MASTER BEDROOM: POST THREE

Have you ever had a small project that escalated quickly?

Initially I really wanted to paint the ceiling in our bedroom.  The old ceiling was white (which is fine), but it's a bit boring and I like to think of the ceiling as another wall.  I picked out a cream/pink coloured hue from Behr called "Palatial."  Sounds nice, doesn't it?  It is.

Not sure if you can tell from the photos but the ceiling is indeed Palatial.

Once all the furniture was out of the room I could see just how poorly the walls had been painted.  Not to say the previous owners were bad painters...but the previous owners were bad painters.  And that white trim wasn't looking so white in places.  And we had always talked about ripping the carpet up.  With all the furniture out of the room, this was the time, wasn't it?  (I am not a fan of the light fixture either but that seems more expensive and difficult to change out - I wouldn't be doing that one myself - so it's there indefinitely.)  We're actually thinking of adding crown molding at some point in the near future but I'm not making myself any promises.

Here it is - another post of my tiny project turned slightly larger project.

CAMOUFLAGE BIRTHDAY CAKE

I was away for a rotation when hubby had his birthday so two weeks ago I decided to make it up to him and bake a cake.  I have a delicious chocolate cake recipe that I've made a lot recently, so I went with carrot cake.  (I don't use nuts or raisins in mine.)  Carrot is actually the only kind of cake I like so obviously our wedding cake was carrot. :)

I thought it would be cool to do a camouflage cake so a quick Pinterest search came up with a fab option.  Hers is much more professional than mine, but mine wasn't a disaster either, which is why I'm posting.  For my first try it turned out ok and I came away with a couple of tips.  I found this tutorial if you ever want to try to make a "petal cake" yourself.

The things I learned making my first petal cake:

1. The icing has to be really thick.  If it's gooey at all it will just run all over the place.  You can tell in this photo the darker brown frosting was closer to the correct consistency while the beige is getting a little droopy down near the bottom because it's too soft.

2. You can use cocoa powder to make different colours!  Genius!  I'm not sure why this never occurred to me before, but adding cocoa to my bright green frosting made olive green.  Adding cocoa powder to my white frosting made beige and adding more made brown!  Simple, I know.  I just never thought of it before.

3. Have a piece of paper towel or clean dish rag nearby because I had to clean the spatula after every swipe.  Maybe if the frosting had been thicker that wouldn't have been a problem; I'm not sure.

Hope this inspires you to try a new cake technique!  Or ask me to do one for you.  It only took me a gazillion hours.

MASTER BEDROOM UPDATE: POST TWO

I had a week off!  It was fantastic.

This is basically never going to happen again in my life, so I took advantage of the time off to make some changes to our master  bedroom.  You might remember I recently had bedroom drapes made and we also made lamps for our nightstands.  Last week we decided to rip up the old carpet to see what lies beneath...  I also wanted to paint the ceiling a tinted shade.  And of course, while all the furniture was out of the room I realized how terrible the walls and trim looked.  Whoever painted the walls last should have done an extra coat, and the baseboards were looking kind of grungy.

I thought I would post how to get a super clean line using painter's tape.  It's not as easy as you may think!  In my case, I'm going to describe how to paint baseboards with a clean line.  Here's my step by step guide as per this blog's advice.

1. Paint the baseboards.  As annoying as it is, you will have to scrape.  When I originally painted the trim in our living/dining rooms, I believe it took one coat of primer and two or even three coats of paint.  Don't skimp!

2. Put your painter's tape around the top of the baseboard and paint the bottom colour around the edge of the tape to create a seal.  This step is crucial!  All my other attempts at painter's tape have failed because of this.  Without creating that seal with a coat of the bottom colour, the wall colour will bleed through.

3. Now you can paint your wall colour over top and feel free to overlap onto the tape.  Step two ensures it won't bleed through.  You're a paint master...a master painter...  I kept the same wall colour as the previous owner simply because they had half a can of paint leftover in the basement and that made this project less expensive.

4. I waited until the paint was at least partially dry so it wouldn't drip once I removed the tape.  It made such a clean line!  Extremely satisfying.  Seriously.

Isn't that amazing?!  Stay tuned for a few more posts in the coming days.  I actually have some projects saved up to blog about!

CANADIAN KIDS' CLASSICS

I spent the afternoon studying at Starbucks for a change of scenery and walked around Chapters when I was done studying - I had a book I was specifically looking for as a gift for someone.  Anyway, when I got home I was looking at the Chapters website and you can search by Canadian authors!  Who would have thought some of my favourite kids' books were written by Canadians?!  Check out the links below if you're interested in any of them.

1. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery.  Fave.  The end.

2. The Sky is Falling by Kit Pearson.  This is a trilogy (you probably know it), and it is one of my favourites!  It follows two children who move to Canada from England during the second world war.  Age group 9 - 12.

3. The Wonderful Pigs of Jillian Jiggs by Phoebe Gilman.  The follow up to the wonderful "Jillian Jiggs."  Such a great kids' story book.  I recited it when I auditioned for the drama production in grade nine.

4. Underground to Canada by Barbara Smucker.  We read this in elementary school.  It's the story of a little girl who escapes slavery via the underground railroad to Canada.

5. The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis.  A girl in Afghanistan and her story of oppression and daily life.  I read this in middle school.  There is a sequel and perhaps even a third...

6. Silverwing by Kenneth Oppel.  A very unique book told through the eyes of a bat, detailing his adventures.  Very creative and fun to read.  I love love love it!  Age group 9 - 12.  There are two others, I think...Sunwing and Firewing.  Both also good.

7. Jacob Two-two Meets the Hooded Fang by Mordecai Richler.  I'm not sure I've actually read this book but I know my brother used to have it and it's definitely a classic so I had to include it!

8. Love You Forever by Robert Munsch.  Any Robert Munsch book, really, but this one is so sweet.  How can you not cry when you read it?

9. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.  A board book for babies!  Should be on every book shelf.

10. The Baby Project by Sarah Ellis.  This has some serious subject matter so I would recommend for grade seven or eight.  A young girl finds out her parents are expecting a new baby and it's quite a surprise.  It's her struggle to find her place in the family and has quite a sad ending.

Those are my top ten kids books by Canadians!  I'm sure there are others but these are the ones I found quickly.

MASTER BEDROOM UPDATE: POST ONE

I think we all know I've been slowly tackling the curtains in all of our main floor.  So far our living room, dining room, and mud room all have new drapes and over Christmas our bedroom drapes arrived.  As always, I bought the fabric and had them made by someone more talented than me.  The blinds that came with the house were hideous in the master bedroom and I'm so glad they're gone!  I bought black out lining for the first time for these curtains and it was a good purchase.  It makes the room so much darker at night (there's a street lamp outside our window), and in the day (when I'm sleeping after a 24 hour call shift)!  It is supposed to cut out 90% of the light (I think).

The blinds we've had up for two years.

The after.  Much improved!