Ascension day @CasaR

The day started early, as any other weekday, at around 6.30 (yes, that’s AM). When do kids start sleeping in???

After consuming breakfast I started the task I’ve been planning the last week. Redoing my office/crafts corner…(just realized I forgot to take a before picture…oh well, just imagine clutter…) I started moving furniture around and came to the conclusion that I need a new desk. My old desk just isn’t using the space it takes up very efficiently. So hopefully within a few days I will have time for another IKEA trip.

I’m lucky to have great neighbors, after lunch and a few text messages (and BabyL taking a nap) we went to Ekeberg Hysdyrpark. There SweetieS got to pet/feed all kinds of farm animals – cows, horses, sheep, goats, rabbits, they even have peacocks! And if fur coats isn’t you thing they have a play area with seesaws, trampolines and slides – and big open areas to just run off any extra energy the kids might have bottled inside…

Now that the girls have gone to bed I got time for another project of mine. A few weeks ago I ordered myself a pair of cheapy-cheap sneakers. Nothing special about them other than comfortable and light weight. SweetieS has a pair of Kangaroo sneakers I’ve kinda been envious over. SweetieS seems so carefree when wearing them. So when I came over a recommendation on my Facebook group for Ebay recommended buys (it’s a Norwegian group, and its called “Ebay for jenter/kvinner”), I thought I would give it a try. A pair of comfortable everyday sneakers for under 150NOK is worth a try. They are available here. I’m normally a Norwegian/European size 36, buy I bought a size 37 as recommended by both the Ebay seller and on the Facebook group.

Yesterday my pair of sneakers came in the mail…smelling like new plastic I left them in the hallway over night to “air out”. Inspired by another Facebook group (thank you to Trine Aas and Mona Hagelund over @”Ebay Hobby”), I had to add some bling to my shoes.

The sneakers arrived looking like this…(doesn’t come in a shoe box, but not squashed in any way)

not my picture, I just “borrowed” online as I forgot to take a picture after I unpacked them

I pulled off the little triangle on the logo as it just looked misplaced – using my fingers, just pull hard when you have a good hold and it comes off nice and clean. Too used to seeing another logo perhaps? So now my pair of shoes looked more like this…

don’t mind the mess, I’m getting ready to glue on some bling

Half an hour later and a neck somewhat stiffer, I had my pair of bling’d sneakers. Just need the glue to set over night…

not sure the picture does the bling justice…

In case you are wondering about what I used…
I used this bling (2mm flatback rhinestones), from Ebay – used approx 50 pieces per shoe
This glue (E6000), from Ebay. You only need a small amount of this glue, so I recommend buying the small tubes rather than one big tube. My experience is that glue caps tend to glue shut after a while, so less wasted if/when that happens)
As the rhinestones a quite small and difficult to apply by hand, I used this tool to apply the rhinestones. Bought on sale @Panduro Hobby ages ago…

Now off to start the evenings next project – one gets so much done when one is up at the early hours! Next project: Start knitting a pair for pants for SweetieS…

- what have you been up to this sunny day off work?

Another wishlist

We are in May and both SweetieS and BabyL is turning another year older. Time sure flies, SweetieS is turning 3 and BabyL turns 1. Feels like yesterday we were rushing to the hospital….

True to form it has to be celebrated…and here are some wishes “from” my birthday girls. Will update as I remember more things.

SweetieS

Lego basic sets
Lego base plates
Kids scooter with storage compartment – Micro Mini2go(“Sparkesykkel med oppbevaring” )
Cool bicycle bell some cool ones available here
Toilet trainer (“dotrapp”)
Badevader (sz 26-27)
Outdoors toys - soap bubles - stree chalks

BabyL

Rocking sheep available @CoopObs
Jellycat Bachful Bunny, beige, 31 cm
Rain suit with fleece lining (sz. 80-86)
IKEA gift certificates (Lily needs cabinet doors for her Expedit shelf unit)
Toothbrushes for toddlers

Tiny alphas

Since joining different planner and pocket letter groups on Facebook, I have gotten so many tips and so much inspiration. The other day I came over a blog post about how to make my own tiny alphabet stickers. Since I had all the tools necessary I felt I had to give it a try.

