Q's Bedroom & Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum

We took the girls to Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum. It reminds me of some cool place that Heidi might find and explore with her kids. It is literally 20 minutes from my house, and I had no idea that it existed.

It's a zillion old timey coin-operated machines-- some from the early 1900s and some from Coney Island. There are some newer games like Dance Dance Revolution and such, but of course, I was loving the oldies. And there were some CREEEEPY machines! I could not talk Q into having her bday party there in November. Booooo. Their favorite was the very realistic-looking dude who pukes. I know it's only fake puke (it's some sort of brown liquid), but I can only imagine how nasty the inside of that machine smells. Ew...now THAT creeped me out big time.

Here are some of my favorite pics:





And a video of Wally & Wanda, the Polka Babies:

Besides that, I completed my first Craigslist transaction!!! I got this super pretty French Provincial nightstand for $20 (!), and it's wanting a beautiful coat of turquoise paint for Q's room (like this).


Speaking of, here is the design board for Q's room:


Inspiration was taken from Lay Baby Lay's Little Girl Wonder inspiration board! I couldn't work the peach in there properly and Q wasn't feeling the peach anyway (she was allllll about the purple-- I could barely get the teal in there at all). But I think it will be good. I am bummed that her forest-themed room is already defunct, but once we get the attic playroom finished, those items will be transferred up there.

Hope everyone's weekend was swell!

Behold the Kitsch

My eyes! My eyes! This is extreme kitsch overload...even for me! Just finished putting this together. The wreath, Merry Christmas plaque and the pom poms are new, the deer and Santa are vintage. The larger Xmas plaques are hard to find, but I did find them on Etsy. Jennifer of Lulu's Cupcake Boutique was awesome in getting them to me tout de suite. Thanks, Jennifer!

Sorry for the massive overuse of Picnik effects as of late. My camera is crap. I can't take a good picture after sunset to save my life, and the Lomo effect especially really helps. I need to invest in a new camera, but after snooping on Flickr to see what some of my other peeps are using, it's looking like I am going to have to spend some major dough to get something good. Which I may or may not be willing to do. To be continued...

Happy Hallowe'en!

Hope everyone has a fabulous day full of tricks or treats! Take a look at these cool pics from Steve Chasmar's Flickr page. Above is just one example.

Reminds me of a scene from a really good Halloween movie we watched last night called Trick R Treat. I would highly recommend it. It was apparently made 3 years ago, and it was just released straight to DVD. Don't let that deter you, however, because this horror buff was very entertained. Plus, Anna Paquin is in it, and I adore her.


In other Halloweenie topics, did anyone else watch The Office Thursday? I was digging on Michael's dick in a box costume and Ryan the temp as Edward Cullen. No comparison, sir, no comparison!

I'll leave you with a pic of the dumplings as they were headed out to Zoo Boo last weekend. I give you........Pocahontas and Sacajawea!


xo and much candy to yas!

The Dionne Quints

I had been hemming and hawing about buying this picture for my craftroom. But when Michelle added the background of the pic to her Etsy listing, I knew I had to have it (photo courtesy of MyWagonette).



The Dionne quintuplets were born in Canada in 1934 and were the first known quintuplets in the world. They were taken away from their parents and raised in a hospital and became Canada's second largest tourist attraction (next to Niagra Falls). Apparently, two of the sisters are still alive today. Apparently, the Canadian government made over $500 million at their expense. Unsure as to how much the ladies actually saw of that (probably none).


The dolls in the picture were produced by Madam Alexander in 1938 and are now worth a pretty penny (even the reproduction dolls are expensive). I would love to own the whole set, but I will settle for the picture. Sigh...what a tragic story.


On another note, don't forget to become a Girl Land fan on Facebook AND/OR leave a comment to my post from last week! You have until Friday. Tell your friends. Whoot.

Cute, Fun, Scary Cute, Scary...

On this fine Friday afternoon, I am enjoying the following:

♥Whistling Bird vase at Urban Outfitters:

I always think UO stuff is going to be bigger. Like this vase is pretty tiny, but still REALLY lovely.

♥Apartment Therapy. I am a complete addict. They totally need a AT: Detroit!!!!!!

♥I found this at Loved to Death's Etsy Shop a few months ago and forgot to mention it. I love it SO MUCH. It's been sold, but they do have a lovely pigeon shadow box currently.

♥It would have looked splendid in my craft room with this BEAUTIFUL print from Madelaine's Etsy Shop.

I think between this and the mouse taxidermy, I may have been a goth girl in a former life. I would love to put this in my craft room, but methinks it may disturb the kiddos. I dunno-- I still may get it.

And I thought my basement was going to be done today-- it's not. Carpet dudes couldn't carpet. Should be done Monday. Are you sick of basement talk yet? I am!!!

