With the annoying week I’ve had I wanted something sweet & simple to make so I put together this little print for Gwen’s room. The quote is obviously from “Guess How Much I Love you,” but the combination of rabbits, the moon and love always makes me think of Sailor Moon, haha.

This is a totally easy-peasy project, just download the image from here, print on cardstock or heavy weight paper, cut to size and frame! The image is 8×8″ but if you can’t find a square frame you like (I got mine at Michael’s but I don’t LOVE it) you can use an 8×10″ frame. And there you have it, a cute piece of art for your baby’s nursery (or anyone else you might love to the moon & back).

Printable for personal use only; not for resale.

I love this little red dress so much I ordered it in burgundy as well :X

Great blue heron nests down by Stanley Park.

After all the sunny days last week it’s turned very grey here.

Baby loves coffee cake. I used this recipe but subbed pecans for walnuts (yuck), used smoked chocolate chips and added a swirl of rye whiskey caramel sauce to the batter.

I kind of can’t believe February is almost over. I know this month has been dragging for a lot of people (especially those who’ve been snowed or iced in) but here it’s just blown by.

After my small freak-the-freak-out on Monday I’ve been trying to be more chill this week. Obviously I can’t do everything in my life in one day, and I also really need to take the time to relax. Thankfully after being swamped with orders earlier this month I’m mostly caught up on banner making. Having dozens & dozens of open orders when I make everything myself by hand can be SO STRESSFUL. I really work my ass off not to ship anything late, although last week I stupidly forgot to buy envelopes and had to send out a couple banners two days later than scheduled. OH THE HUMANITY.

Of course, as soon as I decide I’m going to try not to bug out about things I had to deal with the biggest load of BS nonsense all day yesterday. Stressing about garbage online, stressing about garbage irl, kind of made me want to delete my blog, close my etsy, quit my job and go live under a rock with no wi-fi. Thankfully almost everything seems to have been resolved but UGH. Here’s hoping the rest of the week is less annoying.

I need more hours in the day.

Really, I probably just need to start managing my time more wisely (and spending less of it on the internet cough*like right now*cough). There are just so many things I want to do and when I combine those things with the stuff I need to do… it’s just too much. It certainly doesn’t help that I have too many hobbies, and too many of those hobbies have turned into businesses, on top of my day job-business, on top of parenting & homemaking… YEESH.

Take these blocks.

I bought this set of small, 3/4″ square blocks from Michael’s about fifty million years ago. I had always planned to paint them but never got around to it, and over the years a few of them were used for other purposes (namely propped up other things I was actually painting) and were wrecked or lost, so I out of the original 24 or 25 had 21 left. The other week I finally got around to doing it; I figured I could do them in different pastel colours and they’d make a cute addition to Gwen’s Easter basket (I’m planning ahead, and yes, I know these are quite small for a child Gwen’s age but she’s not really on of those kids that puts everything in their mouth so I’m not worried). I ended up painting six colours on each block, in different combinations of green, yellow, blue, pink, peach, purple, turquoise and gold. I’m really happy with how they turned out (except I think the purple is too dark? I might go back and paint a lighter shade over it), and now I want to paint MORE blocks. I keep thinking up different colour schemes & combinations, patterns and designs I want to do. But what would I do with all these blocks? OH I KNOW, SELL THEM OF COURSE. Because I’m not already busy enough with making & selling banners and boots.

And it’s not just painting the blocks- it’s hard to find beeswax polish in Canada so what am I gonna do to finish these blocks? MAKE MY OWN OF COURSE. Go buy a big block of beeswax and grate it up and melt it with some jojoba oil. Then I’m like… if I had a miter saw I could buy lengths of wood and cut my own blocks! I should get a saw! And I have plans for some new boot designs for Gwen- a pair with bunny faces for Easter (I’ve already bought a bunch of round black studs for eyes and spray painted some triangular studs pink for the noses) and some with fringe that I might make out of this really cool dark brown suede with copper stars, so I need to make new patterns. I want to start embroidering patches again, like the ones I made Taylor for our anniversary last year. I have all the pieces for a felt woodland garland made and just need to sew them to the ribbon. The gold leather crown I made for Gwen is peeling apart (I used no-sew Heat Bond to make it and that stuff is the worrrrrrst) so I need to fix it and come up with a better technique for making them. I want to paint a large canvas to hang on the wall above the dressers in our bedroom. I want to repaint my desk (so sick of the yellow) and our whole office.

