A rainy weekend.

So. Close. So. Unbelievably. Close.

I'm proof reading my thesis, for hopefully the last time. I'm slightly concerned with the amount of spelling and repetition errors I've been finding. And that I've been finding them. I'm too cheap for an editor, so I'm just reading mine out loud. This works surprisingly well.

It's been a bit wet this past weekend, so I've been trying to fill the time with some cooking and home projects that have been on the back burner for a very, very long time.

First off was some pie! It's getting towards the end of the peach season around here, so I've been making peach pies to celebrate/mourn. Same old recipe, same awesome results. It was way to humid for me to be making pastry though, so the top became a patch work design since I couldn't get it off the counter if my life depended on it.

 THAT'S what real pastry is made of. LARD.

One of the two main things I took on while the rain came down was to replant most of the window garden into larger pots. Apparently I waited a little too long for some of them, I had to dig the Aloe out of the pot since it had virtually grown into it. The rosemary really like this idea, it's done well and deserved more space.

The second thing has been working on a few things to beautify our entrance way in the apartment. It's pretty ugly, and now that the gerbils have been moved, it's empty and ugly. I've been thinking of adding a basket or box to catch the junkmail, a print or poster to brighten it up a bit and a rack to hold extra keys and other important stuff. Since it was raining this Sunday, I decided to work on the rack and give it a coat of paint.

This is totally one of the racks from an old Ikea shoe rack that I found at the side of road on the walk home one day. Yep.

Tape that bitch.

First coat of the orange.

And ze gold. Hawt.

 

Let's see how this turns out. I have some hooks and clothespins to stick onto this thing when it's painted.

Yes, it's been awhile.

So. Yeah.

Predominantly sheer laziness, a bit of post first draft hand-in celebrations and a hint of severely fucked up sleep schedule have been what's going on that's caused the lack of blog posts. I handed in the thesis on the 1rst of June, and I'm waiting on the comments from my reader. She's taking her time, which worries me a little since I have to hand in a second draft at the end of the month. I know she's busy, but I may send her an email on Sunday to quietly remind her that she'll probably want me to change some things. We'll see.

The initial, immediate celebration of the thesis hand in started with having to mop up a swimming pool that had appeared in my living room. I live in a highrise. On the 14th floor. Yep.

Please ignore that hideous, pink rodent cage that's the size of a bookshelf. My roommate is planning on moving her girls into bigger digs, and paint that monstrosity soon.

See those slightly blacker parkay tiles? Not really attached the floor in this picture.

We had all our living and dining room furniture pushed up towards the front door to allow the contractor to come in and fix the floor that bubbled and popped as a result of the water. They've also been on the outside of the building, hopefully fixing the actual problem, whatever it is. There's a couple of theories about why this has happened, and none of them have to with me leaving a window open during a rain storm. We have a nice, shiny chunk of floor now from the varnish though, so you win some things.

I pulled an all nighter on the night before the first draft due date to try and edit the thesis a few more times, and my sleep schedule has been out of whack ever since. The bright side to that is that I've been super cleaning the room and going through some stuff to try and purge things. I've also been working through some craft projects at three in the morning, as a result of finding some supplies in my closet. One of them is a tutorial for a Moroccan styled tea light lantern that I saw ages ago on Matsutake. So far the glass paint is producing interesting results. I have a lot of really amazing patterns on real Moroccan lanterns online, so I may try something a little more intricate than the original tutorial.

Crafting with wine!

I have actually been doing some cooking, especially since I purged a bunch of my old or not ever used cookbooks (Blasphemy!). I'm trying to really try some more recipes from the books that I have, especially my Nova Scotia Cooking and my Easy Indian Cooking cookbooks. I've neglected to take pictures of most of them, so there are hints of them in the iphoto library.

 Honey Grilled Scallops from Nova Scotia Cooking.

Coorg-style Pork Curry from Easy Indian Cooking.

That's my update for now, but as a final thing, I just found an amazing steampunk photo shoot by Pixie Vision Productions for Clockwork Couture with Grant Imahara. Yes. Please.

 The eye patch... the leather... the manliner. What I'd do to be that sword. That sounded creepy.

 Cutest, thing, ever. Melt, etc.

Dear god this is hot in so many ways! The whole shoot is on the Pixie Vision Productions facebook page.

Our balcony has been opened up for renovations... quite a bit. The view has been opened up as well, so long as you don't mind seeing it from the bolted screen door.

Mind that first step...

This past week was my last chance to use the balcony before it got shut down for the reno, so I decided to move myself and my tea outside for a craft project I had seen on Re-nest a while ago; tin can luminaries!

Here's what you'll need:
• Empty vegetable pet food or soup cans, cleaned out and labels removed
• Water
• Nail
• Hammer
• Scrap paper
• Ruler
• Tape
• Spray paint (optional)

Instructions:
1. Pour water into the empty cans and place them in the freezer. (Don't fill the cans all the way to the top, since water does expand when freezing! Leave some room!)
2. While the water is freezing, draw the design you want on the scrap paper. You can also use simple clip art.
3. Once the water in the cans is fully frozen, you can tape your designs to the can.

 Note the towel.

4. Use the hammer and nail to punch holes along the lines of your pattern.

 Hammer time!

5. Once finished with your pattern, you can spray paint the cans or leave them unpainted. The last step is to place a candle inside and, voila! you have your first luminary.

 Not bad eh?

I free-handed the designs, working with the dips and ridges of my soup cans. I think it helped me keep some symmetry for my decidedly straight designs. I also took a folded towel, draped it in between my knees and cradled the tin can in the towel. I found that this really steadied the can and insulated my knees from the cold and gradually melting water. One of my cans also expanded and split from the ice. Another stretched out the bottom. The first issue can be ignored as another area for light to go through, the second problem can be hammered out until flat again.

