the goose loves friendsmas

Christmas came early this year!

Not real Christmas. Friendsmas (Christmas+friends). This year (like last year, actually), my two best friends  here in Portland are going home for Christmas, while Billy and I stayed up here. We still wanted to get together and exchange some gifts, though, so we all gathered at our house on Monday (you like how timely this post is?! it's not weeks late, like my usual ones!). Our evening involved food (duh), some sugar, some holiday movies, and some gifts.

We started with a present for the Bentley, from his girlfriend Dakota. Bents is pretty good at opening his own gifts. He's better at opening them than I am at focusing my camera, actually. Except sometimes once he gets into the gift, he gives up on unwrapping and just starts chewing on the gift. Usually they're chewable, though.

 Look at those stockings, all hung by the fire! more on that later.

 It's a chewy stick! And I'm sad to report that Bentley has already chewed off like 14 little pieces of red "bark." But that also means he loves chewing on his new toy. Thank you, Kody!

 We baked a pizza and filled Christmas cups with soda. And I still haven't learned the art of focusing.

 Jackie brought adorable party napkins and plates.

 And our stockpile of gifts. Yay for pretty wrapping!

 The evening also included some sugar cookie making and decorating.

 And more drinking. Like my christmas display in the background? More on that eventually, too...

 Love the Christmas shapes!

 But this batch got a little crispy. Uh oh.

 We got some green, red, and white frosting going.

 Meanwhile, the dogs got a little Christmas "lollipop" - completely dog safe, of course.

 They loved it.

 Once I burned baked enough cookies, we got to decorating. Let the sprinkle fest begin!

 Even Billy got in on the action. I chose not to share his version of a decorated gingerbread boy, though...

 Pretty snowflake, pretty snowflake, falling down from the sky.

 And a J for Jackie!

 Lucia's the star. (And a rare appearance on my own blog, actually!)

 Carolyn decorated this pretty mitten, but when she picked it up for a photograph, a shower of sprinkles rained down. Hahaha.

 A few of our results.

 Then it was present time! Jackie gave Carolyn a rotary cutter for her fabric cutting pleasure.

 Bentley opened his second present, which I failed to photograph - it was a doggie backpack! Now he can carry his own water and poop bags when we run or hike... yesss.

 Jackie got us these ADORABLE beagle prints when she was in Florida! They're not speckled with white, though - they're reflecting our Christmas lights. And mom, can you spot the advent wreath? :)

 Carolyn got Jackie a series of pig-themed cooking utensils - Jackie loves pigs. And these are super cute.

 Billy and I got Jackie two squashes and a pencil. Yes. Anyone else watch the Jimmy Kimmel video where parents get their kids bad Christmas presents? You tube that stuff. Its hilarious.

 Okay just kidding - we got them a both a trip to the Columbia Gorge! It's a lodge about 30 min from Mt Hood, so we'll do some skiing/snowshoeing/snowboarding/relaxing/jacuzzi-ing/eating. The only drawback? They have to go with us. :)

 We spent the rest of the evening eating more cookies and watching the movie "The Holiday." Jude Law is hot.

It was an awesome Friendsmas celebration. And now we can all have equally-awesome Christmas celebrations with our families! T-minus 4 days...

the goose loves chevron curtains

My sincere apologies, friends. I started Novemer off so well, and then skipped out on you all last week! Well I have good excuses - last week was crazy at work, and I'm now slightly overcommitted in the sewing department. But more on that later.

Here's a quick one from a couple of weeks ago. Back when I had time for house projects.

Meet my front window. (Doesn't that sound familiar?)

It's fairly boring. It actually had a worse curtain up earlier, that we took down because it was ugly. We then replaced it temporarily with two yards of green and white material, but had to take that "curtain" down when we decided to use the material for our ottoman. Then, for a week or so, we'd throw a big blanket over the curtain rod to get a little privacy. Talk about redneck. So it was high time for a real curtain.

I had this awesome green chevron, and decided it would be great. I measured my window and cut out the fabric. Yes, that's a combo sewing ruler and heavy duty construction measuring tape.

