Finding myself with an unexpected free day sans baby – we had already asked Frank’s mom to watch Xavier for the day because I might be helping out at work for half a day, but that was cancelled – I decided to pull off one of these While you were out stunts on Frank and Xavier; on a reduced scale, mind.

I’d been meaning to paint the walls of Xavier’s room in fresh new colours for some time, and suddenly it seemed like the most productive way to use my day. I opted to do this the evening before, but held off telling Frank until we got back home from picking him and Xavier up, and I could show him the surprise. He was happy to see the results, but I think it as likely he was happy not to have had anything to do in this.

Xavier’s room is themed with a starry sky and the ocean below. We had already painted his ceiling (and the upper portion of his walls) a deep blue, sprinkled with silver glitter to mimic stars. There was also a running band of ocean pictures in the middle of the walls. [Xavier's middle name being Orion, the stars and ocean theme is that much more fitting.]

The new colours I applied: first I carried down the deep blue from the ceiling to the lower portion of the walls, mirroring the sky in the supposed “ocean”, then I filled the middle portion with a bright (very bright!) and invigorating lime green. The end result gives all the accessories and decorations we’ve adorned Xavier’s room with their true meaning, and gives the room a buoyant feeling.

The pictures below will lead you to the full series of images.

The old colours

The new colours

The finished room

…now all it needs are some cherry coloured accessories.

Four victims later, the orange serial killer was finally apprehended yesterday. This monster had seriously reduced the original population of this small community, and had recently murdered the blue resident, as well as forcing another inhabitant to live as a fearsome recluse – never to be seen, repeatedly believed dead. In addition to this, the prowler just started to pick on the bigger of the cleaners, snatching chunks off its tail. Since the culprit was taken out, peace was restored, and our former recluse has been seen regularly out of its hiding place, showing off its lovely colors and generally enjoying the relief from stress.

I say good riddance, you mean fish.

As a sort of leverage for our karma, we planted two trees in the yard this weekend.

Before we build the house, there were two or three great pine trees on the lot, but the location of the house meant, sadly, that we were forced to cut them down. A young red maple was planted far in the backyard the same year; it is a nice tree, growing nicely if slowly. Last year – the summer of Xavier’s birth – we added a small cherry tree in front of the house. Those are the only two trees we had, though.

While an almost completely bared lawn is useful at mowing time, it is certainly unappealing when comes the time to enjoy an afternoon out in full sun. The aesthetic of it is also lacking. Enter our new hopes in sunshine management and visual appeal :

Up front is a Camperdownii pendula (elm), beautiful leaves, a lot of foliage, and it will grow to 6m, enough to give our high patio some privacy from the neighbours. The second one, harder to spot in the picture, is a flowered tree which I’ve already lost the name of. Its foliage and flowers are simply beautiful, and gorgeous in colors, and it will grow to 15m. The red maple is at the back in the picture. We spent a little more than we wanted on the trees, but I’m really enjoying both our new natural air purifiers and am not regretting any cent.

Camperdownii pendula

Which Fraggle Rock character are you?
created with QuizFarm.com
via Amélie.

PS. Darn, I had hoped for Red or Mokey! Why is this one even in? And Wembley as runner up? Sheesh.

From Weekend Proje…

An article on LifeHacker made me realise that I was getting tired of my old wallet being so fat and you know .. old. So I started shopping for a new one with one feature in mind: Slim. And then I found this article on Makezine : Make A Wallet Out of Tape and decided that is was exactly what I needed; a custom made, duct tape (geek+++), extra slim wallet.

The material needed is quite easy to get :

• Duct tape of the color of you choice.
• Cisors
• A piece of plastic (optional) (got mine from the recycle box)

I used black tape and a bit of red tape for my wallet. The plastic piece is for the picture holder. It took me about an hours and a half to do the project and I did not waste much tape. I really like the end result, it is very strong and not sticky at all. Here are some pictures, you can see that my old wallet (2.7 cm) was even thicker then a metal Runts box (2 cm) (new wallet : <1 cm).

– Frank