Thing 30: Spend a weekend shopping in Seattle area

This time of year I usually go to Phoenix to visit my snowbird parents. Since they didn't go south this year, mom and I decided to take a trip to Seattle (and Vegas, but more on that later!). Mom found a really good deal with the Clipper for two nights and a return trip on the ferry. We've never taken the Clipper and I was interested to see what it was like since living on the Island, I'm a veteran of the BC Ferries and pretty familiar with the Coho as well. I don't have any pictures from the trip down because we left at 5 pm Saturday night and it was soon dark. I was going to take pictures on the way home but that didn't go as planned.

We only had one day in Seattle itself as the Clipper was supposed to leave at 8 am Monday morning. We've been to Seattle many times so we weren't interested in going up the Space Needle but it was close to our hotel and had a monorail that took you downtown. Downtown was more compact than I was expecting. We shopped our way around including a stroll through the top of Pikes Place Market. We booked tickets to the 5th Avenue Theater to see the Music Man at 7 pm so we went back to the hotel for a few hours before heading back downtown to the show. 

The theater was amazing! It is beautifully decorated in a Chinese theme. There was a dragon hanging from the ceiling holding the chandelier. The Music Man was entertaining and I suppose that it qualifies for another thing on my list, Thing 9 - See a play. It was more musical than play though. 

When we got back to the hotel, there was a message from the Clipper. They needed us to be at the terminal at 6:30 am. When we got there the next morning, we found out the sailing was cancelled and they were putting us on a bus for Vancouver. (I forgot to ask what would happen if the BC Ferries weren't running, but they were.) The bus ride was 2 hours and we cleared customs at the border, then off to the BC Ferry. We ended up home a couple of hours later than if we had taken the Clipper so it wasn't too bad. It was disappointing that we didn't get to see the view from the Clipper on the way home or shop the duty free. They did give us breakfast and lunch and a letter for 50% off an adult fare to be used in the next year. The Clipper did everything in their power to get us home in a timely fashion. They can't help the weather. All in all it was a good weekend in Seattle. We'll end up doing more shopping later on this month when we drive down to fly out of SeaTac to Vegas.

Week 6 - Start/Done - Dragonfly screen door bug

I'm about halfway through selecting recipes for my board so I did a quick craft this week.

I bought this beaded dragonfly for my screen door in the Butchart Gardens gift shop. I like it a lot and wanted a few more, but they were a bit pricey and I haven't renewed my Butchart Gardens pass, so I decided to make some.

I used 20 gauge jewelry wire, beads and a pair of 3 in 1 jewelry pliers that I picked up at Walmart. I bought most of the beads at Michael's but I also used some from a broken necklace that I had saved. 

The one in the middle is the original. I think they turned out well. It was helpful to have one pre-made to look at and copy because winding the wire gets a bit complicated for the wings.

Week 5 - done

I'm in the process of selecting recipes to use on my new meal planning menu board but the board is ready to go.

I like cute magnets.

I laid out the calendar on paper first, then used the pin striping to mark it on the board. I printed the months, the dates and a few general menu planning titles for when I'm away, planned a night out or planned to stop by the folks place. The recipes will be in colour so I thought I'd keep the rest white. I printed these on card stock, cut them out and covered them with packing tape to laminate them. I then applied a small piece of magnet to the back. I keep the extras in a small container that I also attached magnets to and keep on the side of my fridge. I'll also keep the recipe titles I don't use in a month the same way. 

Week 5 - Start - Meal Planning Calendar

Up for this week is part of a larger project to get my food purchases in order. I've already organized my coupons, now to plan meals and grocery shopping. I usually bring my leftovers to work for lunch but I've been slacking on making dinner so no lunch or lots of PB&J. Don't get me wrong, I could eat PB&J every day for a long while before I got bored with it but a little variety is nice.

Source: robbygurlscreations.blogspot.ca viaBrenda on Pinterest

First up is to make a calendar for my fridge to plan my meals out on. I saw this pin on Pinterest and wanted to make one similar but much smaller.

Here's what I bought to get the job done. A small magnetic whiteboard with a strip of cork, magnetic tape and clear packing tape for the recipe titles, and pinstripe tape from Canadian Tire to mark out the calendar. The photo album will be used to hold the recipes once I've selected them.

Week 4 - Done

Well for a quick project, It took a little longer than I expected only because I have nowhere to spray paint at home.  It's too cold to do it outside so I took it to work and did it there after hours. 

I decided on purple (big surprise) and the edges are black and silver although the silver doesn't show up in the picture. Weird. 

I also spray painted the hooks silver as they were gold which isn't a favourite of mine.I pre-drilled the holes for the hooks and drilled a shallow hole in the back to hang the holder from a nail. I was going to add a design to the front but figured it would get covered up once the bracelets and anklets were on it.

Here's a before and after of where I hung it. All in all it was an easy project, if not as quick as I was expecting.