Month: November 2013

Gwen very much enjoys excavating these bins of toys, especially the play food & dishes. Right now I mostly have fabric Ikea and Melissa & Doug food but I’d like to get her some wooden Erzi ones.


Testing the lights on Sym’s Christmas tree.



A tiny mountain (with one of Gwen’s bunnies), inspired by this full-sized pillow.


I’ve been trying different sandwiches for her lunch and the only kind she’ll eat is fig jam (with or without goat cheese). I’VE CREATED A MONSTER (the rejected sandwiches were artisanal hummus and bacon marmalade, so maybe I’m the monster).

A couple updates! First of all, yesterday I put up my nail polish shelf and I’m in luv. All my polish is RIGHT THERE, I can see them all and I feel I’ll be much less likely to keep buying dupes if I know what I have. I was so inspired that I painted my nails at like 10:30 last night, haha.

You can find these kind of shelves on amazon for pretty cheap if you are in the US, but most places don’t ship to Canada or the shipping is stupidly expensive. I lucked out and found one on ebay with cheap shipping, but that seller doesn’t ship to Canada anymore either! I guess they learned their lesson with me. Anyway the search term to use is “nail polish rack” and you might get lucky.

Remember how I first complained that my hair wasn’t fading, and then announced that it was? Here it is:

It’s so much lighter! But only in the front, haha. I’m focussing on fading the sides now. Also, on the right side of that pic you can see my AMAZINGLY WHITE ROOTS. Wow. WOWWWWW. Of course they are only like that at my temples (I’m distinguished igss), the rest of my head is more of a mix, although I thought the back of my head was still mostly brown and it’s really not.

Some links…

The wonderful Sarah Gonzalez on pressure, stress and rushing through life.

Sweetest little fox-print dress.

So beautiful!.

Someone get me these.

idek how this site works, like it seems to be some sort of clothing subscription? And they send you one in a different colour every month? WHY WOULD YOU NEED THAT???? But anyway this Moomin sweater and dress are pretty much the greatest things I’ve ever seen. Some other Moomin things I want: one two three

A couple outfits Gwen has worn lately.

I swear I’ve seen a longer trailer for this but now I can’t find it, weird. ANYWAY IT’S GOONA BE GREAT. I saw a comment describing it as “fabulous trash” and that’s so accurate.

Yesterday I decided to finally paint the bathroom so I could put up my giant nail polish shelf. I already had half a gallon of light grey paint left over from the office, as well as rollers (more on that later) and tape so it was like a free makeover! Of course, like all my spur-of-the-moment decisions it turned into kind of a disaster, or in this case, a SERIES of disasters.

Disaster #1: The baseboard at the um. base. of that wall had some serious water damage. I’ve been trying to get the property manager to take care of it for literally years but in a shocking twist they haven’t done anything. Sooooooo I kind of ripped it off the wall. Oops? Well I mean about half of it disintegrated in my hand so I only ripped the other half of it off, and guess what? The bathroom smells 90% better already.

Disaster #2: I was only painting the top half of the wall so I figured rather than wasting a full-sized paint roller and having the muck about with the tray I’d just use mini rollers. Unfortunately using mini rollers TAKES FOREVER, even on half a wall, plus the mini rollers I had were terrible dollar store sponge ones that tore apart after one use.

Disaster #3: Since I’d run out of terrible dollar store rollers after only two coats of paint I had to run out and get more, buuuuuuuuut by then it was after 7pm the only place open nearby that sells paint rollers is… the dollar store. I decided to switch it up and instead of getting more of the sponge-type rollers that fall apart I’d get a mini-version of an ACTUAL roller. Because that would work better! Such a good idea!

Oh, except the part where it was FULL OF LINT AND JUNK. Perfect. I can now safely say this is the absolute WORST paint job I’ve ever done, hands down.

Thankfully the linty part of the wall is right where I’m planning on hanging the nail polish shelf so it shouldn’t be completely obvious? And maybe when I paint the bottom half of the wall (once I fix all the damage from ripping off the rotten baseboard, whoopsies) I’ll sand the lint off and repaint. Yeah. THAT’LL HAPPEN.

All of these disasters were immediately followed by Disaster #4: I was all sweaty from painting but had to have a cold shower since the fan is broken (another problem the property manager is keen to do nothing about) and I didn’t want to fog up the freshly painted bathroom. Not fun! But at least it’s (sort of?) done now.

note: the actual paint colour is Benjamin Moore Iced Cube Silver, which from the looks of Google Image Search seems to be pretty popular for bathrooms.

Well I did it, I messed up, my bragging has ruined EVERYTHING. Remember when I was SO SMUG about my baby that sleeps in until 8:30 or 9 every day? NEVERMIND.

She’s been waking up earlier than every day since her birthday, although Friday and Saturday were definitely because of her bottom problems. That’s all taken care of and cleared up now, so why, then, did she also wake up early on Sunday and Monday? And today, the day I very cleverly scheduled her one year check up/vaccinations for right in between her morning wake up and her first nap, she woke up earlier than ever! By which I mean 7:15 (was that bragging again? oops). But still. It screwed everything up and other than a 20 minute stroller snooze she had a napless morning which is going to lead to both of us having a nervous breakdown this afternoon.

Anyway. In spite of her being grumpy about her messed up nap schedule her appointment went fine, and look! I have stats! She now weighs 24lbs and is 2 1/2 feet tall, because she is the world’s most giant baby.

