Category Archives: Weird Obsessions

Tassels & Fringe

Posted on February 22, 2012 | Leave a comment

Last week I decided I wanted to try my hand at making some Confetti System-style tassel garlands. I really like the way they look but I DON’T like the $130 price tag, so I figured I’d DIY it. I found a couple tutorials, combined them, used what I liked, ignored the rest and eventually came up with my own technique. I haven’t perfected it yet, but I think I’m close!

The first thing I need was some tissue paper and mylar. I couldn’t decide what colours I wanted to use, so I bought all of them. No, really.

Since this picture was taken I’ve actually bought two more colours- a bright orange and a dark purple. I know, I have a problem.

Then, I spent a lot of time turning that into this:

Can I just say, this paper cutter is INDISPENABLE. I picked it up a couple of weeks ago for $25 at Homesense (a discount housewares store) and I’ve used it so much already! It’s so much faster and easier for this than using scissors, an exacto knife or a rotary cutting tool.

The first garland I made was for Sym’s room, using three colours of tissue paper (white, grey and mint green) and one shade of mylar (silver). I made all the tassles the same size and strung them in a repeating pattern.

It’s pretty, but not really the look I wanted. Next I wanted to make one for my bedroom, but I don’t have the right colours of paper. Yes, you read that correctly, none of the 23 colours of tissue and mylar are right. Okay, SOME of them are, but I need a turquoise blue and a taupe or greige. YES I AM AWARE THAT I HAVE A PROBLEM.

Instead I decided to make one for the office. Taylor’s side of the office is grey and black (black-brown really, but black is close enough) with a little bit of yellow. My side of the office is grey, yellow and white. I decided to use more yellow and white on my side of the garland and more black on Taylor’s side. I made tassels in five colours of tissue (white, grey, silver grey, yellow and black) and one shade of mylar (silver), and three different sizes (regular, long and mini), and strung them randomly on 3 meters silver cord.

I like the effect of this a lot better, but like I said, my technique still isn’t perfect, so I guess I’ll have to keep making more until I get it right!

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Posted in Arts & Crafts, House Beautiful, Purchases, Weird Obsessions

Die Hard

Posted on February 21, 2012 | Leave a comment

I bet you thought I forgot about my one and only new year’s resolution to make two non-custom banners per month for my etsy shop. NOT SO.

Originally I was going to make something St Patrick’s Day-ish for February, but then I decided that’s a bunk holiday for drunken bros so instead I did something else. My two banners for February turned out to both be semi-musically inspired, so I’ve included the pertinent youtubes.

For this banner I used the same two-tone ombre technique I used for last month’s “True Love” banner, but instead of using two shades of the same colour I used two completely different colours. I really like the way it turned out. I haven’t made a listing yet but custom two-tone ombre banners are available for $2.75 per letter, with a minimum order of $13.75 for five of fewer letters.

I didn’t do anything super special for this fancy banner. I’ve only made a few of these- okay, I made a TON that said “Merry Christmas,” but they were all the same and making the same thing over and over is kind of a snooze. This is actually the first fancy letter banner I’ve made this isn’t silver or red, so it was a nice, albeit small, change.

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Posted in Arts & Crafts, Goals

Manicure Monday

Posted on January 30, 2012 | 6 Comments

This is probably my one billionth pink glitter manicure. idk why I am so into pink glittery nails, but I am, so when I saw this Essie Luxe Effects ~multi dimentional~ top coat (tilde emphasis mine) I OBVIOUSLY had to have it. I didn’t want a repeat of last week’s Fresh Frog situation, so I rummaged through my collection to see if I could find a good pink to go under it. As it turns out, Quo by Orly in Twinkle Twinkle is perfecto!

I bought this colour a while ago but I’ve only used it in a pink/gold/neutral polka dot manicure before so I didn’t really have an opinion on it until. Like the other Quo by Orly polishes I’ve tried it went on nicely, had good coverage and dried quickly. I actually only needed one coat to get perfect coverage, which was great because I put three coats of glitter over it.

In semi-related news, I picked up this Burt’s Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream on a whim last month and it is my new favourite thing. I’m terrible about picking at my nails/cuticles all the time and constantly have gross infected hangnails, like on my index finger in the Fresh Frog post I linked to above. That picture is from the 23rd and the pictures in this post are from the 28th, and just look at that index finger! Totally healed and totally not gross anymore.

