The most amazing Tetris dress
I’ve spent more hours than I care to admit playing Tetris, particularly the multi-player version Tetrinet. You know you’re playing too much when you start having dreams of colorful shapes and how best to make it all fit.
Needless to say, I think this Tetris dress is totally awesome. And of course I had to know where one would find such a fabric. The answer is as wonderful as the dress. Mix Etsy and Spoonflower and great things can happen. It’s an amazing world we live in my creative friends, not only did those talented folk work together to get that fabric made, it’s also available for use under the creative commons. So if you’ve always dreamed of a Tetris dress of your own, it’s within your reach!
Cute handmade camera straps
I love these handmade camera straps from etsy shop lilybug in Ottawa. What a great way to personalize your camera! My coworker got one for her mom for Christmas, a great gift idea and of course a great way to support independent designers.
Striped Scarf
Here’s a quick photo I snapped of the scarf I am making for my mom. It’s based on this lovely Noro Scarf from brooklyntweed, but instead of Noro I am using Wooly Stripes by Nashua Handknits in Ocean. Since I am using two skeins of the same colorway it’s a bit tricky to keep the stripes defined, in some spots both yarns are the same color so you get a solid block of that color. But I guess it’s all part of the randomness and the finished product will still look nice. Right? I hope my mom likes it!
Photo: Beaver Lake in Stanley Park
Beaver Lake in Stanley Park
The sun was shining in full force today so we went for a walk in Stanley Park. We took a short break to bask in the sun at Beaver Lake and that’s where I took this photo. Note the mist rising off the water at middle left.
We had a visit from a couple of chickadees, but they didn’t stay long as we didn’t have food for them. The chickadees around Beaver Lake will eat out of your hand if you bring them some birdseed.
Yarn sale!
I twittered about this a few days ago, but had to wait for the week-end to have enough natural light to take some photos of my yarn scores. Sucks that it gets dark at 4:30pm, but such is life. Actually, aren’t the days going to start getting longer tomorrow?
Anyway, some yarn deliciousness:
There’s more but I already started knitting the other stuff into a scarf for my mom. Maybe a post on that will follow in the future. Anyway, all this lovely yarn was had for a bargain basement price of $1.99 per skein at good old Dressew. Word on the Raverly Vancouver yarn boards though is that the stock won’t last much longer so head over there if you haven’t already!
Quick and easy holiday address labels
I was just getting some Christmas cards ready to mail when I noticed I had run out of return address labels. So I did a quick google search and found this free Avery download for Holiday Mailing labels. It was so easy that it probably took me longer to download than actually make the labels. And it’s definitely faster than writing out my return address by hand!
In addition to the download, you do need Microsoft Word and some blank printable label sheets, I used the small 80 labels per sheet kind (Avery 5167).
If anyone else knows of some cute free Holiday label templates, please share!
Making a photo book
So I finally got around to making a wedding album with the awesome photos we got from our amazing photographers. After much research online on various vendors, I had it narrowed down to Blurb and MyPublisher based on reports of quality and price.
I hemmed and hawed trying to decide which one to use. I found the MyPublisher software really easy to work with, they offer lots of great photo layouts that suited my purpose and didn’t require any customization. The downer however was their lack of cover options and the extra charges that were adding up fast for every page over the 20 that are included in the base price.
Blurb has more interesting propositions for covers, particularly the image wrap option which is what I was really after. However their photo layouts all sucked and while their free software allows the creation of custom layouts, I didn’t feel it allowed me enough precision to satisfy my neurotic perfectionist tendencies. They are more generous with their pages, the base price includes up to 40 and that was definitely a plus. Eventually I was enticed to go with them thanks to a 20% off + free shipping coupon. The coupon’s looming expiry date was just the kick in the butt I needed to get my book made.
Since I had to create the page layouts from scratch I downloaded a trial version of Adobe InDesign. With the help of this Adobe InDesign Photobook Tutorial I powered through a laying out marathon one Saturday and put the whole thing together. It was time consuming but the results were well worth it. Blurb also makes it very easy to create a book that way, they have an option to upload pdfs of your cover and pages and it all worked very well. I also made sure to splurge for the premium paper since there were reports that their regular paper is a bit on the thin side.
Overall I’m quite pleased with the result. It’s pretty satisfying to be able to hold the finished product in my hands and now I want to make more books!
Fodder for pondering
For some inspiration or insights, check out Seth Godin’s free e-book What Matters Now. It’s a collection of ideas of things to think about. It sounds trite to put it that way, but really, have a flip through it.
No excuses not to exercise
I was having a hard time trying to figure out what to do to get a bit of exercise without having to pay big bucks, like joining a gym or something. In the spring/summer I was running but now that it’s winter I can’t bring myself to get out there in the dark and cold.
Then I discovered that iTunes has some pretty great yoga podcasts published by Yoga Journal. They are free and they make it so easy to get a bit of exercise in the comfort of your own home, at a time that is convenient for you. All I had to do was buy a yoga mat (which I found on sale for $15 at Canadian Tire) and was good to go.
The only snafu is that some of the videos have poses that require additional props like blocks and belts. So far I just try and substitute, or do without, but at some point I will probably end up purchasing some kind of overpriced yoga kit with those things. Although I did see one such kit that included blocks, a belt, one of those big inflatable balls and a mat for $40. Probably would have been better to buy that from the get-go rather than just the mat, but I didn’t see it until after the fact. I saw the kit in the Shopper’s Drugmart Christmas gift idea flyer but haven’t gotten as far as looking for it in a store.
Regardless, the podcasts have been getting me off my butt. They average about 25mins which is nice and short and makes it dead easy to fit into your day. My downward dog has gone from fail to mediocre and I’m sure it will continue to improve.
Asploded is back, alright!
Got the asploded domain back after loosing because of registrar fail and living creditcardless in Japan. Although I think I had asploded.net at the time. Regardless, .com is probably better anyway. Anyway, nice to see that the domain parking hogs will finally drop a domain after a while, feel lucky that I was able to snatch this!
I’m also totally amazed at the leaps and bounds in improvements wordpress continues to make. As a serial blog starter it never ceases to amaze me how much easier it gets every time!
