Hot Pink Chandelier

I could not WAIT to share this with you all. I finally painted the giant ugly brass candelabra-chandelier that I picked up for $20 a few months back! And when I say I couldn't wait to show you this, I mean literally, cos it's still outside on the tree waiting for one more loving coat of 'watermelon pink' spraypaint.

Here's kindof a before. The REAL before had broken old used-to-be-white 'candles' on it and it was dingy. I removed them and scrubbed the chandy for prep. Then I took it outside and hung it in my tree and got down to business. I didn't bother priming because I figured it will not receive any wear and tear.
My can of paint was very spattery and I wish i had put it down right away and moved on to the next can! When I pulled out a different can for the second coat things went beautifully from there on. Unfortunatly, I had a mild case of Barbie-leprosy.
I should probably come with a warning label. "Marrying this woman will probably at some point result in a hot pink chandelier hanging in the tree in the backyard." Nobody would believe the label, anyways, so I guess not.

I am so excited to finish this up with new white 'candles' (thanks to Joy from JOYS OF HOME for tipping me off on where to find them!) and hang it in Nicole's room! It will look nice with white walls, and if I do decide to go with the light lime green walls it will just POP! And then I can't wait to show you the finished project when it's all up and good to go.

Let's be Prudent, here, ladies...

Okay, so I got a little (little. like I get 'a little' anything) excited/inspired by Prudent Baby's DIY Sweet & Easy Hair Clippies. I could tell from her thumbnail that I would love them and that I could easily do them, and I'm sooo glad I decided to click on her tutorial instead of just winging it because her tips on how to cut the flowers nicely (slits in circles and then rounding them out) made my life WAAAAY easier. No, MY WHOLE LIFE. For serious. You can tell there is an extreme lack of drama going on in my life lately, eh? ha.

I feel super special cos I gave her a little tip of my own for making the ribbon clips grippy without inducing static. I feel clever as a squirrel in a nut factory.

While I was having fun I decided to make a giant button into a bobby pin button. Very cute, blue isn't my color though, so not for me!

Another batch... the top one is for my niece, to go with a shirt her mom appliqued for her with this selfsame apple fabric (sooooo cute.) and the others are just more fun.
modelled by Nicole... I'm not sure how this happened, I think I promised her candy for this blurry shot. Note the buttons in the background, she was sorting them 'for me' while I played with these.

And the same one modelled much nicelier by me. Yes, I said nicelier. This is my favourite out of the whole batch, and I am not entirely certain what is up with that because I'm not always a fan of the red/pink combo. I DO NOT KNOW WHY. My brain thinks they don't match. Even though they're technically 'red' and 'light red' but whatever, brain. What. Ever.

Very cute, thanks, Jacinda, for a great tutorial, and sorry if I seem kinda stalkery when I read every single one of your backposts because that's what I do when I decide somebody is awesome. And, hello, our kids are the same age, so clearly we should be internet friends. If by internet friends you mean, stalkstalkstalk.

PS, how awesome is my natural hair color? I have decided photos tell the truth and my bathroom mirror lies. How mad do you think my husband would be if I decided to hack a 'skylight' into our sad little windowless bathroom? He will probably look the other way if I tell him it's the one thing standing between me and chopping off my hair or dying it. He will do anything to prevent either of those things these days. Guess who bought me a fancy-shmancy pricey-shmicey hair straightener? Scrooge, that's who. And he was even courteous enough to refrain from pointing out I have God-given bone-straight hair. ITS NOT THE SAME. Plus my bangs are ca-razy.

SPEAKING OF MY HUSBAND, SCROOGE. I mean, Chris. Guess who totally hijacked me from grocery shopping yesterday and took me out for dinner instead? Guess who was TOTALLY CONFUSED when her husband pulled into a nice restaurant parkinglot instead of the grocery store around the bend?? GUESS WHO WAS TOTALLY TOTALLY GLAD SHE CHANGED OUT OF HER DIRTY MOMMYSHIRT BEFORE LEAVING THE HOUSE?! How sweet and I love that man for surprising me with that but that story might have ended a little differently if I was dressed in sweats. LOL. Fortunately I was dressed half-decently and how very, very sweet of him! (in case you didn't know, last time he took me out for dinner was October. October 2008.)

have a little class

So, I'm taking a cake decorating class. You'll have to excuse the following pictures, by the way, as they're taken at night. You'll understand why later. Anyways, I'm taking the Wilton's cake decorating class, Level 1, along with my friend Di. As you MIGHT recall, maybe, my mom got me the cake decorating class for my birthday.

So, first up, for class number two, we have to bring a light blue cake, iced to our very bestest ability. It took me forever because I was using the tiny little 8" angled spatula that I had in my drawer, girlfriend gots to go get herself a 13" spatula, cos DANG. This part took the longest!

