What's On Your Fridge?

I've seen those posts around blog land - what's in your purse? I haven't seen a 'what's on your fridge' post yet, so I thought I would share that today.

magnets from catriana designs - from the Keep and Collect Market

a gift from my aunt Cathy at my bridal shower. It broke, but I glued it back together. It is very special to me. 

A great reminder. 

 My mom bought this when I was in high school. The background was originally bright orange; it's totally faded now.

business cards. I should probably take down the midwives one.

 the monthly calendar I print off.

pictures of my children and loved ones. 

these are the children we are sponsoring - from Cotui, Dominican Republic.

I really should organize my fridge. I want to tear all of it off each time I look at it (I like clean, sparse surfaces), but at the same time, I want these things on my fridge.

What's on your fridge?

Focus on Family - Evening at the Bayfront

Today was the last day of school, which marks the end of the Parenting & Family Literacy Centre, and that makes me sad. Alexander and Isabel enjoy their time there. It also makes me feel like a lazy mom for not taking them to school as often as I could have, knowing how much they enjoy it. I will also miss seeing Ashley every day. But it will start up again in September, and I'm excited about that.

This week I started Isabel on rice cereal. She was MORE than ready for it, she started chewing down on the food right away - I didn't have to coax it from her. She also didn't let much of the cereal dribble down her face, the way most babies do. But she does gnaw on the spoon when she's done eating the cereal.

Isabel is also getting up on her hands and knees all the time now! She's getting really good at moving around without crawling, but I can see her trying very hard to crawl.

On Saturday after the Keep & Collect Market, we were invited to the Bayfront park with the Ross family. It was wonderful to be able to get out and spend time with dear friends. Alexander loves Carly, Natalie and Jeremy - so it was great!

Alexander LOVED seeing the geese. He recognized them as geese right away, too, which is good.

Alexander sitting with Natalie watching the geese swim.

Isabel was wondering why she wasn't in bed yet. We stayed out way past her bedtime, and her mood told us so.

We saw boats sailing on the water too. Alexander was quite excited about that.

Saturday was also a rare day for me - I was in a REALLY good mood. Jeffery was actually wondering what was wrong with me. I guess I've been a grump since Isabel was born.

Here is Isabel talking to us before she's eaten. I'm assuming she is saying, "Mommy, give me my food!"

Alexander has been posing for the camera again! Now I have been able to get a few un-blurry pictures of him.

Isabel still watches Alexander like a hawk. I can't wait for her to crawl and sit up on her own, then they will have lots of fun together. Well, Isabel will have fun getting where she wants to go and playing with toys. But Alexander will have a little bit of trouble sharing his toys, I think. And I will run ragged after Isabel so she won't get into anything. I think it's time to re-baby proof!

You can still see the bite Alexander got - it's on his left temple. But at least it's not swollen or itchy anymore!

That's all for now, folks! See you next week!

-Shirley

"The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them."                                               Psalm 145:18-19

Whooo Loves You?

My love for owls has been captured in this fabulous owl treasury. You can see the full treasury here.

Enjoy!

-Shirley

Featured Artist - theaterclouds

You'll be able to tell Elly's work apart from everyone else's. You can totally see why! Her work is unlike anyone else's I've found on etsy so far.

"Aren't these just simple photographs?" you ask. "No," I reply, "they are not."

I make these images by inking yupo paper and cutting it into layers that I set up in a miniature theater. I play with the lights and filters to create atmosphere and then photograph the scenes. - Elly

Here are my favourites from theaterclouds:

You can go here to see the process of creating these fabulous works of art.

BONUS:: Due to the Canada Post lockout, theaterclouds cannot ship anything out right now (living in Owen Sound, Ontario). As a thank you for your patience, Elly will let you choose a second picture, and she will send you a 5x7 photograph of that picture! What a deal!

Many times I open up the etsy page, and I see one of her photographs on the front page - they are very unique and beautiful. I will get the one of the boats someday.

You can see more of theaterclouds on her website, blog, flikr, and etsy accounts.

Lots to Still be Done

My head has been buzzing with lots of new and crazy ideas for this Saturday's Keep and Collect Market. SO EXCITED!!! Unfortunately, I don't have the time (or materials) needed to do everything, so some things will have to wait.

My owls on etsy have sold, and I made these ones to replace them:

Much of my energy has been put towards a new project I've been planning and preparing for a while. I've made a few samples which are promising, but I need better supplies. I have been searching for the best materials to use, and I have found everything I want to use; however, I don't yet have everything. Which is a bummer. But I refuse to make a product with sub-par supplies. So it will have to wait. I'm super excited about it, though!

Here's what else I've been working on this week:

And that card inspired the new series I've been working on, called "Clumsy Red Owl". I think it's lots of fun!

These are three different scenes, and they will be individually framed. I've made one for Alexander's room. I've got a few made up for the Market on Saturday, so if you want one, you'd better get one before they're gone!

I've also been trying to get or make a sturdy business card holder. I've tried a few, but I find that they are constantly being tipped over, and I or others have to take the time to put them back up on the stand, and that's annoying. So I crocheted a little bowl, and they are going to sit in the bowl. And we'll see how that works.

I hope to see you there!

