When the Cat's Away...

the mice come out to play!  Remember how I told you I found these lovely chair bows on Etsy (they are vintage and were purchased at an estate sale)

and how I said Lovely Man would hate them?  Well tonight he's on a night shift and I had a hot date with my sewing machine... and will you just look what I got done!  Not only did I get the chair thingies done but I also got another laundry bag done for the other bedroom! 

By the time I finished it was getting dark and so this was taken under electric light so not the best photos in the world but I was just so chuffed (that's thrilled to my Canadian buddies) I had to post!  I will take some more tomorrow in good light and draw up some sort of tutorial.  These four came from just one cream double sheet and some 6" wide tulle, but you could use pretty lace panels, printed fabric, or maybe plain with perhaps a Graphic Fairy print in the center back, the possibilities are endless!  What's more the Lace ones would have set me back around $60, these four cost me just $9!

One laundry bag finished.  I edged the top with a little victorian style crochet lace, and added a rose again courtesy of the Graphic Fairy.  I'm happier with this one although I'm still not sure I quite have the opening right, perhaps I need to stiffen the fabric or use and interfacing.  Back to the drawing board I guess.  Again when I get it just right I will post a tutorial!

So I just wonder how long it will take Lovely Man to spot the 'new' chairs when he comes home!  haha!  So, time for a nice cup of peppermint tea and a little bloghopping! Ciao!

Work In Progress

Finally this afternoon I was able to at least clear my work table and get to my sewing machine!  The rest of the studio is still in disarray but....

So this evening I set to making a laundry hamper to hang on the back of the bedroom door.  I loathe having laundry baskets in the bedroom so mine is in the laundry which is in the basement.  Of course this presents a problem in the evening when we're tired and don't feel like trotting off to the basement with our dirty clothes and equally I hate clothes dumped on the floor, so a little hamper on the back of the door seemed the perfect answer and in the morning I can simply empty it into the one downstairs!  I have been buying 100% cotton sheets in the goodwill for 99c and most times there is absolutely no wear at all in them, they are like new!  I also bought some plastic hangers in The Bargain Store, 6 for $2.50!  I had some transfer paper in my stash and found the perfect label courtesy of The Graphics Fairy which I put in to Photoshop and added the word "Laundry", before printing and ironing onto the fabric.

It needs some adjusting and a little embellishment, lace, maybe a little rose and so on, but for now I am tired so will go back to it tomorrow!  I also plan to make another for the guest room... can't decide whether to stick with this label or look for another... maybe I'll sleep on that!

I am fairly pleased that I will have made both for less that $5!  Although I do have a confession.  On the transfer package it clearly said an ironing board is not suitable but you should use a sturdy table with a pillow case laid on it.  It also said 'apply light pressure'.  So I put a piece of wood... on the ironing board applied light pressure THREE times and the darned thing wouldn't stick properly.  So, I pressed just a little bit harder... must have been quite a lot harder because the ironing board sort of sunk!  Yes I pressed SO hard I bent the legs of the ironing board!!!  Note to self:  When instructions say "do not use an ironing board' don't!  When it says 'light pressure' it actually means 'push hard'!

Week 21 - The 52 Week Project

This morning I looked sadly at my blogs feeling somewhat guilty that I have been so lax in posting recently.  In my head Marvin Gaye was crooning softly "Has anybody seen my old friend Abraham", and I realised I've lost my friend mojo!  Can anybody tell me where he's gone?  Gripped with panic I wondered why he'd gone and, more importantly, was he coming back soon?  And then I looked at my blog reading list and also realised that there were a lot of my favorite bloggers, who like me would post at least once a week (sometimes more) who were also not so prolific these days!  Are they all away looking for their mojo's too I wondered?

To be fair, I have plenty of little ideas floating around in this old brain of mine, but my studio is a mess on account of some alterations and renovations so I think maybe my mojo has just hidden away in a closet somewhere, afraid to come out lest he get moved, organised or worse!

So here is my attempt at a come back, an entry for the 52 week project headed by Lorrie Whittington, week 21.  It sums up my week perfectly - Fiddleheads!  No, not just an expletive that I might feel like yelling when I throw my hands in the air in despair at losing my mojo, vegetables!  These are a spring delicacy around here!  They are an unfurled fern which can be cooked and eaten cold in salad or you can saute them in a little butter and garlic.  I actually quite liked them although Lovely Man told me exactly where I could put them... but I won't share that little gem with you!

Welcome!

A year ago when we arrived in Canada my cousin gave me a Christmas decoration which needed a little TLC.  Well, it's taken me a while to get around to it but finally I now have a "Welcome" wall hanging for the hall!  First I took off all the holly and spruce, I also removed the top layer of the wooden bow which had, at some point, come adrift and had been nailed back on not altogether successfully!  Then I rubbed it down and filled the nail holes.

