I Bought Myself a Paper Doll

I've been wanting some art around my home but can't afford most anything I like, but then I saw this sweet doll and with shipping it was under 20$, yay! I am going to cut her out (carefully! I'm such a klutz) and mount her and the wolf in a shadowbox for my bedroom.



She is from Wool and Water

I don't know why, I've always been interested in the imagery in Red Riding Hood, even though I never really liked the story as a kid.

Anil Kapoor from Slumdog Millionaire Donated His Paycheque

What a great story to receive in my inbox from Plan Canada:

We don’t usually celebrate Oscar nominations with our donors, but we’re making an exception for Slumdog Millionaire, the Golden Globe winner that earned ten Oscar nominations last week, including one for Best Picture.

Shot in the slums of Mumbai, this wonderful movie is a must see for Plan supporters – not just because this heart-warming (and at times heart-rending) film brings the struggles and aspirations of young people living in poverty to life on the big screen, but because Anil Kapoor, who plays the movie’s villain [he plays the host of the game show], donated his entire fee for the movie to Plan’s Universal Birth Registration campaign in India.

One of India’s biggest stars, Kapoor has been a Plan ambassador since 2005, supporting the cause of registering each and every child’s birth in India. "I have received a lot of love and affection from people,” he says, “and helping this cause is one of the most meaningful ways in which I can repay that and make a contribution to society."

Why birth registration matters

An estimated 36 percent of all children born worldwide are not registered at birth. In South Asia, the percentage is an astounding 63 percent. Without a birth certificate, these children are robbed of their basic right to an identity and can lose their access to education, health care and protection under the law. They’re also more vulnerable to forced marriage, child labour, child trafficking and prostitution.

Join Anil Kapoor in making a difference

Registering births is one of the simplest ways of improving the lives of children in the developing world. Since the launch of our Universal Birth Registration campaign in February 2005, Plan has registered more than five million children and raised awareness of the importance of birth registration among millions of people.

You can join Anil and help give children a chance at a better life by donating today and helping us register more children.

Or help us spread the word by learning more about Plan’s Universal Birth Registration campaign and what Plan is doing to make a difference.

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For the past few months I've been mulling over restarting my Blackbird Pie etsy shop and donating all the proceeds towards training a midwife in Uganda. I've got a couple of gifts I am working on now, I think I will finish them and then work towards this project.

Slumdog Millionaire

Saw this on Saturday night, one of the best movies I've seen in a long time.

Paper Toys

Paper crafts, especially papercuts (sigh, so lovely) seem to be more popular now and I've been finding all kinds of cool websites with paper crafts for kids and adults.

Some of the beautiful paper toys from The Toy Maker.

I printed off The Adventures of Florimel to make for myself.



















The paper dolls are really sweet.














Canon also has a site of really cool paper toys to print. Blackbird Jr's favourites are from Craftown, a city set that includes vehicles and buildings. They include instructions and lots of detail (which is not surprising as they sell printers and ink, lol).



Little Red Riding Hood



Locomotive



Taj Mahal



Phee McFaddell also has some cool toys, like this Dragon Puppet.

Valentine's Day Button Book

from Lavender and Limes.

My grossest post yet.

Don't read while eating, ok?

So, you go to do the laundry and as you flip a dirty towel into a washing machine half-full of water, you realize there was a bunch of dried cat poop in the towel. Do you:

a) fish around in the water to pick out cat poop with your bare hand?
b) barf into the machine?
c) throw out the machine, with the towels in it and buy a new one?
d) drop off the cats at the SPCA. You love them, but you have a limit.
e) all of the above except a.

I Walked 18 Kms this Weekend

I did my walk around the museum that I posted below on Saturday and then another walk on Sunday through Bonnie Doon, Holyrood and Forest Heights. I took Blackbird Jr with me on Saturday and while I wondered if taking a 4 year old on a 4 hour walk would be a big mistake, he did beautifully. We stopped at any playground we saw for a few minutes and did a detour to Westmount mall for lunch. Pushing the stroller though the slushy snow, however, was freaking hard! He did walk sometimes but 8 kms is just too far for him.

Some photos:

Modern new house by an older character house. I love the diversity of housing styles in older neighbourhoods.



The houses in Westmount are just beautiful.





