Today's masterpiece.

After a few bites I was struck by how absolutely friggin amazing my breakfast was this morning, so I grabbed my camera and snapped a pic before it was all gone.

You can have an absolutely friggin amazing breakfast too! You will need:

- President's Choice® Corn Flakes, 1/2 bowl full
- Kellogg's® All-Bran®, 1 handful
- 1 ripe banana, chopped
- 3 strawberries, sliced
- sugar, very light sprinkling of
- 1% milk until Corn Flakes float

YUM! :)

I LOVE googly eyes.

Heehee.

You'll notice from my earlier post that previously, my mascaras and eyeliners and such were just lying in a messy heap on the bathroom shelf.

Well, Wednesday evening I found myself deciding that something should be done about it. Since the googly eyes were still out from the day before, that something ended up being this.

Meet Cousin Carter. He's made of an old container that green tea came in. It's the first time I've ever tried painting a container like this before; I've painted a few glass jars, but this is sort of a foil-lined cardboard, so I wasn't sure how things would go.

As it turns out, the paint covered well, and my bathroom shelf is hardly cluttered now at all! And Curtis doesn't look so lonely anymore. So I'd say the mission was a success.



With all that being said, I have put the googly eyes away again for a while.

There is such a thing as too much googly eyes, you know. And I'm just on the brink of reaching that point, I believe.

I managed to scratch the googly-eyes-itch I'd been feeling for a while though, so it's all good. :)

Curtis.

"Curtis! by the cheese n' rice!

What's that atop your head?"
"Tis Q-tips sir!" the young jar beams,

The old one turns bright red.

"Toiletry?! A son of mine?!"
he cries and oh he wails,
"I thought you'd be a manly man!

Store screws and tacks and nails."

"They think I'm cute!" the young lad grins
"I'm the luckiest jar of all!
Maybe one day your lot will improve
and you'll store some.. cotton balls!" :)

Hm, Father Jar there looks quite shocked. I don't think he's going for that idea at all.


It's funny how these little craft projects of mine sometimes just fall together.

I'd had this tiny pickling jar under the sink for months, along with a bunch of other glass jars I have saved. It was originally found in an old scrap car that was being stripped. I've never seen one so little. I just had to save it.

Anyway, last night I decided I need something to keep chalk in, so I thought I'd paint the little jar. I got the base coats down... in white... and decided it was a dumb idea. It would be holding a bunch of coloured chalk. My paint job would be ruined.

I think I'm just going to have a few pieces of chalk on the ledge of the board, and keep the rest in a nearby drawer.

So let's get to the meat of the issue: I decided to use the jar for storing Q-tips instead. I was going to just paint "Q-tips" on there, but decided to do something fun. His tuft of hair is a piece of yarn from the scarf I knat last week, tied around the rim and frayed. I always keep googly eyes on hand, because you just never know when you'll need some googly eyes. So I glued those on.

"Curtis" has found a home on a shelf in the bathroom that I painted a while back.


Isn't he cute? Even Bruce thinks so!

Teehee.

Birling down a-down the white water.

A couple of weeks ago Bruce and I were browsing Youtube and happened across the National Film Board of Canada's 1979 animated short "Logdriver's Waltz". It used to air on television in the 80s. Bruce recognized it instantly. I wouldn't say I remember the thing per se, but there are a few bits that strike me as quite familiar, so I'm sure I saw it too.

It's an absolutely charming short in any event. The video can be viewed online here.

The film features a folk song of the same title written by Canadian Albert Wade Hemsworth, in celebration of the log driving profession. He likens the log drivers to dancers in the song, for the skill and agility the occupation required.

For he goes birling down a-down the white water
That's where the log driver learns to step lightly
It's birling down, a-down white water
A log driver's waltz pleases girls completely.

Soo... running across this video really set me off. Having grown up in a small Canadian community driven for more than a century by the forestry industry, I suddenly found myself quite obsessed, looking up as much information and photographs of the old profession that I could find.

And what a fascinating profession indeed! Before trucks and railroads, large sawmills were built at the lower reaches of rivers. This was quite intentional, of course - how better to get the logs out of the woods and to the sawmill than to float them down the river!

Often times, logs would become jammed or stuck and needed to be guided along the way. Men called "log drivers" would run from one log to another, ensuring their successful journey downstream. As you can probably imagine, this took loads of strength, skill, and agility. It was dangerous, too. Many log drivers were killed by falling and being crushed between the heavy logs.

Well all this inspired me. Naturally!!


I'd been trying to figure out what to paint on the canvas Bruce got me for Valentine's Day since... well... Valentine's Day. So I used a photo I found online as a model, some acrylics, and went to town. It's found a home on the wall above my computer desk in the living room. Not sure if that's where it will stay.... for a little while though at least, I'm sure.


Yep.

The Log Driver's waltz pleases Smel completely! :)

Chalk this one up boardom.

