Sweet, Sweet Garland...

Okay, prepare your eyes for the worst pictures known to humanity. Seriously. My livingroom seems to have the worst lighting situation. Ever. We have a veranda in the front that blocks out most of the light, there's only one window, and the paint is dark. It's very cave like and with no ceiling light it's very hard to get a decent picture in there. Even with all four lamps sans shades, and the diningroom light on. Combine that with the severe suckingness of my camera and you've got yourself some pretty horrific pictures, almost to the point of being pointless.

But I promised there would be pictures, and there shall. This is the mantel before:

I'm actually really embarassed I let it sit this way for so long. Notice the black paint on the mirror, it used to be covered in black and white scrapbooking paper when it was in the then black and white hallway. I tried to use paint to make the paper stick because I didn't want to haul out my blue gun... yeah it didn't work.


-->Please insert blushing and horribly embarrassed smiley here<-- That's even a water wing on the mantel there, and my outdoor bunnies awaiting their paint job. Could it be any uglier? This was taken lastnight after the majority was done, again, really crappy pictures/lighting but you get the idea.
Now this is without the garland. I like the new whiteness of all of it. Since I couldn't get a close-up without it being black I'll describe for you ;) To the left is my outdoor cement bunnies, now white. They have chocolate brown and light green neckties. In the center is an antique tin that used to have horrible ugly vintage fruits on it. I painted it white and added the same chocolate brown satin ribbon and light green swiss dot ribbon around it and added some flowers. To the right is a full place setting of solid white dishes with the same ribbon spilling out. It sounds stupid but IRL it looks really cute.




This is this afternoon after I tied my little hands off making this garland. The green isn't the right colour, but when you're shopping WalMart's remnants section (Ps. WalMart in Canada has all of it's fabric 50% off currently as it's doing away with the fabric section FYI) so it's comprised of green sheer, chocolate brown sheer, chocolate brown minky, white linen, white flannel, white satin ribbon, green swiss dot ribbon, black and white ribbon, and moss green roving (Have you noticed this roving is working into WAY too many projects now? Me too... but I just love it...)


This is the best picture I could get, this with four lamps shadeless, the hall light on, the dining room light on, and my camera set to night mode. It's also still daylight here... All I can say is, wow. How crappy can one camera be?! So you can't even really appreciate how sweet i looks since you can't see that the paper in the white frames is the same coloured stripes as the garland and everything else. It's really sharp IRL. This garland ways a freakin' ton too. The cement bunnies and place setting full of rocks and roving are barely doing the job, I have to figure out a way to keep it up there safely. It's also easily 5' long, oh how I love ragamuffins!

These are the colours up close:
Considering the green isn't what I wanted and I ran out of brown half way through I think it turned out pretty good. You also can't see that the pukey green chair and black telephone table are beside the fireplace and the chair is the exact colour of the green fabric so it does look fab. I don't usually do garlands that's all solid fabrics so this is different than my other ones. Mr. Pretties even encouraged the garland for the fireplace after the first bit was done. He thought the transformation, even though small, looked nice and cute and he may now consider sitting in the living room. I'll sit in the living room simply to admire the garland because I love them. I'm going to make one for the Little Boy Person's area in our room too. That will require a stop at the thrift store though because I want to use some old blue and green plaid shirts and possibly some denim as well, and those are things we do not have in this house. Especially not to rip up. This garland cost me two king sized flannel pillow cases (That had that really yummy flannel smell), one vintage linen crib sheet (Really shouldn't have ripped that one up...), 1.25 yards of brown, and 2.5 yards of green. Then several rolls of ribbon. This is by far the biggest garland I own now. I even found some more black and white patterned material as well as another small piece of toile that I can stuff into the little one in the kitchen since I still think it needs something. I might also use the rest of the left overs from the garlands in the Little Pretties' room and make another one for Etsy. We'll see how this whole Little Boy Person exiting situation goes. Then again, maybe I'm the only person goofy enough to love these little cuties. I'm glad I don't have loads of money because I'd buy every single ragamuffin garland that The Nester makes, and then I'd be out of space for sure.



I had my *LAST* (Do you hear me Little Boy Person?!) obstetrics appointment this morning. I really hate these appointments. With the Big Little Pretty they were so exciting and made the time go by so much quicker! With the Little Little Pretty they were exciting to begin with, but after going 12 days late they quickly got old.

Dr: 'Have you had any contractions?'
Me: 'No'
Dr: 'Any weird discharge?'
Me: 'No'
Dr: 'Any questions?'
Me: 'No'
Dr: 'Wow, you're having a boring pregnancy!'
Me: 'Thanks'

You can only have that conversation so many times before it loses the hilarity. This time we even have a new Dr and are using a different hospital, so they should be exciting again, right? Wrong. Accept this time the waiting chairs are always full (Not always by pregnant people either... jerks...) and you have to stand in the cement hall. Usually for an hour before being seen for your 30 second appointment. There is one bathroom in this area where patients from three different OBs need to pee in a cup, as well as anyone else in the hospital who also needs to pee. This causes a fair bit of chaos. And annoyance. Then I proceed to have the same conversation as above. I'm not even due for another three days and there's already talk of induction. No thanks. Also if I don't deliver by this weekend I'll have to have a completely different Dr. Essentially that is fine, accept that we chose this hospital and this Dr for the purpose of seeing the same person and knowing who was going to deliver, versus with the other two having no idea. So it's not that we haven't gone this route before, we just didn't plan to this time. I even researched this Dr. to make sure it would be a good match, and for what? So someone else can deliver anyway? What was the point?! I suppose I'm being hormonal and overreacting, but still. Aunt Pretty is also moving this weekend making The Little Boy Person's arrival on the weekend a little inconvenient for most as the Little Pretties need to go to Aunt Pretties so Mr. Pretties can come with me. Although I could really go myself, Mr. Pretties almost missed it the last two times anyway... So I asked the Dr. if The Little Boy Person was in position and ready to make his way out and he said... 'Who can really tell?' Great. Who knows. I stood in a non- air conditioned hallway for an hour, listening to a newborn scream because the mom is 'putting her on a schedule' (That is the worst sound to hear, breaks my heart!), to hear 'Who knows!'. He could have lied. He could have said 'Any minute now! Watch for signs because I can just tell he's practically knocking at the door!' and that would have made me happy. Even if it wasn't true and wasn't going to happen. Saying 'Who knows' and discussing induction dates with me is not conducive to a happy person. Having to book an appointment with a different Dr. for next week also does not make me a happy person. The prospect of still being pregnant in two weeks having an induction makes me really unhappy. I think I'll just skip next weeks appointment and save myself the swollen legs and disappointment.

Mr. Pretties came home from work and I was stoked to show him the ragamuffin sweetie, even though I may not keep her (If she doesn't sell she's always welcome here ;) ) I still think she's darling and full of whimsy and character. He looked at it, put on his serious face and barely croaked out 'Yeah that looks nice' before falling into hysterical laughter. Which only became worse the more angry I got. Apparently, the garland is too 'bushy' and makes the fireplace look like it has a beard. I should take half of the fabric out and make a second one since this one is so full. Right. Like he's a knowledgeable source about whether or not my garland is too fluffy or bushy or whatever. I think I'm a better source of trendy info. How rude. Does he not understand that I will be suffering from severe arthritis or something from ripping all that fabric and tying all those knots? Probably not...