That's the split I was talking about... it let's light out of the back of it, that's my excuse.

Pricky Pear of a Pincushion!

We're into crunch time for my grad program... we've also been thrown a curve ball waaaaaaay out of left field that changes just about everything for next year. Fun.
To de-stress a bit, I decided to try one of my sewing patterns that has been collecting dust lately. I love cute pincushions, and this seemed perfect! Put some "19th Century Pharmacy" on TVO and away we go!

This is one of Heather Bailey's lovely designs! This pattern also includes an apple, tomato and strawberry! It can be purchased either here, at her online shop, or where I got it here in Toronto, here at The Workroom. I also got the fabric squares that I used to make my Pear from The Workroom! It's a wonderful place, I recommend it highly.

After sewing away for a while, which included accidentally sewing the wrong sides together at one point (possibly going to prove that I shouldn't watch TV while sewing, and that stitch rippers are a worthy investment into a sewing kit), I have this lovely piece of functional fruit.

I think my embroidery needs a little work, but I'm quite pleased with the finished product! I put some old coins in the bottom of it to make sure it would be bottom heavy. I'm glad I did, since while I was stuffing it initially it seemed a bit floppy, especially when the leaves went on. I love how the two toned look came out, although I think I want to make another one with just the green fabric, I've got enough of it left to probably do it.

Paper crafts, a recycled wreath!

I was bored. I needed to do something with my hands. I had a pile of magazines lying around. I was also perusing my big list of website links for crafts and projects. This, seemed a perfect solution!

Lisa over at the The Red Thread Blog gives a lovely tutorial for a paper wreath, using wrapping paper left over from her advent calender project. I started perusing through the fashion mags I had lying around, and came up with this!

Purses and earrings and shoes, oh my!

I had some pretty Gold ribbon lying around in my stash, so I used that to create the bow and loop to hang it! I am very pleased with the final product, spending an afternoon stapling away while watching TV was very satisfying. I also found a picture of Greta Garbo in one of the magazines, and she takes pride and place near the top. This is on my bedroom door now, a hint of femininity to disguise the disaster zone that lies within. My room's a bit of a disaster since class started again.

Time for a makeover!

Makeover!
I figured it was about time to bite the bullet and attempt to personalize the bog a wee bit. I'm not really tech oriented, so I figured this would take a fair amount of swearing to get right. I was right too. Half an hour and many tweaked filed later, I have a new picture to represent the blog! It's also another creative use for Christmas leftovers, since the picture is of a toasted turkey, panko broccoli and smoked Gruyere sandwich. Nice topper too. 

This is the slightly late picture of how I wrapped my family's presents this year. It kind of happened by accident to, I was watching a DVD of a TV program and decided to be slightly productive while I was watching it. What I didn't realize while I was cutting dozens of paper floraly bits was that the TV program was 5, 1 hour sections. I spent a lot of time in front of the television that night..

The presents look awesome though! This one is a CD for my Dad. Yay for double sided wrapping paper from Ikea!

One of Kind Show!!!!

It's that time of year again! One of a Kind is back! And it was awesome!

 http://www.oneofakindshow.com

(Click the link, don't bother clicking the image since I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to making linkable images.)

I refueled some of my favorite gourmet goodies and got some fun bits and pieces from Canadian Artisans. I got some great stuff altogether, and I'm eating some of it rather quickly, so I'll just give the links to the food for now... I may not have time to take pictures of it. Not at the rate I'm going.. Garlic Bread for the next week!!

Food!!

Maple Fudge. Need I say more? You can shop online directly from their website!
Bruce County Nut and Fudge Company: http://nutandfudge.com/

Stilton and Rosemary Shortbread Cookies. Oh yeah, cheese and herb cookies. Soooooo good. You can order from the website (sort of), but it's usually easier to catch these guys at the various craft shows they go to. They're nice enough to have a list of them on their website.
Coach House Shortbread Company: http://www.shortbread.ca/

The Ultimate Garlic Spread (Garlic Butter). This is the amazing garlic butter that I love to make garlic bread and garlic broccoli pasta with. Fresh Ontario garlic for the win. You can hop online for all of their products, and you can find a lot of them at fine foodie places in Toronto!
The Garlic Box: http://www.thegarlicbox.com/

Fun, Funky Stuff!


I finally got my metal sign! I tried to buy this last year but they had run out. They have a list of retailers and do craft shows.
"Free your inner psychopath"
Art in Iron: http://www.artiniron.net/

Fish Art!! A conniving fish and a lost fish are two paintings by the wonderfully cottage inspired, Kevin Roach. I discovered that we had actually admired a piece of his over the summer at a friend's coworkers cottage, and he knew them as well! Small world.
Roach Tackle Folk Art: http://www.roachtackle.com/

Fish tea towel! I seem to have had a fish themed afternoon. It's a lovely linen tea towel with a silk screened fish pattern throughout. Made by the lovey and talented Jocelyne Mange form North Vancouver, she's a brand new vendor to One of a Kind and doesn't have a website yet. She's at the show for the entire duration though, so you can check her out!

Last but not least, a stuffed moose head.
Yep. This one's smiling too. It's a small, wool felted moose head, complete with antlers, on a real wood mount! He's amazing, and he's going into my living room very soon.
Felt Factory: http://www.feltfactory.com/

I will post pictures of stuff soon! Most likely when it goes up on a wall and can be photographed properly. For the time being, I need a foot soak. It's a long show on concrete floors, its only flaw.