Next I gave it a coat of acrylic paint, in two shades of blue.

I purchased some wooden letters from Michael's at around $1.60 each and some wooden flowers and butterflies for $1 each pack of ten from Dollerama!  I had some little wooden hearts in my stash already and painted them in blues and pinks.  Finally I hot glued the letters and shapes onto some pretty pink ribbon and hung them from the 'bow'.  I'm really rather pleased!

So, next project is......  chair backs!  I saw these on Etsy

And Fell In Love!

I didn't want lace, however, because I thought it would be too O.T.T. with a crochet table cloth.  So I purchased a cream cotton sheet from the bargain shop (too impatient to wait till I go thrifting next week), I have some cream satin and cream tuille netting and I have a certain little design of my own floating around in my tiny brain.  Of course Lovely Man knows NOTHING... he will hate them because they are too 'poofy'!  So we're not going to tell him till they are finished and in situ... what's known as a fait a compli... one of those "Oh don't you like them?  But I've finished them now..." moments! OK?  Mum's the word!

Speechless Saturday!

Some of my Blogging Friends take part in Wordless Wednesday where, every Wednesday (funny enough) they post a picture of something in their lives which need no explanation.  Well my friends I am starting a new feature all of my very own haha!  Speechless Saturday, hopefully running for one week only!

Digging out on Friday

Speechless on Saturday!

Not Waxing Quite So Lyrical!

Oh My Goodness!  What a performance!  I finally have to admit that I am getting just too old and a little too round to do this anymore.  Waxing my own legs that is!  I have never been one to pay someone to do something I am more than capable of doing myself, and so for the last three decades I have been waxing my own body thank you very much.  However tonight, when Lovely Man disappeared yet again to study muzzle loaders and firearms, I decided that it was high time I got to it.  It's been a long winter and I was horrified when I actually looked at my lower legs this morning with my glasses on.  If I didn't do something soon I was surely going to be in the casting for the next Star Wars movie as Chewbacca!  So, as I was alone I decided it was a good time to switch on the wax heater.  Lovely Man is always keen to lend a hand when he's at home but last time he took the fur off the cat, and stuck everything to the laminate floor.  He just doesn't get the idea of wiping the underneath of the stick and twirling it until it stops dripping BEFORE you move from pot to person.  Hence he trailed waxy stickiness just about everywhere.  The poor cat just happened to come in and decide that daddy was doing something dreadful to mummy and had to be stopped, ran across under said dripping stick and got well and truly drizzled on!  So, as I said, being alone in the house was a good time... or was it?  An hour or so later I have an aching back, cramp in my hip and two little patches that I just couldn't reach!  I am also huffing and puffing like an old train.  Suppose then I better find a good beautician... either that or go for the two toned effect... smooth at the front and furry at the back!  what do you suggest?

Week 15 - 52 week project

first up this morning I decided to check in and catch up with blog posts, e-mails and so on.  My dear friend Lorrie had just posted her submission for week 15 - the 52 Week Project 2011 and I simply couldn't resist following suit...

 

Do hop over and have a read !  This is my entry dear Lorrie!  Now it isn't a true indication of the amount of snow we had because I am on the edge of my deck underneath the porch.  Had I waded out any further you would not be able to see my boots as the snow would be up to my knees!

Oh yes my lovelies read on do, for a true picture of life in the Great North!

This whole little exercise turned into something a little bigger this morning as I got snap happy with the camera!  I then raided my photo library for some shots of the back yard and so on taken from a similar position.  So here are some June 2010 shots alongside April 2011! 

You get the picture?

Only this Friday I sat outside on my deck at the picnic table watching several birds on the lawn, yes there is a lawn under there, basking in the warm sun.  I felt I more than deserved this little break, after all I had just written my column in record time AND submitted it to my Editor way before the 'close of play Friday deadline'.   "Articles should be relevant to Manitouwadge and written in a timely fashion" was my brief.  The Ed. doesn't want old news and neither do my readers, so I duly twittered on about the Spring, the garden, the imminent Big Spring Clean Up (an annual event here in the Wadge).  Low and behold look what happened next:  7 a.m. Saturday morning it started to snow, by lunchtime they had the snow plows out.  Around 4.30 p.m. said snow plow left a bank of snow some two and half feet high across my drive.  I was actually out so Lovely Man, who had been working since 7 a.m. had to clear said drive entrance so that I could get in on my return!  7 p.m. Saturday Evening, went out to supper.  Darned snow plow did the street where our friends live.  Lovely Man and New Best Friend shoveled another 2 foot bank of snow from another driveway so that all visitors could go home after supper!  8 p.m. Sunday evening, finally stopped snowing!

Oh and I just heard... forecast for this Wednesday... MORE SNOW!  Well color me silly!  Out of Sync Lorrie?  I should coco!