DIY Anthro-style butterfly plate

This pretty plate is from Anthropologie. A dinner plate will run you about $16.00.

Here's a similar one I made. I used a yummy antique plate that I found at an estate sale for 25¢ and a package of rub-ons that I received in a swap years ago.

It took all of two minutes to decide where I wanted the images and to rub them on and now I have instant artwork for my wall! The colors are perfect for my front room, and whenever I get around to finally hanging something the wall in there (we've lived here 6.5 years with nothing on the walls in there--I'm obviously afraid of commitment) this will make a nice addition to the gallery wall I've been planning. Not too bad for a measly quarter and two minutes of my time!

The Bad Parrot

Mary received a parrot as a gift. The parrot was fully grown with a very bad attitude and worse vocabulary. Every other word was a curse: those that weren't curses were to say the least, rude.

Mary tried to change the bird's attitude by constantly saying polite things. Kind words and playing soft music...anything she could think of. Nothing worked.

She yelled at the bird and the bird got worse. She shook the parrot and the bird got madder and more rude. Finally in a moment of desperation, Mary put the parrot in the freezer to get a minute of peace.

For a few moments she heard the bird swearing, squawking, kicking and screaming and then, suddenly there was absolute quiet. Mary was frightened that she might have actually hurt the bird and quickly opened the freezer door. The parrot calmly stepped out onto Mary's extended arm and said:

"I'm very sorry that I offended you with my language and my actions and I ask your forgiveness. I will endeavor to correct my behavior and I am sure it will never happen again."

Mary was astounded at the changes in the bird's attitude and was about to ask what had changed him, when the parrot continued, "May I ask what the turkey did?"

 I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Autumn yarn wreath with felt roses

2010 seems to be the Year of the Wreath for me. Even though I'll be pulling out the Christmas tree on Friday, I was determined to get this autumn wreath finished so that I could display it for a few days at least.

I first saw this lovely wreath on the blog take heart back before Halloween. I've seen yarn wreaths all over blogland and I was struck by the gold, deep red and ivory color combination of Danielle's wreath. Yellow is not a color I'm normally drawn to but I just loved the warmth of the gold and the contrast with the beautiful russet color, so I decided to throw originality out the window and just copy Danielle completely! I purchased all of the supplies at JoAnn's while I was buying last-minute Halloween costume stuff, but there was one problem: when I got home, the golden yarn I had chosen looked too bright and along with the red, all I could think of was ketchup and mustard!

I meant to exchange the yarn, but my preparations and subsequent trip to London got in the way. I thought maybe I'd just give up and use the wreath form for another project, but last week on a trip to the thrift to check out the Christmas offerings, I found the perfect color of yarn so I decided to go ahead with the project anyway!

I've made a lot of wreaths so far this year, but this one was definitely the quickest and easiest. I followed Danielle's excellent tutorial so I won't retype it here. If I did this project again, I'm not sure I'd use a straw wreath form. I left the plastic wrapper on but it the wreath form itself was so lumpy! In some places the lumps were so bad I had to slit the plastic and remove the piece of straw underneath to get rid of the bumps. I've been using those extruded foam wreath forms all year and they're nice and smooth, so I would have preferred that look but I just wanted to get this one done so I used the straw.

I made my felt roses just like Danielle's and they were also really quick and easy to make. If you're curious about sizing, I used a circle almost the size of a whole sheet of felt to make the largest flowers. I had some green felt in my stash so I added a few leaves as well. I wrapped a piece of crocheted lace around the top to make a hanger and simply slipped the holes in the flowers over my hook to hang it!

This pattern would lend itself to a really beautiful Christmas wreath! What colors would you use?

Sartorial London

One of the things I remember from my first trip to London in 1998 was the difference between how the people there dress and how the people in my hometown dressed. People in London were far more fashionably dressed, and in general were much less casual and much more 'dressy'. That held true for this trip as well.

