My attention was drawn to this great vintage looking box at a cluttered store called Barn Finds out on Highway 28 just north of Port Hope here, east of my place.
It had a recipe box inside and the box contained . . . . bath bombs?! What the heck!?
Not sure what those have to do with recipes, I tossed them.
The box is metal and it’s totally awesome.
I love the colours and the design. I think I might use it to hold money while I save up for something fun. It’s cuter than the bank.
I lugged the boys out last weekend to the Bailieboro Pottery & Glass Festival. There were some lovely things there to behold.
I must have been in a blue mood or something because anything blue was grabbing my attention.
I left with this lovely rectangular piece.
The design inside is so pretty. This piece is from Terra Dolus Pottery.
I decided to use it to keep all my little pins and brooches in.
I also got these nice coasters from Blue Cheese Pottery. They’re a really light blue/green colour.
The show was all around this church that houses an antiques store, very lovely stuff in there. The boys were so good on the car ride and even tolerated me stopping at a place called Barn Finds to look at neat stuff and do some thrifting.
In June 2012 I dyed my hair all funky with loads of purple.
This was the image that inspired it, my hair has a ring of dark underneath as well, it’s just not as visible. It helps break up the bangs a bit with some darker strands and also helps when roots start growing in.
Image shamelessly stolen from somewhere during a Google search. I apologize.
I took my purple hair to school on the very last day and was asking if it was a wig, some kids tugged on it but overall it was pretty fun and no one seemed to mind. I had an appointment for the end of August to have it put back ‘to normal’ but as the summer went on I really liked it. Crazy funky hair is a bit tricky, espeically if you pay for it at the salon. The bleaching and colour and all that was $140.
I touched it up here and there myself with Splat, their shade of purple matched better than Manic Panic‘s did. I’ve also been to the salon for the whole root touch up bleaching thing again. Unless you do it all at home yourself funky hair can get pretty expensive. If you’re going to live a little and try it all at home Kaylah and Elycia are the experts.
So this summer I let my hair just go a bit, I didn’t baby it. In a backyard pool I dunked under and swam across, at public swimming I let the kids splash me, I didn’t wear a hat, I went out in the sun . . .basically I enjoyed summer! My purple faded to a truly outrageous pink. Since I have an appt at the end of August at the salon I took the opportunity to play a bit. I picked up some Atomic Turqoise and had some fun.
It took 3 tries, I wasn’t pulling up enough hair for the blue ring at the front. I was being hesitant and dind’t want to mess up my purple entirely. Once the blue was nice and deep and as good as I was going to get it I realised just how faded the purple was. So for $14.99 I fixed it too.
It’s fun wavy or curly but it works best straightened I think.
It’s hard to catch in a picture that I’m taking myself but hey there it is. So I’m living a little before the 31st when I do . . . something else to my hair. I still haven’t decided but I’m getting and gathering ideas here.
Posted in DIY
Tagged aqua, atomic turqoise, blue, dlying, hair, lusty lavender, manic panic, purple, splat
Wesley has had a Captain Rex costume for a while. I swear I’m raising the bar way toooo much on myself. My kids think I’m some sort of crafty Wonder Woman who can whip up anything. And while I love to try and get a kick out of creating different things they’re getting pretty sophisticated in their requests. I’ve managed R2 D2 and Darth Vader, a monster, and a ghost once but that was literally the whole white sheet with holes trick.
We’ve been watching a lot of Dr Horrible. We listen to it in the car. We watch it all snuggled on the couch. We randomly sing it without the music.
One time while watching it I said “That’s it, I’m dressing you guys up as Dr Horrible and Captain Hammer this year, for real” Nate said “Let’s do the wedgie part!” And thus my motivation was kicked into overdrive.
I grabbed some red fabric at Fabricland and one of Nate’s t-shirts. I traced out the shoulder and neck bit of the shirt and then just sort of went with tapering and a length I thought would work.
With some buttons from my stash, bits of velrco, some stretchy gloves stolen from a neighbour and some black fabric . . . voila! Evil Dr Horrible. So out the door I went about an hour from my project starting to head to my friends for a backyard fire with Captain Rex and Dr Horrible in tow.
Captain Hammer is next, oh and some other Clone Wars guy.
Posted in kid fun
Tagged captain hammer, captain rex, costumes, DIY, dr horrible, star wars
I’ve come to a realization, part of it isn’t exactly rocket science – I need to create everyday. If I don’t I start to feel crabby, especially if a day or two passes.
The other part is that creativity can take many forms for me now. Before I seemed to only count sewing things, or crafting specifically. Now I realise that I’ve got other creative outlets too, how I dress, my crazy hair colours, writing, learning and most recently cooking. Since the chef of the house moved out and I’m up to bat on cooking for me and the boys I’ve had to learn some tricks.
I’m becoming friends with my slow cooker. I enrolled the boys in a summer reading program at the public library so we’ve been going there every week for their little stickers and book reports. While there I’ve been checking out books about food and cooking. I found this book and absolutely love it. The author has a blog, Eating From The Ground Up. This book is packed with crazy useful information, I’m going to have to pick up my own copy.
It’s going to be a challenge balancing things once school starts up again, the kids, work, the blog, creating, single parenting . . . I’ve got lots of things to navigate. Good thing I’m up for a challenge!
I made candles! Candles from all my old odds and ends of other candles.
