Fabric napkins

I was in "clean up" mode one day and decided that I was going to use up all the bits of fabric I had laying around by making fabric napkins. I cut a bunch of 14" squares and hemmed the edges with a 1/4" hem. Easy peasy.



When I was done I explained them to Joe. "Instead of using a paper towel, just use one of these!", he didn't get it. His response was, "If this is going to be complicated, you know I'm not going to do it", so I had to think of a way to streamline the use of the fabric napkins.

I knew the issue was going to be disposal so I found an old tote that I had made, cut one of the straps off of it and hung it in the kitchen door. So I went back to him and explained that instead of tossing it in the garbage, all he had to do was toss it in the laundry bag hanging in the kitchen. So far, so good.



In fact, on occasion I've come home to a crumpled napkin on the counter (they rarely make it to the laundry bag when he's home alone) but that's okay. He's using them!

Niagara Falls

Yesterday, Joe suggested that we take a little trip down to the falls and take some pictures.



I realized that I really like taking photos of people.



This couple had asked me to take their picture with their camera. Once I did that, I asked them if I could take a photo of them. They were very happy to let me.



These flowers were growing out from a cliff. I didn't quite get the effect I was going for and in fact Joe said they look far too cartoon-y but I like them.



Here's a shot of the American Falls. The boat in the river is "The Maid of the Mist" which goes right to the bottom of the falls.



At one point Joe asked me if I wanted to do something touristy. I had no idea what he had in mind and very hesitantly said "sure". He wanted to do the Journey Behind the Falls which involves taking an elevator to the foot of the Canadian Falls and going in a tunnel BEHIND the falls.

This is the view of the falls from the viewing station.



And the prettiest rainbow ever at the base of the falls.



The viewing station...



And me being a dork at the viewing station...



It was a great day. We had a lot of fun pretending to be tourists!

And more buttons...

So, I couldn't stop thinking about the bags of buttons I left behind at Value Village yesterday. I decided to go back today at lunch and re-examine them even though there really wasn't anything special in the bags that I bought yesterday.

Low and behold there was an even bigger, brighter, cleaner, prettier bag of buttons waiting for me!!!



When I opened it up I realized it was 4 smaller bags all in one.



What am I going to do with all these buttons?? I'm determined to use them.

I spray painted a tin can yesterday and glued a bunch of the white buttons from yesterday's batch to it. I used the boring white buttons that I normally would have thrown out with a few pink buttons thrown in for fun.



Voila! A new pencil/pen holder.

Spray paint and buttons make me very happy.

Thrifty Thursday

I had some very good luck at Value Village today.

I have a route when I go to VV. First stop is ALWAYS the sewing notions, but I have to go right past the Pyrex section to get there so I am always on the hunt for pink Pyrex for Lera (I've yet to have any luck in the pink Pyrex hunt).

The holy grail of thrifting for me is buttons. I love them. LOVE them. My heart skipped a beat when I rounded the corner today and saw EIGHT bags of vintage buttons!!!!! I gulped and started to do the inspection. I was NOT buying all of them. I settled on two bags that seemed to have the prettiest buttons in them.



My next stop is always the bedding/linen department. I got lucky today and found three brand new knit dish cloths for $1.99. Okay, two knit ones and one crochet one. I love these!



I already have a project in mind for the buttons. All I will say is it involves spray paint. I'm excited.

Mary and Bob get married

Our friends, Mary and Bob, got married on Saturday. Joe and I took photos for them.



Boy, did I ever learn a lot!



I could never ever photograph an event on a really hot day. Saturday was beautiful, but boy, were we ever hot running around taking photos, and it wasn't even hot out!



And I need to be more assertive when taking photos. There were tons of people snapping shots. As a result, most of my photos have everyone in it looking in different directions.



I also really think that formal, traditional photos aren't my thing. I really liked the "fun" photos that Joe and I took the best.



It was a super day. We had a ton of fun. We will be sifting through photos for days now!

Edit: I'm not a professional photographer and never will be. Joe and I took those photos as a favour to our friends Bob and Mary. We took some practice photos of them in the summer to help prepare for the big day.