How nice, you can't even tell that there was a point at which my darling Nicole was eating my cooling cake and then started bawling and ran to tell on herself. Baby has a conscience. Finally.
Will you please pretend you can't see the black line. We spent so much time practicing technique we had only ten minutes left to actually decorate our cakes. It's kinda crummy but for fifteen minutes I'm proud. And I learned some new techniques, and I feel confident that I could turn any sheet or circle cake into a character cake now. Cos I learned TRACING. It's like art all over again.
Here the colors are a little more true-to-tone on the rainbow. You can also see the reason the pictures were all taken at night. Well, the first one was because I didn't finish icing the cake until it was already getting dark outside. But the reason I couldn't wait til the next morning to take a picture of the cake is because Chris was WAITING. For like, two weeks. Because we didn't make a cake last week, we just took notes. Somebody is gonna get FAT off this course. Or both of us, maybe. There is like a brick of lard and a pound of icing sugar in that cake. In the icing alone. Ew. Ewwww. Tastes like storebought. EWWWWW. But whatevs, it's just for the class, and then I shall do some playing.

See if you can also spot the following in that picture.

a) a creepy hairy foot. b) Evidence that Chris doesn't clean up after dinner when I'm not home to supervise. c) a "Safeway Bingo" card. d) a santoku (santuko?) knife about to be used as a cake cutting and serving utensil.

Today I am making Apple Butter, inspired by (but not exactly following the recipe of, because I'm such a rebel) Beckie over at Infarrantly Creative. Which reminds me I need to go ask dictionary.com what infarrantly means because I actually don't know that one and I'm kind of a word junkie. Anyways, I'm snorting apple-flavored oxygen like an addict. My house smells so delicious. MAKE APPLE BUTTER. JUST TO MAKE YOUR HOUSE SMELL GOOD. And then invite everyone over and they will think you are Suzie Homemaker because your house smells so good but it's actually sick-easy. Or at least if you have an apple peeler/corer/slicer. Which I do. Envy me, it was a thriftstore find.

Grand Forks Shopping?

This is me near the end of December. For sure. I'm on the tightest tighty tight budget in the universe right now. My husband is Tighty McWallet. But it is for my own good. All my monies is being taked and taked and taked and put away in a nice safe happy place to be given back to me when we go to Grand Forks near the end of December for a few nights. And goooo SHOPPING!

So, my friends. Surely there is some amongst you who is learned in the area of Shopping In Grand Forks. Where do I need to hit? What can I browse online first? I am excited, as there are places to shop in the states that is not available here in Canada. For shizzle. Fo shizzle? I'm down with it, dogs. Right? No? Okay. Sorry.

Don't Click This

http://grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com/2009/11/handmade-dress-patterns-guest-giveaway.html

You should probably know I really don't want you to go enter this giveaway over at Grosgrain. I really, really don't. I want to win it all for myself, so maybe go peek, but don't enter.

Don't lie to me, I know you're entering. Jerks.

I've been up to things

Yes, indeed, I have been up to things. They are even Almost Productive Things. No, no, not cleaning my house. What are you, crazy? I've been maintaining a steady level of mediocrity in my house. Good enough that it's hygienic, bad enough that it would be embarrassing if a friend popped over, except friends did pop over and I was too busy shiffling around from sewing machine to serger and back again from under a pile of fabric scraps to be embarrassed.

So I created this lovely from an Ottobre pattern. It is, of course, too big. Also, the perfect front pleats got a bit skewed when I sewed it. So then I realized I had enough fabric left to piece together another slightly smaller skirt. Which is amazing because I started off with a woman's calf-length skirt, here. The new skirt is, of course, a bit too small. Or at least it's a bit tight. I was frustrated at the time though so I'll go back and press and reassess. The pleats on the second skirt are perfect though. I didn't photograph the second skirt.

I also took a pair of women's black linen pants and drafted up a pattern for elastic waist linen pants for Nicole. They look nice but I'm going to make another pair a little bigger because the purpose was to wind up with pants she could take off and put on easily herself, and these are a little too snug for that. You like how two year olds make fantastic models? I even gave her a candy to unwrap and figured that would have her standing still. No, no it did not.
No, I haven't been beating her. She took a trip into the bathroom and came out like this, a la mascara. I couldn't even get mad because I was too busy trying not to laugh my butt off when she skulked out of the bathroom looking fierce, narrowed her eyes at me mischievously, and went "ROAAAAAAARRRRR!" At least if she had declared herself pretty as per norm I could have scolded. But today she was a monster, which gave me the giggles.

I also spent hours putting together a christmas dress for nicole in black velvet with red accents, but then it was too small and I ate chocolate and now it's on the table waiting to be salvaged into a skirt. Daddy picked out the cutest little black sunday boots for her, suede with fur and pompoms and the like. I think it's cute how strong an opinion and loose a wallet her daddy has when it comes to her winter sunday gear. Still looking for the perfect winter coat, may need to make it. Will be red, or black faux-fur with animal-print accents.

Rawk On

Went to a costume party last night. I was a rocker. Ahaha. So here's a picture of me kissing my love goodbye... (this also happens to be what my butt is made of. mmm, coffeemate.)here's a horrible picture that my hubby took of me, but its the only full-body shot I have. lol. I am a bit embarassed to admit that the only thing I bought for this costume was the spray for the red 'tips' for my rocker-hair. lol. No, I have never worn those pleather pants before. I bought them for less than a dollar on ebay and I was like SWEET. Because you never know when you could use some pleather pants.

And this is me getting my angry-rocker-face on. Yup. Over the course of the evening I learned that I cannot stay in charactor and an angry-rocker I am not. Shucks. lol. Too much fun. I love playing dress-up.