I call this one the Owl House. It's in the Holyrood/Forest Heights area.



and I found a Mystery Machine!



more photos in my flickr set here

Using Google Maps to Plan Walks or Runs

Google maps are really useful for planning walks or runs when you have a specific distance you want to travel. This is a map I made where you can park at the museum, go for a long walk around some of the local parks, gawk at fancy/interesting houses and grab a Second Cup coffee on your way back to the car. I was aiming for around 8 km and not too much walking along busy roads, though I did add a stretch on 124th street for the coffee. There are some really cool houses in the Westmount Architectural Heritage Area, just west of 124th street there.



I entered the museum address for spot A and for B, the address of a location not too far away and then I dragged B over closer to A. Google maps provided a straight line between the two places, which I then dragged all over- the circles are points where I grabbed the line and dragged it over to get to the distance I wanted on a route I wanted to travel. There is a weird line on 107 ave where it juts out East, and I think that must be so you can go to the crosswalk on 107th ave and 124th street before heading south on 123rd street again.

Interviewing Blackbird Jr

I was inspired by this post on Bella Dia's The Crafty Crow website. The Crafty Crow is a very inspiring website of activities to do with children and well worth reading regularly.

This was how my interview with Jr went:

If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
- he'd keep his name

Where do you want to go for our next vacation?
- "the trolley" (he means our subway train, the LRT)

What is your favourite book?
- "busytown" (He had just gotten a new Richard Scarry book that day)

What is your favourite movie?
- "LOTS. Tractor Tom, Busytown, Bob the Builder and the ABCs and 123s" ("ABCs and 123s" are the They Might Be Giants' DVDs of music videos)

How old is mommy?
-"44" wrong

How old is daddy?
-"45 and 46" very wrong

What's your favourite thing to eat?
- "candy"

What's your favourite thing to cook?
-"banana bread"

What's your favourite thing about school?
- "playing in the sand"

Is there anything you want to ask Mommy?
- pause
- "do you have to go pee?"

Target Women: 2008

I love the water.

highlights from aquafit this morning:

- the surreal feeling of scraping ice of your car in the dark and feeling your swimsuit ride up
- starting off the class blasting the theme song from Ghostbusters
- someone came with a guide dog. The dog did not participate.
- everyone wishing one class participant Happy 75th Birthday
- the class instructor was far more fit than I am, despite being around 30 years older than me. Kinda inspiring.
- the cashier was discussing tantric yoga and tantric sex with a customer while I was leaving

Craft Rant

My stupid cross stitch sampler I've been working on is one of the biggest time sucks I've ever made. I spent hours designing it on graph paper, cutting and pasting with scissors and glue, only to find out when I scanned and printed the design the grid got messed up in the process. I was about to copy it all out again by hand when Mr Blackbird suggested I look for a computer program. Found a cross stitch program for macs, spent two or three evenings after Jr went to bed uploading and editing the design. Finally was happy with it so I saved it and went to print it. Started stitching last night only to stitch for 2 hours (2 eps of Six Feet Under, naturally) and realize for whatever reason the program had printed off an old version of the chart that was missing a bunch of stuff. I started up the program this morning and my final version isn't there. WTF, I know I clicked save, lots of times. And because I've done a few rows in the middle of my aida cloth, it'll be all stretched out if I remove the stitches, so I need to go back to the store and buy another large piece of aida cloth. Because fucking Michael's put our smaller craft stores out of business (I used to be able to walk to a small craft store) I have to drive 30 minutes again to get more aida cloth.

Just had to complain. I've put more than 10 hours into this project already and now am back to the computer drawing board to try to update my design again. Bah.

The Adventures of Polo

Blackbird Jr's new favourite books are The Adventures of Polo and Polo: The Runaway Book by Regis Faller. They are written comic book style with few words (if any) and with plenty of action. Here are a few panels:






There is also a Polo website, which is lots of fun and full of surprises. There are little aliens hiding and you can also find Polo doing different things around the site. As well, there is a printable boat craft (which we've assembled), colouring pages to print and games if you click on the right things. Jr's favourite is to find the aliens that play music when you click them.

I picked up a couple of blank shirts and Blackbird Jr requested a Polo one so this is what I made, using one of the colouring sheets as a pattern:

Nordic Craft

Spotted some inspiring craft projects by Nordic Craft today (found via Craft Zine's blog).

I like this little art quilt that she made:



and she has provided a pattern for an embroidery sampler for the New Year:



I am also working on a sampler, to be done in cross stitch. I am making the pattern by hand on grid paper and it's a pain in the ass.