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Cheers from me & Dougal! I’m so happy it’s finally the weekend!

Imperial Bedrooms 49/104; The Girl Who Fell from the Sky 50/104; The Year of Magical Thinking 51/104; Easily Amused 52/104

And happy Friday from me & Georgie!

I’m really hoping to have a good day today- this week has been dragging and I’ve been in a crabby funk. I think I ran out of patience for work somewhere around oh idk, JUNE, so every day has been a real struggle recently. Everything has been annoying me- daycare kids being whiny and fussy and weepy, parents suffering from take-a-mile syndrome (ARGH), all the out of control spider-filled plants outside, and the creepy neighborhood lawnmower man who lurks and stares and last week menaced one of my clients with a weed-whacker. ENOUGH ALREADY!!

Anyway I only have 2 kids coming today, so it’ll be nice and easy and maybe by 5 o’clock I won’t want to strangle myself!

It doesn’t mean what you think it means!

I want a light blanket or quilt for my bedroom. I’m really liking both of these but for some reason they can’t be shipped to Canada. How aggravating!

… with no dog post? UNACCEPTABLE.

Late again! I’m catching up though- I made these on Monday night and we tried them yesterday, so I predict that by next week we’ll be back on track for Friday nights/Saturday afternoons. Anyway, I hope I can earn your forgiveness with my sweet popsicle party! banner, because while I was looking for a good picture to use I found a popsicle made of human sweat and now I’m totally grossed out.

Continuing my theme of being too lazy to buy & process fruit, these are more juice popsicles.

I used a combination of Sun-Rype’s Peach Pear and Wild Raspberry, but to make things a little more exciting I layered them instead of mixing. The only issue I had was it was a little hard to get the sticks in after I added the peach pear, but that’s because I was trying to use up all the raspberry juice so I put in a little too much.

These are super delicious! I think this combination might be even better if I made them with ACTUAL fruit but baby steps, people. Baby steps.

Sym’s dad was here picking her up so he had a popsicle too.

This project has been in the planning stages for quite a while! Inspired by this picture:

(I was able to find the original source for this pic so I edited it to link back to the flickr page)

… I decided to make a miniature version for my library windows.

I didn’t want to do any sewing or complicated folding so I chose double-sided origami paper, which would look pretty from both inside and outside. Originally I’d planned to do lots of overlapping strings, filling the whole window area from top to bottom and front to back (or, at least to where the blinds hang, about 5″ back from the glass), but I realized that would make it hard to open the windows so instead I did a single layer and pinned them to the frames themselves so I could still open them easily.

Supplies:

• cutting mat
• craft knife
• scissors
• metal-edged ruler
• double-sided tape
• double-sided origami paper (or whatever kind of decorative paper you like, but I would recommend cutting it into squares before starting)
• ribbon
• thumbtacks (not pictured)

I had everything on hand except for the paper, which cost $2/pack. I also bought white string for this but ended up giving it to Sym and using this black ribbon, which I’ve had forever, instead. And I also bought a roll of double-sided tape, since I wasn’t sure I had enough left (I did, as it turned out, but I can always use more double stick tape)

Cut the paper in half.

Origami paper is approximately 6″x6″, which is perfect for these little flags. You can cut a small stack of five to ten sheets at a time.

Stack the two halves, and cut like so:

Each sheet of origami paper makes ten flags. If you like you can mark the cutting points with a little dot at the odd inches on one edge and the even ones on the other. I gave the little scraps from the ends to Sym for her own projects.

Now that you’ve got your flags ready, it’s time to assemble your bunting! My windows are about 27″ wide and 21″ high, so I cut seven 28″ ribbons per window (the flags are 3″ long). With gaps of approximately 1″ between each ribbon I used nine or ten per string.

First, choose your colours and arrange them however you like.

Double sided origami paper is different colours on each side so you have to lay them out right side up to see how the colours look together. I used different combinations in different arrangements for each string, but if you wanted you could do them all the same, or make a pattern.

Next, flip them over and apply double-stick tape.

These are the same flags as pictured above, so you can see how different the colours are on the reverse! I stuck the tape on each flag and THEN cut it, which I find is easier than cutting then sticking. The scissor blades can get gummy from the tape, but a quick swipe with rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball will take care of that!

Peel the backing from the tape and stick each flag to the ribbon, leaving an allowance of about 1-2″ at each end.

Repeat!

I did this last night while watching the end of The Neverending Story (HOW IRONIC) and Legend with Taylor and finished twelve of the fourteen strands, and made the last two this morning while the kids drew pictures.

After cleaning the windows & sills, it was time to put up my bunting! You could use tape or sticky-tack if you wanted but I used thumbtacks.

I used the flat end of a closed pair of pliers to push the pins into the wood when it was too hard to use my fingers- I though using a hammer that close to the window glass would be a mistake! I didn’t mark or measure these or try to get them particularly straight.

One window finished!

Both windows!

With the blinds down but the slats open, which is how I usually have them during the day.

