Author: Tanie

I was trying to take a picture of this orange glitter unicorn to show Lillian when I was photobombed by this gross mustachioed creep!

lol ew he is the worst.

I swear these dogs are thisclose to becoming best friends.

Since it’s September 1st, I figured it was about time I got started on some Halloween crafts. I’m planning on some spooky glitter banners, but I need to get more black and white glitter sheets, and try to suss out some orange- for some reason it’s basically impossible for me to find orange glitter! I thought I found some but as it turned out it was orange glitter paint, and it’s not working the way I want. You have to do a billion coats and once you put down one, the glitter in the successive coats just gloms on to where there is already glitter, leaving some parts chunky and clumpy and others patchy and bare.

ANYWAY in the meantime I’ve whipped up some micro-bunting (remember micro bunting?) in Halloween colours. These are 12″ long and priced oh-so-reasonably at just $1.80, although if I’d thought ahead a bit more I’d have made them 13″ for even more spookiness.

In black, orange, white or any colour you want!

Speaking of crafts, my friend Rhiannon pointed out my space shirt tutorial was featured on craftzine.com today!

I swear, I never need to make another craft or write another blog post. I’ll just coast on that one shirt for the rest of my internet career.

I didn’t manage to take a proper picture of these nails before I trashed them, so please enjoy this repeat picture of sno-cones from the fair!

on me: Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Barracuda; on Sym: Sally Hansen Xtreme wear in Fuchsia Power

After having the last whole week off of work, it’s hard to go back today. Happily, Taylor and I gave the weekend a nice finish by taking the dogs for a giant walk through Stanley Park/the Seawall. We often go from Yaletown to Sunset Beach/English Bay, and a few weeks ago we went from Coal Harbour to Lumberman’s Arch. This time we went by Lost Lagoon to Second Beach and then around the Seawall to Lumberman’s Arch to other way, past Third Beach, Siwash Rock and Under the Lion’s Gate Bridge. Taylor says that next weekend he wants to got the whole way around the park in one trip but idk if the little dogs will be up for it (by which I mean me).

Some pictures:

Georgie by the lagoon. There were ducks in the water and she was losing her mind.

Raccoons snuggling on a log.

The ocean at Second Beach. That girl sitting there was giving us really a dirty look, idk why.

Kichou and I, windblown and happy.

Rock balancing.

Siwash Rock

Lion’s Gate Bridge from below.

Instead of playing Dance Central for Family Fun Friday, this week Taylor, Sym and I went to The Fair at the PNE. It was pretty much the most fun ever; we ended up staying for five hours! We saw the Superdogs, ate all the things, played some games, went on some rides… I think it was the most fun I’ve ever had there!

Waiting at Burrard Station for the bus.

The haze in this picture is smoke from all the fried food O___o

Sno-cones! I had rainbow and Sym had lime. Taylor had cherry but we didn’t take a picture of it.

We got the big bag of little donuts.

It was kind of hard for me to find non-sugary stuff to eat since I’m not eating meat, but Taylor enjoyed this poutine hotdog with fries, bacon, cheese, green onions and gravy.

Deep-fried Oreos! I also got a deep-fried Pop-Tart with whipped cream, Fruity Pebbles and rainbow sprinkles but the picture disappeared from my phone, LAME. EDIT THE PICTURE UNDISAPPEARED YAY!

Waiting for Superdogs to start. I tried to take a picture of Sym and Taylor but he made a ridiculous face, and I’m nice so I’m not going to post it on the internet.

Here’s a bunch of animals:

Our very own Li’l Sebastian! There was also a mini-donkey but I couldn’t get a picture of her.

There were all kinds of fancy pigeons; I liked these fluffy-footed ones the best.

Duck race!

Pig race!

Sym & I with a Navy bomb-disposal robot.

My only complaints were:
1. There were NO deep-fried jelly beans this year! The website said there was so I was very disappointed.
2. Both Taylor and Sym are chickens so neither of them would go on the roller coaster or ferris wheel with me. Sym would only go on the kiddie rides and Taylor wouldn’t go on anything! Hopefully next year Sym is a little braver, she’s already tall enough to go on everything so she just needs to courage up!

I thought about doing a bunch of separate posts with all the stuff I’ve been meaning to blog about this week, but then I though EFF IT so now you get this huge post of epicness! Enjoy!

Popsicles!

First of all, even though I haven’t been posting them, I HAVE been making popsicles.

Fresh squeezed orange juice popsicles! These were Sym’s pick, and quite delicious, although A LOT of work.

Leftover blackberry smoothie popsicles! I made these with the smoothie that Sym didn’t finish and I accidentally almost turned into jam.

Super-sweet cherry syrup popsicles! I don’t remember what I made this cherry syrup for, I think I just had some cherries that were getting old? WHO KNOWS? I think I must have put in a ton of sugar though, these were INTENSELY SWEET.

Arts & Crafts!
I’ve been making some really fantastic glitter banners and friendship bracelets recently. I did a Sailor Moon-themed craft swap with Rhiannon, and made her a banner of Luna, Diana and Artemis’ heads

… and Outer Senshi friendship bracelets.

I’m very excited to see what she’s made for me, so look for a post on that in the future!

I’m also really pleased with the banner I made for my friend Sonia, which has her name in Hindi. I’ve had people ask me before why I don’t use pre-cut letters and shapes for my banners, and this is why.

