How much actually got done?

Last year I made a list of 50 things I wanted to do/make through 2009. Let's see how I did...

3. Luchador Series DONE!
4. Fairy Godmother Book DONE!
5. Clock DONE!
6. Knit something for D DONE!
8. Knit a sweater DONE!
9. Finish Quilt DONE
11. 'Gypsy' Quilt Block for charity DONE!
12. Finish Shrunken Heads DONE!
16. Create a coven of witches DONE!
22. Finish the black shrine on the go DONE!
23. Create a large shrine for the house DONE!
29. Make D's Halloween costume DONE
35. Photo's for hallway DONE!
36. Finish painting walls/ceiling that are sitting half done DONE!
37. Create an experiment with colour DONE!
40. Make Fruitcake for x-mas DONE! (sort of)
42. Make something teeny weeny DONE!
46. Crochet something other than a grannie square DONE!

18 things done from the list. Not too bad considering that we unexpectedly moved 150 miles this year. Besides there were loads of other things not on the list that were also done.
Some things that will remain on this years list...

Paint portrait of hubby's grannie
Portrait of Blackadder
Do something with the zillion glass xmas balls that are in my stash
Create a "Sin Eater"
Knit a Dr. Who scarf
Try to cook something new once a week
Create a giant collage of D's drawings and school work
Make t's for Paul
Tree Man Box
Make a family cookbook
Fondue!

Some new goals...

Bust my craft stash!
Host fab dinner party
Redo our bedroom
Space up D's room
Craft up the kitchen
Finish 'houses'
'Wine' Shrine
'Hoodoo' Witch
Deck of Cards
Greeting Card Set
Fairy Godmother Book
More jewellry!
More paper crafts!

Ideally I'd like to have something, something I'm chuffed with, to show for each week.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

I have a personal Christmas tradition. Every year the Mr goes to bed and I spend a couple of hours alone watching White Christmas. Bing always gets me in the mood for Christmas and dreaming of fat white snowflakes. It doesn't matter how many times I've seen that movie the scene with the general at the end... "we'll follow the old man..." always gets me. Who am I kidding? I love the whole thing :)

This year, I was just getting ready to pop in the old flick when I heard a noise in the other room. I went to investigate and what did I see? Santa! Quick as can be he snarfed down the homemade goodies that the big D had left for him. I couldn't believe my eyes! I must have looked rather gobsmacked because he took one look at my face and laughed a very quiet HO! HO! HO! In no time at all he had the presents in place and the stockings stuffed. He even gave me a wink and a bit of a cheeky smile before he flew back up the chimney.

I don't know how he does it but I know that Santa is real and I will always be a believer :)

Merry Christmas and Yuletide Blessings to you all!

Yuletide Blessings

Yule was all sorts of awesome when we picked up a swap package sent by the fabulous AlwaysInspired. Check out the loot!

A paper cemetery!



The coolest Monster Mittens ever.



A sweet Marie Laveau primitive dolly. She's absolutely glorious and I'm totally in love with her and her wee mojo and wanga.



Last but not least the most wonderful "Home Sweet Home" embroidery/watercolour ever! It's really and truly spectacular.




I've been a bit out of sorts lately... so much so that I had to take a week off on stress leave... and this package really cheered me up. I love every bit of it. AlwaysInspired's package has put mine to shame and for that I'm grateful and will exact sweet revenge upon her some how... some day :)

XMAS PANIC!!!!

I cannot believe that another year has passed and that I am still in the same boat I'm in every other year... last minute Christmas panic.

Today was a hard one because both the fellas were sick. The little one was up puking last night and the big one was asleep on the couch for most of the day. It's crunch time! There should be no sickness during the week leading up to 'the day'.



The wee fella, despite feeling cruddy, was in a rather crafty mood today so we did get some stuff accomplished. Rooting around my craft stash he came across some herbs and oils so we tossed them together to make a batch of pot pourri and tub tea! D even helped design the labels.



It's not often that my kiddo wants anything to do with making so it was a sort of Solstice miracle that he was the one pushing to do the crafting. Fingers crossed it lasts the week!

More craftin'

The noise issue continues... but so does the crafting!

I was organizing a Fairy Godmother Swap on craftster and swiped up the fantactulous Phizzychick for my partner. (NO PEEKING PHIZZY! THIS MEANS YOU! GO AWAY! AVERT YOUR EYES NOW!!!!)

