Making stuff

It's Family day, and as usual, I spent much of it with my family; the dance studio family. The princess had another marathon rehearsal session in preparation for their Showcase on March 3.

When we got home, she was very (VERY) crabby. I had two choices:
A. Lose my mind.
B. Hide.

I opted for plan B. I took off to my craft crap room, closed the door, and started measuring, cutting, pinning, pressing, and sewing the shower curtain for the cottage. The sewing is always the easy part. It's everything else that you have to do before you can sew that's tedious and slow.

It probably took me 3 hours to finish this, including a pit-stop for dinner and a break for some bedtime kisses. I've hung it in my bathroom at home so you can get a feel for how it will look. When I actually get it hung in the cottage, I'll be sure to take another photo to share.  (for now, click on it for a close up.) If you're thinking about making a curtain of your own, I discovered that a typical shower curtain is 6' in length (finished dimensions) and has 12 holes for curtain rings. Widths will vary depending on the size of your shower opening.

It's a good thing we installed a light in the shower. This curtain is  weighty and the shower would be cave-like without a light!

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On an unrelated note, I've had a bee in my bonnet lately about jewellery. I was recently invited to a jewellery home party.  I've spent a lot of time perusing the company's website. (The party has been post-poned until March so I have nothing better to do). They have such nice jewellery but holy smokes some of it is pricey! Of course, I took one look at some of it and said...

"$40!? I could MAKE that!"

And, so... I did. The name of the company in question looks very similar to:

$+e||a and |)o+

if you feel like googling, but since I don't want to be sued for copyright infringement, that's all I'm going to say. Forgive me.

Here are their versions:

Bracelet 1

Bracelet 2 (these look so nice stacked together).

And here are my versions, made with supplies found at Michael's. (Forgive the franken-arm. I'm no hand model.) Their bracelets were $40 ea. Mine cost me about $5 ea.. And, I branched out and extended the theme and added a shell version. And then I made some earrings to match. Whee, I was having such fun! Who knew that bead-loom I had when I was 7 would prove to be so useful?!

Thank heavens Michael's was having a crazy sale this week: bead strands were 2/$8, and then I had a "25% off your whole purchase" coupon.

I. Cleaned. Up.

I also really liked this bracelet from their site, but try as I might, I couldn't find the wooden beads or sparkly gold round ones at the craft store. Again, this is about $35.

So I deviated a little. I found some silver round beads, then set about to find bead-friends that would complement them. I'm pretty pleased with the results, even though they bear little-to-no resemblance to the originals. I guess it just goes to show you can find inspiration almost anywhere. Each bracelet cost about $5.

And then, because I already had the elastic cord, I made a few more bracelets in this vein. Like these ones. I can't wait to wear these in summer. The beads remind me of water. How cute are the earrings?!

And these ones, again with coordinating earrings. It's hard to tell in the photo, but the beads are a  translucent fuchsia/purple colour.

And this set. I've had these beads for a couple of years now, always intending to make some jewellery out of them, but never got around to it until now. I'm not loving these earrings though. I might need to head back to the drawing board with these.

I can't tell you how good it felt to be creating something again. I definitely need productive, creative outlets or I wither.

Thanks for perusing my handicrafts!

(p.s. POTD is on hold because I've had a craptacular week, got fed up with the daily demand of lugging my camera around and uploading photos, and decided it wasn't feeling fun anymore. I'll still take pictures and upload semi-regularly, perhaps just not daily. There are only so many photos of hockey practice and dance that I can upload before you'll start to claw your eyes out.)

Brrrrrr!

Doesn't this look cold?

Brrrrrr... I get the chills just looking at it. These photos are of Rice lake from a few days ago. I'm not positive, but I suspect that's West Grape Island behind the fishing hut.

One more month until the official start of Spring.

Counter clockwise

Why is it that the hands on the clock move counter clockwise during winter? February is interminable!

I know we've got three weeks until dance showcase (our dress rehearsal in the theatre). And after that, competition starts three weeks later, and then we're pretty much running every weekend to another competition until the first weekend of May at which point, it's COTTAGE SEASON! WOO!.

So I just need to get through these first three-week increments and everything will be fine *she says, sitting in a corner rocking back and forth*.

