Author: Tanie

Last weekend Sym and I trekked out (in the horrible rain) to Michael’s and picked up some supplies for making flower crowns! I didn’t bother doing a proper tutorial because there are plenty online already (here’s a good one at Tiny Tangerines, she actually did a much better/neater job than we did), but the basic technique is:
1. make a loop of wire the size of your head
2. tape flowers to it
The only supplies & equipment you need are scissors, some kinda wire, floral tape and of course a bunch of fake flowers! We used hydrangeas in pink, green, blue and purple, as well as some teeny filler flowers.

SIMPLE. Even Sym, who gets very easily frustrated and rage-quits when things don’t turn out perfect right away, did almost all the work on her crown herself. I personally don’t like flower crowns with widely spaced flowers so we crammed ours together, but please feel free to arrange your flowers however you’d like.

Recently I’ve been neglecting the farmer’s market in favour of the grocery delivery service, because of it always being rainy and my never having cash. I was out of honey though, so I REALLY needed to go this weekend. I don’t know if you know this, but local honey tastes better than the stuff at the store, so much so that I don’t even care that it costs $15 a kilogram (really though, a kilogram of honey lasts a LONG time).

It also goes perfectly with berries and croissants from the bakery! To drink I had lemonade (OF COURSE) with a splash of pomegranate soda for extra yum. This was my second breakfast since I already had toast with Nutella this morning.

Who needs jam? Just smoosh fresh berries on a croissant slathered in honey! Seriously though I don’t have any jam.

I’m not a fancy dresser. My job and my life are supremely casual and in the summertime I basically live in jean shorts, cutoffs, jorts, whatever you wanna call them. Of course, I’m pregnant now so none of my usual shorts fit, and if you read my huge post about maternity fashion and body shaming you’ll know that I’ve been having real trouble finding any that will fit me that I like. And what do I like? NOT BERMUDA-LENGTH JORTS THAT MAKE MY THIGHS LOOK LIKE TREE TRUNKS. Don’t get me wrong; I know some people like this length in a jean short but I do not, and the thing is, THIS IS THE ONLY LENGTH MATERNITY JORTS COME IN AROUND HERE. Literally. This is the only option, and they are disgusting. Don’t believe me?

WOW I’M SO GLAD THESE GO ALL THE WAY TO MY KNEES. Seriously even the little illustration on the label looks depressed to be wearing these sad disasters.

And ughughugh the panel. I’m not necessarily totally adverse to the maternity panel, but on these particular shorts from H&M the panel is made of a double layer of thick navy blue jersey. You know, so you’ll spend the summer of your pregnancy hotter and sweatier than ever. PERFECT. So. The obvious solution is to remake these in my own image. With a few simple supplies you can remake along (even if you aren’t knocked up):
• scissors
• bleach
• dye in a colour of your choice (I wanted lavender shorts so I got pink & purple dye)
… and of course a pair of shorts or jeans you are ready to thrash on in three simple steps: cut, bleach, dye.

1. CUT
First things first, I cut off that panel! (Skip this part if you like the panel on your shorts or your shorts don’t have a panel or you aren’t pregnant.)

Next, I cut them to a length I don’t find morally reprehensible.

If you are new to making your own cutoffs I would suggest using a pre-existing pair of shorts as a rough guide. I used another pair of gross Bermuda-length H&M maternity jorts which I had already cut off.

If your goal is to simply make a regular pair of true-blue cutoffs, then congratulations! You’re done. Just wash & dry them to get that nice fraying on the bottom and you are ready for summer. However, since I already have that, I decided to go deeper with this pair, or rather, more pastel. The other weekend I was in Urban Outfitters and saw some shorts in pale pink and turquoise and lavender and even a “tie-dyed” pair that just seemed to be blotches of colour but were still beautiful, and these became my inspiration.

2. BLEACH
To make these shorts a pastel, I’d need a lighter canvas to work my magic on. So I threw them in a tub of bleach.

Not straight bleach; that’s a recipe for disintegrating fabric. I used about a 3:1 water to bleach mix and let them soak in it. You want to stir them around occasionally to make sure they get reasonably evenly bleached, and when they look light enough, rinse them in cold water and wash them with a load of old towels. You might have to do this a couple times to get them light enough. Here are mine after two bleaches, with one of the cut off scraps for comparison.

What a difference! As you can obviously see they were still a light blue. Depending on what kind of pastel colour you want you might need to bleach more (if you were going for a pale yellow or orange), but for a lavender this was light enough.

3. DYE
To make sure they didn’t come out too blue, I dyed them in stages. Unfortunately I didn’t take pictures of this because a pot of simmering shorts in a dye bath doesn’t look like anything, and I couldn’t really lay them out between dyes to photograph because I was trying to not stain my entire kitchen. BUT! I can tell you how I did it!