Because I knew we'd be walking miles each day and spending plenty of time in the (cold, wet, rainy, windy) outdoors, I dressed primarily for comfort rather than style:

Which of course meant that I totally stuck out as a tourist! I so wanted to blend in, but a periwinkle Mountain Hardwear windbreaker in a sea of black wool coats is pretty hard to miss. I saw so many pretty wool coats both in the shops and on the people and I have some cute versions in my own closets that I could have taken instead, but they wouldn't have had the windproof or waterproof qualities of this one.

For shoes, I knew that wearing white tennies is a dead giveaway that you're an American tourist. I don't even own white tennies except to exercise in, but I did have to find a pair of shoes in which I could comfortably walk miles. On my first trip to London, I took a pair of Doc Martens Mary Janes, which while cute, are not exactly known for being soft and comfy to walk in.

This time around, I bought these Clarks Privos in solid black and they were money well spent! They were incredibly comfortable and never once rubbed and I know I'll get plenty more wear out of them here at home. Towards the end of the trip my feet were tired, but only from being unaccustomed to being on them so much, and not because of my shoes. My shoes stuck out just as much as my coat did to mark me as an outsider--I never saw anyone else wearing anything similar on their feet. Nearly every girl I saw was wearing boots of some type; generally mid-calf, flat heel, black or brown. I've been looking for a cute pair of flat boots but I couldn't guarantee that those would feel good for the amount of walking and standing we did, so I'm glad I had my Privos.

For jeans, I purposely packed my pairs that had both front and rear pockets so I could stash my money/credit card/Underground pass in my pockets and not have to worry about what would happen if I lost my purse. I ended up keeping my little wallet in an inside zipper pocket of my coat, which worked out perfectly because I didn't have to worry about being pick-pocketed and it was so darn cold that I never really took it off! I don't have any dark wash jeans with pockets, so I had to take my medium wash boot cut jeans, another thing that made me stick out. The majority of the jeans I saw on girls were darker wash, straight or skinny and always tucked into boots.

To blend in with the crowds of London girls we saw riding the Tube and walking around the city, here's an example of what I could have worn:

London girl 1 by themerrymagpie featuring a check coat

Important elements: brown mid-calf flat boots. Skinny, dark wash jeans. Super cute long wool coat, scarf, and satchel. The coats we saw most often were black or gray or tweed, but this one was so cute that I included it anyway!

And because I clearly need more ways to waste my time on the Internet, I made another Polyvore set of the slightly more dressy London look:

London girl 2 by themerrymagpie featuring a blue skirt

Similar elements: belted gray wool coat, cute scarf, black flat mid-calf boots, black opaque tights, cute skirt. The satchel would be more realistic if it had a shoulder strap but this version was just darling--look at that bow!

In short, the most important elements of the silhouette are:

1. Boots. Mid-calf at least, sometimes knee-length. Mostly flat heels.
2. Skinny legs: skinny jeans, leggings or opaque tights, all tucked into the boots.
3. Coat: black, gray or tweed wool. Most often belted, frequently mid-thigh length. ALWAYS worn with a scarf.

Even though I was dressed practically and comfortably for what I was doing, I couldn't help but feel a bit frumpy. I totally understand why Becky Bloomwood felt such temptation--there are SO many shops filled with beautiful, fashionable clothes in London! I did manage to find my new favorite store besides Anthropologie: called Noa Noa, they're based in Denmark. The clothes definitely have a Scandinavian feel, were absolutely beautiful, and unfortunately for me, only available in Europe. They were not outrageously expensive if you could do a straight-across pound-to-dollar conversion, but once you added in the exchange rate, prices were pushed dangerously close to ~ouch~ territory. I bought a few things that are lovely and that I hope to be able to wear for a long time, but I'm still pining after these shoes:

Though at $190 + 3% fee for using my credit card in another currency + shipping from England, they might just have to remain The Ones that Got Away.

And now if you'll excuse me, I believe I need to go shopping for boots!

Home from London!

"No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, 
he is tired of life;

for there is in London all that life can afford."

