Category Archives: Life Etc

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!

→ Leave a comment

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

Bits & Pieces

Posted on February 17, 2012 | 8 Comments

Some pictures from this quiet, rainy afternoon:

I saw this adorable customizable monogram from The Wedding Chicks on Sometimes Sweet this morning and IMMEDIATELY knew I needed one. I want to put it up in my bedroom (is that cheesy? yes, but I don’t care) but the colours were wrong so I tweaked it a little, and then printed it out on some nice paper I tore out of a sketchbook and trimmed to size.

Yesterday I FINALLY set up my new computer. It’s a little different that my old one and it’s taking some getting used to, but so far I love it. The real question is how long can I keep my desk clean? (The answer: probably not long)

This purple-on-purple banner is getting ready for a wedding in Los Angeles next month. My motto these days is basically “Always Be Ombre-ing!”

Teeny-tiny stickers covered in teeny-tiny bunting.

Dougal and Georgie are still bffs. I love when they snuggle.

Sym had the day off school and spent most of it holed up in her room colouring. She was supposed to have her friend Ali over to play but she had an audition (you might have seen Ali in last Friday’s Fringe episode. Hint: she was the only kid).

Sym wanted me to post a picture of her Valentine’s Day manicure to show the colours she chose- normally I’d save this for Monday but I’m too happy about the fact that she stopped biting her nails! We actually had to trim and file them last weekend because they were too long! I’m really proud of her for breaking the habit.

She got this inflatable paper frog in a Kinder Egg, it’s so odd!

These paper palm trees were leftover from Sym’s Luau birthday in 2008, but I recently unearthed them and put them up in the nap room.

Last summer the housepainters stomped all my plants to death, but the remains of my hydrangea somehow survived and it’s putting out little leaves! There’s hope for my garden yet.

→ 8 Comments

Posted in Arts & Crafts, Darling Child, Family, Happiness, House Beautiful, Life Etc, Nailz, Pets and Husbands, Purchases

Title Redacted

Posted on February 15, 2012 | Leave a comment

This post is about how I managed to successfully do some of the projects on my list and also finally made a decent smoothie, but any title I could come up with sounded like a tag line in a laxative ad. So.

I managed to successfully do some of the projects on my list! I cleaned off both my craft desk AND my computer desk, but I didn’t stop there: I moved my whole computer to the kitchen so I can finally repaint the top of my desk (something I’ve been putting off for literally months).

Once it’s all done I’ll be able to set up my new computer, hooray! Less exciting, but I also got completely caught up on the dishes, and since Taylor is starting to feel better he took out all the garbage and recycling, so that’s like, FIVE things off my list.

I finally made a decent smoothie! Last year I was really into making smoothies, or TRYING to make smoothies. Unfortunately I had a terrible blender that sucked and I hated it and everything it made was more lumpies than smoothies. Whatever.

Anyway a few months ago I had some sort of blender-induced rage blackout and threw it away, so since then we’ve been blenderless. In January I started ordering the smoothie fruit assortments from Spud* so Taylor bought us a new, better blender. This one still leaves some lumps but I solved that problem by buying GIANT JUMBO BOBA TEA STRAWS. I got like, 100 of them for $1.20.

The straw & angle make it look tiny but it was 16 ounces of blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, a cherry popsicle (homemade, I added it for sweetness), chia seeds, coconut oil and orange juice. Everything but the juice was organic as well. The coconut oil made the giant straws especially great because I could chug the whole thing down before I got grossed out (it’s not bad, but it’s a solid when it’s cold and there’ve been lumps). I’d never tried putting chia seeds in a smoothie before but I did some research and gleaned these tips:

1. Use 1 tbsp of seeds per 8 oz of liquid. Apparently the seeds can absorb a ton of liquid and they’ll form a gel if you use too many O___o
2. Soak the seeds in the liquid for an hour before making the smoothie (easy, if like me you have a blender that can’t deal with frozen fruit and you need to defrost them first. Defrost and soak at the same time!).
3. Don’t leave it sitting around for too long or the seeds will cause it to gel, even if you’ve followed tip #1! Again, this is where the giant straws came in handy.

