Guess who's coming to dinner ...

Will and Kate are scheduled to touch down in Ottawa at 2:00 pm this afternoon. Crowds are already forming at the War Memorial on Wellington. Tomorrow, during Canada Day, you can catch the Windsors on the podium in front of the Parliament Buildings.

Balcony Tales

Working hard on my workshop ideas and also on how to spruce up my BIG balcony. I definitely needed a table but was very reluctant to spend a bunch of money on it. Imagine my surprise when a friend showed up with a perfectly perfect folding table from Canadian Tire (only $39.95). Heavy as all get out but looks great and of course we tested it out with drinks on the terrace--errr--I mean BIG balcony.

Tomorrow I'm off to the market for flowers and plants.

Ciao!

Oh Canada!

Canada Day is fast approaching and I had fun making a lot of things for my Ottawa Citizen article. Take a look at previous Canada Day projects to create a few patriotic decorations.

Wacky knits

Okay, you don’t have a kid or a dog and your cat won’t wear your knitted creations. But – you do have furniture. So--why not jazz it up with some nice knitted outfits? Really? IKEA has a posting showing a few pieces of their furniture and accessories jazzed up with little outfits. This is for those who have no one to share their knitting with, I think??

By the way, if you want to learn to knit, the following Youtube video from Cyberseams.com will get you started.

Happy knitting! Me - I'll just watch - it's too hot for anything else.

So I was cruising the web ...

and found this.

It made me laugh. Nice to have on hand when you're getting over someone who's done you wrong. It's from PA-Designs in Paris. It goes perfectly with the Voodoo knife set (or as my friend Jani calls it, the cheating ex-boyfriend knife set) that I once saw in a kitchen window in Edinburgh.

Balcony life and gardening

I used to have a sweet little Juliet balcony that overlooked a private and a public garden. Most mornings and evenings in warm weather found me outside sitting at my little table writing and dreaming. Although it was quite small, I managed to grow a lot of herbs and some flowers all in old clay pots that I picked up here and there.

The best thing about growing your own herbs aside from using them in your cooking and baking, my plants seemed to keep away the squirrels which are rampant in Ottawa. My favourite herb was my chocolate mint (not shown) but I also grew lavender, thyme, basil, parsley, chives, and garlic.

Now that I have a really BIG balcony with no view I need to work on making it look wonderful. First thing is to get will be some hardy herbs and flowers that don't need a lot of light. I usually wait for the end of spring to pick up these at rock bottom prices (I've never been successful at growing stuff from seeds). So it's off to the market to find out what's out there.

Words I live by ...

'nuff said! 

Monday, Monday ...

Yup, Mondays are always tough but I managed to send off my OC Canada Day article along with the photos I took yesterday and then ran around finishing up odds and ends of little chores I had put aside. It looked like rain but didn't start until I got home and then only a piddle.

For Father's Day I disguised a trio of tin coffeee cans with photocopies of Penguin book covers. I love the graphics of their original book covers and discovered that each book colour represented a different genre. For example, orange was for fiction, green for crime, and blue for biography. Who knew?

Dear Abby ...

Beautiful morning yesterday so went off to the Westboro Westfest where my friend, Loreli of Siren Bakery, was offering up granola parfaits. Not too many people out as it was still early and I had a fine time meeting up with other friends as I winded along. Nice evening spent with friends.

This morning, because I was going to photograph my OC Canada Day projects, it was raining and overcast. Of course, silly me for not anticipating this. BUT my article and photos are due tomorrow (I know, I know, my own fault, but hey, gotta take advantage of nice days!). Any road, I hauled everything on to my BIG balcony and started shooting things. Managed to get all done and, of course, once I was done, the rain stopped, the sun came out, and I swear I could hear Mother Nature laughing!!

Thanks for listening, Abby!

Father's Day Paper Bowl

Here's one of my Father's Day ideas that will be in the June 11 Saturday's Ottawa Citizen. It's a bowl made entirely of paper - no staples or glue to hold it together. Pretty spiffy. Here are the instructions to make it.

Ahh - time to relax

The heat wave seems to have left us (for now at least). Yesterday was a truly glorious day and I managed to complete all my projects and photos for my Ottawa Citizen Canada Day article. But - no peeking. Instead go out and get a copy of tomorrow's (Saturday June 11) edition and see what I got planned for Father's Day (it's in the Real Deal section).

So - after a frazzled morning and getting everything done, I was able to relax with some tea and my latest (and last - sob, sob) book from the Mini Book Club (aka my design guru, Sean). It's another book by Helene Hanff, Letter from New York, and, of course, all about New York. It's a compilation of her BBC broadcasts about her daily life in New York City. Boy am I green with envy because she writes so well. I'm ready to pack my bags and hit the Big Apple. Unfortunately, I can't time travel as I suspect, the city has changed a lot since her days there.

And wouldn't my reading have been more pleasurable if I had one of these Penguin literary book deck chairs to lounge around in my BIG balcony!

Photo of deck chairs via Heal's

My new best friend (at least until it cools off)!

It's hot, hot, hot, sticky, and humid. Need I say more ...

The challenge is on ...

I'm in the process of writing a Canada Day article for the Ottawa Citizen and since my column encourages readers to use what they already have, I've challenged myself to not buy a single thing and find stuff around the flat that I can turn into elegant decorations for our big day. The photo shows what I will be using: a package of red and white paper serviettes left over from Christmas, bamboo skewers, gingham ribbon, and paper doilies. I still have to find sparklers (from New Year's) and also I forgot to add salt and red food colouring to the photo. Stay tuned to find what I will be doing.

Ciao!

Curve balls ...

Life has a way of tossing curve balls at us - sometimes not pleasant. I had a few not so pleasant things pop up last week and at first felt very sorry for myself. But then I came across this poster via en matsked grejer. Puts things into perspective.

Father's Day ideas from Ikea and me!

Stumbled across this cute little idea from at Ikea's Livet Hemma site. Nice way to decorate your favourite guy's dinner plate. My own ideas are posted here and here. Cheap, cheap!

Ciao!

Watch this space ...

This is a view of my second storey basement apartment balcony. Yeah, yeah, I know - I'm always ranting about this place - usually in the negative. But -- this balcony is HUGE! Would make a nice living room - I can't figure out what the builders were thinking making such a huge space in this small studio flat. The only drawback to the balcony (okay, here's a negative) is that, aside from the floor (which is yet another bugaboo), it's entirely encased in metal. Why??

Anyway, forget the above. My design guru, Sean, will be helping me revamp this space over the summer. Possibilities for use are endless.

Watch this space!!!