-Shirley

Our Bathroom

source

I will not show you the horror that is our upstairs bathroom, but I want you to get the gist of what we have, so I've drawn out the approximate floor plan:

Now think about this room with chocolate brown walls AND CEILING! Who on earth would paint their bathroom walls and ceiling a dark chocolate brown?!!? It's ridiculous! But the colour of the walls and ceiling doesn't affect the function of the room, so we didn't do anything to it when we purchased the house (except clean, of course!)

I am not exaggerating the size of the bathtub, either. It literally takes up half the room. Not the tub, but the humongous platform that the previous owners built to support the tub. Please note that there is no shower. The only shower in the house is on the main floor, right beside the front door, in the powder room. It's a tiny one person shower. Don't ask me why they put it in the powder room right beside the front entrance, but they did. Anyhoo.

This was the original plan that Jeffery and I both agreed on in the beginning for the second floor bathroom:

This would make for a beautiful, huge bathroom. But I don't think it's very practical. I don't think the whirlpool tub would be used all that often. It also doesn't help with the lack-of-storage issue this house has. Now this is what I would like the upstairs bathroom to look like when we are done:

As you can see, the area where the toilet and sink are now (the house's original bathroom) would be closed off to provide a large linen/storage closet. This floor plan offers a large bathroom with all the essentials. As you can see, there is still plenty of space. I think my drawings are pretty close to scale, too.

This is the vanity that Jeffery and I have agreed that we would like to get. I would prefer a darker brown, but it's the style that we would like. I really love the faucets. 

source

And this is our desired toilet:

source

Ha! I'm just kidding! I'm not really a stickler about the kind of toilet we get. As long as it's quieter and doesn't back-up as often as our current one does, I'll be happy. This one is pretty, though. It would be easy to clean the outside - nice straight lines.

source

This is the kind of shower that we were planning to have installed before I changed the floor plan of our bathroom. Not exactly, of course, we are more of the "brushed nickel finish" people as opposed to the "gold finish" people, but you catch my feeling, right?

source

Now I want to have just a regular bathtub/shower combination. I have yet to convince Jeff of that, though.

Which bathroom floor plan do you like better? The one we originally agreed on, or the one I want to change it to? I would LOVE to know other people's opinions.

-Shirley

Focus on Family - Alexander vs Mosquito

Alexander woke up on Tuesday morning like this:

If you think Alexander looks bad, you should see the other guy:

That's right, folks. D. E. D. Dead. Here's how it went down . . .

Late afternoon on Sunday, Jeffery and Alexander were setting up the pool. Jeff had already blown up the ring and was filling up the pool when Alexander came outside. Of course, Alexander wanted to hold the hose, and that was okay.

Jeff watched, to make sure that Alexander kept the hose directed at the pool.

Meanwhile, Isabel was showing mommy her superb strength by getting up on her hands and knees - she's so close!

And while Alexander was outside with Jeff, a mosquito landed on his forehead and bit him! His first mosquito bite. I should have been more observant - Alexander was itching the bite quite a bit that evening.

The next day, Alexander woke up from his nap with this:

And yesterday morning, Alexander woke up with his eye like the first picture up on the top. He wasn't complaining or anything, but most of the day he couldn't see anything, it's swollen shut. This morning is the same. We have an appointment at Early Words this morning, to assess his speech (we need to get him to say more than one word at a time, and Early Words will teach us how to help him with that), so I hope his eye doesn't hinder him at all.

Anyhoo. On Saturday it was Jeffery's 30th birthday, and he went golfing during the day with his friend, Paul; and we went to Tucker's Marketplace with a bunch of friends for dinner. That was a good day.

On Sunday, it was Father's Day; it was also the one day of the year that Church on the Rock baptizes those who wish to be baptized. I think there was 12 people, but I could be wrong. We went down to LaFortune Park in Caledonia, and the church family had a barbecue and fellowship and baptisms! That was also a good day.

Yesterday was the Year End picnic with the Early Year Centre. We went down to Gage Park and had snacks, played in the water, listened to some performers, saw Clifford the dog, and played with bubbles. There were lots of kids there! Alexander and Isabel had a good time, which is what counts.

And that was all for the week! Cheerio!

-Shirley

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."

                                                                                          -Matthew 22:37

Creatures of Etsy

If you are ever poking around Etsy, you will likely notice many unique and interesting creatures. Here is my tribute to those creatures.

You will notice a few of my previously featured artists' work in this treasury. Show me your favourite etsy creatures!

Enjoy!

Yarn from colorshiftyarn

As a thank-you for doing a feature on her shop, Erica from colorshiftyarn sent me a set of the purple gradated yarn! It came wrapped like this:

The tissue paper matched the yarn! So pretty!

Such gorgeous colours!

Now, I've been itching to make something beautiful with this yarn, but it has to be something really special, something that I would use a lot.

When I sell my products at a craft show, I have little handmade embellishments for sale, all approximately the same size. Currently, I use a foam egg carton to hold the embellishments:

Now I think it would look so great if I could make little bowls about the same size with the gradated yarn, and stitch them together to make my own little "egg carton" for holding the embellishments. Each little bowl would be a different shade of the purple (in order), to provide more visual interest. What do you think?

Do you have any ideas or suggestions for what I could make with this fabulous yarn? Any comment would be appreciated. I want to do it justice.

-Shirley