In the meantime, here's a picture of the lad's socks at the superbowl party. It's an annual event; every year we attend the same superbowl party, and every year he blows through a pair of socks on the concrete floor in the basement.

Again, we've had plenty of snow.

For the first time in years (maybe since we moved here?) the snow banks are tall enough that they make seeing around corners while driving somewhat challenging.

This week's "theme of the week" for the picture-a-day challenge has been body parts.

It's actually a little tricky to find enough parts to photograph during winter! Everything is covered up by sixteen layers of clothes. I resort to photographing things like freckles.

I got some pretty pre-Valentines "just because it's Wednesday" flowers this week. They're keeping me company in my office. Ahhh. Flowers. Instant pick-me-up.

And lastly, my poor princess. She wiped out running in to the dance studio and slid face-first across the pavement. OUCH. She has a fat lip, and now says:
"I night need a wowwy win!"
What?
(Translated: "I might need a bobby pin")
Poor sweetie. She's suffering. Ice cream seems to be taking some of the edge off. Never discount the medicinal properties of ice cream, I tell you.

Biding my time

Hi!

All is quiet on the blog front. We're deep in the middle of winter now; the snow has been gently falling since last night and we've got a lovely winter wonderland outside. The groundhog has forecast an early spring (he'd better be right!) so hopefully we'll be back at the cottage sooner rather than later.

Since I have no cottage news, here are some more photos from non-cottage life over the last week.

This is a picture of the wee lad asleep. The "photo of the week" theme this week was supposed to be sleep, but it's really hard to focus a camera to take a photo in the dark. Ergo, not many "sleep" photos.

Instead, you get pictures of winter snow. We've had a lot of it. They we calling for a foot of snow, but we only got about 20 cm (look at me, mixing my units of measurement.)

It was enough snow that most people worked from home that day* and a few got stuck in snowbanks and had to be rescued by the captain and other neighbours.

*My how times have changed! When I started working, no-one stayed home on a snow day. You were a "bad employee" if you didn't risk your life to come in to the office. Ubiquitous laptops and corporate VPNs are saving lives, I have no doubt!

That's what you get for trying to ram through a snowbank!STUCK.

The birds had the right idea. They stayed inside.

On Friday, the scrapping girls and I headed to the new restaurant in town, Corrado's, for an evening drink and a snack. It was really nice to get out and just chit chat!

...And enjoy some girlie drinks. This is a sour-apple martini one of them ordered. Mmm.

The wee lad must be getting a bit of cabin fever, because he asked me to do his hair in a fauxhawk (a mohawk, minus the shaved bits on the sides). I'm no more skilled at making curly hair stand up straight than I was in high school. It's harder than it looks!

We also had family movie night again on Saturday, and watched the next Harry Potter movie. Note: fauxhawk and red lump.

Sunday was the wee lad's weekly hockey game.  I think he's the smallest kid on his team. Can you find him?

They won! The score was 4-0, and their goalie got his first shut out.

The wee lad also got his first penalty, for hooking an opposing player. "Sit, and feel the shame!" his Dad says.

I love that he can't even see over the boards from the penalty box.

This is his penalty on the clock.

And, because this has been a lad-intensive post, here's one of the princess at his game. Soon enough our world will be overrun by dance competitions, and I'll be struggling to find photos of the lad to share.

Thanks for stopping by!

February Blahs

It's February first and I'm in an anti-work snit right now (bad, frustrating day) so I've decided to productively procrastinate by writing a blog post.

Cottage news = zilch. I'm starting to realize that I need to get cracking on my "over the winter" projects, or I'll never get them done by the time we head back to the cottage!

We're gearing up for competitive dance season here at home. Costumes have been coming in, and money has been flushed from my wallet. Hockey continues unabated. We're still in the midst of a chilly, cold winter with the weathermen forecasting 20-30 cm (about a foot) of snow tomorrow. I'm so glad I don't have to shovel!

Here are some recent photos from the last week.

This is one of the wee lad at hockey practice, using my new zoom lens. Love it!

 And here are some of the princess's costumes that we've received.

 And.... the "theme" for this week was supposed to be "tired", so here are some photos of a wee tired girl. First on the way back from skiing, and the next at tumbling class.

Lastly.. Here's a silly photo of the wee lad after sledding (I think he was doing it wrong)