Category: Uncategorized

This week Gwen has mastered the art of scooting backwards on her belly; as soon as you turn your head, she’s off, quite quickly. She can also get right up on her hands and knees and I honestly think she’ll master crawling before she figures out rolling from her front to her back or sitting up.

Since she can’t go forwards yet she tends to get stuck under the furniture a lot.

For the record she was yelling in frustration here, not pain.

She leaves a trail of drool-drops in her wake, so no matter where her tiny travels take her I’ll always be able to find her.

Saturday Taylor’s sister came over with her family and Gwen met her little 3-month-old cousin Evan for the first time, as well as her aunt and uncle.


Georgie has to be in every picture.

I perfected my scalloped-trim shoe pattern and made Gwen a new pair of shoes out of this awesome platinum leather. I’m happy they turned out since I only had enough of this colour to make one pair.

Sunday was of course Mother’s Day and tbh it sucked. It was barely even acknowledged at all- Taylor said “Happy Mother’s Day” to me when I got up in the morning, and Sym mumbled it as she breezed out the door on her way to Disneyland. That was it, until later in the afternoon when I broke down crying over the fact that the only thing I got for Mother’s Day was tagged in a facebook pic of Amy Poehler in Mean Girls.

I’m going to adopt the internet friend who tagged me as my new family, AT LEAST DANIELLE APPRECIATES ME.

When Taylor heard me crying he felt bad and got up (he had to work last night so he was already in bed in the afternoon) and went out to get me flowers and cake and sparkling wine, which I appreciate but like… I would have rather the day had been celebrated WITHOUT me sobbing about it first, and also before one of my kids left for a week’s vacation? idk, this makes me sound spoiled and bratty but really I didn’t even want THINGS, I just wanted the morning to be special.

I’m also forever bitter about the whole Disneyland trip. It was supposed to be this big group with both sides of Sym’s family but since I’m not working we couldn’t afford to go, so Sym is going with only her dad’s side of the family. I just feel sad, like the whole point of the trip was that Sym was supposed to go with her WHOLE family and I feel left out of her life. I DON’T KNOW I’m just emotional I guess.

These two girls of mine, they are so sweet. Gwen is the happiest baby you’ve ever met, she smiles and giggles at everything. Sym is so bright and creative and funny. She doesn’t often want me taking/posting pics of her but I got special permission for this one (as long as I mentioned the bunny ears she’s giving me, giving bunny ears in pics is like, her oeuvre). I am so happy to have them in my life.

This might be my laziest link post yet. It might be my laziest week of blogging ever, actually. I have a lot of ideas for posts and a lot of DIYs in the planning and/or prep stages, but I’m finding it hard to spend time on anything besides:
• Seawall walks with the baby
• working on etsy orders
• watching Netflix while I work on etsy orders

NICE. Some other things from this week…

I was pretty sick of the faded green ends of my hair, so on Tuesday I spent Gwen’s naps bleaching and bleaching and basically murdering my hair to get all the green out.


I know ombre hair is tired or whatever but OH WELL WHO CARES. I’m not sure yet if I’ll keep it like this, go dark all over, or just cut the ends off since they are super fried (although I’m in a long hair contest with Taylor and I wouldn’t want to lose too much length or he might catch up with me). tbh I’m pretty sick of having dark hair in general so maybe I’ll just keep bleaching it higher and higher.

Wednesday was Gwen’s half birthday, she’s six months old now!

Since I was so not into posting this week it’s good I did that Gwen at 5 1/2 months post a couple weeks back, haha.

On Thursday Jenn and I got our first pedicure of the season. We went to Nail de Kaen and I totally recommend it to local people!

Jenn in coral on the left (pic shamelessly stolen from her instagram), me in gold on the right

Speaking of my etsy, I was planning on making a fuss when I reached 500 sales… but then I didn’t even notice when that happened, haha.

You can still get 20% off your order with the code SPRING20 so if you’ve been planning on ordering a banner, now’s the time!

And now a couple links…

I’m not super into podcasts in general but I AM super into Why Would You Do That?

Some great photos of abandoned places.

In case you live under some sort of internet rock and missed it, Hyperbole and a Half is back.

One of my favourite tumblrs.

As always, check out what Gwen wore.

This weekend I…

Came up with my new favourite summer drink: gin, strawberry Italian soda and mint.

Started making a pair of sandals for Gwen. It’s much harder than making regular baby shoes!

Kicked Taylor’s butt at Ascension.