I collect the bits and pieces for a while. You can pick up wicks and the little holdy things for them at craft stores. I had some around because I made candles for people for Christmas gifts years and years ago.
The easiest ones to use are the waxed ones that stand up on their own but you can buy string like wicks and you just have to tie them to some something to keep them straight up.
I have a special metal jug/pot thing from Michael’s for melting the wax but you could just dedicate a pot to it. I did do it inside a pot of boiling water, I think the wax *could* catch fire if you were neglectful but you need to be right at the stove for this. Melt all the bits and pieces and then fish out any garbage.
Then you just pour the new melted wax into the containers and molds. I added some colouring things I had and some stuff that makes the wax smell good too, again I got those at the craft store.
As the wax cools it sort of dips down a little bit so you can leave it like that or I went back and just topped up each candle.
Once they’re cooled you can just pull them out if you made votives or leave them where they are if you re-used previous candle containers.
Ok so I’m pretty proud of myself and this lovely tote I made. It used up a bunch of really fun scraps, thank you swaps and Tabatha’s beautiful scrap donations, and I learned some really neat stuff.
I made it with things I had on hand. It’s not hard to find scrap fabric in my house. I cut up a fleece blanket I had lying around in a donate pile, I was just finally about to run out and buy some batting when I remembered that Diego blanket was there and decided it would do. For the bottom of the tote I cut up the legs of a pair of jeans that were too big. I had interfacing and plenty of fabrics lying around to make pockets and line it.
I found the quilting as you go part really cool. Before starting Quilt-As-You-Go: Patchwork Bags I assumed I’d be quilting all the pieces together and then quilting them to the batting. But this whole, just grab a piece and do it as you go was really fun and the effect is great!
I chose a green thread for the denim bottom, I thought it would show up and add some fun contrast but once I got sewing it just disappeared into the fabric anyway, oh well.
I also did something wonky because when I cut a lining piece it didn’t match my outer piece. I messed something up. My bag does seem shallow so I’m not sure what I did but I just kept that lining piece and figured I’ll make another outer tote for it!
Now I knew about the zipper trick already thanks to Lisa Lam’s book, but the quilting technique was brilliant and the bias tape part of this class was just amazing. It’s forever changed how I’ll attach bias tape. I’ve always hated using the stuff but this was super easy and I love the finished look. I’ve made my own tape before but I used Tara’s tutorial on her blog just to be sure I was doing it right.
I have to say I love Tara’s teaching and her sewing style is so laid back and fun, totally like me. Must be a teachers named Tara thing. I went into Fabricland with my tote on my shoulder the other day and shocked a lady in line. She said, a bit insultingly with what sounded like disbelief in her voice “You didn’t make that did you?”. I informed her that yes indeed I did and then suddenly the rest of the line up and the teller were admiring my bag. Tara Rebman- Quilt-As-You-Go: Patchwork Bags“>This class is soo worth buying.
She gets me every Friday.
Just when I think ‘how many digital patterns can I own?’ I cave in a buy another.
Check out Michelle’s shop, that’s an affiliate link by the way. It means I can buy a pattern or two each month.
Posted in uncategorized
I have been really intrigued with making my own scrubs recently. I’ve started a collection of ideas on Pinterest on this board. Pardon my hair and eye make up pins.
The recipe I used was
– 3 cups sugar
– 1 cup oil
– 10 drops essential oil
Now I played with this a bit and only made a half batch to try it out. I used vegetable oil, which was what I had on hand and seemed weird but honestly it totally works. I’m going to pick up some baby oil or coconut or something that doens’t make me feel like I should be roasting myself!
I put waaaayyy more than 10 drops of the tangerine oil, I probably put closer to 30. That said, I didn’t find that it made the rub smell as much as I would have liked. I’m going to play around with adding actual orange juice? concentrate? extract? I dunno something to give it that kick of smell. I also put a drop or two of red food colouring in just to give it a hint of colour.
Has anyone tried making their own scrubs? I’d love to hear what works and what doesn’t.
Also, if you give these scrubs a try be careful in the shower because it can make things a touch slippy!
If you’re looking to buy some great natural body products my lovely friend Michelle makes some great stuff. I’m addicted to this Lemon Poppyseed body scrub, I love how it feels and that after the shower I smell a touch lemony.
I’m trying really hard to think of my self as a rockstar everyday but sometimes that doesn’t go so well. But today!? Today I nailed being a rockstar right out of the park!
I made tangerine sugar body scrub. More on that later.
I made beef, chicken AND turkey stock. All for the first time. Which also accomplished clearing out a large portion of the freezer.
I baked a banana bread. That’s not very epic, I do that often. It too clears out my freezer from the pile of frozen bananas that start to take over.
I made candles from all the odds and ends and extra candle stuff I had lying around, more details on that later too.
I cooked a eye of round roast. First time ever I’ve cooked a roast. I even made gravy for it in the last moments because inspiration struck.
I did my pilates DVD while the roast was roasting. My son Wesley, is addicted to Lego Star Wars on the wii. When I said I was going to do my DVD he got all panicked and asked how!? (we only have 1 TV). I loaded it onto my iPad, after some fussing around with my laptop some ripping and file converting, and went up to my room and did it there.
I also fed my children, took them swimming, guggled them while watching Dr Horrible on the couch with a blankie, and tucked them lovingly into bed.
Now I’m off to finish this tote!
Told you, nailed it.
