Blog neglect

I wrote a short post about googly eye earrings for Things Worth Making, but I'm neglecting this blog for now. I'm feeling a little frazzled, but it's nothing serious. I'm just adjusting to my new job. Once the first few weeks are out of the way, I predict I will feel much better. I mean, once the May long weekend is here, I predict I will feel much better. I keep having anxiety dreams about exams, which is especially strange since I rarely had these dreams during school time.

I'll tell you about my trip to Vancouver when I get a chance to write. In the mean time, you should go see the documentary Young @ Heart.

Making googly eye earrings

Remember how I planned to make googly eye earrings? I started scheming when I discovered how easy it is to make earrings. As you can see, I went ahead and did it, and I found out that making earrings is even easier the second time around.

I made this set of five earrings for my sister, who has the option to wear all of them at once, which I highly encourage. I'll try to convince her to take a picture when she receives them.

I tried one out, for interim modeling purposes, and I almost crazy glued the thing to my ear. That's right, I took your advice and used crazy glue instead of my glue gun, even though the stuff scares me silly. I know someone who crazy glued his eye lids shut! The things I do for my sister. And for this website.

She's so hot she's making me sexist

Michael and I have watched five episodes of Flight of the Conchords. Bust describes the show as a mash-up of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Weird Al Yankovic, Borat, The Monkees, The Muppet Show, The Office and Keith Partridge. It sounds like a nightmare, but we've fallen in love Brett and Jemaine. Here's a clip that features my favorite song to date:



Also, check out my post about bookplates on Things Worth Making! I decided that I don' t have a problem telling you what's up on my other blog. If you don't like making things, don't look. Deal?

Making your own bookplates

Bookplates are labels pasted into a book, often on the inside front cover, to indicate its owner. Sometimes the bookplate says Ex libris, which means From the books of [your name here]. That's what Wikipedia tells me anyway.

I love bookplates, but I've never bought them for myself because they're too pricey. If I wanted to put a store-bought label in each of my books, it would be an expensive proposition indeed. That's why I was happy when Raissa gave me homemade bookplates for Christmas.

Even though I was thrilled with the gift, it took me a few months to put one of the bookplates to use. This morning I stuck one in West With the Night, one of my favorite books, in order to counter my late grandma's claim to the book. Who writes her name in a book that someone loaned her? Trying to get this book returned to me was a trial, and it didn't help that my grandma thought it was hers. These bookplates aim to prevent such confusion.


I don't know where Raissa found her assorted images, but maybe I can convince her to enlighten us. In the mean time, I found these two adorable designs (scroll down a bit) at Craft Sanity, which were provided by The Black Apple. You can print them on label paper, for easy application, or regular paper, which will require some help from a glue stick.

During my Internet sleuthing, I also found some great pictures of archived bookplates that I want to share with you. You can browse through the UBC digital collection yourself, or you can check out my favorites, which I've listed by the names of the book owners (pretty interesting themselves): Henry Forbes Angus, Erna Grau, George Herbert Wailes, Wallace and Ethel Wilson and Kevin Michael Grace (this one scares me a little).

If that doesn't satisfy your new interest in bookplates, you can check out Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie. That's right, a whole blog dedicated to bookplates. Who knew?

Afternoon Royal Tea

I finished my last exam on Saturday night! My degree is complete and my convocation will take place in June. Phew. It's been a long time coming. I am now a political scientist, friends. Watch out!

I have several celebrations planned - such as a weekend with Michael (he's writing his last exam right now!) at the Moda Hotel in Vancouver and family time with Mom, Dad, Shannon, Chris AND Baba in June - but the first event already took place: Afternoon Royal Tea at the Empress with Jen.


I was ready to sign up for the plain old Afternoon Tea, but Jen, who has things of her own to celebrate like, you know, her recent marriage, insisted that we fancy it up with a glass of bubbly. I still think the sparkling wine/tea combination is a bit strange, but who am I to judge what the Empress says is appropriate? Anyway, it made for entertaining Sunday afternoon conversation.


Check out the goods! After the sparkling wine and fruit we moved onto tea and treats. The bottom tier features the tea sandwiches: cucumber with light horseradish, smoked salmon pinwheel, mango and curried chicken, carrot and ginger and multigrain crostini topped with a mixed mushroom pate. The middle tier is home to traditional English raisin scones, clotted cream and strawberry preserves. The top tier features lemon curd tarts with glazed berries, Battenburg cake, Earl Grey tea shortbread, chocolate cake and a marble chocolate tulip.


The scones were my favorite part of the feast. I didn't hold back with the cream, as you can see.


I drank gallons of tea, but I still managed to take a long afternoon nap when I got home.


Well versed with the ways of tourists, our server offered to take a picture of us when she spotted my camera. Maybe you can't tell, but we dressed for the occasion in smart casual attire, as per the dress code. That is, we're wearing skirts, not jogging pants.

I'm so happy that Jen pushed me to stick to our tentative plans for tea, which have been brewing for a couple of months now. I hesitated before making the reservation because the whole experience is a little pricey, as you might imagine. But Jen was all, "Erin, I've spent money on dumber things than tea at the Empress." And how.

New buddy

There's a new baby in my life, and I'm pumped! This is what he looked like before he was born:

Michael and I made stew for the new parents, and I got to deliver it earlier today. It was the perfect gift, because I got to hold the baby while the parents ate lunch. The baby is one day old, friends! And I held him! I don't want to go posting pictures of other peoples babies (unless it's my nephew, of course) and I don't want announce anything that I'm not supposed to announce, but I'm sure you can figure out who the parents are if you've been reading my other blog.

Oh yeah, my other blog. I just updated it today (it is Wednesday). Are you tired of me advertising the other blog on this blog? I'm tired of it. Maybe I'll just write NEW POST! beside the link every time I write a new post? I'll work on it.