictures of me wearing the t-shirts I'm constantly altering, ripping, adjusting. But I did have pics of a few other things:

• the mobile for Dumpling's country house room,  fashioned from all the KLB holiday cards and some left over wire.
• The mittens (several more pairs than pictured) I made from all the sweaters that I didn't like anymore or had met an untimely death by the cleaning lady (love her, but damn she shrinks a lot of stuff). When we spent a week at the country in January, I felted a whole bunch of sweaters and made a TON of mits for the kids, myself and my friend IH.

But really, I felt itchy to do something. And then, the cleaning lady shrunk a J Crew wool tunic that I loved, but that was already a bit past its prime had a hole and a stain....    

I've had a really cute Japanese embroidery book for a while now, but never had anything to embroider (it's not really my thing). But after shortening the sleeves and fixing the trim around the neckline, which hadn't shrunk, the tunic was perfect for Dumpling. So I took out my embroidery floss, my cute book and Voila:

Farrah F. is the COOLEST!

I came home today and Farrah Fawcett was waiting for me. What, you don't believe me? Here, look:

See, I told you! And you know what? Farrah (and her alter ego) is absolutely the COOLEST. OK, so technically, this was a holiday swap that should have landed on my doorstep some time in January.... But Farrah, she knows how to make up for being a tad late!

First, the box was full of goodies: cute socks, the most FABULOUS pouch for CDs, adorable notes with the girls' initials (which will come in super handy for all the bday gifts they bring to their friends), super funky tissues and a lovely bracelet. I mean, everything in there was fabulous and it made for a terrific gift. But Farrah has one more gift for me....

A book. A scrapbook. Super pretty on the outside. But the inside, oh the inside!!!!! I don't even have words to describe it to you! I had to take a picture of each page and show you! Basically, she created a page for each month of our first year as a family of four. There is currently a handmade notecard in each photospot, which she suggested I remove and replace with a family picture taken each month, so we can journal our first year as a familly. But I could never take those cards out completely, so what I have decided to do is to indeed put a picture on each page for each month, but I will use the notecard to write a little something to the girls, so that they can read about their first year of being sisters.

Farrah, you ROCK!!!!!

Get Your Craft On!

I didn't think there was going to be anyway for me to Get My Craft On this month, what with mommyhood duties being on the rise around here. But in thinking about the girls and their emotions and the heart-mending that we have been doing for real, I sort of got inspired... So after their bed-time last night, I grabbed my zigzag cutting wheel and eyeballed 2 sets of strips, which I then woven together and further cut into hearts. No rulers, no fuss, just shooting from the hip.

Once I had my 2 woven hearts, I basically just quilted them along the edges of the strips and around the hearts. The zigzagged edges should fray nicely in the wash....

So here you go, my girls and their woven hearts:

PS: Dumpling further adorned her with some batting she borrowed from my craft room, and yes, I did add a bit of ribbon around the neckline for that extra little something!

Bags: a creative interpretation

while the KLBs are all busy crafting away and making bags, I spent the day rolling snow suits and polar fleece jackets into plastic pouches and using the Food Saver to take the air out and pack them up all tiny... does that count? it's sort of a bag......

Operation packing has officially begun. I have also added a Flickr link to my page. There are no public pictures right now, but I will put them there while in China. I have also secured the help of guest posters/bloggers while I am away.... If I am unable to reach Typepad during my trip, the lovely Deanna and her husband (and mine, sort of) will be posting on my behalf. So we are covered and you can be assured my adventures will be available!

I have also washed Sprout's new clothes and transfered several more DVDs to the iPod.....  12 days and counting!

PS: It starts to air tomorrow. I should be on this Tuesday and then Thursday of next week...  it will also be available online.

Why I still love Doug Wilson

Disclaimer: this is going to be a very boring entry if you are not into DYI, crafts or problem solving.

I hate leaving a DYI project unfinished. I hate when I can't figure something out. Yet since last June, there has been a large 3 foot by 5 foot panel of MDF leaned against the wall in my kitchen, taunting me.  You see, waaaaaay back when in the Spring, I had decided to turn the stairway wall of my kitchen into a giant magnetic chalkboard.  I had seen it done on several TV shows and I was going to make one. We already have a small magnetic board and a small chalkboard, but both are too high for Dumpling. And she really wants to play with magnets....

