A teaser

I took Friday off work to recover from the real estate drama earlier this week. As soon as Chad left for work, I grouted the dragon mosaic I've been working on. He's completely done now, and polished up and looking quite fabulous. I need to take a good photo in some natural light, which only occurs when I'm at work, nowadays. So, I'll post a good photo of the completed mosaic as soon as I can. For now, use your imagination. Grouting is so much fun.

I had a fairly considerable bawl-o-rama on Chad's shoulder when it sank in that we'll actually be leaving this apartment, with all its wonderful memories. But then, there was the day back in December when the landlord was re-cementing a chunk of the foundation in the basement apartment, and our apartment filled with billowing clouds of concrete dust. We had to plug up all the heating vents with books, magazines, pillows--anything that was handy. And then last year there were the crazy main-floor neighbours who secretly hated us, but were sweet to our faces, then locked us out of the house accidentally-on-purpose more than once. Assholes. But I won't miss having to turn off the coffee maker to blow-dry my hair (same breaker=blown fuses=having to bother the basement neighbour to reset the fuse box). And I won't miss certain aspects of renting, but I'll sure as hell miss my beautiful, sunny Crafty Kitchen, and our kayaks in the hallway and on the stairs. But it's the beginning of a new era, with new memories, and maybe a Crafty Nook.

The reason for my lack of blogging...

REAL ESTATE!! Yes, after just four weeks of looking, we bought a condo. What a crazy grown-up experience. They say that in Toronto, a huge proportion of stolen-car deals go down in Tim Hortons parking lots. And now I can say from experience that a lot of real estate deals go down at Tim's (and other coffee shops), too. The week before last, we met our agent at lunch at a downtown Starbucks to quickly put together an offer. Quick--decide right here, right now how to spend a gazillion dollars you don't have. I'll tell you, I've had more relaxing lunch hours.

But we think it was worth it. Check out the pics below--ain't she a looker?! Yes, a face only a mother could love. She's a bit of a fixer-upper, but with lots of potential. We're already picturing new floors, a nice bright paint job, and Aunt Pat on new-kitchen detail. It's in a nice, established building on King West. It's a one-bedroom, with an extra solarium space for an office, and a window-side nook for crafting, and windowsills big enough to accommodate a feline. It currently has vast expanses of icky carpet--volunteers to help rip it up?! We move in on or before May 1.

But our first night in the new place, I'm anticipating huge flashes of 'Oh God, why did we leave our nice, cheap, simple little no-responsibility apartment for this crappy, carpetty, dingy box in the sky?' But I already know the answer, and we're waaayy excited.

Puff ain't got nothin' on this guy

Well, well. So here we are, almost finished. I laid the last tile fragment tonight. The area around and between his legs was really, really tricky. Lots of tweezer work. And he still needs an eye. I'm going to use an Italian millefiore, a little blown-glass bead--I just need to make a trip to the bead shops on Queen Street.

So now the glue needs to dry, and then I can grout. And I never really know what a piece is going to look like until it's grouted. Grouting can really make or break a piece, and I'd hate to $@*&?$! him up now. I'm thinking a light grey grout. My first impulse was to use a sandy colour, which would make the background all blend together, and make the dragon really stand out, but I really want his body to look dark, and a light sandy colour would break him up too much. So I'm going to use a mid-grey grout. Hopefully it will look OK with the background--I'm planning to test it first on a spare piece of wood with some of the background tiles stuck to it.

Stay tuned. Grouting is quite labour- and time-intensive. It consumes the whole kitchen--so no eating. I may do it this weekend. We'll see. Very excited.

Well hello there, handsome

This guy is my current project. Chad is always telling me to try a mosaic of animals or people, and I always say no, it's too hard. And it is hard...much harder than geometric designs. Almost every piece is cut to fill a particular space. The dragon's wings are done in tiny, tiny triangular pieces of tile; I was trying to make them look like feathers. I've been using my tweezers to place them. And there's a large glass of wine just outside the photo above (I had to crop it), which wasn't helping with the tile placement.

I'm stumped on what colour to use for his feet. Seems like maybe they should be green, but he's pretty regal looking, and green lizard feet just don't seem to suit him. And I'm trying to decide how to do the border--maybe red and purple glass gems. And I have some beautiful gold I want to use. Anyway, I'm quite enjoying working on him. As usual, I can't wait to grout and see what it looks like when it's done.


My handsome dragon is based (copied, actually) on a British artist's design for a series of tiles, shown above. I found an image of the tiles in a book, and I just love the dragon and his pals. (I'll post the artist's name as soon as I can find the page from that book! Hopefully she won't read my blog!)