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Posted in Nailz, Weird Obsessions

Dream Life Version Four

Posted on January 24, 2012 | 8 Comments

Usually when I make these posts it’s because I’ve been obsessing over real estate in North Vancouver. I mean, you can get a WHOLE HOUSE there for under a million dollars! AMAZING. Well this time it’s different- right now I’m obsessing over the Mount Pleasant/Main area of East Vancouver (for those who don’t know, East Vancouver is the east part of Vancouver, North Vancouver is a different city, a suburb of Vancouver).

There are a lot of cute/cool shops and restaurants (on Sunday Taylor and I had brunch at a place with MULTIPLE vegetarian options, I felt so spoiled) on Main, although I haven’t often gone out there because taking the bus is a hassle. With the new Canada Line train it’s a lot easier- there are a couple stops where you can just walk over to Main from Cambie. I like to walk on all the side streets and get into a jealous rage about WHY DON’T I HAVE A HOUSE HERE??? Oh, right, because I don’t have any money. There are houses for less than a million though. Like how great is this one???

DAT TURRET. Five bedrooms, three fireplaces, a master wing. SOMEONE BUY ME THIS RN. It’s actually a little further east than I like but whatever, I can live with it. $998,000 is less than a million, right?

Or house about renting a house? Only $2,200 a month for this charmer (not really that charming).

Since I can’t afford to buy or apparently even rent a house in the neighborhood I did the next best thing: I BOUGHT A TICKET IN A CHARITY HOME LOTTERY. The grand prize is 2.4 million dollars in cash (or gold, lol) OR a huge suburban mansion, OR a not-particularly-huge but still nice and well-located house right in the neighborhood I like (plus $200,000 and a couple cars).

The drawing is this Thursday and I’m using all my powers of positive thinking to try and win. Of course now that I’ve found that green turreted house I’ll have to decide if I want the prize home OR the cash. WOW MY LIFE IS SO HARD.

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Posted in House Beautiful, Weird Obsessions

Busy Bee

Posted on January 23, 2012 | 2 Comments

Sooooooo I’ve been busy recently with all kindsa stuff, here’s a small update on a few things.

Crafts
One of the custom banners I sold during my CAT AID sale was this delightful gem.

Last week the woman who bought it posted it on tumblr and it got almsot 2,000 notes. The picture was reblogged by STFU Conservatives and people FREAKED OUT over it. My etsy was blowin’ up, by which I mean I sold two and lots of people added my shop to their favourites. I even got a hater on tumblr saying my work was overpriced and juvenile and everyone should just make it themselves, it’s so easy! lol, whateverrrrrrrrrr fool.

I’m also still working on my resolution to make non-custom banners and over the weekend I finished this one.

C.R.E.A.M. (Cats Rule Everything Around Me) in gold with the same printed cat paper on the back as I used on the Forever Alone banner everyone loves so much. And speaking of cats…

Claire
Last week I took Claire into the vet for a fructosamine test and guess what… she’s great! Her blood sugar levels are good, her diabetes is in control, and her insulin dose (which is HALF what it was before she went into the hospital) is keeping her that way. So like, TAKE THAT, random internet creep who thought I should just let her die/put her down. WHO’S DIGNIFIED NOW???

Life
Life is just happening all the time! Sym is awesome, the dogs are just so doggish all the time (so is Claire, actually), and Taylor is as handsome and amazing as ever. Even when I’m down they all make me feel so much better. I could say more about how much I love my little family but I would probably go on forever and I have to get back to work soon. But first, some fine pet pictures from my phone.

Enjoy the rest of your Monday!

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Posted in Arts & Crafts, Darling Child, Goals, Happiness, Life Etc, Pets and Husbands

For-Stinkin’-Ever

Posted on January 12, 2012 | 5 Comments

Soooo you know how I made pretty romantic Valentine’s Day banners as part of my goal? They’re great and all, but what about the people who frickin’ hate Valentine’s Day? What about the people who thinks is cheesy commercialized crap, or maybe aren’t in a relationship, or think mushy couples are disgusting and want to shout it from the rooftops? Well DON’T WORRY, because I got you covered.

