Driving in Britain

My camera is still away (hopefully being fixed) so I don't have any recent pictures. But I wanted to do a post for Bradley who misses driving in Britain. These are some clips from our holiday where we drove from Edinburgh north to Inverness, over to the Isle of Skye, around the Lake District, through a bit of Wales, Dartmoor, then ended up in London. I miss it too!

sheep in the road

cows in the road

through the hills

into Wales

Craft dinner

I almost forgot to tell you about this! I'm participating in this Craft Dinner craft sale. It's tomorrow. It's a combination of craft-related flea market type things and the usual handmade goods. It may tempt you to know I'm going to get ruthless with my fabric stash tonight and make up some of the popular scrappy packs of fabric.

Here are the details:
CRAFT DINNER on June 13, 2009 @ The Imperial Pub (noon-8pm), 54 Dundas Street E

This is a glimpse of my jewellery display. I used some pieces of lace to display the jewellery. But you can't see it too clearly because as you may have detected in this photo, my camera is slowly dying. In a suprisingly cheery way with a stripe of pink at the edge of every picture. The good news is that I found a service notice online about it, and it's a flaw that Canon knows about and is willing to fix for free. I just have to mail in my camera. Ahh, the internet. Before you we were in the dark.

Hope to see you tomorrow! The first person to visit and mention this blog gets a free present from me.

Robin pendant

Thank you guys for all the nice comments about my last post. You really made my day! I have the best commenters ever.

Karyn from the workroom gave me this lovely pendant for a birthday present at the last craft sale. They're handmade little wooden discs that come in different shapes and have little holes punched in them so you can cross stitch a picture for decoration.

I had an odd little miniature performance anxiety about doing mine and couldn't decide what to do. Mainly as I've never done cross stitch so I wasn't sure exactly how it goes. I learned as I went along, and probably made up a few things.
I started by sketching out my design in pencil right onto the pendant. In case you're wondering, I used pearl cotton for mine, in size 8. Last time I went to Sunday Market I found a big bag of old pearl cottons for $20. It was very exciting.

My initial idea had been a bird, then I thought a bird was too obvious - something I draw and embroider all the time. Then I was inspired by Anabela's prettiest ever flower, and decided to get going. And still I somehow ended up doing a bird.

Here's a detail

I think I went too far adding a white background. What do you think? It kind of ruins the pretty lacy aspect of the pendant. I just thought the warm colours I used were kind of blending into the wood background.

Apartment Therapy - I have to take the shame

I even updated the house... this is our old living room

I was asked by an Apartment Therapy editor if she could post one of the pictures from my blog. Of course I said yes since I'm a huge fan. I checked out the post several hours later to discover I am not a hit.

In my defense, I can only say that it was a pretty old post. I did update the fabric to one I like better too, a Marimekko print. I did resew the panel so that it's more snug. And the cabinet does have glass doors which didn't show up too clearly in the photo. (as for how I get the cds out - a bit mystified by that comment - I open the door and take them off their shelf.)

But as for ripping all my cds - there are 100s and I'm just too lazy so I have to take the shame. I do dream of a future with a neat little Tivoli system. In the meantime, my nephew also had a big laugh at my old-fashioned cds so I knew I was behind the times. Although he had an even bigger laugh at the old cassette tapes I gave to my sister to play in her car... (and an even bigger laugh at the black and white TV at my parent's house)

But most importantly of all, I have to say that I'm grateful that I have friendlier commenters - at least you guys just ignore me when you don't like what you see! And I love you for it.

Bedroom rug

Option A: I think this is my favourite, colours work very well with what's in the room, it has a nice traditional and pretty pattern but the colours don't contrast too much so it's subtle. This one will blend in with the dark floors in a nice way.

As you may recall I had a lot of trouble buying our last wool rug. The store had it online only and for delivery to U.S. customers only.

Option B: The colours in this one work as well and the pattern is really pretty

So now that I'm looking for one for our bedroom I'm glad to say I've found an alternative.

