New Project: Krrb blog!

My first post for Krrb's Neighborly Living blog!

After the Ceremony - Wedding Decor that Lives on in Your Home

Check out this great, dynamic site, created "for the love of garage sales, flea markets, street fairs and any place someone can rummage, dream and discover local treasures" here!

Crafting: Holiday Projects

So I found an old piece of painted trim in the basement and fell in love with the colour. Decided to turn it into an advent calendar for the kids. Just clothespins (weathered from being left outside by the previous owners! Score.) and wood glue!

We actually installed ours on the wall in a semi-permanent sort of way, but our thinking is that in the off-season we can hang teabags or herbs to dry from the pins.

The kids have been enjoying opening an envelope each night.

We also fiddled around with a Christmas chandelier of sorts, using LED Christmas lights and a hula hoop. Leveling it was... not fun. We have it kinda sorta figured out now, though.

Life-Hacking: Picture Frame Calendar

I know I saw this on Pinterest somewhere. I finally found the perfect 7-part frame and got around to making my own!

Simply pop the backings out of the frames, cut some fabric (or interesting paper) to size, insert it between the glass and the backings and pop the backings back in.

You can write directly on the glass with a dry-erase marker; with a 7-parter, you've got yourself a weekly calendar.

The Slacking, it burns...

Meep, it's been a while!

Christmas was pretty wonderful. It was just the younger generations this year, since we all decided to do the “move ridiculously far from home all at the same time" thing. But we had lots of peeps and lots of food, and the kids were beyond cute.

Light snow - we've had about four feet since then.

 

 A few wee projects:

Sis-in-law and her husband blew us away again with some homemade pretties:

Yes, that is a handmade Minecraft Creeper and some handmade Angry Birds, along with some gorgeous hand-painted art for the kids' room.

I made some cool stuff that I neglected to take pictures of before storing away, so we'll just forget I ever said anything and pretend that they're new next Christmas.

As for New Year's, I wasn't going to do the official Resolution thing, and then I read this Cracked article and decided to be more awesome. So we'll see how that goes. Life is good.

Crafting: Garden Mint Sachets

Dried mint from the school's community garden (so much more on that later) + leftover fabric + ribbon = sweet-smelling pretties all over the house.

Christmas 2010. Part 2.

So it wasn't all bad... or plastic! I need to give mad props to my awesome sister-in-law and her partner who fully, completely, get it. The two of them helped make Christmas at the in-laws' pretty sweet, especially for the little guy and my hippie sensibilities. Behold the lovely soft toys upcycled out of old thrift store shirts:

Quite awesome pig:

Scary bear:

A rather fetching chicken:

A very cunning lamb who I call Alien Alpaca:

And some paintings:

These make me very happy.  :-)

We've been talking lately about how to get the whole fam on board with a more sustainable holiday next year. None of us is too fond of imposing too many rules - e.g. No Gifts Over $X, Homemade Gifts Only, Secret Santa and the like. What we really want is just for it to be... easy. Simple. Stress-free. Special, even?

Thought about suggesting only "consumable" gifts so as to not add clutter to people's lives. Baking, jam, playdough for the kids, stockings filled with yummy treats, copious amounts of wine. Or there's the option of renting a nice holiday cabin somewhere and foregoing gifts entirely - making it about the experience. That's a lot of bedrooms...

Thinking, thinking...