With minutes to spare...

Joe and I are off to a wedding this afternoon. Our friends who are getting married are not hiring a photographer so Joe and I decided to offer our services.

It is a casual wedding so I decided I needed a "pretty" Simplicity 3-8-3-5 for the occasion. At my Mother's request, here's a photo (so she can see it).



I cut it out last weekend and have worked on it for about 15 minutes at a time (whenever I've been able to drag myself away from the Twilight books). I JUST finished it and ironed it.

We are leaving in an hour. Must run!

Stephenie Meyer, I love you, or, why I haven't done anything creative

Last Friday (one week ago) I was sitting at work (I'm a high school librarian) and I had a copy of Twilight sitting on my desk that someone returned. I had more than one student "ohhh and ahhhh" over it when they saw it sitting there. I decided to take it home for the weekend and read it.



Oh my goodness. I was hooked after the first chapter. By early Sunday morning I was kicking myself for not having brought home the next book in the series, New Moon.



Fortunately, I knew that New Moon was also sitting on my desk at work and I knew I could dive right into it on Monday. I did.

Without giving anything away, the second book took me a bit longer to "get into". I had only read about 1/3 of it until last night. When I got home from work (after I had put dinner in the oven) I started to read. I am almost done. I have an hour before I have to start getting ready for work and I think that's more than enough time to finish it.

Now, here's the problem...a student is reading the third book, Eclipse. He's a fast reader and I know he took it home last night. Did he finish??? He better have!!!!!

Geo-picnic

For the past 2 months Joe and I have been part of a team working on organizing and planning a HUGE geocaching picnic that took place on the weekend. It was a great success, in spite of the rain.



Joe camped at the conservation area Thursday, Friday AND Saturday nights (in the rain) while I VERY happily stayed home to take care of our senior dog. I went to the event on Saturday and had a super time. I took a few photos but spent most of my time helping Joe bbq lunch for 200 people.

Tonight will be spent unpacking three days worth of wet, stinky camping gear. Perhaps I'll lock myself in the sewing room for the evening.

dishcloths or washcloths?

Okay, on Saturday evening I was knitting my latest pair of socks when the urge suddenly hit me to knit something fast. I'm a slow knitter. I love knitting socks, but I needed a hit of instant gratification.

I remembered that I had a ton of cotton yarn leftover from my dishcloth knitting days and started surfing for dishcloth/washcloth patterns. It was THEN I remembered that months and months ago I had signed up for Ravelry but had never really looked around. Well. Let me tell you, that is such an awesome resource!

I quickly found a Grandmother's favorite dishcloth pattern and had whipped up two before I knew it.



Then, on Sunday, I needed to make another and found this pattern for a Chinese waves dishcloth. This one makes a really nice think fabric.



It doesn't end there (of course). Last night I knit this one using this checkerboard pattern.



And here they are in all their pretty glory.



I think two will become new dishcloths and two (the white ones) will become new washcloths. How exciting.

Also...I had to re-install Picasa on my work computer and I didn't know that there was a new-to-me version out! I love it. It allows you to easily put text on photos (as you can see). I look forward to playing with it a bit more.

The first (of many)

I could hardly wait to get to my sewing machine after reading Amandajean's awesome storage cube tutorial.

This was my first attempt. It's a little wonky, but that's MY fault, not the tutorial's!



I made the cube without the binding at the top and added it as an afterthought. I shouldn't have. I was lazy, sewed it with the machine and it's not pretty. Notice I took the photo so that you can't see the inside of the cube???

I'd make another one right now but I don't have any more cardboard. I think I'm going to be pushing cereal for breakfast around here for the next month or so!

Photo Walk

I survived the first day of school. Again.

I was exhausted at the end of the day and when Joe came home and suggested we go down to the local park after dinner to take some photos I cringed because all I wanted to do was flop on the couch.

We went, and it was fun. This first photo is my favourite. I'm really having fun fooling around in Photoshop, and since I have NO IDEA what I'm doing, it truly is fooling around.