Option C: I like the simple two colour scheme in this one, the colours work perfectly with the rest of the room. The pattern is nice but a little "pointy", maybe not restful enough for a bedroom?

The place I'm getting my bedroom rug is online at csn rugs which now delivers (for free!) to Canada. There are so many great choices, but I've managed to narrow it down to a few favourites.

Option D: I love this one so much. The grey and white work pretty well with the rest of the room, and the pattern is my favourite. So pretty!!

I like traditional rugs, but lately I've been loving all the contemporary rugs I'm seeing in decorating magazines. So when I was searching I narrowed it down to "wool", "contemporary", "floral" & "geometric" and price.

Option E: Again, great colours for the room. I like the modern and geometric pattern, it's a bit more playful. Not that it matters too much, but this one goes nicely with our duvet cover which has ovals in dark brown and blue on a white background.

I'm going to just get a small 2 x 3' rug to sit beside the bed.

Option F: Good colours, and a nice simple graphic pattern. This one will look nice against the floors. It's feminine but not overly so.

I'd like to get your opinions! Here's what the room has already:
• wall colour is Benjamin Moore Gray Mist with white trim
• bedframe is a traditional brass bed painted with Benjamin Moore Cloud White
• chest of drawers painted Cloud White
• dark stained oak floors
• IKEA Stockholm curtains with several shades of brown, grey and sand on a cream background

Option G: Last but not least, this one has a nice gentle colour scheme. Bradley loves this one. But it is going on my side of the bed...

I've shown my favourite choices throughout this post, with comments underneath. Please comment and let me know what you think! I'll show pictures of the rug in our bedroom once it arrives.

Bedroom

While Bradley was at home on his electrical working staycation I had my own big task. Not quite as big but still an ordeal.

The bedroom had some old wainscotting, which was a little wonky. The slats were varying widths, varying heights, and had some mismatched areas of tongue and groove in the corner where a radiator was removed.So we decided the room would be much improved if we removed it. It was really the only thing that people criticized when visiting our house. The concensus being that it was more weird than charming.
Not being the most patient person in the world I couldn't wait to rip it out and see what was underneath. It wasn't too bad - the walls were intact underneath aside from numerous nail holes, a little strip of old wallpaper and some wiggly lines of adhesive.

Ok, as you can see above it was pretty bad... but not as bad as I had imagined it might be!

The best way to deal with cleaning up walls that have adhesive or other flaws is to chip or scrape off any bits that stick out, then skim coat the walls, then sand, then prime and paint. Usually it will take a couple of episodes of skimming and sanding to get it just right. The big trick I learned is to use a wide tool for skim coating, not a little putty knife.Now that I've done the first coat of paint I can see some more flaws I need to fix. But the walls look much better. I chose a pale neutral gray Benjamin Moore colour called Gray Mist. It's very subtle, quite warm, and just enough colour to contrast with the trim. I like the trim in our new house so I wanted it to show.

So that's the plan for the walls, next I'll show the furnishings!

Hello new house

Phew! It's been a very busy few weeks. We've unpacked most of our boxes and are finding that luckily our furniture fits very nicely into the house. My favourite room so far is the living room which is practically all decorated.
Before we moved in I painted the walls. The original colour was a designer favourite Manchester Tan but I wanted something lighter. I chose a pretty pale blue colour called Green Tint. It looks like a bluish grey on the chip - very pale - but I found once I had painted all the walls you really start to see the blue. A very grey, soft, pale blue that I feel makes the room seem larger and brighter. It's hard to pick light subtle colours like this from the chip, in this case I actually relied on a description of the colour by a designer in House Beautiful magazine.

