Etsy Finds Friday

Ele-friend by
Stephanie Hanson


Train Pants by Stitchgirl52

Fantasy Fat Quarter Swap

Yeah, I just received my fabric swap in the mail. This lovely package arrived just as I was starting to worry that perhaps it wasn't coming. I can't believe the amazing fabrics my partner chose for me. I love every one of them - which I have to admit I was a bit worried about. I can sometime be a bit on the picky side. There were lots of fun little extras in the package too - and a small pack of cookies just when I needed them most.

See what I got!

Thank you Iva.

Now what to do with them.....

Baby Booties

Last night I decided to whip up a little something in case we get the call that Brad and Leese have taken their trip to the hospital. I have been wanting to try making these booties for the longest time and have printed off numerous patterns to try. This pattern seemed the simplest and most straight forward so I figured it was a good place to start. I had picked up a suede jacket at a second hand shop a while back for the grand sum of $1 with these booties in mind.

I am now eager to make a whole bunch more using the suede for the sole and playing around with different fabrics for the top pieces. I think piglet will have to have a pair of all suedes as well. If I get the time I will make a new pair - with revisions - for Brad and Leese's little one and piglet can have the trial pair. I also have to figure out how to upsize the pattern so I can make bigger ones. This pattern says it is good for 0-6 months but I thought some 6-12 month ones would be good as long as the sole is non-slip. Especially for just around the house as indoor slippers that don't slip off :)

Shop in progress

This past weekend was satisfying and enjoyable but extremely tiring. We have started the process of painting the shop. We had hoped that with a large work party we would get it done in a weekend (as we had the house) but alas that was not the case. It looks like it is going to take a whole weekend again of painting to finish it up. The upside is that we can see how great it is going to look when done. A huge improvement upon the dreary grey it was.

I spent the weekend preparing meals, mixing paint (we had to darken the paint - good lesson to learn - always paint a large chunk before ordering up an entire house worth of paint - we added 1.5 cups of black stain to every gallon of green stain) and painting what I could manage. Emotionally I was a bucket of guilt - going between feeling like I wasn't working hard enough and doing my share to feeling like I shouldn't be doing any of the painting as it could be hurting piglet. Grrrrr... don't like it at all....but piglet has been kicking up a storm the last two days so I can't have done too much damage...I think...I hope..poor kid...such a naughty momma.

So here are some before and afters...what do you think?


The Dreary Grey


Bold and Beautiful Green

I am in the process of prime and painting the shutters to go on the upper windows - they will be cloud white - very cute - just loving it!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Keith, Sandra, Krista, Darren, Carla and Todd for all the numerous hard hours of painting you put in..I only hope I can repay it someday.

Renting Mother Nature

Rent Mother Nature
This is one of those funny little things that you stumble upon in life and think...what a brilliant idea. There is increasingly becoming the need for farmers to become creative in the way they sell their items in order to be even slightly profitable...or even to be able to keep their farms going. Many are sharing memberships to their farms and each member gets a share in the produce but this is only good for farms that have an array of products or huge memberships for a single type crop.
Around here it seems the best option is to sell at the farmers market and perhaps farm gate sales but you also have a huge increase in insurance costs if someone is buying anything from you and if anyone is stepping on your property. You have to sell a fair amount in order to make it worth while.
Organic products are increasing in demand but the time and cost to become certified are not the easiest.
This is a great idea in that it expands the market - it is a gift item rather then a take home to be consumed item. It is value added in that the actual food item is worth only a portion of the total package. And it is fun and different. If it came from a Canadian company I think everyone would be getting something from them for their next Christmas or Birthday present.

Tarts, tarts and more tarts

Saturday morning was an assembly line of tart making. 125 lemon with fresh raspberries and 125 pumpkin to be exact. Made and delivered by 1 pm for a Saturday evening outdoor wedding.

Three double batches of lemon filling (the type you would find in a lemon meringue pie - yummy). Each tart had 3 fresh raspberries to top them off.

Boxes of lemon tarts ready to go.

Pumpkin tarts cooling down, more ready to go in the background and empty tarts waiting in boxes to be filled.

After deliverying tarts Andy and I went up to Honeymoon Bay to relax for the remainder of the weekend......ahhhh bliss.

Weekend projects

This weekend the boys decided to remove the chimney and work on finishing the siding on the shop so we would be ready for painting weekend. They had a little incident with a chimney that ran away from them and ended up landing an inch - no joking - away from Todd's 1960's chevelle which he had just insured that very morning. I was inside the shop when the crash occurred.

And this is what I was doing.....shutter making in progress. I have cut all the boards to make shutters for 6 windows on the shop. We are going to pre-paint then so we can throw them up after we paint the shop. Very exciting! I also cut some of the scraps into bird houses as we went to Andy's grandparents wedding anniversary party last night and needed a little something to take with us. I'll have to take a pic of one of the birdhouses sometime soon.

Piglet's change table

I stumbled across this change table at a second hand shop. I was going to buy one of those nice change tables that look like a dresser after the little one graduates from diapers but when I saw this little gem my mind went to...hmmm...$30 dollars and a little paint job or $380 and it still might not match the bedframe quite right. So what does someone like me do..you guessed it...and I think with a little paint she looks quite nice.

The before shot


And the after

Mosquitos are swell

Or should I say when one is pregnant and gets bitten by a mosquito one swells. This is a tame version what my mosquito bites looked like on my feet after our trip to the lake on the long weekend. I don't recall every reacting to mosquito bites. Yes, they get itchy and red but never do they swell up. The picture shows one at a "normal" reaction size and one at about the size the others were the day before - although they also went a white tone rather then red as in the photo. My other foot had about 3 or 4 or these beauties. Isn't being pregnant an experience!