When I packaged everything up the whole thing weighed about 2.5 kg and shipping was going to cost a whopping $90!!! WHA?!?!? Anywho, I took the package apart and sent in two parts instead which brought me down to less than half that, thanks be to the postal gods.

On to the goodies...

A Fairy Godmother Cupboard! It started life as a tacky thing found at the thrift shop for $5



Now it's home to a Star Duster...



... and an Official Fairy Godmother Wand



Here she is ready to be filled with goodies.



Some magic beans and buttons...



A Ball of Christmas Magic...



And Bottled Moonbeams too...



Lastly, what every Fairy Godmother needs... an Organization Kit which includes, slippers, a calendar, chocolate, a flask w/cozy and a tin of distractions.



Hopefully it doesn't take months to arrive and gets there safely. The shipping is always the most nerve wrecking part of swapping :)

Back to craftin'

Resolving our noise problem has sort of become a full time job for me and it's seriously cutting into my making time. Thankfully it's been fairly quiet around here for almost a week so I've taken the week off from complaining to get the creative juices flowing again.

Tiny things are so much fun to look at but totally finicky to make. With my little sausage fingers and tendency to be quite clumsy I'm surprised this guy turned out at all.

He measures just under 3" tall. His head is a carved bone bead, his legs are twigs, the left arm is a milagro, the right is a charm pin, his body is a small block of wood and all those gears are miscellaneous watch parts.

I think I may make a few more of these fellas... if I can get the knack of making them balanced so they don't fall over all the time.

A neat find...

This is a rather late Halloween post but I wanted to share the super cool book, printed in 1912, that I picked up for $2

Saint Anne and a Petition for Tranquility

Over the past few years I've come to have a deep respect and awe for the influence and power of the Saints.

Saints aren't just characters in Christianity, they are used by many religious, magical, mystical and folk traditions. Petitioned for special causes, revered for their unique abilities and honored by those they benefact, they truly are a fascinating and varied bunch.

Some well known Saints...
St. Nicholas - patron saint of children
St. Patrick - patron saint of Ireland and chaser of snakes :)
The Blessed Virgin
St. Joseph - patron saint of workers, and protector of the Catholic Church

St. Joseph is really interesting because there is a very popular 'spell' that involves him. It is believed that if you bury a Saint Joseph figure upside-down in your front yard that it will help to sell your property. You can even buy kits for this purpose! I've done this twice with great success and have my wee Saint Joseph standing in his place of honor by my front door.

The Saints also play a vital role in Afro-Caribbean religions. Very basically put, slaves, unable to worship their African gods and goddesses adopted the imagery of the Catholic saints and applied the personalities of their own deities. For example, Papa Legba is associated with St. Peter, the keeper of the crossroads/the guardian at the gates of heaven. (Check out Old Religion/New World for a much better explanation.)

I'm using the power of the Saints myself at the moment. I've built a shrine to Saint Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary and grandmother to Jesus. Saint Anne is the patron saint of Canada, housewives, seamstresses and whose speciality is tranquility.

The text you see on the sides are a set of prayers called a Novena. The prayers are for special petitions to the saints and are conducted for 9 consecutive days.

I have faith that Saint Anne will help to restore tranquility to my neighbourhood.

Complainy Pants

I'm going to rant again... this time it's serious.

When we moved into our loverly new place we were well aware of the fact that there was a factory of sorts across the street. We were willing to deal with it because we loved the house so much and we can put up with a bit of noise during the day. It's clear that things are not all sunshine and roses around here.

The building is called CB Freezers and they are a blast freezer facility. They are also a 24 hour a day business, something no one told us. No worries, how bad can it be? Truth be told it can be pretty damned bad at times.

I can deal with noise. I lived near a main road in a city of 500,000 people in a house that backed on to a bar and Harley Dealship. This is worse and no one in power seems to give a hoot. Imagine a continual loud hum that alternates 5-10 minutes on/10-20 minutes off from late at night to the wee hours of the morning. One night last month this lasted 9 hours. It's not every night but it's enough to get me pretty pissy.

Here is my problem. I've called the by-law office and have been told that there is nothing I can do because the building is zoned industrial they are exempt from the noise by-law. They can make as much noise as they want, whenever they want, no matter what time of the night or day. Despite the fact that I told the by-law gal that even airports and gravel pits have to adhere to certain guidelines I was told that there is nothin' for me to do but deal with it.

This is all sorts of wrong on so many levels. There ARE laws for noise contamination, so what gives?