Don’t forget to “like” my shop on facebook and remember, there’s less than a week left to get 15% off your order with the code UNICORN15

With the other friendship bracelets I’ve made recently, I’ve been experimenting with metallic embroidery floss. It’s tricky to use- you have to knot it fairly tightly and that tends to make the bracelets curl up on themselves. I’ve found using a mix of half-metallic and half-regular works best.

The blue and silver one on the right was my favourite, but I lost it on Wednesday night, cry cry. Hopefully someone found it and gave it a good home!

These I made for Sym, you can see here that I put chains and clasps on them instead of just tying them on, except I’m not super adept at it yet and they sometimes fall apart (which is how I think I lost my blue one). I still have a couple more that I made for myself, a purple and gold one, and an all-gold one with vintage aurora borealis crystal and gold-tone metal filigree beads (the later aren’t visible), pictured here with my silver Tiffany bracelet and my brand-new and amazing evil eye bracelet from Hippie Speedball.

Vacation!
Seeing as how I’ve been on vacation this week, I managed to find time for a quick getaway to New York.

OH WAIT NO I DIDN’T. But while I was out shopping on Wednesday I stumbled across my absolutely favorite show in the history of tv being filmed. THAT’S RIGHT, FRINGE!! Unfortunately there was no Joshua Jackson BUT I stood across the street like a giant dork and took pictures of Anna Torv and John Noble, aka Olivia Dunham and Walter Bishop, shooting a short scene where they walked fifty feet up Burrard street. Over and over again. tbh working on a tv show looks boring as hell.

Vancouver Canadians!

Later that Day Taylor and I headed out to Nat Bailey Stadium (or I guess it’s now Scotiabank Field and Nat Bailey Stadium? Whatever) to catch a Canadians game. We’d been a couple of times before, but this was the first time I’d ever paid for tickets, and they are super affordable. Unfortunately the season is basically over, but next summer I definitely want to go to more games. If you are like me and like sports you can scream at while you drink beer, then this is definitely for you.

Taylor Turns 32!

Of course, this weeks most important event was yesterday, when my darling and adorable husband celebrated his thirty-second birthday. He’s been working from home this week, so he slept for most of the day while Sym and I baked and hung decorations.

This is the second layer cake I’ve made (the first was the rainbow cake earlier this summer) and it turned out really well! I still need to work on making my icing look pretty, but the inside was SPECTACULAR.

We had a yummy dinner of our traditional Thursday night poutine & Dr Peppers, then presents, then cake & milk, and after Sym went to bed, tv shows and beer.

Love him ♥

Anyway, that’s pretty much what I’ve been up to this week! On Monday it back to work for me (incidentally, today is the fifth anniversary of Starlight Family Childcare! Also the longest I’ve ever held a job, haha), but at least I still have this afternoon and the weekend of freedom left!

Happy Friday! (But not from Claire, she hates everything.0

Soooo I’ve been a terrible blogger this week. I actually have TONS of posts to make, but apparently being on vacation means I’m too busy doing nothing to blog (although today I’m too busy baking and decorating because it’s Taylor’s birthday!). Soon, I promise! Until then, please enjoy this video of a baby skunk chewing on a McDOnald’s McChicken Sauce packet outside my window.

This morning as I was working on my eighth glitter banner with hearts, Sym came wandering over and said to me “Everyone wants hearts! You should make something else; you should make stars! But you should make the stars limited edition so everyone really wants to buy them!”

She is too smart.

Even though I’m trying to get away from wearing all grey clothes all the time I still really like grey as a nail polish colour. I have a lot of light greys and since I couldn’t pick just one to use, I decided to use them all!

l-r/thumb-pinky: OPI in Stranger Tides, OPI in Moon Over Mumbai, OPI in I Vant To Be A-Lone Star, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Lavender Cloud, OPI in Skull & Glossbones

on toes: Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Eel Skin

(pictured above: Taylor’s triple-veggie cheeseburger slider with tomato and pea shoots on a ciabatta bun)

Breakfast/Brunch
Saturday, August 13th

scrambled eggs, toasted ciabatta buns and rosemary potatoes

Sunday, August 14th

wildberry panettone french toast at Glowbal

Wednesday, August 17th

chocolate chip waffle & raspberry lemonade

Dinner
Friday, August 12th

sweet & sour tofu with rice
I used fresh pineapple for this instead of canned and it was 1,000% more delicious than my last sweet & sour dish (back in January I think). The tofu was breaded with panko crumbs and fried in oil. I used three peppers (red, orange and yellow) as well as two different kinds of sweet & sour sauce and the juice of one orange.

Tuesday, August 16th

veggie sliders with purple potato chips
To make the veggie slider patties I cut circles out of some regular Yves patties with a cookie cutter, then hand-formed more patties by smooshing the scraps together so there was no waste. For the chips I thinly sliced purple potatoes, brushed them with olive oil and sprinkled them with smoked salt, then baked at 425°F for 30 minutes, turning after 15.

Snack
Friday, August 12th

cherry-blackberry-lime smoothie

Monday, August 15th

fresh pineapple (left over from Friday night)

Tuesday, August 16th

blackberry smoothie
I made one of these for Sym but she didn’t finish it, so I put it in the fridge to save for making popsicles. By the next day it had started to gel- I think I may have accidentally made jam O__o Note to self: make jam.