From outside.


Since you can see these better from the yard I put the pretty, planned colour arrangements facing out. I wasn’t sure about the black ribbon, but it actually worked out really well- in fact, you hardly notice it! I also think it was easier than using the string I bought, which would have required folding the top of each flag over it.

A word about quantities and planning: I didn’t bother measuring or calculating how much paper I would need at all. Since I’d originally planned many more strings I bought four packs of origami paper and cut up two of them. Then I ended up only using seven strings per window, with nine or ten flags per string, for about a hundred and forty flags total. With ten flags per sheet, that’s just fourteen sheets. They come in packs of forty-five and I cut up TWO WHOLE PACKS. This is what I have leftover:

PLUS two unopened packs! Yeesh. Soooooo if anyone wants some strings of handmade paper bunting, let me know!

I think I want new bedroom furniture. The room is quite small and the dressers and bed are too big and too dark. The bed is too low, and we’re always bashing our shins on the corner of the bedframe, which sucks. I have some ideas for a more efficient drawer-and-shelf system that would allow me too move the bed out from under the window, but I’m not sure what colour would work with my turquoise and cream (in summer) and turquoise and beige/brown (in winter). I don’t think I want wood, so I’ll probably end up painting whatever I get like, a slightly darker shade than I chose for the walls. Basically I just want to paint everything, haha!

Georgie in the foyer. She’s so golden! The crate on the right is hers, I picked it up on Saturday. So far she is unimpressed with it. Oh and I actually did vacuum in there this morning, but it’s crazy windy today and when I opened the door a huge gust of leaves and debris came flying in. GREAT. Anyway when it’s clean/I’ve put up some shelves I’ll have to take new pictures, I rearranged the crates and moved the stroller outside (it’s locked up so hopefully it won’t get stolen) so now Taylor and I can actually reach our coats AND have somewhere to put our shoes! EDIT for MORE GEORGIE.

Dougal hadn’t seen Claire’s new house yet so he had to see what was up. Once he realized it was full of cat he quickly lost interest. EDIT: I didn’t think Claire would ever get up on to the top of her tower, but earlier I put her up there because she was getting on my nerves, and I guess she really likes it because she quite hilariously clambered up it on her own.

Saturday evening in the backyard…

My new chairs!



I was also there but I look like a bag of rags in all the pictures Taylor took so FORGET IT. After our whirlwind tour of Canadian Tire and Home depot, we took the dogs for an enormous walk to Dairy Queen and then along the Seawall. Georgie was so tired afterwards that she crawled under the couch to sleep and wouldn’t come outside to hang out. I was pretty exhausted myself!

We stayed until around ten, and then order some Japanese takeout (which I was first excited about and then very letdown by) and started watching The Neverending Story, but we both fell asleep sometime around the Southern Oracle.

On Sunday we met Taylor’s dad and his partner at Glowbal for brunch. This was Taylor’s Wild Berry Panettone French Toast.

I had the Belgian waffle but it was kind of :/ (this was like, my food theme this weekend). It comes with carmelized bananas and white chocolate mousse, but I don’t like bananas so I asked to have it with berries instead, and that’s what I got. A plain, dry waffle with a handful of berries strewn across it, but no mousse or pretty presentation. Boo!

Afterwards Taylor wanted to go look for some new shorts but the store he likes was closed, so instead I made him go with me to the pet sore to buy Claire a giant cat tower.

It’s ENORMOUS. I just wanted somewhere I could put her food where she could reach it but the dogs couldn’t, and all the smaller cat towers/trees/condos/whatever were way more expensive- this one was discontinued so it was 40% off. Obviously it was the best choice but let me tell you, carrying it home was quite the comedy of errors! I also don’t really like the colour, so I’m thinking of buying a cheap-yet-prettier rug and reupholstering the outside.

In the afternoon my neighbor had her mom’s shih tzu puppy out in the backyard, so I brought Georgie out so they could play.


The puppy, Bella, is cute but very passive and timid, and mostly just sat or lay there being pounced and chewed on. Georgie definitely has way more personality!

Apparently Kichou had no eyes this weekend.

Georgie loves playing and bouncing around in this ivy, it was nearly impossible to get a picture of her because she wouldn’t hold still for even a second.

Sym came home from her dad’s with a new, shorter haircut and spent the evening tracing pictures out of one of her Sailor Moon books. Tonight I want to do arts & crafts with her- she has a paint-by-numbers to finish and I need to start making the paper bunting for my library windows. I also want to make some rainbow coasters to use outside out of perler beads (which is making me wish I didn’t mix all the perler bead colours together in a big bin but OH WELL). I also need to varnish the patio furniture I painted this weekend (I finished it on Sunday afternoon) and figure out how to turn the golf umbrella and six feet of PVC pipe into a patio umbrella. I cut the handle off the umbrella last night with my Dremel and it was NERVE WRACKING. Sparks flying everywhere! Wow, I have A LOT of projects on the go right now!