In a large pot I mixed a bath of about 1/2 a box of Petal Pink RIT dye, with 3 1/2 liters of water (just under a gallon). I stirred it thoroughly to melt any of the dye powder and then added the shorts and left them on the stove over medium heat, stirring occasionally, while Taylor and I marathoned New Girl. They actually came out a pretty sweet pinky-purple but weren’t quite right, so after rinsing them out I made a new bath with 1/3 of a box of Purple RIT dye and let them cook a while more. The results (after rinsing, washing with old towels again and drying)?

AMAZING. In theory I wouldn’t mind them being a little lighter but these home fabric dye jobs always fade like crazy anyway. If you like, you can add some fun details like I did with these studs which I had lying around the house. I just shoved them right through the useless change pocket, effectively sealing it shut but OH WELL, it’s useless anyway, right?

A couple tips:
-wet the shorts before putting them into your bleach or dye baths, it helps them to process more evenly.
-if you’ve never dyed clothes before, follow the instructions on the dye you chose!
-don’t wear something super nice or expensive while doing this project.
-embrace imperfection; you can see the colour on my shorts isn’t totally even, but that’s okay and possibly even makes them look cooler.

1. & 2. making flower crowns; 3. Sym’s butterfly wall; 4. a glass of lemonade for me with cocktail umbrella and swirly straw; 5. Honour Roll again

I love baby clothes. Who DOESN’T love baby clothes; everything is so tiny and wee and adorable. I actually started looking for baby clothes before Taylor even agreed to start trying to conceive, although I managed to contain myself and not buy anything (a decision I regret since H&M had these sweet onesies with an adorable squirrel pattern that I missed out on, THANKS A LOT, RATIONAL SIDE OF MY BRAIN).

Of course, once I actually got pregnant ALL BETS WERE OFF, and as previously mentioned I bought Baby Laramie’s first clothes two days after my positive test. Of course I don’t know what kind of a baby* I’m having so I’ve been sticking to gender neutral stuff, which is annoying. Not because I don’t like the things I’ve been buying, but because it’s SO HARD TO FIND ANYTHING! Like omg, why does every single onesie and pajama either have to say I’M A BOY on the front or be covered in pink lacy ruffles? THESE ARE CLOTHES FOR TINY NEWBORNS LIKE OMG CAN’T THEY JUST BE PLAIN?? It just frustrates me that EVERYTHING is SO GENDERED, even in the 0-3 months size. Like, really? I guess we gotta start subscribing to those stereotypical gender norms asap.

ANYWAY. I’m not really mad because all the stuff I’ve been buying is in my favourite clothing colour: GREY. Yes, I’m gonna dress my baby like a tiny version of me, that’s the whole reason people have babies, right? TO CREATE LIFE THAT I CAN DRESS IN MY OWN IMAGE (which explains why baby Sym never wore navy blue, aka my most hated colour in the world).

These were the first things I bought: 3 pajama suits in grey, white with grey froggies, and a grey & grey animal stripe from H&M. The tiny stripy ones are what the baby is going to wear home from the hospital and are the only newborn-size item I’ve bought.

I also got this double-breasted, shawl-collared, elbow-patched sweater from H&M. Taylor calls it the Professor Baby cardigan :3 I KNOW IT IS THE SWEETEST THING EVER.

A few weeks ago I was shopping with Sym and we both wore jean jackets and decided the baby should have one too, so we stopped Baby Gap for one. This is in a 12-18 month size since denim isn’t appropriate for newborns, especially newborns who are new born in November. We also got this sweet little terry cloth hoodie (the ears!) and some knit booties that almost curb my desire for tiny fuzzy baby Uggs. ALMOST.

Funny story: when I got home and showed Taylor what we’d chosen he was like “So I guess you really think you’re having a girl,” but ALL THESE THINGS WERE IN THE BOYS’ SECTION.

… and of course there is the famous “Is this for your dog?” hockey jersey.

I’ve actually had people tell me I’m buying too much and the baby isn’t going to wear all these clothes before she/he grows out of them, to which I say “WHAT?” Like, have you ever met a baby? Between drooling and spitting up and breaches of a diaper’s structural integrity, they don’t stay in the same clothes all day long. You have to completely change them all the time! In fact, three suits, three sweaters, one jacket and one pair of booties? Never mind the fact that these are all in different sizes, this is barely even enough clothes for one day!

* definitely typed “girl” at first instead of baby, lol.

I don’t think my belly looks any bigger this week, I was actually buggin’ about it because I haven’t really felt much movement and I was like “OH GOD SOMETHING IS WRONG CRY CRY” but then last night after Taylor went to work Baby Laramie turned into Party Cat.