On a related note, I’ve also managed to reverse psychologe my hair into fading after complaining on the weekend about how it wasn’t fading. It’s still pretty dark overall BUT some of my ends are starting to look positive periwinkle!

Gwen’s little party on Friday night…








Gwen actually had a terrible day- something she ate didn’t agree with her, leading to some bottom troubles and the worst diaper rash she’s ever had. I think she would have had more fun & possibly even enjoyed her little smash cake if she wasn’t so uncomfortable.

She made out like a tiny bandit though! From Taylor and I she got a new outfit (that she wore that day) plus a cozy cableknit cardigan (this one but in brown), a custom rag doll from Roving Ovine (that I bought in March, and thank goodness I did because she’s no longer accepting custom orders) and this beautiful Learn the Alphabet board book featuring Northwest Coast First Nations artwork. She got lots of wonderful toys, clothes and books from our family & friends, I would feel like an asshole listing them all but she is a very lucky baby!

… even though I wish you would!

I’m talking about my hair colour here. It WILL NOT FADE, no matter how much I wash it. I DON’T UNDERSTAND.

It’s not like I’ve never dyed my hair a wacky colour before; I have. MILLIONS of times. And every time I lived with the knowledge that if I washed my hair the colour would instantly fade and need to be retouched. Well. In the ten days since I dyed it this blue-that-was-meant-to-be-purple I’ve washed it at least 30 times. AT LEAST. Not an exaggeration.

Does this look faded to you???

I’m going to look on the bright (BRIGHT BLUE/PURPLE, HA) side here, as long as I’m trying to fade this colour out I can keep washing my hair as often as I like. And I do like.

This concrete diamond sounds surprisingly easy to make.

Finally science has caught up with my incessant need to slouch down and lean back in my chair.

Maria designed the layout elements for Tiny Buttons.

I hope you enjoy weeping…

Get a sneak peek Gwen’s birthday outfit on Tiny Buttons!

Happy birthday to my tiny little angel baby.

What I find when I get Gwen up from a nap: silly hair and a chewed-on Elke.

Some things Gwen has been eating recently…

top row: Penne with carrots & goat cheese, this was a weird mix of leftovers but she seemed to like it. Fruit salad with peaches, pears, and mandarins.
bottom row: scrambled eggs yolks, cheese, tomatoes and bread & butter. Chicken, broccoli and mashed potatoes.

Reader Tabetha used my tutorial to make these adorable moccs for heer little one. Thanks for sharing!

Sym is having a birthday sleepover with her friends on the 15th (she insited it had to be on a Friday and I told her if it was this Friday her friends would have to celebrate Gwen’s birthday too so she picked next week) but since yesterday was her actually birthday we marked the occasion with cake and she opened her presents from family. Except her dad didn’t want to bring her gifts from him up the hill to my house, and my mom is bringing Sym’s gift when she comes over on Friday, so it’s more of an extended gift-opening.

For some reason I only took instagrams of the decorations I spend the last four days working on…

top row: Party hats! I made these with stiffened felt & assorted pompoms. I kiiiiiiind of went overboard but they are so cute & also fun to make. Tissue tassel garland! Every time I make one of these I improve on my technique. I thought I’d perfected in the summer when I made one for Jenn’s summer camp party but this time I think I’ve really got it. I MIGHT put up some tutorials on making the hats & garland, I didn’t take pics of the process so I’ll have to find time to make more (because what I need is more of these???).
bottom row: Banners and honeycomb pompoms! I made the banner in separate pieces so I can switch out the “Symphony” for “Gwendolyn” on Friday. The pompoms I made using this tutorial from Mr Printables. These were my least favourite thing to make and idk if I would bother with them again. They are just really tedious and repetitive and if you make one mistake the whole thing is fucked- but you can’t tell until you finish the whole thing! The first two I made were pretty boned but I did get the hang of it by the end (although not enough to make more than five). My favourite is the tri-colour one on the right. Silver balloons! Obviously I didn’t make these but I DID do extensive research to find them at an affordable price. Everywhere else seems to have them for $4-$6 PER BALLOON, but there is one dollar store (locals: it’s the Dollar Tree on Thurlow between Robson & Alberni, downstairs) that has them for $1.25 each, including helium. Sooooo I got a dozen (one for each of Sym’s 12 years, and if they last until Friday, one for each of Gwen’s 12 months).

I’m terrible at decorating cakes so I went with my usual technique of going BALLS TO THE WALL with sprinkles. I made a small, 7″ cake since not many people would be eating it but still used an entire can of frosting. GROSS. But also DELICIOUS.

please note Sym’s dad lurking creppily in the background. Also I cropped these into a square because we were posing right next to my fire extinguisher, how lovely.

Sym tried to bunny ears her dad but instead elbowed him in the face.

Waiting patiently…

FINALLY!





From me and Taylor: a poster of her name in pink & black nebula design (like the mini number posters I did), red plaid shirt & black jeans (you can kind of see them under the shirt), and a book/craft kit on making puppies out of pompoms. From Gwen, a little octopus plush from Cheek & Stitch. From her grandma/step-grandmas, cards, cash and a giftcard.

Also from me and Taylor, her own key to the house, on a laser-cut leather keychain from CutPath

Time for cake! Sym had the tiniest piece (and didn’t even finish it) and her dad doesn’t eat anything with eggs or dairy soooooo it’s going to be up to me to eat most of this thing.



Happy 12th birthday, Symphony!