Forever Alone
I knew I wanted to make this banner, but I didn’t know how to make it special. Ombré wasn’t right, some fancy new typeface wasn’t right… but what was??? Last night I was just about to assemble it all plain with black paper on the back when a bolt of inspiration struck me: CATS. I know, it’s amazing.

Love Stinks
This was another experiment that turned out AMAZING. Originally I was just going to do the regular secondary-colour-on-the-bottom ombré, but something about the phrase “love stinks” paired with the acid-y green colour made me think drips.

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Posted in Arts & Crafts, Goals, Valentine's Day

Two of Twenty-Four, Plus One

Posted on January 9, 2012 | 4 Comments

Hey internet, long time no blog. A WHOLE WEEK I KNOW I’M THE WORST. I hope you all were able to get along without me.

Anyway the reason I didn’t post last week is because not to be over dramatic but every day felt like 100 years in hell and the absolute worst day of my life.

It was my first week back at work after my sweet, sweet Christmas vacation, I had my lady time, I was sick and my dog went insane and peed on the hallway carpet 350,000,000 times.

WHY YOU GOTTA PLAY ME LIKE THAT, DOG??? Anyway I’m all resigned to my fate as a working stiff, recovered from my ailments and yesterday I rented a carpet steamer and cleaned the hallway carpet like, SIX TIMES so it should all be okay now.

One thing I DID do while I wasn’t blogging was work on my new year’s resolutions, of which I only made one, and which I made a very concrete, attainable goal instead of something nebulous and easy to fail at. I said I wanted to make at least two non-custom banners for my etsy shop, every month, so I would have things for sale other than just my custom stuff (I think it looks better to have actual, real items for sale somehow). Anyway last week (while finishing up the last of my custom orders, so if you are waiting on one that hasn’t shipped yet it’ll go out today) I made not two but THREE all-new banners!

Since Valentine’s Day is coming up (part of the reason for my goal was I didn’t want to be blind-sided by holidays like I was by Christmas) I decided to make some cheesy yet lovely and romantical banners. Doing non-custom work also gives me the opportunity to try out new ideas, and for each of these I did something I hadn’t before.

True Love
For this banner I used a double-ombré technique. For my other ombré banners I’ve used a single colour/blend of colours, but for this one I did two separate colours. Starting with a white (diamond) glitter base, I did a pale pink (kunzite) glitter to about halfway up each letter, and then I added a deeper pink (tourmaline) to the bottom ¾” to give it more dimension.

Be Mine
This was the third banner I made and the idea for it just popped into my head. I wasn’t sure how (or if) it would turn out but it looks basically how I pictured it. I used ruby (red) glitter for the letters, and added metallic red confetti hearts to the bottom 1½-2″ of each. I tried to make them look like they’d been scattered randomly, but I actually glued each one in place individually, which did not take ten thousand hours at all.

Always
This is my Harry Potter-inspired banner; I’ve made a couple of custom ones before (Mischief Managed and Expecto Patronum) but this one was all my idea. It’s from The Prince’s Tale chapter of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; if you’ve read it you’ll understand the significance, and if you haven’t well then what is wrong with you? I used this weird, pale gold glitter (which I am now out of) and although I’d originally planned on adding a white/silver ombre to it, in the end I decided to leave it simple. What makes this banner different from others I’ve made is the back; instead of using plain paper I used cream paper printed with the text from relevant passages of the book (I scanned it and printed it out; no books were harmed in the making of this banner!).

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Posted in Arts & Crafts, Goals, Pets and Husbands, This Blog

My New Year’s Eve in Photo Booth

Posted on January 1, 2012 | 2 Comments

We didn’t do anything. I mean, we did stuff but we didn’t go out to a club or a party or have people over or anything. Last year Sym was home but this year she was at her dad’s so it was just me, Taylor and the pets. I was actually in a really bad mood, I’m in kind of a bad place, physically pain-wise right now and I was not in the mood to have fun.

So grumpy! I wasn’t going to “get ready” or anything but I figured it might pull me out of my New Year’s funk. I curled my hair and put on makeup and BOOM, mood improved.

The only problem was I used this Moroccan Oil Luminous Hairspray when I was a curling my hair and although it worked well as hairspray, it smelled EXACTLY like a Diaper Genie (if you have Diaper Genie experience then you’ll know why this was an unacceptable situation).

Taylor made us a feast of frozen hors d’oeuvres and I made sparkly pipe cleaner crowns for us to wear, as well as one for the pets. I knew none of them would keep it on so I figured they could share.

