work in progress

i like doing this blog for two reasons - one, it gives me weekly goals and two, it's nice to have all of my projects in one place. but, on the flip side, i sometimes avoid more complicated projects in order to post once a week. i have a few big projects that i have stuck in my head that need to come out! the project i'm working on now is a little complicated. i spent last week working it out by building little models out of cardboard to make sure it would work. these boxes are going to eventually rotate!

i've approached the nova scotia designers crafts council to see if i can become a member. in order to become a member you have to submit three pieces to be judged. i'm hoping this one will work out as a submission. my jury session is october 10th...yikes! stay tuned!

crazy cool tables

i'm a bit of a new design junkie. i'm addicted to being wowed by other peoples ingenuity. these two tables definitely impress. i want the marble table above by tineke beunders . how clever and fun!


i love this musical coffee table by tor clausen, too. how much fun would this be with a couple of kids (or a couple of drinks!).

a baby duvet

what happened to summer? we've had to put the heat on two nights in a row! so, i thought it was time to make a little baby duvet for eden. luckily, my mum had an old duvet that she was happy to let me cut up! cutting up a duvet was crazy...i felt like i was working in a snowglobe for a couple of hours - down feathers everywhere! i'm still picking feathers out of my sewing machine.

out of one queen sized comforter i was able to make two baby duvets and one twin duvet. this one was covered with a cute hot pink fabric.

just two pieces of fabric sew together, a slot made for the duvet to fit through.

i'm going to pack away my sewing machine now and move back to the table saw! i have some projects stacking up in my head.

table cloth slipcover

this is a project born out of necessicity. i built two benches for my kitchen table over a year ago and made up little cushions for each. i covered them in a gorgeous green textured material...that just got demolished by eden and her new love of throwing food! so, off came the soiled green material, on goes a funky vinyl material.

not so easy to find a great pattern in vinyl. after a couple of trips to the local fabricville i was feeling discouraged. then i go shopping at the local superstore and see the summer stock of vinyl table cloths on sale for $1.99! gotta love that. a quick zip through the sewing machine and i've got myself some inexpensive and kid-proof covers for my cusions!

i seriously need to invest in some lighting and photography lessons. my pictures are dismal. i keep waiting for the sun to come out...but, after two months of rain it's not looking good! take a look at my blog of the week, heather bailey. her whole site is eye candy! her pictures put me to shame. so gorgeous!

wood window treatment

this past week i had a friend ask me if any of my projects turned out in failure. i could answer not really. because, usually, i have a really clear picture of what i want the finished project to look like and how i'm going to build it. i usually don't start a project unless i'm fairly certain it will turn out. and then there was the window treatment....

i remember thinking how simple of a project this would be. yeah...not so much. i haven't cursed this much in a long time! but, i was determined to get it up and working. now that it's up i've decided to take it down and do it another way. but, i'll show you what it looks like now.


the idea was to create a window treatment out of 1/8" mdf panels that could be decorated in any pattern. just four panels on a track.

the front panel is painted white, so that when it's open it blends into the room. when the treatment is closed it reveals the three other designed panels.

i attached pieces of track to a piece of wood that i then attached to the inside of the window. i used pieces of chain to attach the wood to the track sliders.

i still need to figure out a smoother way for the panels to open up and a better way to have the first panel open up the consecutive panels. that's next.

i used a debbie travis' stencil for the design, one in red and one in orange.

a sidebed for a baby (or cat...)

damion left for volleyball camp with our digital camera in tow. that leaves me with no project picture this week. which, really, isn't such a bad thing because i'm ready to throw my window treatment project out the window. so, i wracked my brain about what to show you this week. i think i've dug up almost every project i've ever worked on already!! then i remember my 'cat in the sidebed' picture.

eden slept in our room for the first few months. we had her in the little bassinet on the floor by our bed at first. then, one day, i came across this brilliant idea. a side bed. because we have a platform bed i could make a knock off that i could screw right into the wood of the bed base. although the bottom piece was long enough that when it was slipped under the mattress the weight of the bed kept it pretty securely in place. i made it out of 3/4" plywood. the foam came from the local craft store.


i can't tell you how many times i thanked the designer of this little bed during the 3am feedings (and apologized for ripping off the idea)! it was perfect.

i have a whole series of pictures of my cat, oli, sleeping in eden's things. i think it was his way of adapting to her presence. i have him in her car seat, her bassinet, her little vibrating seat, her sidebed...not her big crib though, sadly oli is too fat to make the jump up and over!

window treatments

i try to keep my home as bright and sunny as possible. for me, that has meant minimal (read, only two in my whole house) window treatments. great in the summer, maybe not the best during a drafty winter. i shouldn't be thinking about winter yet, but we just got a notice from the oil company telling us that our bill is going up by $100 a month this winter! so, i've come up with a window treatment idea that will keep out the drafts and maybe even help heat the place up a bit. while i work away on my prototype i'm showing you the window treatment i currently have in our master bedroom.

i apologize for the terrible picture quality. i should have waited until the sun came over to the front side of the house before taking pictures. they are very dark.

i got the idea for a pulley system type of window treatment from watching an old episode of Home to Go . i took a piece of fabric that i backed with blackout material and wrapped the top and bottom hems around wooden dowels cut to size. i screwed in two eye hooks to the top dowel (through the fabric) and attached rope to each of the two eye hooks. i then threaded the rope through two pulleys that i attached to either side of the top of the window.

it's great. it works just like a pulley - when you pull on the string the curtain goes up and when you let the string go slack the curtain goes down.

the paper laterns on the ceiling have been there for awhile. i love laying in bed and watching them sway to the wind. it probably is time to swap them out for something new, maybe something a bit more colourful. i'll keep my eyes open for new ideas!

swatch storage

i created a place to hang our coats and store our shoes...but, what about the piles of hats, scarves and ever multiplying supply of canvas bags (you know, the ones that you buy for the grocery store but inevidably end up forgetting and having to buy more and then before you know it you wonder why you have so many of these damn bags!)...

so, i created a little storage for all that stuff and managed to hide my washer and dryer a bit from the outside world at the same time - my laundry is in my entrance way.

this storage is my 'signature' white box. yes, i know, i love white boxes! for this one i added a series of 1/2" holes that i placed paint swatches behind to get a gradient look. i added one row of black swatches to help blend in with my big black tree hook.

i hung the whole thing from the ceiling using hooks and threaded 3" stove bolts to hang the boxes from each other.