I had some fun playing with shutter speed at the water fountain.



And although I like the idea of taking a photo through a hole in the fence, I wish that the view was a little more interesting.



And it was fun to play with this photo in Photoshop.



I really do want to start Project 365 again. My last attempt lasted about a week and then I got all bummed because I missed a couple of days and quit. I think I'm going to resolve to take more photos. Project 365 is a great idea but it's kind of like dieting, you miss a day or two and then you quit.

Pendants

I spent the better part of the weekend cleaning around the house and getting ready to go back to work on Tuesday after having 9 weeks off.

I hate Labour Day weekend, and it was especially terrible this year with Joe working 18 hour days.

Oh well.

The only fun/crafty thing I did this weekend was make some scrabble tile pendants using this tutorial.



They were fun and easy to do. The brown one on the far right is the only one that gave me issues. There was an air bubble in the glaze and when I tried to pop it it made a bit of a mess so I threw more glaze on it. It does look wonky with the sun reflecting on it but I'm sure I can wear it without anyone seeing the flaw.

I'm racing around this morning doing housework and I'm hoping that Joe will be home this afternoon so that we can squeeze a last little bit of fun out of the day before I have to go to work tomorrow.

Summer's over

We're home from the cottage. Early. Joe got a phone call early yesterday morning asking that he get back to work to deal with some issues. We were devastated. He's a much better sport than I would be though. Oh well, at least this way I get a few days at home before I have to go back to school.

We did have fun while we were at the cottage. Joe bravely went down a natural waterslide. It was quite a sight...Joe, a 40+ year old man and about 20 kids playing in the water. It made me giggle to watch him.



We had a lot of fun taking photos that day. This is another one of my favourites.



While at the cottage, I managed to FINALLY finish up a knitting project that I've had on the go for months! It's a swatch that I had to knit so that Joe could find a geocache. The idea of the cache is that given a pattern you knit up a swatch which contains the co-ordinates for the cache. When Joe first asked me to do it I said no problem thinking I could just chart the pattern and tell him the co-ordinates. Sadly, that wouldn't work because in order to log the cache you have to have photo containing the cache container AND the knitted swatch. At least it's done now. Thank goodness.



I also had a little time while at the cottage to work on a pair of socks that I started knitting last year some time. It always seems that the last week of August marks the beginning of my knitting season. What fun.



And...I bought myself a new laptop. I can hardly afford it but my old one is three years old and was seriously starting to annoy me. I'm still in the process of setting up this new one but let me tell you, it rocks!

Thrifty Thursday

I've been dropping in to Value Village a little more frequently lately. I often come out empty handed, but the last couple of visits have been slightly successful.

I've had pretty good luck in the fabric department lately. These pieces are all at least 3 yards long. My absolute favourite fabric is the floral one on the top of the heap. I've already made a pillow out of it.



I've also been visiting the shoe department. It has never been part of my regular Value Village routine but lately I've had some super luck there.

I love these simple black sandals. I'm not sure if you can tell from the photo but that leather is so soft and comfy!



And how cute are these?? It's too bad that the summer is almost over but I tend to wear sandals until the snow falls so I'm sure to get lots of wear out of them yet.



The beautiful yarn in the photo is all ready to be packed to take with me to the cottage. It came from Felicia for my birthday and I think it's time I turn it into a felted bag.

A cheater pillow

I'm trying to clean up my sewing/craft room before I go on vacation (on Saturday) and have to go back to school (after Labour Day).

Buried beneath a pile of junk I found another pillowform. I quickly remembered that I had recently found a piece of fabric I had bought AGES ago at Joann's. It's a patchwork fabric. No, I did not have to sew all those teensy squares together, someone else did it for me!



I like the fabric that I used for the backing almost as much as the front. It's made of some recently thrifted fabric from Value Village.



Trust me, in real life it's not nearly as wonky as it looks in the photo.

Now I'm going back to keep cleaning. Who knows what else I'll end up making today.