Here’s what’s on my to-do list for today:

– make, pack & ship two banners
– do the dishes & laundry
– bake a coffee cake
– order Taylor’s anniversary gift
– clean the bathroom
– sweep all the dead leaves of the stairs
– finish putting together the last three drawers for Sym’s new dresser
– start taking apart Sym’s old bookcase & Gwen’s old dresser
– pack & ship one pair of boots
– punch holes & set snaps in two pairs of boots and sew at least one vamp
– paint pictures with Gwen, it’s her new favourite thing

– go outside
– clean everything
– do everything
– make everything

I am really trying to come up with a “time budget” so I’m able to fit everything in between school drop offs & pick up and nap time and trips to the park. I already don’t work on banners on the weekends (unless it’s a dire situation) and I try to do the bulk of my banner-making on Tuesdays, when I don’t have to go to the school. I usually sew just in the evenings while I watch tv. I’ve really been trying to meal plan & grocery shop more efficiently, rather than 5:30 rolling around every day and being like “oh cool there’s no food in the house.” I definitely need to do better with fitting in housework, I would rather do almost anything else so it tends to fall by the wayside most days (where it belongs imo). idk idk, how do you fit everything into the day?

On Wednesday I had made plans to meet up with a local etsy customer to deliver her banners. I was very anxious to get it done because she actually placed the order in early December and the banners had been finished for moths, it was just hard to coordinate our schedules. We planned to meet at 11:30 on Granville Street near the comic book store, which is perfect because on Wednesdays Taylor goes to the comic book store after work. To make the outing a bit more interesting for the lil ones I decided to leave early, at 9:30, and walk the Seawall around Yaletown before meeting Taylor in Gastown and heading up to Granville.

It was a totally gogeous day so the walk was amazing, but I forgot to bring any snacks (like, I packed snacks, I just didn’t put the snack bag in the stroller) so Gwen started to get a little grumpy as we headed off the Seawall. Other than that it was fine, until I we got to the corner of Robson & Granville, half a block from the meeting place, when I realized I FORGOT TO BRING THE BANNERS. Like, the ENTIRE REASON I’d even gone out was to deliver them! It was 11:10, so I had twenty minutes to basically run home, pick up the banners and get back down to Granville. Sym was home (she’d just gotten her braces adjusted) so I called and asked her to grab the banners and come meet me, but in spite of my telling her which street to go down she went down a parallel street and I ended up going all the way to our house before I called her again to be like “WHERE ARE YOU????”

Anyway, I was able to make it back in time and get them to the customer, but geez. What a classic move on my part.

Today Taylor and I took Gwen around the Stanley Park section of the Seawall (I remembered snacks this time). Before we left the house I thought it was going to be another nice day but when we got down the hill it was super cloudy and grey. I was a little worried it was going to rain but I decided to go ahead anyway, and once we came around the cliff below Prospect Point it was all blue skies and sun the rest of the way.

Sometimes I think I have a weird gift of being able to pick the absolute worst day on any given weekend/holiday for an activity. You don’t even know how many times I’ve suggested a family walk down on the Seawall only to find our way blocked by a parade or a race or a crowd of some sort. Like the time two years ago I suggested a walk on the beach on New Years Day during the Polar Bear Swim, or the trip to the playground at Second Beach that took us right into the path of the Terry Fox Run. I’ve had my plans stymied by the Sun Run, some bicycle racde, the Pride Parade, you name it. The pitfall of living downtown in the center of the routes for basically all these things I guess.