Then I added sheer voile curtains combined with blue linen drapes with a branch pattern. For the cushions I sewed two new blue and brown floral cushions and bought a velvet and grosgrain ribbon embellished cushion. Finally I hung my favourite picture on the wall, an original antique pen & ink piece that illustrates the Aesop fable The Fox and the Crow.
But the big project right now (being undertaken by my resourceful and talented husband) is updating our wiring. During the inspection we found out that there was a lot of knob and tube wiring in the house. In case you don't know, it's an old style of wiring that everyone used to have.

But nowadays any knob and tube wiring is going to be very old, and a bit the worse for wear. Mainly it becomes dry and a little brittle and can be a fire hazard. Insurance companies require that you replace it, and because you need insurance to get a mortgage we really have no choice in the matter.
Now that we're doing it, I'm glad because the old wiring that's coming out of the walls certainly doesn't look very wholesome.

Next up, the bedroom!

Goodbye old house

We finally sold our house! It took much longer than we expected which I guess isn't surprising since we started when it was still snowing. It wasn't easy but I'll spare you the gory details since all's well that ends well. It was certainly worth the grief since we love the new house.
We moved in to the new house this past weekend. Springtime is a great time to move as everything seems wonderful wherever you end up. The trees are all flowering and it's warm and breezy. Well on the day we moved it was alternately raining and hailing... but we somehow managed to dodge the worst of it.
Before I start to show my new decorating pics, I'm just going to take a minute to say goodbye to our first house. My favourite part of house selling (possibly the only good part) was all the fresh flowers I felt entitled to buy so we could show off the house.
Staging also involved clearing out lots of stuff to make the house look as spacious as possible. An airy, serene look I'm now trying to recreate in our new house.So that's it for the old house, pics of the new house coming up soon!

Sunday sale

You guys were right (and had some cute ideas) the mysterious green item was a vintage carousel for rubber stamps. I use my stamps for adding my name and copyright on the back of my illustrations and for adding the return address for packages and letters.

If you'd like to try it yourself I found a great place online called Simon's Stamps. You can preview your image online and once you've approved it they will make up a stamp and mail it to you. So easy! I love mine.

Just a reminder, the Hunt & Gather trunk show is this Sunday at the workroom from noon - 5pm. It also happens to be my birthday. I've made some new colourful phone cosies, and lots of pretty earrings which would make a very nice Mother's Day gift. I also have lots of fabric scrap packs and mixed-up button grab bags. See you there!

Flea marketing

I've mentioned it before, but how great is the Sunday Market at the St. Lawrence? I go there fairly often but sometimes I really just don't find anything I need to bring home. Last week I went and kept finding things. The first item was the tin tartan picnic basket pictured above.

I saw one just like it in the window of Liv (by Au Lit Linens, on Eglinton) and was thinking "note to self - come back when the store's open and try to buy it". I see lots of these on ebay too. The faux bois ones are nice, and another fave motif is the faux basket weave ones. Price for this one: $30.
The second item was this pretty green planter. I have a thing for vintage planters, I put all kinds of things in them. Such as buttons and trim or office supplies. Price for this one: $10.

My favourite area in the market is the shop in the corner called Antiques at the St. Lawrence. I found a charming vintage Peek Frean tin there. Why don't cookies come in these anymore?? I use these tins for sewing supplies and it really does keep things organized. That's right, I'm pretending it's practical. Cost for the tin: $8.

Then last but not least, I've been keeping an eye out for one of the above for months. It's dark green, made of cast iron I suppose, very heavy, and it has a nice decorative detail to it. I'm wondering now if you know what it is? I'll tell you later but you can guess if you like! Price for the fabulous mystery green item: $20.

I try to set up some kind of budget before going to Sunday Market, such as "if you find something really great you can buy it but don't spend more than $50". This time I was in a splurgy mood. But I was still trying to make sure it wasn't a question of being tempted by things I don't really need that would just lead to clutter and regret..

Whether or not I needed the items pictured, I leave up to you to judge (in your head.. I don't really want you to tell me if you think I'm nuts). But suffice it to say they certainly made me very happy. That was a good day.