Met up with Jenn for brunch and a little window shopping.

Hung out with Gwen on a blanket in the backyard for the first time ever.

AND was able to exchange my defective phone for one that (so far, fingers crossed everyone) is NOT defective!!!!

I’ve been obsessed with Cristin’s twitter for a long time and HALLELUJAH now she has a blog so I can die happy.

A really good joke.

This kid’s room is so good!

I love having this blog on my feedly.

Georgie needs this.

Some of my favourites from etsy right now: fox sweater / faux bois bunny / space cat baby leggings

See what Gwen wore this week, and a new look for Tiny Buttons, designed by Maria Bovor.

Fashion Film

The Never Ending Struggle

Remember when I was so happy that I finally got a new phone? Well nevermind, because adding to my recent string of phone-related disappointments, my brand-new shiny HTC One that I got especially because of the camera, that I paid an early upgrade fee to get especially because of the camera…

Has a defective camera.

SERIOUSLY WHAT R THE ODDS??? And it’s only defective while taking a particular kind of picture, which is even more annoying somehow? Like you think it’s working great and then HA HA NOPE. Some examples:

This baby rarely holds still when she’s awake, but even though she was squirming all over this picture came out pretty alright.

This picture of a treetop against the sky has a filter on it so some of the detail has been lost, but it’s still pretty good.

I took this picture of Claire in my basement apartment last night with only one 40 watt-equivalent CFL bulb lighting the room, and just LOOK at how amazing it is! You can see every individual hair on her face!

You might be thinking to yourself, “What the hell, Tanie, what are you complaining about, looks like your fancy phone has a fantastic camera that works perfectly, you spoiled brat!” Now, I’m not denying that I’m being a spoiled brat but just hold your judgement until you see this final picture:

WELP. As you can see this is a very dumb picture of a boring, awkwardly framed street scene. Trees, planters, cars, apartment buildings and BC Place Stadium. What you can ALSO see is that the entire picture is out of focus. Pretty weird for a device with autofocus, right? You’d think that there at least be one thing in focus here. Was I shaking the phone around when I took this picture? Did I take it during an earthquake? NOPE. There is some sort of FATAL FLAW in the camera that when asked to take a picture of a scene with things in the fore, middle and background, it can’t focus on any of them. Even if I tap the screen to choose a point for it to focus on, it still can’t focus. It’s like the camera has option paralysis*

SO FRUSTRATING. Yesterday I called HTC and at their suggestion I took the phone back to the Bell store where I bought it. After first treating me like an idiot (“It looks like there’s something on the lens, like a thumbprint, that’s probably causing the problem”) one of the employees compared it to his own, properly-functioning HTC One and finally realized/admitted mine wasn’t able to focus and so declared it DOA (the “D” stands for Defective! YAY!). Luckily that means I can exchange it, unluckily they don’t have any in stock (hilariously I rushed down there on Saturday in the rain to buy the very last one) so I have to wait who knows how long. Could be they’ll get more today, could be next week. COULD BE NEVER, basically. I sure am glad I paid that early upgrade fee now! 6___9

*The tendency, when given unlimited choices, to make none. ty Douglas Coupland.

Headbands on babies are always super cute, and these appliquéd headbands made from just elastic and scraps of suede are also super easy to make.

Supplies
• 3/4″ elastic, or a 3/4″ elastic headband (I like these headbands from American Apparel; they come in lot of colours and the non-shiny side is very soft)
• leather and/or suede scraps in various colours
• 2 needles: one regular (for the elastic) and one thicker (for the leather/suede)
• 2 kinds of thread: one to match the elastic colour and a heavier one in a neutral colour to attach the flowers & leaves
• leaf and flower templates, you can make your own, or download mine here (don’t laugh, I drew them in about 5 seconds)
• small, sharp scissors
• a fine-point marker

1. Measure your baby’s head, diagonally from the nape of the neck around the top of the forehead. Cut a piece of elastic 1/4″ longer than this measurement. You don’t want to make the headband too tight or it will be uncomfortable and won’t stay on properly, and babies are always growing so a little too big is better than a little too small!

2. Bring the ends of the elastic together and sew (right sides together), leaving a 1/4″ allowance. Fold the allowances flat against the inside of the headband and sew in place so they won’t stick out or fray. Use the regular needle & colour matched thread for this (or a sewing machine if you are fancy like that, but I’m still too scared of mine to unbox it so I do everything by hand).