This is especially important if what you don't have is a pile of money. ;)

A few days ago I got it into my head that I really, REALLY wanted a chalkboard. I didn't figure I'd ever be able to find exactly what I was looking for in a store, and that even if I did it would cost a crap load of money I wouldn't want to spend.

So it was apparent right from the start that I would be crafting this chalkboard of mine - but out of what?

Why, out of a bunch of junk, of course!



I was at work Friday when I remembered an old bulletin bored that had already been in the shop when we moved in, leaning up against the wall in the corner. The frame and backing were sound, but the cork board was a mess. It was just dumb luck that no one had bothered throwing the thing out yet. As with the left over piece of finished sheet board stuff from some work that Bruce's parents had recently done to their porch that was there too.

There I had it. All the junk I needed. And being in a shop, a bunch of tools at my disposal, too.

I was cooking with gas now boys.

So Friday afternoon when I should have been, you know, working (so, in fact, don't chalk this one up to "boardom" at all!)... I crafted myself a chalkboard! Bruce helped (a lot) too. Later on we headed to the hardware store and got a can of chalkboard paint for six bucks, and did 'er up. The next day I painted the frame with some DollarStore burnt umber acrylic, and finished it with a coat of polyurethane varnish I had.

Today we hung it in the kitchen. And WELL.


The ledge is even big enough to hold the chalk; one of those simple little things that just makes me smile from ear to ear.


Yay! :)

The Little Forklift That Could.

A Little Forklift had a very heavy car to carry into a mechanic's shop.

All was well until he came to the ramp in front of the big doors.

It was the middle of winter, and the ramp was covered in a thick sheet of ice. No matter how hard the Little Forklift tried, he could not move the heavy car up the ramp in front of the big doors.

His wheels spun and spun and spun. He backed off and tried again. Vroom, vroom! But no, he could not make it up the ramp and through the big doors.

"Surely I can find someone to help me," the Little Forklift thought.

Just then, he saw Smelanie come along, paint and brushes in tow.

"Will you help me?", the Little Forklift asked.

"I'll see what I can do!" Smelanie replied.


Quite a predicament the little guy put me in, eh?

Well, here's what I came up with:


Flames.

Now I do feel a need to explain this one, but I'm not exactly sure how. What possible explanation for painting flames on the side of a forklift could I give that would be considered reasonable?

I work part-time in Bruce's car shop. There is a forklift there that he and his Dad use to lift scrap cars into said shop. Bruce decided to work some overtime an evening a couple of weeks ago. I decided to paint flames on the forklift.

That's really all the explanation I have to offer.




Some people see things that are and ask, Why?

And some people see things that are, and paint flames on them. :)

I knat a scarf.

One wouldn't say, "I sitted all day",

Then why would one say that they knitted?

It took me all week! So it's my choice to say,

I didn't knitted this scarf. I knat it!

Ingredients:

- 2 balls Lion Brand Yarn Wool-Ease® Thick & Quick® purchased at Michael's craft store on a whim with no plan in mind because it's just the prettiest, softest yarn you've ever seen, and you simply must have it.
- 2 10mm knitting needles.
- scissors.

Directions:

1. Start knitting. Given the fact that you only taught yourself how to knit a couple of months ago, promptly decide to attempt a simple scarf.
2. Realize that 25 stitches is too wide. This yarn is damn thick. Unravel. Start over.
3. Knit first row.
4. Knit first 2 stitches of second row. Then Purl, to last 2 stitches; Knit.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 approximately eight times. Keep track with tick marks on a piece of scrap paper, because you know you'll lose count if you don't and mess the thing up.
6. Cut yarn, leaving a 2 inch tail. Tie the second colour onto the tail of the first, and start knitting with it on the next row.
7. Repeat steps 3-6 while watch television in the evening until you run out of yarn, approximately one week later.
8. Weave in tails. Iron flat on steam between two towels.

Result:
A friggin scarf.



Enjoy!

Does this curtain make my window look fat?

So previously, I had an orange curtain and valence on my living room window. With pom-poms. A gloriously whimsical Frenchy's find! The curtain was white, originally, which I had dyed orange. I love the colour, and the pom-poms... though sadly, the curtain itself was just a little too short (it just reached the sill) - I'd been wanting to do something about it for quite some time. I just couldn't come up with any ideas.

Last week Bruce's Mom gave me a set of white sheers. Covered in cute little flower and leaf designs. Real friggin pretty. She'd gotten them from a friend, found she couldn't use them after all, so passed them on to me.

Apparently I had nothing better to do this afternoon (the entire operation ended up taking like an hour to complete), so I put them on my window. I decided to tack the old orange curtain in behind, and hang the sheers in front.

As it turns out, the effect is actually quite pretty when the daylight shines through. I managed to keep the whimsy and colour while adding length and opacity. Go me.


Kitty seems to like it! And Bruce too (no picture of him perched on the window sill so you'll just have to take my word for it...)

Woohoo!