Busy busy

It's been a week since I've updated and a lot has gotten done.  As far as the scrub goes, I covered them with green satin that I had leftover from making Emme's Drizella costume and tied them with ribbon.  Still have to do tags.

Dave is coming along on the dollhouse.  He has 2 sides done and the first two floors' walls done.  I have "wallpapered" those walls, 6 rooms in total.  I still have the third floor to go.  Dave's list is a little bigger.  He needs to attach the two sides together, assemble third floor walls for me, stain and install the floors, cut and assemble the roof tiles and paint the frame.  Sadly, not much work got done over the weekend.  We spent Saturday cleaning since not much had gotten done after we got back from vacation.  The week we got back I got hit hard with the flu and a stomach virus and then my doctor was changing my meds, so I wasn't feeling particularly motivated.  So cleaning was an all day thing.  Then on Sunday we had to put one of our furbabies to sleep.  I'm heartbroken, as is Emme.

Teal'C (pronounced like the color with a "k" sound on the end) - 10 points for whoever can tell me where the name is from, was a 5 year old mid (not long but not a normal) hair kitty.  We found him as a kitten along with his mother, sister and brother in a terrible snowstorm in Oct 2006.  We managed to capture them and bring them home with us to foster.  The mother was very friendly but the kittens were feral.  The female was quick to warm up to us and was adopted out to my husband's best friend's fiancee (and now lives with her parents).  The boys took us 3-4 months to socialize and even then, it was only with us.  I was afraid that if we broke that trust and took them to the shelter to be adioted that they'd revert and be put to sleep.  So our brood grew from two orange tigers to four.  He was a sweet, but still shy kitty.  He loved to snuggle with me as long as Dave wasn't around, he was still pretty terrified of him.  When he was being pet he would bury his head between his paws and nuzzle the bed/couch/floor.  So cute.  He also loved all 3 of his brothers, especially my old man kitty, Sir Robin.  Most days they could be found snuggling together, arms wrapped around the other one.  He had excellent hearing.  He could hear other kitties being played with, toys, treats and cat nip being taken out from 3 floors away.  He was a special boy. 

We woke up Sunday morning to hear a kitty howling from downstairs.  I assumed they were just fighting.  Dave found Teal'c lying under the basement stairs with his legs spread out and meowing.  He was not a talker so we knew instantly something was wrong.  I called the vet and we brought him in.  He had had a stroke.  There was a blood clot blocking blood flow to his rear legs and he was paralyzed in the back.  His breathing was labored, sounding to her like fluid in his lungs.  He also had heart failure.  She said there was no successful treatment for cats.  So we made the sad decision to have him put to sleep.  When she asked if we wanted to be with him I was surprised.  I can't imagine anyone leaving their dear pet alone at that point.  We stayed talking to him and petting him.  I'm glad he's out of pain, but still miss him terribly.  It hasn't really sunk in completely.  I'm still waiting for him to run downstairs when I fill their water or to cuddle with Rob.  I think his age and how quickly it all happened have a lot to do with the shock.  We found him at 9 and were home by 10:20am. 

Despite the terrible ordeal it was, I'm grateful to Dr. Gwen for her loving care of him and her understanding.  I'm also so thankful to my friend and neighbor who was able and more than willing to take Emme while we went to the vet.  I'm so grateful for the wonderful neighbors we have because there were four different people I know I could have called and left her with.

So, that was a long detour.  At any rate, not much got done on the house this weekend.  I did start a Christmas bulb (bulb or ball?) wreath for over the fireplace.  So easy but time consuming.

I used foam pipe insulation from Home Depot, $1.18, for the wreath base and duct taped it together with the only tape I had on hand.  Zebra!  It was a free sample I got about 6 months ago.  I started trying to do it with the metal ornament hangers.  Like this.

sticking them into the tubing.  Like this:

That didn't work so well.  They kept sliding out.  So I finally sucked it up and went to buy a glue gun.  Wow, that's much better!

I started by attempting to evenly space green bulbs around the outside, then did red around the inside.

                                         

Then I started filling it in.

 And that is where I stand.  That was about 15-20 that we had and 2 30 packs from Walmart.  I used the entire 6 ft of tubing.  We have a large, blank, white wall above our fireplace so I needed this to be big.  So far I've invested about $11 in this project.  I think it looks great so far.

Here is a photo of one of the sides of the dollhouse.  It is going to be huge.  I'm so excited!

Entry way in brown and pink metalic stripe paper.  Kitchen behind it in cake/cupcake paper.  Demon kitty (Sir Lancelot) behind that.

Dining room in white with pink ribbon chair rail.  I have since removed the bubbles that are visible here.  Living room behind that in pink stripes.

Second floor bedrooms.  Again, bubbles are gone now.

cI love this sparkly butterfly paper.  There was no matching it up though.  It wasn't continued on the next piece like a roll of wrapping paper, it was just one print, like a stamp.  So it doesn't line up, but I loved it too much to not use it.

My other project that I haven't done pictures of yet are coasters.  I made some for us to see if I liked them before doing them for others.  Hopefully I have tutorials up in the next couple of days.  Well, that's it for me.  Another 5 points if you made it all the way through this super long post today!