Share the Love Part II

Girl Land has been a hobby-based business from the start. In fact, after having our taxes done last year, I confirmed what I already knew—I lose money doing this. That doesn’t mean anything to me. In my mind, this is my hobby. Selling something or making someone happy in the process (besides myself) is just a bonus!

Girl Land is all about happy nostalgia. Do you ever hear a song or see a toy or memento from your childhood and a flood of sentiment suddenly washes over you? How happy it makes me when someone tells me that this happened while browsing through my Etsy shop or blog.

You may remember my little contests for my 300th post. Well, Julie emailed today to thank me for the things I sent her with her Girl Land bucks. I tucked a tiny package with some penny candy and a vintage animal rummy playing card in with her items, and she told me this story:

And in the little packet, my goodness ... that bubble gum is made in Concord, ON which is a northern suburb of Toronto and very close to where I lived in Thornhill. I had to pass the factory on my way to work in Concord and the smell of that bubble gum filling the air would take me right back to being a kid again.

Then I saw the tiny card with the lamb on it. I gasped, I had that set of cards when I was a child! Our family had a cabin on an island and so mum had to think of things for me to do so I wouldn't get bored, no electricity and no neighbours, so we would play cards and board games. My dad passed away last December, on my 41st bday, and we decided to sell the cabin this summer, but couldn't bring ourselves to actually go there to clean it out. Even though we love the place, no one had been there in 4 years, because of illness and old age. We sold the cabin, "as is, where is", with all our things still in it .. and that deck of cards is probably there somewhere, along with other toys and games, our clothes, shoes and a couple of bottles of dad's booze! LOL

THAT. That right there is why I love doing this. Thank you soooo much (not to just Julie, but to everyone).

Hmmmm...come to think of it, maybe this movie had a bit to do with my obsession with happy nostalgia...

Stamps & Paranoia

I've been trying to unload some of my unused baby stuff and maternity stuff on eBay thus necessitating several trips to the post office. I'm a weirdo in that I like to buy cute stamps. In fact, I will buy several books at a time and use them appropriately-- flower stamps on mail to my mom, Disney or storybook stamps to kids, flag stamps on my bills, etc. And if the envelope is colored, I like my stamp to match. Yes, I'm that weird. It bothered me that I had to use the Forever stamp (bell) on Vivian's birth announcements which were pink and green. This would have been cuter:

And look at these nifty ones coming out next week:

Weight Watchers is going ok. I had a little hiccup at Father's Day brunch Sunday which led to me stopping counting points for the day. Not good. I'm back on track today though. Take a look at my 5.5 point lunch: 1 cup strawberries, 7 Wheatables, and caprese salad (2 oz. buffalo mozzarella, grape tomatoes, basil, and cabernet sauvignon vinegar).

I'm sure many of you out there conjured up some craftlicious gifts for the dads in your lives. My favorite was a microwaveable rice pack with cute preppy whale fabric, but now I can't remember where I saw it!

Ryan and I are weird in that we pretty much buy whatever we want for ourselves. I was having a hard time coming up with something, so I made some dorky coupons with clipart on the computer. When I kept thinking of what he'd want most, all I could think is that the guy would probably give his left arm to be able to sleep in one morning (I get up all night with V and he wakes up with Q at usually 6:30) or go to the movie of his choice by himself one afternoon or evening without feeling guilty. So he can redeem the coupons for these very things.

Lastly, our next door neighbor (the one with the crappy shed) has some shady looking guys painting his garage and house. One of them came over this afternoon and asked Ryan to borrow $50. WTF???!!!! It really creeped me out especially since I am home all day long by myself, and what if he's mad Ryan said no? I'm a bit paranoid. Don't even ask me about the fear I had of someone kidnapping me and cutting my baby out when I was pregnant with Q and V...I told you. Weird.

Oh the Horror

You may know of my love of the horror genre. I am a nut over all things creepy & scary. My favorite movie of all time is 28 Days Later (followed verrrrry closely by A Patch of Blue with Sidney Poitier and To Kill a Mockingbird).

So in addition to my brother's Fangoria magazines, there is one particularly cheesy video from 1986 to which I can attribute my infatuation. Scared the bejesus out of me at the time-- mainly the part where they find the bodies. Now it scares me for a whole set of different reasons (eesh, the 80s are scary in their own right). Anyone remember this one-hit wonder?



A couple more things are making me giddy. NBC's new show on Thursday nights called Fear Itself. Each week is a mini movie from different horror directors/writers. I must say, it was pretty good.

Also, I think I mentioned I watched Season 1 of Dexter which was on CBS. Well, I couldn't wait for Season 2 to be released on DVD in August, so I downloaded all the episodes on Amazon Unbox and watched all 12 in like 3-1/2 days. SOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOD. Pam, you were right! It was great.

Oh, also Ryan bought me The Orphanage for Mother's Day. Niiiiice, right?

Can't wait to see M. Night's new one too. Not so much horror, but creepy nonetheless.