Anyway. Sunday morning was a weird combo of dim and foggy to the east & south and bright and sunny to the west & north so I had the idea to walk down to Sunset Beach and along the seawall to English Bay. It was really cool- we walked from where it was clear into the fog, and then as we headed west it burned off and you could see all the freighters out in the bay slowly emerging. Of course, that part of the Seawall is part of the route for the half-marathon that was happening that day because OF COURSE IT WAS. Luckily it was near the end of the route and we were down there early enough that it didn’t start to get crowded with runners until the end of our walk, but still. STILL. I’m going to have to start keeping track of all the runs and races and things so this STOPS HAPPENING.

Valentine’s Day was lovely. I love picking out presents for everyone, although for some reason I’m always stumped on what to get Taylor for Valentine’s, so after spending several hours shopping on Friday afternoon I went back to the same well as last year and got him scotch. Why mess with the classics, right? Maybe it can be the thing, I get him a new, different scotch to try every year. Symphony got a Funko POP Dancing Groot and some Tony Moly cosmetics (THEY’RE SO CUTE), and Gwen got a heart-print mini hamper with a cute Valentine’s dress and stuffed pig inside. For me Taylor made a super cute Lego fox. He designed it himself, went out to the Lego store for bulk bricks and put it together in secret. It’s so sweet! He definitely put more thought into my gift than I did to his so I need to STEP UP my game for our wedding anniversary next month.

Sometimes I feel like I’m constantly redecorating Gwen’s room. Some changes have been out of necessity, like when she and her lil friend tore her bookshelves clean out of the wall. Some have been due to Gwen’s changing needs, like when we stopped using the changing table attachment on the cabinet. Others have been because an item in her room just wasn’t useful in that space, like the chair I thought we’d use for night feedings- we literally never did so it lives in my office now. I think mostly right now I’m just frustrated because I have to have a second crib in there. The room is really small so the second crib takes up a lot of the floor space and blocks the closet doors, so when it’s not in use I fold it up and put it away. At the same time though I have to leave a space for it so there’s a whole corner of her room that is empty half the time, which makes the room look unbalanced and strange.

Anyway. Her dresser was completely falling apart so last weekend we got her a replacement. I put the dresser behind the door (which is placed oddly in the middle of one wall, exacerbating all my problems with this room) and hung a shelf-with-clothes-rail over it. Now I can use her closet purely for storage (mostly Taylor’s off-season coats, too-big hand-me-downs for Gwen, and boxes and boxes of books) and with these clothes out in the open hopefully she’ll get more wear out of them. She was very excited to choose her outfit from it this morning!

All of Gwen’s handmade boots from Little Mountain.

Sorry for the lackluster image quality, Gwen’s room is not well lit.

I made the shelf using brackets and a board from Ikea (I had the shelf cut down to the length I needed by the handyman for my block) and the clothes rail is just a dowel from the craft store (I cut it to length myself). I drilled holes in the dowel & brackets, screwed everything together and painted it (1 coat of primer + 2 coats of gloss white). I already had the paint on hand so this cost less than $20. If I had to do this again I’d move the dowel forward by 1/4″ so the hangers had a little more space, prime & paint the pieces BEFORE screwing them together, and do a better job of sanding it between coats. I def half-assed some parts of this project, but it gets the job done and I think it looks pretty alright (could just be the bad lighting tho).

spontaneous huggies

raindrops on noses and whiskers on Kichous

Is there anything better than a lazy long weekend? I so did not accomplish all the things I meant to accomplish (I still haven’t put up the second door on the dvd cabinet, whoops) but I did accomplish a lot of shopping (double whoops). I picked up some spring clothes for Gwen, some more Valentine’s Day gifts, a little glass dome with a marble base (I was hoping to put my crystal unicorn in it but the horn is too long- I think when I had it repaired they replaced the horn instead of reattaching the old one, it seems longer. I think I’m going to keep a skull in it instead bc why not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). As it turns out, the money I’d transferred from Paypal was already in my bank account so this morning we took a spontaneous trip to Ikea to buy the new dressers & bookcases for the girls, as well as a second set of Gwen’s bed linens. I went slightly off-list, buying a new throw pillow for the couch and a bunch of 1,000-lumen LED lightbulbs, but I still came in under budget (for the second Ikea trip in a row, this must be some sort of record).