Normally Taylor and I watch Anchorman on NYE, but we started our evening so early (I had my first glass of wine at about 5) that we decided to watch both parts of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows first. Apparently I felt like spending my evening bawling my eyes out! We finished those at around 11:50 and took the dogs out for a walk, so we were in the park at midnight. People were screaming and setting off fireworks and we kissed on the street corner, it was nice. When we got home we put in Anchorman but both fell asleep on the couch (although I stayed up long enough to guzzle a couple of bottles of water to counteract the couple bottles of wine I polished off) until 2am, when I managed to get us both to bed.

Happy New Year! I hope you all had as wonderful an evening as us!

I’m not really one for New Year’s resolutions- I think last year I came up with an idea to do mini-resolutions every month that lasted two months before I got bored. This year I have one resolution: to make at least two non-custom banners for my etsy shop each month, so I don’t get caught unprepared for every holiday. I was going to say I should make one a week, so four a month, but that seemed a bit ambitious. Babysteps, right?

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Posted in Goals, Hair Dos & Don'ts, Holidays, Pets and Husbands

Dream Life, Version Three

Posted on November 24, 2011 | 4 Comments

I recently reread all my Moomin books and I came to a startling revelation: You know that fantasy were you want to move to the country and live in a cute house and everything is easy-going and you just basically do whatever you feel like? IT COMES FROM THE MOOMINS. For me at least. I read these books so many times as a kid that when I picture that dream life in my head, I picture Moominvalley.

I mean I know there are adventures with comets, floods, volcanoes, the Groke, and such, but on average, everyday life in Moomin Valley is pretty idyllic. Feel like going fishing, or sailing, or just lying in a hammock all day reading about the uselessness of everything? Go right ahead. Want to paint a mural or paste pictures on the walls? Feel free. You can sleep in your own room in the Moominhouse, or camp out in the garden, or sail away to live in a lighthouse on a tiny island in the middle of the sea, although that last one might not work out as you dreamed it would.

Now I just need to find some way of making this dream a reality! Or just visit the real Moominvalley in Finland.

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Posted in Books Books Books, Life Etc, Weird Obsessions

Blasts from the Past

Posted on October 10, 2011 | 4 Comments

Recently I’ve really been getting into things from my youth. The week I was involved in this tumblr exchange:

… and ever since I can’t not listen to John Denver. It reminds me of being a little kid; my parents had a bunch of his records and I just remember listening to them at happy times.

this song accurately portrays my feelings about the love of my life:

Another recent rediscovery is my second-favourite teen drama (after Dawson’s Creek, obviously), the original Beverly Hills, 90210.

When 90210 first started airing, I was 13 years old and just SO not into it, but with the July/August summer season at the start of season 2 I got hooked. It was summer and there was nothing else on, and really those two summer seasons (season three had one as well) were genius moves by the producers or the network or whoever thought it up.

The first six seasons are on Netflix and WOW is this show ever amazing. The fashions! The acting! All the times Brenda says “breast!” The really old teenagers! And did I mention the fashions? It’s the early 90s at it’s best, tbh. The only thing that sucks is the entire seasons aren’t actually available- certain episodes are missing. In the first season it’s just the penultimate episode, “Spring Dance,” where Brenda loses her virginity to Dylan and David wins a dance contest. I think it’s pretty big BS that the episode where Brandon loses his virginity to his troubled ex-girlfriend (“The First Time”) IS available but Brenda’s big sexual awakening isn’t.

The first couple episodes of season two (with Brenda’s pregnancy scare) are also missing, as well as several others, including the classic episode “The Next 50 Years,” where Scott Scanlon shoots his face off.

Deep stuff. Hopefully one day I’ll find the missing episodes (and the later seasons) because you know there is no way I’m not watching all ten glorious seasons of this nonsense.

no nail post today; because of Thanksgiving I had the day off and forgot it was Monday, oops

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Posted in Favorite Things, Weird Obsessions

Category Archives: Weird Obsessions

Tassels & Fringe

Die Hard

Manicure Monday

Dream Life Version Four

Busy Bee

For-Stinkin’-Ever

Two of Twenty-Four, Plus One

My New Year’s Eve in Photo Booth

Dream Life, Version Three

Blasts from the Past

Myself

People I Like

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