*idk about these smoothie fruit assortments. The first time I ordered it I got an INTENSE amount of fruit: a pound and a half of blueberries, four mangoes and twenty-one bananas. For $10! It was way too much for us (since only Taylor likes bananas and mangoes) so I made arrangements to go halvsies with Sym’s dad, but then the next time I ordered it I just got 6 ounces of raspberries, one mango and six bananas. WHAT GIVES???? I even checked my old invoice to see if it was a mistake that I got so much the first time but it wasn’t.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Delicious Recipes, House Beautiful

Sick Day

Posted on February 14, 2012 | 2 Comments

For the past couple weeks my house has been a den of disease- coughs, colds, runny noses, sore throats, fevers and sneezes. When you’re sick, it’s nice to be able to take some time off work to recover, recuperate and regroup, so that when you do go back you’re refreshed and ready to tackle everything that piled up while you were ill. Unfortunately, I’m barely sick and can’t justify skipping work (taking sick days costs me $150-$200) so I’m slogging through it all while Taylor sleeps for 19 hours a day (although last night he very gallantly offered me “flu sex.” I declined.).

To be quite honest, what I really need right now is a mental health day, a catch-up day. A day that isn’t the weekend where I can finally finish cleaning the house and get my etsy stuff organized. My shop is actually doing really well- all the people posting their banners on tumblr, the ad I took out, the giveaways and discount codes I’ve done, they’ve all combined to form something that looks like it might well become a success! I’ve been selling quite a few banners each week and it’s great, but when I was promoting my etsy I overlooked one important detail: while I’m making banners and bunting I still have to do my regular job. You remember that one, the daycare thing that I do fifty hours a week.

I can actually do both- I work on banners when the kids are doing an activity, or napping, or in the evenings when they’ve all gone home. Unfortunately this doesn’t leave me with a lot of time for stuff like blogging (hence my weak posts recently) and cooking (hello, takeout menu!) and cleaning. Right now I’m maintaining the absolute minimum level of cleanliness in the daycare areas of the house, but everything else? SQUALOROUS. And Taylor being sick and unable to help doesn’t, well, help!

Yesterday I spent all my free time rushing to finish the last four orders I had so I could get them to the post office, and when I was all done and they were all shipped I heaved a huge relieved sigh and said “Now I can finally get my house clean and start working on all these other projects I’ve been putting off, like refinishing the bedside table I found in the alley and painting a backdrop to photograph my banners against!” but before I even sat down on the couch I got another order. Obviously I’m not complaining- I love making banners (and I love making money), but it’s a little overwhelming. A few weeks ago Taylor and I had a discussion about how much money I’d have to make off etsy sales each month before I could quit my job and become a full time crafter (I’m about 1/6 of the way there and not holding my breath) but like… even if I did have enough sales each month I would never have the time to finish them all!

Anyway, my latest order is fortunately a small one, so before I get started I’m going to take today to clean up around here; mostly my workspaces (since right now I don’t actually have anywhere to make anything!).

…but I really need to do the dishes and some laundry and Oh My God clean the bathroom. And who knows, maybe I’ll also find time to paint that backdrop, start refinishing that table, repaint the top of my desk, clean out my old, dying computer and transfer all my files to my new computer (I bought a new computer and I haven’t even taken it out of the box yet because everything is such a mess!),

… take out all the recycling,

… sort through/organize/put away all my boxes of non-Christmas holiday decorations,

… sort through/organize/put away all my boxes of random arts & craft supplies,

… paint my bedroom/bathroom/kitchen, work on some designs for new etsy items I’m planning, and while we’re at it, organize all my receipts & papers so I can find go see my accountant and file my taxes.

Yeah. That’ll happen.

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Arts & Crafts, Issues, Life Etc, Rambling Text

Hallelujah

Posted on February 10, 2012 | 1 Comment

It’s here it’s here our new bed is here!!!

It was delivered yesterday afternoon but we weren’t able to set it up until almost 8 o’clock and let me tell you, the wait was A G O N Y. But do you know what ISN’T agony? My back. Yes, one night of sleeping on the new bed and my back already feels 75% better. AMAZING.

The new mattress is about fifty times thicker than the old one so one thing we need to do is buy some new sheets, since we only have one that really fits. Luckily, it’s my favorite one from my favorite bedding store, Bed. I’m bored with my current bedroom colour scheme so I already ordered a new duvet cover so I’ve been looking for colours that will go with it. Right now I’m looking at rhino, taupe and aqua.

The dogs have also been enjoying the new bed, but I think Georgie’s favorite was when we pulled the old mattress out and leaned it on the couch. She climbed up and slid down over and over, it was adorable.

So intrepid!