This weekend I also spent more time than I’d care to admit redoing the layout for this blog- surprise surprise, it’s plain as hell and grey, BUT it’s also optimized for your mobile devices! The future!

The thing that took the longest was making and resizing and remaking-in-the-opposite-colour and re-resizing all the little buttons for the sidebar. I thought I had is all finished with white text on grey buttons but it looked terrible on my phone so I had to redo the whole thing. It’s annoying that you can’t save your layout as a draft, because I had mine open for so long that it crashed or went weird or idk what happened and I had to start all over again. NOT COOL. Anyway it’s done now and I’M NEVER CHANGING IT AGAIN.

PS There are still two days left to enter my floral boot giveaway on instagram! And while you’re at it, check out my friend Caroline’s art giveaway as well.

Gwen chose her own outfit of mountain-print footie pajamas, grey fox sweater, cat ear bowler hat and Ivy green leather boots from Little Mountain.

Today was my first sort-of-off Friday. Starting this month on Fridays I only work 7:30-9am and 3-4:20pm, leaving a big wide open six hours in the middle of the day to do whatever. It’s kind of great, especially since Taylor also has Fridays off right now. We have big plans to do interesting things on these Fridays, like go to the art gallery and the aquarium, and once the weather gets nicer we can walk around the Seawall. Today was kind of off-and-on rainy & gross so we stuck a little closer to civilization. First we had coffee & a bite to eat the the Greenhorn Cafe, and then made our way down to Taylor’s office in Gastown so he could drop off a phone to a coworker. On the way back we did a lil shopping, including buying a Valentine’s Day gift for Sym, some Legos for Taylor and Gwen’s 2015 Christmas pajamas (THEY WERE ON CLEARANCE OK I’M JUST BEING PRACTICAL). I was supposed to go get my nails filled too buuuuuut instead I just watched this week’s Nashville and worked on banners in the afternoon. I have so many open orders right now!

My plans for this weekend include making some teeny-tiny baby boots, taking a trip to the Swarovski store to pick up my crystal unicorn that was being repaired (yes, I have a crystal unicorn), and finishing replacing the doors on the dvd cabinet. Oh and tonight I’m going to drink a whole bottle of sparkling wine to celebrate my birthday (which was yesterday). Originally we’d planned on doing my whole birthday celebration tonight since Sym usually spends Thursday nights at her dad’s, but she is having a hotel sleepover with her ex-stepmom tonight so instead Sym stayed with us and we did cake and presents last night, and tonight will be wine and I guess more cake? There is a lot, Taylor bought a giant dobos torte from the Transylvanian bakery.

PS don’t forget to enter the Little Mountain giveaway on instagram!

When Gwen wants to give you a hug she will run up to you with arms outstretched, saying “guh! guh!” (it’s “hug” spelled backwards). She’ll wrap her arms around you and rub her hand on your back, and it’s the sweetest hug ever.

She gives all her toys kisses and wants you to give them kisses too. She also gives kisses to pictures in her books. When we’re reading together she taps her mouth and then the page to ask me to bring it closer so she can give her favourite characters (like the fox in The Gruffalo, the fox in Green Eggs and Ham, the fox in Fox in Socks- SENSING A THEME HERE?)a smooch.

One day last week I pulled my pant legs up and put my feet into the tub when she was having a bath. At the time she was horrified, but now she wants me to do it every day. After dinner she’ll come over to me in the kitchen or the office or the living room and start trying to pull my pant cuffs, and if I don’t get moving right away she’ll prod and poke and push me into the bathroom and pat the edge of the tub where she wants me to sit.

