Monday, September 20, 2010

The Sweetest Paul

Sweet Paul magazine is gorgeous this season. Paul is a New York-based Norwegian stylist, and he seems to have captured the essence of autumn in the magazine this time around. Makes me want to snuggle in wearing slippers and a big scarf with a bowl of something steamy and yummy.

Sweet Paul lets you take clippings! I thought one of the drawbacks of an online magazine was that you couldn't earmark pages for future use. But you can! Let's give this a go.

Blue

Sweet Paul Magazine
Fall 2010 p. 102

How great is that lamp?

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White

Sweet Paul Magazine
Fall 2010 p. 68

Haha! Pumpkin lamp

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Orange

Sweet Paul Magazine
Fall 2010 p. 43

I just want to sit in that chair there and have a lovely meal with some lovely people

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Chocolate

Sweet Paul Magazine
Fall 2010 p. 54

Chocolate layer cake with salted caramel filling. Ooh

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Cak

Sweet Paul Magazine
Fall 2010 p. 55

The cake recipe

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Yellow

Sweet Paul Magazine
Fall 2010 p. 12

Butternut squash and bean stew. I want that in my bowl

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Recipe

Sweet Paul Magazine
Fall 2010 p. 13

The recipe for the stew

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Sunday, September 19, 2010

Fun with Paper at a Dinner Party

I was in bed, but had to get out because I kept coughing. I've had a cold for ages now, and it doesn't seem to want to totally go away. So I'm sucking on a cough drop, and thought I'd just do up a quick post while I'm waiting.

This weekend, my sister Selby and I, and our two cats, Trotsky and Oddly, went home to visit our parents. Oddly curls up in her carrier and falls asleep as soon as she gets into the car, but Trotsky is a bit more a nervous traveler. He will have none of a cat carrier. I can't even force him into one! So he just gets to roam around the car. Finally he found a spot he was comfortable in.

Look at all of his fur on the car seats! Little gaffer was shedding up a storm!


Our parents have some great friends who live across the street from them: a mom, a dad, and a little boy. (P.S. Go on over and give the mom some blog love! She's new to the blogging world!) It was Sandi's birthday on Friday, and her wish was to have a big family dinner at our house. What I mean by that is that we consider them family, so it was the joining of our two families for a fun birthday fest. We also invited some other dear family friends, one of whom has a one-year-old little girl.

Selby and I took the reins and got to work. My dad has some clients who are Hutterites, and they give him gifts from their farm every so often. He got a big turkey from them that was taking up room in the freezer, so we decided to have a pre-Thanksgiving turkey fest.

The food was amazing, but my table concept was really fun, too! Not a novel idea by a long shot, but I covered the table in kraft paper, and put plenty of crayons on the table for everyone to decorate it with.



 






And bunting for the birthday girl's chair!
I traced a big circle for each place setting and then wrote each person's name above it. Here's my place setting before dinner:



And here it is after:


Everyone had fun, especially the kids. The 6 year old Daniel created a Harry Potter masterpiece:

That is Professor Quirrell with the big purple turban, a marauders mask (MM), Professor McGonagal (M), Lupine (L), and Black(B)

And Rachel, the one year old had fun too:


The next time you're having a dinner party, consider using paper as your tablecloth. So much fun! But you might want to state this rule in writing as well:

(This rule was meant for my father, by the way, not the kids)



P.S. And at your next dinner party, you should definitely make Spiced Pumpkin Layer Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, too. Yum!

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Weekend Craftiness: Pom Pom Wreath

So, I saw this post on honestly...wtf. And I fell in love with pom poms!

And though the girls on the blog made this...


...which is beautiful in itself, I inspired by this photo they linked to:

Both images via http://honestlywtf.com/. I don't think this wreath was made by Erica, so if you know where it's from, let me know. Correction: It WAS made by Lauren and Erica!!! So cute!!!

So, I went about trying to find a pom pom maker here in Calgary. I couldn't find the one they recommended, the Clover brand. But I found this Lion Brand one at Michael's, so I bought it. It was like $3.

But it sucked. Like seriously sucked. You have to thread the yarn through the middle hole and wind it around the circle that way. Which takes forever and is no fun at all.

So, plan B. I searched the web for alternatives and came across this Youtube video:




And that technique looked really easy and fast, and BONUS - I could make myself one of those pom pom trees quite easily! So off to Home Depot I went to get some doweling.

Problem: I did not have a 1/2" drill bit. I had one that was a wee bit smaller. I decided to make do because the new drill bit would have been about $30 and I didn't really want to spend that on something I wasn't sure was going to work. So I used my smaller bit and tried to widen the hole by moving my drill around a bit in the circle. It kinda worked. I wasn't really able to get the smaller dowels to go through the whole way like the ones in the video. So decided just to glue gun them in place.


And I just glued the big dowel to a leftover piece of hardwood flooring.

Now that I've tried it and it works, I think I will invest in the drill bit so I can make an adjustable one, like this one:

Then you can make big pom poms and small pom poms and everything in between!

Okay, so I started making pom poms. I sat on the couch and watched the Food Network all night and drank wine and made pom poms. It was quite a nice evening, actually.

See? Food Network.

This is a cute little pouf!

And then I started to tie them to my wreath frame. And a sneak peak at my cat tent! A post on that is coming soon!

And I kept making pom poms and making pom poms until I got to this!



I sprayed some polyurethane over the pom poms before I put the wreath up to help protect it from the weather.

And that's that! A cheerful pom pom wreath!

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Donna Wilson's a Fox

Wouldn't you like some of Donna Wilson's things?

My philosophy about fashion is that there's a time and place for classic, but that you should have fun with your clothes! If it makes you feel good, wear it!

These items would definitely make me feel good!

Case in point: Fox scarf!


She has a lot of really adorable home stuff, too. Like this cloud:
Or this plate:


Adorable! Via poppytalk.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

First Day of School!

Today is my first day of school with my students. I teach grade 8, and am very excited!

Dress is from Anthropologie.
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