WEEK 17 – VANCOUVER
We’re in Vancouver right now…our favourite Canadian city to visit! We’re calling it our food-vacation because all we do when we come here is EAT! Sushi, seafood, Indian, Thai, Chinese….oh my!!! All these photos were taken on our trip from last August.
I would like to introduce to you my sister-in-law, Maria. She has graciously accepted my invitation to do a DIY guest post of her Urban Chicken Door Stops. I am very excited to have her as a guest blogger. Please leave her a comment. 
***~***
Hello there!
My name is Maria, and I am admittedly, a half-assed crafty person. That is, I get a surge of energy and a great idea, run around like a freak collecting all the stuff I need to make something, then sit on it for the next three months. Plus, my two little ones tend to occupy 95% of my waking energy. So, the projects are few and far between. But, it is, oh so satisfying when I do get those moments to put something together. This is one of those little projects I’d like to share.
My husband brought home about two dozen fabric swatch books one day about a year ago – beautiful, gorgeous, upholstery fabrics, just waiting for some creative projects. We live in an old, drafty, crooked but much loved 1912 house, so I was intending to make some patchwork draft dodgers. While I was scouring the Internet for a free pattern to make one, I came across this tutorial for a chicken door stop. It was absolutely perfect – our old doors never quite stay open because nothing is quite square in the house, and, well, I LOVE chickens!
I mostly followed the directions to a T, so I’ll just show you what I did. The minor adjustments I made were mostly so I could understand what I was doing, because I am a very novice sewer. If you know your way around a sewing machine, you can whip one of these off in no time!
This is just a bit of the fabric I got:
I used the clear plastic that covered one of my fabric swatch books as my template so that I could use it again. Also, I wanted the chickens to be dual purpose – doorstop + occasional cookbook holder-opener. So I enlarged the pattern by 50% (I think, you’ll have to play with it to get the size you want). Then I wrote down exactly where the comb, waddle and beak were to go on the pattern.
The sewing up only takes a few minutes actually. For me, most of the time was spent figuring out where all the chicken parts go.
And that bottom piece was a bit fiddly, but accuracy, thankfully, is not a big deal.
When I sewed the last edge, I did make a point of leaving that 2″ or so gap right in the middle, instead of a corner. That’s because I find it hard to make it look good hand sewing into an end.
And then I filled my chicken with uncooked rice. I ended up just rolling my template piece into a cone shape as my other funnel was too small. The plastic worked really well.
There are many eyeball options. I opted for the non-sewing option. The girls had a bunch of googly eyes kicking around, and I think you just can’t go wrong with googly eyes. So …
I decided to give this one great big eyeballs. I know chickens have beady little eyes, but BIG eyes are so fun! Here she is with her sister, whose beak I think is a bit too elongated. While I freehanded the beaks, etc. I realized after the first one that the beak should be more equilateral triangle like and not so long and pointy.
We now have chickens at almost every door of the house standing guard. Bok bok!
WEEK 16 – RAINBOOTS
Rainboots make you feel like a kid again. There’s nothing like going to play in the puddles, splish splashing all while your feet stay dry!
1. Mbryan777 2. emma bo bemma1 3. Imaekelly
4.jronaldlee 5. runran 6. kosmosnautica
7. lygeialupin 8. snapshotie48 9. red colander
Monday is the first stat holiday of the summer, Victoria Day. This is typically the weekend where everyone starts their yardwork projects. I am very excited because I ordered 90 perennials from Costco on Tuesday and they arrived via UPS this afternoon! Just in time for the long weekend! I was pleasantly surprised because the website said they would arrive within 7-10 days. I didn’t expect them to arrive until next week! The weather is typically unpredictable this time of year and it is not unusual to see rain and/or snow on this particuliar weekend so, Seb and I took advantage of the nice-ish weather this afternoon and started digging!
We started with extending an existing flowerbed on the west side of the yard. Using the EdgeHog, we managed to get the turf out fairly easily.
Before
After
A VERY happy husband sitting in the dirt.
We didn’t expect it to take as little time as it did, so we started the next flowerbed in the SW corner of the yard.
Before
After
Next thing to do is get some blocks (we want to match the ones under the fence) to retain the earth. Then rottertill some compost in and then the fun part of planting the flowers! Can’t wait!
Hello!
Today is Monday and it is the start of a new week. Let’s get it started!!
This week, I hope to share with you…
WEEK 15 – Spring Flowers
I love seeing life immerge from the frozen ground and snow. It’s beautiful and feels hopeful…somehow. If these beautiful delicate flowers can tough out the winter and immerge through it, I can too. Tulips, daffodils and crocuses! Oh my!
***ALL PHOTOS ARE FROM WWW.WEHEARTIT.COM***
I’ve been going to bed at 9:30pm and sleeping right through till morning for the past 2 nights. I see it’s 9:34pm now and I can barely keep my eyes open…zzzzzzzzzzzz…
Sorry for the lack of content…more to come…I promise!
Night. Night.
Hello!
The sun is FINALLY shining here! I hope to be able to get into my garden soon! soon!!
How are all of you? What would you like to see here on my little blog? Any suggestions?
Christine
WEEK 14 – SPARKLERS
So pretty! I had sparklers on my 4th birthday cake! I was afraid of fire and I have no idea how my parents thought that was a good idea but I remember that birthday! hahah!
***ALL PHOTOS ARE FROM WWW.WEHEARTIT.COM***