-Samuel Johnson

I didn't get tired of London--but my feet were tired, I missed my kids and my husband and my suitcase was full, so I had to come home. :)

I got home Sunday at around 5 pm (midnight London time) and lasted until about 8:30 p.m. before I crashed, then I woke up at 2 a.m. (9 a.m. London time), bright-eyed and ready to go. Fortunately there were about 1000 items in my Google Reader so I whiled away the dark hours by catching up on what you all have been doing while I've been gone. I had to have a few short naps to get through the rest of the day but I managed to go to bed at a normal time and only woke up a little early this morning, so I think I've shaken my jet lag and I'm back to normal now.

I downloaded my photos this morning so I have a few favorites to share with you:

One of the reasons I wanted to go back to London so badly was because I spent a semester there in college in 1998, studying at the BYU London Centre. That was probably the most FUN four months of my entire life! I made lovely friends, saw amazing sights, learned lots, and didn't have to worry about a darn thing. It was wonderful, and I have so many fond memories of my time there that I still, 12 years later, have dreams that I'm in London. I was eager to revisit this happy place and curious to see how accurate my memories really were. In this photo I'm standing on the steps of the Centre, just before we rang the bell and went inside for a quick look around and to find my photo in the album of past group pictures. I was also tickled to find that my memories of the neighborhood are quite accurate and it looks very much the same as it did then.

On Tuesday night, my mom and I went to see Billy Elliot. We'd both seen the movie and liked it, and I liked the show more than I even expected. The boy who played Billy was excellent--it's got to be a lot of work to basically carry an entire stage musical at the age of only 12 or 13!

I'd really hoped to get some thrifting in on our trip--I was on the lookout for charity shops but I only found a few and we only went in one. I did find a great vintage store near the Notting Hill Gate tube station, up the road towards Portobello Road, and I purchased this little green pottery basket. It's by a Scottish maker I've never heard of--Govancroft--but it fits in perfectly with my other green vintage pottery pieces!

On Wednesday we took the train out to Windsor and spent the day in the castle. It was very interesting and we learned all about the Knights of the Garter. This is St. George's chapel at the castle, where the knights are all installed. This was the only clear, sunny (also FREEZING COLD) day we had the whole week and the afternoon light was so pretty on the chapel.

The other highlight of Windsor--my first visit to Cath Kidston. Linda, I thought of you the whole time I was there! It was hard to decide what treasures to bring home but I ended up with this adorable oilcloth Christmas apron and this set of tea towels in a perfect jadeite green. My mom bought a darling purse and I may regret not buying one too.

We loved Cath so much that we visited her store in Chelsea on Saturday, where we found this darling chandelier made of teacups and souvenir spoons.

On Thursday morning the weather was especially terrible, with pouring rain and gale-force winds. Then after a bit it cleared off, so we set out to the Tate Modern Museum and swung by St. Paul's Cathedral since we were in the neighborhood. Although the sun was out, another storm was on its way and the skies behind the cathedral were dark. Coupled with the bright sunlight on the dome, the effect was absolutely striking! We couldn't take enough pictures and I don't think I even captured the magic with my camera. It was breathtaking.

On Friday we visited the Museum of London, but I purposely planned our route to take us to King's Cross station just so we could visit Platform 9 3/4. We searched but couldn't find it (it's actually between 8 and 9, rather than 9 and 10) but my mom was brave enough to ask someone who directed us to it. We met another American Harry Potter fan there and took turns posing with each other's cameras. Thursday night was the big Harry Potter 7 part 1 movie premiere in Leicester Square, and we were within just blocks of it but didn't know! Too bad--we might have braved the crowds to see if we could have caught a glimpse of the movie's stars!

 

For this trip, we did something different--we rented a flat rather than staying in a hotel. Lodging in London is notoriously expensive and the one we found was more expensive than we'd hoped, but it turned out to be really wonderful and I think it was really worth the expense. It was right on Pall Mall, about a four-minute walk to the Piccadilly Circus tube station, a slightly longer walk to Trafalgar Square and just down the block from St. James's Palace. Across the street from our building were some of the most exclusive and hoity-toity men's clubs in London, including the Athenaeum. On the ground floor of our building was a business that sells superyachts, for the uber-wealthy for whom a regular yacht is just too dinky, I suppose.

