Wren wishing her new friends farewell

Wren's new monster chums are now on their way to Distill Gallery in Toronto where they will hopefully be getting new homes soon.

And here is the same shot just over a year ago!

Wow she has changed so much (except the hair)

Making Monsters

A newly thrifted basket makes great storage for body parts in the process of becoming monsters.

Two Dimensional Embroideries

I've been trying my hand at some two-dimensional embroideries. I have been hoarding embroidery hoops from thrift stores for a while now so it's about time I used them. These were all done with wool felt and cotton DMC floss.

Violet

Rolleiflex Camera

Azul

Serif and Eli

A Belated Happy Hallowe'en

I hope that everyone had a great Hallowe'en. I'm a little ashamed of Wren's obvious store bought costume (Value Village at least). I had great plans to make her something wonderful but with all the new projects I have been working on for my new business making baby things I've been swamped. My mom's a Mickey and Minnie fan and she found the costume and Minnie toy. I wasn't that impressed with her choice until I saw Wren wearing it and I almost died laughing.

Kid Stuff at Distill in Toronto

If you're in Toronto be sure to check out the "Kid Stuff" show starting Wednesday at Distill. I have sent some child sized snake scarves (try saying that 10 times in a row) and some monsters for little ones with rattles inside. It sounds like it's going to be a great show. I wish I was there!

New Treasures

I admit it, I'm a hoarder. I love the thrill of the hunt when I enter a thrift store/yard sale/estate sale. I'm actually still on a high from my Value Village trip 8 hours ago. It was probably one of my best shops in months though. Amongst a bunch of other things I came away with the most amazing knitted suit for Wren with an elephant on it by Danish company Me Too and it is brand new. I'm crossing my fingers it will still fit her by the time the weather cools down.

Here are some of my recent favorite vintage finds:

A weather house! When I was little and it was really cold my mum used to take me for hot chocolate on the way home from school at a place called the Chocolate Box. I was always mesmerized by the cuckoo clocks and other decorations that they had hanging up and this weather house reminds me of them. I've had it 2 weeks and the little man has yet to go inside. I haven't figured out whether it's broken or it's just Halifax and our beautiful weather.

The most amazing/creepy Santa. His head is attached with a spring so he nods. I love his hand painted face. Too bad he's lost a shoe.

Pyrex coffee pot. I'm going to have to start entertaining again so that I can make use of this coffee pot. I was instantly drawn to the shape of this when I saw it on a table of china at a yard sale. It was a steal at $4. It has space for a tealight underneath to keep the coffee hot. It's funny I've always disliked gold, well anything metallic really and suddenly I'm drawn to everything gold and shiny.

Vegetable Garden

This year we tried our hand at vegetable gardening. I really don't have much of a green thumb but our garden is so large we really don't have an excuse to not give it a go. It's been frustrating. First it took so long to warm up and then there was all the rain that washed away half of the pepper plants. What remained got mostly devoured by birds and slugs. I never imagined I'd be out in the garden with a salt shaker cackling at the slugs shriveling up (a trick I learned from my grandmother, who I thought was completely loopy when I caught her doing this, now I completely understand).

Thankfully the cherry tomatoes, peas and beans survived. Our first harvest was pretty pathetic but we're happy nonetheless, especially Wren who has a penchant for raw green beans.

And just for fun let's compare our harvest against that of our fruit and veggie CSA from Taproot Farms. YUM!!!