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Happiness, House Beautiful, Pets and Husbands, Purchases

Quitting

Posted on February 3, 2012 | 1 Comment

No, this is not a post about quitting my job to live a life of leisure. I WISH. It’s about quitting something I love: coffee

I don’t actually mean to quit coffee, it was sort of an accident. See, on Saturday afternoon I was very sleepy, so I had a coffee. I didn’t think it would keep me up late, because it wasn’t that late in the day, I was planning on having a couple beers, and I usually stay up pretty late on Saturdays anyway. HA HA JOKES ON ME because I could. not. get to sleep, and when I finally did I tossed and turned like mad. I was still feeling jittery when I woke up on Sunday so I skipped coffee in favour of tea, but I had trouble getting to sleep that night as well.

On Monday I decided to just have a decaf in the morning and it was not a good day. I was EXHAUSTED, I almost fell asleep at work a couple times, and in the evening I got the worst caffeine withdrawal headache in the history of the world. My facebones hurt. I felt like I was gonna throw up. It SUCKED, but of course I couldn’t do anything about it because the only cure (coffee) would keep me up all night!

By Tuesday morning the headache was mostly gone, and I figured that since I’d made it that far I might as well stick with it! I’ve only had decaf coffee and herbal tea all week and other than a few mild headaches I’m not feeling too bad!

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Life Etc

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.

→ 8 Comments

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!

→ 2 Comments

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

Treat Yo Self 2012

Posted on January 18, 2012 | 14 Comments

Last Saturday Sym and I went out shopping and had a mini TREAT YO SELF DAY, except instead of fragrances, mimosas and fine leather goods, it was clothing basics, french fries and one ridiculous item each.

Sym needed some new jeans (in a shocking twist she chose skinny jeans, something she’s been adamantly opposed to for five years) and t-shirt, but what she was really excited about was this…. jumpsuit? onesie? idk what the scientific name is but she calls it her rapping outfit, and while she was trying it on in the change room she threw on her Tokidoki boots and floral fake Raybans and broke it down for me.

I got a bunch of plain, boring clothes- white tee, black leggings, grey tank, grey henley (remember in the summer when I was going to start wearing colours again? HAHAHAHAHAHA). It was all stuff I NEEDED (my old grey tank top had a hole right in the chest) but none of it was very fun. Then I found these Tom Haverford shoes at Winners.

AMAZING. I can’t wait until this godforsaken snow stops so I can wear them (yes, I’m over the snow already). I also found a bunch of OPI polishes from the Muppet collection there, so if you are in Vancouver and looking for discount glitter they have it. I got Fresh Frog of Bel Air, which is great because this is the one I really wanted; in fact, I had been planning to go buy a bottle at full price that day!

For us no trip to the mall is complete without a visit to New York Fries. Sym just gets plain fries but I always get the veggie works- fries with cheese sauce, sour cream, tomatoes and green onion. So delicious! It’s probably a good thing that I don’t go to the mall too often.

→ 14 Comments

Posted in Darling Child, Delicious Recipes, My Unique Style, Nailz, Purchases

Winter Wonderland

Posted on January 17, 2012 | 2 Comments

This winter had been really unbelievably mild so far, so when I saw that the forecast for this past weekend was all snow snow snow I was a little excited. Unfortunately even though it snowed on Friday night and off and on Saturday, it was also very sunny and by Sunday morning all we had left was a few sad patches of snow.

Not very impressive. However, on Monday Mother Nature stepped up her game.

That’s more like it!! Of course I was working and couldn’t go out and enjoy it but Taylor and the dogs had fun.

It stopped snowing fairly quickly and by the afternoon it already looked mostly like that first picture again, but that didn’t stop every fool in the city from throwing giant handfuls of that horrible blue chemical salt stuff all over the place. That stuff is the worrrrrrrrst, it kills plants and is toxic for pets, I don’t see why people can’t just shovel their walks, especially since we only got like, AN INCH of snow! Two Christmases ago Taylor and I went to Kelowna to visit his family, and there is WAYYYY more snow up there than there ever is here, and yet NO ONE in his moms’ neighbourhood salts, the just shovel and deal with it. I wish people here would do that.

We put booties on the dogs every time we took them out but I still had to wash their little salted feet, and my hands got totally chapped raw just from pulling their boots on and off. In fact, even though I washed my hands every time, at some point I put my fingers in my mouth and I got total salt-mouth and now I have an ulcer on my tongue O___o So gross, and I’m probably poisoned and going to die now.

ANYWAY. At least Kichou enjoyed himself (he looks grumpy here but he’s THRILLED).