Here are some of the groups I have joined, these have some wonderful and very creative members:
- Pocket Letter Pals
- planner, Journals and everything in between!

What you’ll need;
- sticker sheets (I bought mine at Staples) like these
- an exacto knife
- metal ruler

Instructions are available in the blog post here. Now I finally have a simple way to create alphabet letters, and I even get the Norwegian letters æ, ø, å.

my first batch

It took some time putting a word file together, with all the letters and characters I wanted. I would up with a table consisting of 25 columns and 26 rows all fitted in a A4 sheet of paper. Let me know if you want the Word file I created as a template and I’ll email it to you. After printing my first batch and using them to make a pocket letter I will make the next letters a tad bit more narrow. Next time around…

Aren’t these cute!

Still need to work out how much pressure to use when cutting the printed sticker sheets. My first attempt yielded full sheets though some more cut than others.

- do you make your own stickers?

Now off to watch an episode of The 100.

Vitacost vs. iHerb

A colleague joked about my posts about stuff related to my kids. Sorry here it yet another on kinda related to my kids, so “Thomas” you can stop reading now.

vs

Some time ago I posted about my positive experiences with ordering organic smoothie pouches from the US-based company iHerb (my posts here). BabyL is now big enough to consume atleast a pouch a day, so  I thought I would replenish my stocks. To my dismay iHerb has changed their shipping rates. Going from a flat international rate (sponsored) to actual shipping costs. They sent out information about this when customers complained about the jump in shipping costs. Needless to say, I no longer order from iHerb due to the high postage costs, as stuff I order are pretty heavy. Even with VIP-status and shipping discounts when the order exceeds certain amounts, shipping is still too expensive. See that there are groups on Facebook that are as unhappy with the change in international shipping rates as I am. Hopefully iHerb will take it to heart, and reinstate the flat rate international shipping option.

Rant over, back to the point. As I lost iHerb as a reasonable option to order organic smoothies in pouches from, I was tipped about another site. Vitacost offers flat rate shipping, though the rate is higher than what iHerb offered (iHerbs 4 USD vs. Vitacost 7.99 USD)

Their selection is very similar to what I found on iHerb. Much of what I have ordered earlier from iHerb is available and at similar pricing. So far I have made one order to Vitacost and my experience is so far good. They pack and ship orders reasonably fast. I like that they have Paypal as a payment options, adds a level of security.

Not sure what more I should write about, so let me know if you have questions.

As I’m still very new to Vitacost I don’t know all the ins and outs. But I have made a note that all new referrals can get a 10 USD discount on their initial order over 30USD(before discounts, shipping etc.) by using this link: http://goo.gl/nm5D50

That’s it for now.

- what are your experiences with Vitacost?

Oh so shiny

The latest craze on the scrapbooking front seems to be gold foiling everything. After I saw a video posted by Jennifer Mcguire (here) I‘ve been looking at more and more shine stuff. As I have too much scrapbooking stuff already I haven’t allowed myself a trip to any hobby stores of any kind.

I haven’t made a big effort at finding the foils Jennifer used as scrapbooking stuff tends to by quite expensive here in Norway. The other day I came over nail foils in different colors. Available here on Ebay. These come in rolls of 4 cm wide and different lengths. As I only paid 1USD for a meter, I thought I would give it a try. I already have a laminator and a laser printer…so I thought I would try foiling using the method Jennifer describes here.

And I’m first try….

I printed a nice quote and foiled the heart. I found the original picture on Pintrest, and is available here. I've made a note that this technique works best with black and white pictures where there is no grey zones. So the text in the heart aren’t as crisp as the rest of the heart. All in all a fun first attempt.

I think this will be going into my newly setup planner (think that will be a future post). Just need to do some measuring to see if it need any cutting before punching holes…

Think I will be expanding my “stuff” with a few rolls of these foils.

- have you jumped on the foiling craze?