Even though I’ve been really busy this week I decided it was the perfect time to get crackin’ on some home improvement projects I’ve been slacking on. Of course I decided that, it’s a totally typical Tanie move. First was replacing the doors on our dvd shelf in the living room. By shelf, btw, I mean 4 Ikea Benno shelves. The shelves are black-brown, but the doors were birch ones I pillaged from our old bookcase, and the mismatch drove me bonkers. Sym’s dad picked up new, black-brown doors a few weeks ago and I thought it’d be a quick & easy switch. I wouldn’t even have to take out the hinges, just unscrew the old doors, pop the new ones on. I was like it’ll be easy peasy lemon squeezy!

In the fifty billion years since I bought the old doors Ikea changed how they make them, and the hinges are attached in a different place, so I had to take out the old hinges after all. Plus, the new hinge placement relies on the shelves having special pre-drilled holes for them, which my old shelves don’t have. I had to make my own holes, but because the shelves are so narrow I couldn’t use my drill, I had to sort of gouge them with an awl. I couldn’t even fit my ratcheting screwdriver in there, and had to use this awkward tiny one instead. And did I mention I had to crouch down in a teeny-tiny space between the shelf, the new door, the wall and the end of the couch to do all of this???? Suffice it to say, I only got one door done.

After that I wanted a simpler project to tackle, so next I started painting this shelf-with-clothes rail I’m making for Gwen’s room. It would probably (definitely) been easier to paint the pieces separately and then assemble them but WHY WOULD I EVER DO ANYTHING THE EASY WAY? So there were all sorts of awkward little crannies and nooks to wedge the brush into but I managed to get it done. Once the paint is cured I’m going to hang it over her dresser and her cute lil dresses will be more easily accessible and hopefully get worn more often! Plus with no clothes in it her closet can be used purely for storage instead of the current half clothes, half boxes of books & Taylor’s extra coats like it is now.

I also have big plans for replacing her dresser (it was handed down from Sym’s room and is falling apart so badly) and a new bigger dresser & bookcase combo for Sym’s room as well, but I have to wait for the money to transfer out of my Paypal account. It’s good though; it’ll give me time to patch all the holes in the walls and touch of the paint! Because that’s what I need… more projects.

SPEAKING OF PROJECTS…. LITTLE MOUNTAIN BABY BOOTS ARE NOW AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE! Yes that’s right, I got all my samples made, photographed, photos edited & uploaded, listings written and published just like I wanted to, by my birthday. I’m feeling pretty good about it and if you’d like to help me feel even better please click on over to check them out.

To celebrate the launch (and my birthday) I’m giving away a pair of floral leather boots on my instagram! I literally only have enough leather to make one more pair so these are an exclusive, extremely limited edition (Gwen has the other pair). Visit my instagram to enter!

Happy February! Although January was a good month for me it really seemed to drag so I’m happy to bid it farewell.

After all the attention my shop got last week, this week is gonna be really busy for me. I Actually only have two orders that need to ship this week but there are a ton after that and I’d like to get ahead. My goal is to make eight banners, which is super doable. I could probably make even more but I’m also trying to finish my very last sample pair of boots. I did a ton of work on them yesterday and am more than halfway done, which is pretty great.

Also this weekend some friends were in town from Portland, so on Saturday Taylor and I met them for brunch at Lucy’s Diner on Main Street. Since we were out there we also did a little window shopping (and shopping shopping, I bought Gwen a set of Calico Critters babies that she loves) before taking the train out to Oakridge so Taylor could visit the Lego store. He’s just really into Legos. He got himself a couple sets and some Duplo for Gwen, and I got her a gold-dotted sweatshirt from the Gap on clearance. It’s so cute I kind of want to paint little gold dots on one of my sweatshirts (I mean lbr, how many plain grey sweatshirts do I needs?).

She refused to wear a coat.

He brought this empty duffle bag so he could fill it with Legos.

A dilapidated fortress on King Edward.

Little critters.

Little love.