A tired me is a mean me and I'm ready to do something. All can do is try right? Let's hope that trying actually gets me somewhere.

I was going to make pie...

but the Big D and I made this instead. I think it was the perfect project for a beautiful October, Sunday afternoon.

My faith is restored.

I emailed the folks at Rona and they contacted me about the paint issue I had using their Eco-Paint. I'm really pleased about this because it means they give a hoot about their products and their customers.

I'm also happy they did because I had a can of "Cotton" sitting here and I used it on my hallway yesterday. This was a much better experience :) The best part of all was that I managed to do the whole thing in a single coat! I honestly don't think I've ever painted anything with a single coat.



It doesn't look like too much of a change in the photos but we went from a dirty greeny yellow to a lovely soft very pale sort of grey/white which looks much cleaner and less sickly.

Anyway, despite the previous bad paint I'm a pretty happy customer :)

Another old gal

This fine lady is definately one of pickiest gals I've worked on. She is refusing to photograph well.

Rain, Leaves and Eco-Paint

This is the view out my front window today.



Across the street from our new house there is a freezer 'factory'. Occasionally they get a bit noisy and drive me around the bend. I can't wait to get some more trees planted to block out the eyesore.

This is the view out my back window today.

Isn't it dreamy? *sigh* When I feel a bit tense about the folks across the street I just look at this and remember how lucky I am.

I've been working on my bedroom. The Mr. was getting impatient because it was a complete disaster. I decided to go with the Rona Eco Recycled Interior Paint I used on the bathroom since it seemed to cover fairly well and it made me feel like I was doing one little thing to be a bit greener. I needed 3 cans to paint the bedroom (it's massive), I chose "Sand" from the 16 available colours only to find that each bloody tin was a different shade! Ug! Ug! Ug! Take a look at the difference...

It's totally noticeable and looks a mess :(

I'm going to make myself happy by looking out of my back window again.

*P.S. Rona has looked into the problem and believes that during a packaging change a tin was mis-labled. They've been totally awesome and I'm pleased as punch with their efforts :)

The Crones

I've managed to compete most of my Crones. It's a lovely day to have them complete (well almost). The leaves are quickly turning and falling and there is enough of a chill to make me want to grab a chunk sweater. A perfect day.

Anyway, here are a bunch of the old gals. There are a few who are being difficult and need a little extra attention, or are refusing to photograph well, but I'll deal with them over the next week. I'm just so happy that so much is being completed and I'm back to making with full force!

Yum

Sometimes pie makes everything alright.

More crones...

I'm still working away at my witchy crone gals. It's really interesting to me how their personalities develop as they are worked with and embellished. I find myself having conversations with them "Oh stop being difficult!" and "Don't worry, you'll look fine." Does anyone else do this or am I going mental from the lack of human interaction?



My husband was a tad worried that I'd feel isolated moving away from everyone I know. I'm not finding it too difficult (yet). I guess I've never really been a people person and I find the silence sort of soothing. I really and truly enjoy being home.

I'm off to paint walls (beige this time, not white *gasp!*) and then I'll be making a loverly dinner for my hubby for our 8th wedding anniversary. I can't believe we've been together for over 17 years. Holy crackers that makes me sound old! No worries... I think getting old is kinda nice.

The Royal Flush

Here's the before ...

Here she is after stripping that horrible wall paper...

And less than $80 later...

I know I complained about being afraid of colour but I love my black and white bathroom.

The mirror is hung low so that the kiddo can see into it. The poor thing has spent a month and a half strugging to see into mirrors that are too high for him.

ATC's framed above the tub

These are some awesome old dowels we found in the storage space above our garage. Below is an lovely knickknack cupboard that craftewoman from craftster sent me for the 'birds, birds, birds' swap. I'm going to put old bottles and other lovely little things in there.

The big D and I worked on this project yesterday. I took an old broken frame and used scrapbooking paper, faux pearls, rickrack and a crown brad to make this silhouette portrait of the kiddo to hang.

So, there's still a few spaces that need a special touch but I'm loving it so far. Here's a rundown of my costs

$15 white eco friendly paint for the walls

$17 white floor paint

$35.99 mirror

$3.94 2 metres fabric for curtains

$2 supplies for silhouette picture

Everything else was stuff from my stash (frames, atc's, vase, cotton to line curtains).

Crones

I've been a busy bee and managed to finish up two more Crone dollies.