3. Print or draw your flower and leaf templates on cardstock and cut them out. Using a fine-tipped marker, trace the templates onto the back of your leather or suede scraps. Cut them out INSIDE the marker lines; you want as little pen on the cut out shapes as possible.

4. Sew the flowers and leaves to the headband using the thicker needle and heavier thread. You can lay them out beforehand to figure out the arrangement, or just place them as you go. For the flowers, sew two stitches in a cross at the center of each blossom. For the leaves, a couple backstitches through the center of the leaf where the vein would be will secure them. If you are having trouble getting the needle through the leather, rest the eye end of the needle vertically on a spare scrap of leather on a hard surface, and push the headband and flower or leaf down the needle. Just be careful to go slowly so you don’t bend or break your needle (both of which I’ve done while hand sewing leather).

Once you have this down you can do all kinds of different shapes: hearts, stars, diamonds, basically the whole spectrum of Lucky Charms. I’ve included these (and more!) on the template download along with the leaves & flowers.

A big THANK YOU to Taylor for taking all the pictures for this post, I guess all that fancy camera equipment is finally proving useful, haha.

So I’ve definitely been keeping up with my morning Seawall walks with Gwen, and sometimes Taylor joins me as well. He’s still working from home two nights a week, Monday and Friday, which means those mornings he can come out with us when he finishes work.

There have been some really beautiful days recently- last Monday was so still and clear and cloudless that we could see (what I think is) Vancouver Island to the west (on the left of the picture behind the container ships)…

…and Mount Baker (in Washington) to the southeast (about 2/3 of the way across this picture).

TRUST ME THEY’RE THERE.

Today was a little different. It was still sunny and clear, but it was THE WINDIEST DAY EVER. The ocean was crazy, waves were breaking & crashing against the Seawall so hard it was sending up some serious spray.

This was by English Bay, and I had to take Gwen’s stroller up onto the grass so we wouldn’t get hit with water. Once we got into the Stanley Park part of the wall there were no grassy areas beside the path, just trees and/or cliffs. There were more than a few places were we just had to try and time it correctly and run like hell to avoid the water. The corner by Siwash Rock was especially intense, with the spray from the crashing waves going AT LEAST 8-10 feet up.

There were also piles and piles of seafoam jiggling around on the beaches, which I’d never seen in real life before. And yes, jiggling. It jiggles! So weird.

Once we reached the leeward side of the park by Burrard Inlet the water was much calmer and the sun was very warm. We had a good time secretly giggling at all the people walking/jogging in the opposite direction as us, who had no idea what they were heading into. NO IDEA.

Gwen had a great time on this walk. She slept through part of it, but woke up in time for the majority of my running and yelling OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD while trying to avoid getting soaked. The wind was pretty cold but we had her bundled in a bunch of blankets and actually put the raincover on the stroller in case the spray hit us, although we actually managed to avoid getting soaked, although Taylor did run through a puddle of seawater and ended up with wet shoes.

This weekend (like all of my weekends recently) was most spent on one thing: working on the dining room. And after all the priming and painting and rearranging, I’m finally finished!

Okay, truthfully I’m not 100% done: I need to put up some art, fill the shelves and reupholster some seat cushions, but the bulk of the work is done, including:
• refinishing the table & chairs
• going on a craigslist adventure to get a highchair for Gwen
• painting the walls, and then painting them more when I decided to extend the look of the living room mural
• taking down my DIY chandelier and changing the light fixture back to the old one, which I gave a totally different look with a new paper shade & some grosgrain ribbon wrapped around the cord
• moving two shelving units from Taylor’s half of the office, mounting them on the walls and adding a couple cupboard inserts (okay, only one so far)

The best part about this is I hardly had to buy anytihng to give this room a whole new look. The only things I bought were the high chair ($45) and a cushion for it ($6), the grosgrain ribbon ($4), the cupboard inserts ($30 for two) and the seat cushion fabric ($20). All the other furniture and all the paint I already had!

A few other things: Friday I met Jenn for lunch at a bakery/cafe between her office & my apartment. Saturday I got a new phone of my own instead of one of Taylor’s hand-me-downs and on Saturday night we made bacon white cheddar nachos for dinner. Sunday we made the mistake of taking a walk on the Seawall on the weekend and it was super crowded and unpleasant; I guess all our quiet, midweek walks on the empty Seawall have spoiled us. Sunday night Taylor’s mom visited- she’s taking every opportunity to come to town for work so she has an excuse to come see Gwen.