I then used hem tape to make my seams/hems - about 3/4 inch, folded over twice (to have completely hidden edges). The hem tape is super easy to use, and keeps my hems perfectly in place before I sew.

Then I just go along the edge - I used a zig zag stitch, as a play on the chevron print... haha.

I made sure to reverse-stitch at the corners, to make sure they didn't pop up. I also actually cut the folds on the corners at a diagonal, to lessen the bunch of material.

And then, uh oh! I broke my needle. See how it completely split in two? Not sure how that happened.

And then, the result! Yeah no major wow factor here, but it's a heck of a lot more classy than a blanket.

Ahh much better.

Well there you go. Something to read, and another project checked of the list.

the goose loves the half bath curtain

Welcome, Friends. We're still in catch-up mode over here, but not for long. My goal is to be caught up by the end of October, which gives me 5 short days. Wow!

So let's get moving. This house project is a mix of old + recent. I started months ago (in September, so one month I guess) and just finished about a week ago!

Meet my half bath window:

Our place has two and a half gorgeous bathrooms - a master bath and a guest bath upstairs, and a half bath downstairs. The half bath is pretty basic, but not too shabby. Except that it came with this awful paper shade to keep peepers from peeping at you while you're peeing. (Say that 10 times fast?) The window isn't really that low, but I get that it's good to have some covering. If our neighbors were on the porch and craned their necks into our window, they might catch a glance at something. But the paper shade had to go.

It was just taped to the window, and then folded up at the bottom; the folds were kept together with this nice binder clip. Classy, eh?

So I pulled out the ol' miscellaneous tool & equipment bag and pulled out a curtain rod that used to hang in my college house from junior and senior year. I lived in the "attic" upstairs room of that house, with a door at the bottom of the stairs. I got sick of the door in the hallway and replaced it with a basic curtain, using this little "rod" thing to hold it up. It's just a wire set-up from Ikea, still purchase-able for abuot $5.

The ends screw into the wall, and the wire is just pulled tight inbetween. It also comes with some little hanging clips for your curtain of choice.

Of course, my curtain of choice was a handmade polka-dot number with blues and greens. I bought a yard, and cut off about 6" from the bottom to fit the window. I first used some basic hem tape to hem the sides.

Then I zig-zag stictched the sides to secure the hemtaped-hem. You never know how rough people will be with your half bath curtain, right?

I sewed around all four sides, backstitching at the start and end for security, and then ironed it out.

After spending a few minutes clipping it up evenly, here's the result!

Yeah not really a huge deal. Would have been more breathtaking if I could paint or something, but this is good enough for now.

My favorite part is how well the curtain complements the art I got from Angela Vandenbogaard, who has one of my favorite Etsy shops, called Jelly Beans. I got three prints from her - Celebration, Standing Tall, and Fireflies. I put them in colorful frames, and I love the result.

It literally took me about 6 weeks to decide which prints to order - I loved them all so much. She's got a new one called Hedgehogs - original art with a pink tree and two cute little hedgehogs - I would totally buy it if I had money to spend on hedgehog art.

It looks crooked, but I promise it isn't!

To go with the dots, I found a toilet paper holder with circles. Check out that fancy Costco toilet paper! There's no cupboard in the bathroom, but I wanted to make sure guests wouldn't run out of TP mid-trip, so this works well.

And the curtain, a little further away.

And even further - the angle is pretty awkward, with the door opening out into the hallway.

And my other piece of Etsy art - its called Wee Wee Dance and Jo, the artist, worked with me to customize the colors. She did a fantastic job, I love it! It hangs on the outside of the door, so that guests can distinguish half bath from laundry room, which is on the other side of the hall. And that's an important distinguishment (is that a word?) that I'd like them to make.

I think my favorite look is with the curtain open, letting in what little light Portland has to offer this time of year! (You can see our nice neighbors' porch and the top of the car in the driveway, here).

Hooray for another house project checked off the list, and for replacing a dumb old paper shade with something much more colorful and cheerful. Who doesn't want to be cheered up when doing their business, anyway? :)