So I searched high and low for the magnetic chalkboard paint that I had seen on TV, but no one in my city sold it and the manufacturers wouldn't ship it to Canada... So i resolved to do the more complicated 2 step application of first using the magnetic paint, then the chalkboard paint (the latter of which I am a pro at, having already created many chalkboard surfaces).

The magnet paint is very very heavy, and quite lumpy when you get it, as the metal separates in transport. Try as I might, I never got the first can mixed well enough and the first coat was a big lumpy mess. I spot sanded and scraped and managed to get it fairly even, but I just couldn't figure out how to get it even for the other coats, so there it sat, propped up against the wall, taunting me for 7 months.

Today, the last day of our holiday, I decided that I was taking this bad boy down and not giving up until I figured it out. Also, the basement is still empty as the contractor hasn't started up again, so I already had work-horses set up and ready to go.  I re-read the mixing instructions and attempted for the better part of an hour to mix it by hand.... Still a big lump. It suggested using a paint mixing attachment for a drill, which I do not own. But that didn't stop me, I actually stuck a cake beater onto the drill and tried to mix it. The beater thing worked, but the lumps were still there.

Finally, I sort of struck gold when I decided to strain it using a crappy mesh colander from the kitchen. I ended up with a still fairly thick paint (i didn't want to strain all the metal out of it) and a big thick cement like blob. And that's when it happened. When I had my moment of genius.  I was scooping up the cement like blob with a paint scraper and notice that the scraper was allowing me to break up the lumps, sort of like..... Venetian plaster! And then, I remembered. Remembered all the Trading Spaces episodes, where Doug, before he came to my house and hung a dozen nipples on the walls, was the KING of Venetian Plaster.

And so away I went, with a couple of plastic paint scraper, spreading and evening out the thick metal cement onto my board.  I let it dry and then finished it off with the strained mixture (which I also applied with a scraper, it turns out it did a much nicer job). Now I have to let it dry a full 24 hours before I can to the chalkboard paint part, but people, it's no longer leaning in the kitchen and the end is actually in sight. I conquered the bane of my existence, thanks to Doug. He's almost forgiven for the nipples!

Let the stripper do the work

OK, to the pervs who got here via stripper searches, sorry to disappoint, but this is strictly related to DYI furniture stripping.....

We went back to the Kibbutz of the North this weekend (aka the cottage for the new readers) and I continued a project I started last time I was there....  Phase one involved taking my childhood kitchen table, which had seen better days:

strip back the decades of color it had gone through and opt for a slightly see-through stained color instead, giving us this revamped table, to be used as our outdoor eating table:

Phase two is going to be a summer-long endeavor...... you see, I plan on taking these:

  and giving much the same treatment, except the plan to is to stain them each a different bright color, to have a nice mismatched set of funky chairs to eat our bbq's on.... I just forgot to take one thing into account: spindles.... little round spindles.... lots and lots of round spindles....

I spent the better part of Sunday and a couple of hours Monday morning in the shed, the 90+Degree shed, taking in the fumes of the stripper and cursing the 7 layers of paint on the spindles.... Chair # 1 looked to be white. Except that under the white it was blue. Under the blue it was bright red, and I'm almost certain it was car paint. Under the weird red paint it was brown. Under the brown paint was a layer of varnish, which covered a very thick layer of stain.  Underneath it all, the wood is very nice and will most certainly look fabulous with a funky turquoise or bright orange stain, but to get there....

Let's just say that most of my blog entries are written in my head as things happen in my day to day life. And Sunday, I had an absolutely hilarious double-entendre entry about stripping in the shed. Of course, once I got outside where the temperature was normal and  I wasn't breathing in the stripper fumes, it turns out it was probably funny only to me in my fume-induced state, and now, 2 days later, when I finally reach a keyboard, I can't remember any of the funny stripping-related jokes I came up with... Sorry, you should have been in the shed, it was much funnier! If I ever get done with the stripping and the staining, I will show you the final set.

I do have a funny story to tell you, but I'll keep it til tomorrow.

PS: bonus points to eagle-eyed Figlet for spotting the Sradings Tpaces table behind tutu-clad Dumpling in the last entry.

project #1: a blue tutu

Here is the first completed project using the Dumpling Dummy: a blue ballet tutu for my little ballerina wanna-be. I used a tank-top, 2 meters of baby-blue tulle and 3 packages of little ribbon roses.