I have my next doctor’s appointment on Monday and my second ultrasound should be soon after that; I’m going to try to schedule it for the first week of July when I’m on vacation so I don’t have to scramble to find someone to watch the daycare kids for me. When I had my first one at 12 weeks it was in the middle of the day* on a Friday and everyone I know downtown was working so I had to get Sym’s grandma (her dad’s mom, not mine) to come down from the suburbs to sit here while the kids napped, and because I hadn’t told my daycare clients about my pregnancy yet I think I lied that I had to see a specialist for a sinus problem. LOL WHO KNOWS. I did have some pretty terrible rhinitis in my first trimester though.

ANYWAY. I’m still on a quest to not look like the walking dead in pictures. Last week I added lip colour; this week I went CRAZY HEAVY ON THE BLUSH. I was a goth for so long it’s very hard for me to apply blush with anything other than the lightest hand- in my brain the goal is still to look as ghostly as possible. I also wanted to try my friend Sara’s trick for DIY lash extensions but I didn’t have time and realized I don’t have an eyelash curler, so that will have to wait until next week.

The purple pants story is here. There are tons more pics from today, including some of me looking rull dumb and many of dogs looking adorable on Taylor’s flickr.

*Pro tip: idk about other hospitals, but if you are having an ultrasound at St Paul’s in Vancouver, try to have it scheduled for 1pm. All the technicians go for lunch from 12-1 so if you are the first patient after lunch you won’t have to wait past your appointment time. My ultrasounds during my first pregnancy were mid-morning and mid-afternoon, and they were always running behind so I ended up sitting there forever with a full bladder. NOT FUN.

All opinions expressed in this post are my husband’s, idk anything about these artists. Some of them might be white rappers. Or Canadian. I JUST DON’T KNOW.

File this under ‘Things you wouldn’t know about me by appearance’. Looking for rhymes about independent female artists, naming dropping jazz icons or space vikings? You’ve come to the right place. My top 8 in no particular order.

Aesop Rock – Any Album except ‘Bazooka Tooth’. That one isn’t so much as ‘bad’ but a disappointment compared to the rest of his discography.

EL-P – Any Album or EP. Seriously, they’re all worth listening to on repeat.

Cannibal Ox – The Cold Vein. It saddens my soul that they only released one album.

Quasimoto – The Unseen. When I drove from Kelowna, BC to Panama City, FL this was one of the 2 dozen CDs I packed. To this day I’m still not sick of it.

Madvillain – Madvilliany. A group composed of Madlib AND MF Doom? Yes please thank you.

Blackalicious – Nia. This is what summer sounds like to me.

Sixtoo – Antagonist Survival Kit. While his partner from Sebutones (Buck65) went on to be more famous I think Sixtoo’s work has aged better.

GZA – Liquid Swords. I guess this is the one guilty pleasure on the list but in my defence I also love poorly dubbed martial-arts films.

Honourable Mention: DJ Shadow’s “Entroducing”. Before I had a car stereo that would play burnt CDs I wore through 2 copies of this album from playing it so much.

*Freshness not guaranteed

Sometimes I feel bad that I don’t post as many pics of Dougal as I do of Georgie, but in my defense he isn’t here most of the time and tbh I don’t think he likes getting his picture taken- I was trying yesterday and he WOULD NOT sit still.

The daycare kids were eating lunch and these two were WAY TOO INTO IT. Usually I shut them in their crates but I didn’t for some reason so I had to keep shooing them away from the table.

Today is kind of a drag of a day. It was supposed to be sunny but it’s cloudy and freezing (SERIOUSLY WHERE IS SUMMER???), I’m in a bad mood so I just want to curl up on the couch and watch a movie during the kids’ naptime but I have fifty billion tons of dishes to wash, I’m tired and out of breath all the time, and Taylor is at an all-day work conference so I can’t get him to pick me up some lunch or even just curl up next to him while he’s sleeping. I don’t know; maybe tomorrow will be better.

I’m now accepting blog sponsors for July! Unicorn Parade has been growing by leaps and bounds and I’d like nothing more than for your blog or shop to grow with me.

I’m offering ads in three different sizes at prices anyone can afford, for all the information please check out my sponsor info page.

These nails are a mess, I started painting them last night and got bored halfway through. OH WELL.

American Apparel Neon Blue + Sally Hansen Barracuda

I also painted my toenails the American Apparel Neon Red I love so much, and I think I’m going to have to start shelling out for pedicures. It took me FIVE DAYS to do it, like I started on Wednesday and didn’t manage to finish them until Sunday because my bump is already big enough that it’s difficult to lean forward for long enough. NOT AWESOME. I guess I could always try and teach Taylor how to do it, but he suffers from the condition knows as shaky hands… on second thought, maybe I’ll teach Sym to do it instead.