Oh, and I'm creeping around as quietly as I can. Joe's having MAJOR computer issues at work. He finally came home from work about an hour ago. He had been there since 9:00 am YESTERDAY!!!!!!!!! That's about 27 hours straight. He's napping until 3:00 and then I have to wake him so he can go back. And get this...he's supposed to be on holidays this week. That's not happening!!

What a weekend!

So, on Thursday afternoon I went to the dentist for a cleaning. By Thursday night I had itchy thighs and feet. What's that about??? We had our friends Bob and Mary over to look at the photos we had taken the night before and the second they left I had Joe take me to the drug store to buy some Benadryl thinking I was having an allergic reaction to something (even though I have no known allergies).

The Benedryl helped a TEENSY bit and by Friday night I had Joe going back to the drug store to get me something to put on the huge welts so that they would stop itching. He brought me home some hydrocortisone cream as recommended by the pharmacist. That also seemed to help a teensy bit.

So, early on Saturday morning I had Joe take me to the walk-in clinic to get things checked out. I was diagnosed with an infection, NOT allergies, and was instructed to stop taking the Benadryl and was prescribed a cream to put on the welts.

Things were NOT improving. I had to miss my Mother's surprise birthday party on Saturday which totally bugged me AND I was stuck with a $27.00 birthday cake that I had ordered for the party (we're still eating the cake by the way).

So, by 2:00 am on Sunday morning I was laying in bed CRYING because I was still in agony (2 applications of the prescribed cream and 2 baking soda baths later). So...again first thing on Sunday morning I was BACK at the clinic looking for help. This time the doctor looked at the now VERY red rash on my legs and feet and said "this is an allergic reaction, stop using that useless cream, here's a prescription for prednisone and go back to taking the Benadryl". *sigh*

The only thing I can think of that may have caused this is something that happened at the dentist. I don't know what. I called the dental office this morning and asked if they used a different freezing. They had not. So the cause of this reaction is still a mystery although I still suspect it has something to do with the dentist.

So...for the first time since Thursday night I feel human again. I still need the Benadryl as my feet are still itchy, but all the hives are finally gone.

Thank goodness. This is NOT a good week to be sick. We are headed to the cottage on Saturday so I have all the pre-vacation cleaning and shopping to do. I also need to get my life organized because the day after we come home I have to go back to work!!!!!!!!!

Anyways, I did manage to sew another Simplicity 3835 this weekend. During the few moments that I wasn't in agony, sewing was a great distraction.



The whole time I was working on the top I could hear my mother's voice telling me that I was "not doing it right". She would have taken great care to match up the print. I did not. When I told her about the top this morning and that I KNOW she wouldn't approve of it, her reply was "well, you can wear it around the house at least". NO!! I do plan to wear it out, even though the stripes do NOT match up. Sorry Mom!

It's time for another dose of Benadryl which is sure to make me sleep for a good two hours and then it's time to do a little cleaning and packing.

I certainly hope your weekend was better than mine!!!

Bob and Mary

Our friends Bob and Mary are getting married in September.



Once I caught wind of the fact that they were not having a wedding photographer at their wedding I suggested that Joe and I could take some pictures for them as long as they remember we are NOT professional and really have no idea what we are doing.



Our offer was happily accepted. I did ask that we have a chance to take some photos before the wedding just to practice, so last night we went down to the lake and had a "trial run".



I took 660 photos, Joe took well over 700. It was a long couple of hours for everyone. I've done my first two sweeps through the photos and have deleted all the obviously bad ones. I still have about 400 to sift through.



I'm happy to have had a bit of practice. I feel a little more confident now about shooting at the wedding.



The previous photos are just cropped. I haven't even started editing yet but I know that Mary is eager to see some of the photos.

Yesterday, while doing a little internet surfing I discovered "overlays". I really wanted to figure out how to use them so once I sifted through all 660 photos I decided to have a little fun in Photoshop. I really like how it turned out.



So, I'll be sifting through photos today and trying to figure how on earth to use Photoshop (Elements). I hope that Bob & Mary are pleased with the photos.