Access to our flat was via five flights of stairs or the tiniest elevator I've ever seen. I think I've been in bigger phone booths! My mom and I barely fit at the same time, and whenever we rode I had a mini-panic attack from envisioning getting stuck in there, as most times we were entering or leaving the building in the morning or evening when nobody else was around. When we left with our suitcases we had to go one at a time and I had to send our bag of trash down by itself, because I would have had to carry it on my head to fit it into the lift with me and my suitcase and carry-on!

I didn't take as many photos as I had intended, a fact which I may regret later. Honestly, the weather was pretty yucky and gray and frequently windy and rainy--not exactly ideal photographic conditions, not to mention that it's hard to hold an umbrella and work a dSLR camera at the same time! I'll just have to be happy with the photos I took and hope that my memory holds up.

And couldn't Prince William and Kate have announced their engagement a week earlier? Viewing the aftermath of that would have been fun!

I'm off to London to see the Queen

This little blog has been quiet for a few days because I've been making lists like crazy and packing to get ready for my big trip to London! I leave for the airport in a few hours and my tummy is doing flip-flops--a combination of excitement and nerves.

My flight leaves around 5 pm and arrives in London at 9 am local time, which translates to 2 am my time. I'm hoping to get some sleep on the plane thanks to my little friend Ambien so I that I'm not a total wreck tomorrow--I'm only there for 6 days so I can't afford to lose any precious time to jet lag.

I'm taking my iPod touch with me so hopefully we can find some free wi-fi and maybe I can even post once or twice. When I get back I know I'll have plenty of photos to share and I'm determined to find some good English junk to bring home--wish me luck!

Ferb, I know what we're gonna do today

My hair's still green. Three days straight of going to bed with green hair will do that to bleached blonde highlights I guess, even if you use lots of shampoo. Wanna know why my hair was green for four days?

I'm finally living out my fantasy of having group Halloween costumes! It helps to have a husband who's willing to go along with just about anything and kids who are still young enough that I can talk them into dressing up the way I want. :) We decided a few months ago that for Halloween this year, we would dress up as characters from our family's favorite TV show, Phineas and Ferb.

The Mister was evil genius Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz

complete with a Nerf gun  "-inator"

I was Ferb

with green hair courtesy of a can of green hair spray paint (I looked forever for a wig but never could find one)

Maren was Isabella

in a dress made from one of my tank tops, a spray-painted vintage buckle, a wig and a homemade pink bow headband

And Porter was Perry the Platypus

in a costume that I conjured from thin air! Well, not so much thin air as polar fleece, felt, and a ping pong ball.

I actually made Porter's costume all by myself with no pattern and I don't mind telling you that I'm a little bit proud of it. I used an existing shirt and pants of his to get the size and drew my own pattern. I sewed a matching hood and attached two halves of a painted ping pong ball with painted eyeballs that pointed in opposite directions for authenticity. I used tan felt to make his tail and sewed across it in a crosshatch pattern with brown thread and pinned it to the back of his pants. The bill and feet were made from yellow felt and the bill was stuffed with batting. It was pretty darn hilarious and anyone who has seen the show knew exactly who he was supposed to be!

We got good mileage out of our costumes, wearing them for what felt like three days straight but was actually five separate occasions over four days. The only things we had to buy were my green hair spray, The Mister's lab coat (something we can probably use again or resell), a $6 Wal Mart wig and $5 white turtleneck for Maren (which she can wear this winter), the Phineas doll (since we ran out of family members) and the materials for Porter's costume (the hood & tail are detachable so he can wear the fleece suit this winter). It all turned out just exactly like I pictured it in my head and we got so many fun comments from people who knew who we were supposed to be!

Maren already told me who she wants to be next year, so I have a whole year to keep an eye out for the right pieces at the thrift stores--it should be fun!

Halloween 2009
Halloween 2008

Technical difficulties

I'm dying to show you all our Halloween costumes and tell you why my hair is STILL green, but darn it if I didn't run out of photo space on Blogger at the most inopportune time! I've purchased more photo storage space but it hasn't updated yet, so I still can't upload any photos. Don't give up on me--I'll be back as soon as I can!