rustic windchime

So much for my plans of posting a bit more regularly. All the best intentions and all that... things just get away from me.

I may have mentioned I'm currently working 5 days a week. I gotta tell you, I'm loving the extra money. What I'm not loving is the time squeeze on doing my own stuff.

I've got a couple of projects on the go in the casita, one is finished and just waiting for me to be at home during the day, preferably when its not raining, so I can take pics of it to share.

Perhaps tomorrow will be the lucky day!

Meanwhile I thought I'd share my latest rustic windchime. I just love these things. I have the first one I ever made hanging in the middle of the living room cause the wind on the porch almost destroyed it. I think I'll be moving it to the mudroom or enclosed porch when I remember to do it.

I find these old hand sanders in tip shops occasionally and collect them. I then use my pre-rusted eye screws to hang all kinds of junk from them. I love to add some crystals for a bit of sparkle and copper wire for a bit of colour.

I still haven't cleaned up the office or moved things around as planned. Without a working light in there its kind of hard to do anything in the evening, but honestly, its such a mess in there that it fries me brain if I even think about tackling it.

Heck. I still haven't put away the washing I folded last weekend. Every time I need undies or socks I just grab them out of the basket, why bother putting them in the drawers?

Sigh.

I'm not a very good housewife. Turns out my grandmother was right. She said that if I couldn't iron properly I'd never make a good wife and no one would want to marry me.

Right on both counts!

Anyway, I don't iron - well or otherwise. If I can't wash and wear it, I don't buy it.

But I did learn something from my mother: if you hang things on the line properly (and fold them!) then you don't need to iron.

Turns out she hated ironing too.

z

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more wire work and plans

Sharing more pretty wire stuff.

Just cause I can.

And mainly cause right now its about the only thing I have which is both finished and photographed.

Last weekend I'd planned to clean up the office (again) and bring in the new/old wardrobe I want to use in there for storage.

The office hardly gets used any more. Not since I got a laptop and got rid of the ol' coal burner (my old desktop) and since winter set in.

See, the office is the furthest room from the wood heater. Its darn cold in there in winter. When I had the desktop in there and I had to use it every day, I kept the door opened all the time and had a small bar heater under the desk for my feet. Even then my fingers would often freeze.

I've decided I should swap the guest room and office. The guest room is a dull room right now. Its got a beigey brown carpet, taupe walls, a small window, the bed and tons of stuff I have to move out whenever we have visitors.

The office on the other hand is pretty. I removed the salmon carpet, did up the floorboards to match the kitchen and hallway, painted it white so its bright and cheerful, and it has a huge window which lets in the morning sun.

I'm thinking about putting the bed under the shelves and opposite the large antique map. The office is a long narrow room, meaning there'll be just enough room on either side of the bed for a bedside table, but the end of the room will be spacious enough to allow for the small cupboard I use as a linen cupboard. The map will make a great view from the bed and the shelves will look interesting around the bedhead.

The guest room is a square room with lots of wall space since it has such a small window. The carpet keeps it warmer in winter, and since its not salmon it can stay a while. Being closer to the wood heater means less chance of freezing fingers, plus its closer to the wifi modem. I want to move the printer, the printer/scanner, and the odd office bits out of the living room and into the new office.

Its bad enough Wayne has an office in here and I work in here, we don't need all the office stuff in here too.

So, last weekend I planned to clean up the office and bring up the new/old wardrobe to hold craft supplies as I mentioned. Then I thought, why move it up if I'm going to swap rooms? Makes no sense to move it twice, right?

I can't swap rooms till I get rid of Wayne for a weekend, though. He doesn't handle the mess of moving furniture well, and the swap would need the entire contents of the office and guest room being moved into the living room. A great time to do some really good cleaning, sorting and organising. I'll paint the guest room white to make it less depressing before moving all the office stuff into it, and I can have fun decorating the new guest room.

All of which will take way more than one weekend to do!

sigh.

Meanwhile, today I wiped myself out. I'd done some grooming, had a late breakfast, then knuckled down to work. It was sunny so I pooper-scooped and tried weeding. The weeds won. There are just too many of them. Next time the weather is good enough I'm spraying the suckers.

I took apart our Whirlpool washing machine (I watched a Youtube video, how would you do it?) to try to sort out the annoying lint problem. Of course what I found in our washing machine wasn't exactly like I saw on Youtube, but heck, it still works and the lint problem can't be worse than it was! And it still works. That's gotta be a win.

I made a drawer for the sidetable/box on castors I've been working on. I started on a cut down chair which will be a bedside table for the new guest room. I was busy sanding the chair when I was suddenly hit by a wave of exhaustion. I could barely walk to the house and it took all I had to shower and wash my hair.

Maybe it was low blood sugar. I totally ran out of fuel.

Tomorrow is another day. Remind me to eat lunch.

z

fairy bed

I just love these little wire beds. I love making them and I love looking at them.

How pretty is this?

Ok, so it might have no real use, unless you have a dollhouse or a visiting fairy, but its so delicate and fine and... just... well, pretty!

This is the second wire bed I've made and its a bit fancier than the first one. It has a mattress made from a tea dyed napkin - it was stained and in the throw out pile so I decided to use the best bits.

It also has a little 'crochet' cushion, made from a piece of doily.

I actually made this little bed a couple of months ago but didn't have my 'light box' in the office where I could use it easily.

Plus, to make matters worse, I tried to change the pendant light in the office to test a new one, and ended up stuffing up the light fixture. I now have no light in the office.

I think I need an electrician.

In the end I rigged up two floor lamps, a desk lamp, a box and a white sheet and got some pics.

One of these days I might actually have a proper set up for taking photos of things. I just need good lighting like the kind I use when making films...

Anyway, I got pretty decent pics of the bed so I'm happy.

z

you know what really gets my goat?

Its blogs that have videos that just start playing when you open the page.

I mean, I know that the lucky bloggers earn money from advertising appearing on their blog... but really, do we have to have the bloody videos start streaming without wanting them to?

I have this habit of opening a million pages at once. Every time I check my email, I click on all the links to open blogs I follow that have alerted me to new posts.

That means that I'll be happily clicking away when suddenly some stupid ad will start blaring at me, annoying the crap out of Wayne who's trying to watch TV or read in peace, as I frantically try to locate the offending video and shut it down.

Sometimes I just shut the page without reading the post cause I'm annoyed.

A lot of time I have my sound turned off, just to avoid this problem. And I don't think I should have to live without sound cause I enjoy reading blogs who's advertisers place automatically playing ads on their pages!

sheesh.

Ok, I feel better now.

z