Bobby Socks Quilt Co.

I’ve tried a couple of different versions of the IKEA dandelion light over the past year and a half.  I tried pink paper hearts a year ago but they only stayed up for a day.  Not a fan.  When I was in New York a couple of weeks ago, I was inspired by a light I saw in Anthropologie.  It sort of looked like it was made of coffee filters stitched together.

Anthropologie Light

So I started tea dying coffee filters, crunching them up a bit after they were dry and then attaching them to the IKEA dandelion light.  I used small coffee filters, and I’m not 100% happy with it.  I’m wondering if I’d like it better with larger coffee filters.  Think I still have some experimenting to do.

IKEA Dandelion Light Altered with Coffee Filters

Anthropologie also had some interesting lights hanging over the pay counter.  They looked like little cages made of twist ties that had been glittered.  I have bare bulb lights hanging down my hall that I’ve been looking for a way to finish.  I would like to try this, but so far my hunt from white twist ties has been unsuccessful.  I found green ones at the grocery store, red ones at a bulk foods store, and apparently you can’t buy garbage bags with twist ties anymore – they all have draw strings or plastic ties.  I’ll keep looking!  Here’s what the light looked like.

Anthropologie Twist Tie Light

My 13-year-old, Martha, has “just a bit” of an obsession with Darren Criss from Glee.  He was performing for a few weeks this January in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” on Broadway.  She talked constantly about this for the last couple of months and was hoping I could somehow obtain a playbill from the show for her.  But one night I got to wondering how many airmiles I had…and next thing I knew we were being crazy and impulsive and flying to NYC for the show.  It was awesome – totally worth the trip!

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

We also got discount tickets to “Mary Poppins” and “Spiderman” – very different shows but loved them both.  We went to the South Seaport TKTS for the Mary tickets – the blogs were correct – no line-up there!  It was a bit of a ways to go, but we enjoyed exploring the surrounding neighbourhoods.  We waited in the Broadway TKTS line for the “Spiderman” tickets and were wishing we had worn fur-lined boots instead of sneakers!

Mary Poppins

Martha is a museum-lover so we squeezed in a trip to the Guggenheim this time.  There was an “interesting” work of art by Maurizio Cattelan hanging in the centre of the museum.  We overheard a dad ask his young daughter how it made her feel?  We didn’t hear what she answered, but decided “disturbed” best described how we felt!  Awesome architecture as well as great paintings by many famous artists like Cezanne, Gauguin, and Kandinsky.

The Guggenheim

I was the designated photographer, but Martha did snap a couple of me.  Here I am with the nice police horses.

First, I know it’s been a long time since my last post.  2011 brought a number of pretty big changes to our house.  I found out at the end of the last school year that our school division had made the decision (a tragic one, in my opinion) to do away with teacher-librarians.  I absolutely loved being a teacher-librarian and believe what I did in my school was very valuable.  So anyway, after 12 awesome years in the library, I have returned to being a classroom teacher – Grade 2 as it happens.  It is going well and I’m enjoying much about my return to the classroom, but it has been a big change for me; it’s kind of like being a beginning teacher again – only I’m twice as old (and tired)!  School is my priority right now and I don’t always have much left over for other endeavours…but I’m hopeful.

My husband has also made a big change career-wise.  He is now working for Discovery Education.  He is now either working from home or travelling – looks like it will be about 50/50.  I’m a little jealous – I love being home and I love travelling!

A few other changes…I am very happy that I was able to lose 40 pounds!  I am feeling much happier and healthier.  And I taught myself to crochet!  (I had to have some creative outlet!)  I started by making some mittens and gloves and am now nearing the end of my first afghan, made of alpaca wool.  I’ll post a picture when it’s done.  It’s been something kind of comforting, mindless, meditative to do for a few minutes at the end of a long day.

This weekend I finally packed up all of our Christmas decorations!  (I was happy to learn that I have at least two friends who are behind me in this!  A week ago my daughter’s boyfriend casually asked how long we leave our Christmas stuff up!  I told him our record was the end of February, but in my defence, it was a white tree with red and pink ornaments which begged to see Valentine’s Day!  I believe my friend, Penny, holds the record for keeping her tree up until Easter last year!)  I snapped a couple of pictures before taking everything down…

This is the bathroom on our main floor.  It is directly across from our bedroom.

We had a cabinet built to fit the space and put in two vessel sinks.  The counter is quartz.  The mirrors were a great find (and deal!) at Home Sense.

Penny Round Tile

My favourite thing in the bathroom is definitely the penny round tile floor.  The installers had a little trouble with it, so it’s not perfect – but I still love it.

The shower is matt-finish extra-large subway tiles, with an accent of black and white mini tiles – all with black grout.  The floor is black pebbles with grey grout – a little foot massage each morning!

The bath towels are also from Home Sense.  The artwork is an original my daughter, Meredith, bought from one of her Grade 12 art students – on loan to my bathroom for a while!

This painting also belongs to Meredith (also on loan to my bathroom).  She bought this one in Montmartre when we were Paris at Easter.

Here’s a better view of the counter and sinks…

The 4th pattern is now available in the Free 2011 series:  Drive-in Movie.  Our last drive-in theatre closed about 20 years ago and I still miss it!  Maybe they still survive in warmer climates…