Speaking of before photos, I plan on also taking some of my scrawny frame, before I embark on a regime of fitness over the spring, to get in shape for the summer. Not that those photos will be for public consumption anytime soon! Not, at least until I have “after” photos to go along side them.

In other news we pitched in on the Earth Hour event tonight by turning everything off and spending an hour illuminated by candle light. Avie didn’t really know what to make of it at first. But it ended up being fun in the end.

We have a lot more space here and with a full basement to play with, it means the little bean can have her very own playroom and Mom and Dad can have space for their art’s and crafts, of which I took advantage this week, taking on the skill of sewing! Having never used a sewing machine before I managed to measure cut and make not only a curtain but also 4 cushion covers just from scraps of fabric we had laying around. All with no planning or much thinking… Well except when it came to closing the 4th side of the cushion covers where I had a bit of help.

I’m pretty proud of my handy work. I guess I must have learned something from all the years of seeing my Mum’s crafty sewing hands at work.

Speaking of our arts, Crystal’s first solo art show is ongoing at L.A’s Black Maria Gallery right now. I think her collection turned out amazingly well. I keep meaning to have a go at painting myself,  but right now I am about to embark on a drawing course, by way of the book; Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I’ll have to update on my progress.

I started up this post to mention that I have just finished putting together Crystal’s new Art portfolio website, which can be found at www.crystalwalllancaster.com I am pretty pleased with the way it turned out. It is all about the art, so we tried to keep the design and colors pretty minimalist. I think it worked well, go check it out.

Also recently I knocked up a shelf for our studio. It’s been so long since I did any kind if DIY project like this that I forgot that whole “planning” stage. I just went straight to measuring and cutting based on the measurements in my head. As it happened, this worked out just right in the end, but it would have been so much faster if I had sketched it all out on paper first instead of having to work out all the numbers in my head each time I had to make a cut or drill a hole.

I’m pretty proud of it, but all credit has to go to my Dad for teaching me how to do all this stuff. For my next project I’d really like to take on this Four Color T-Shirt Printing Press which I think would be awesome fun. Crystal and I actually bought a mini screen printing kit though, which we haven’t used yet, so I guess I should give that a whirl first, maybe I’ll just put that project on my infamous to-do list. Speaking of T-Shirts, I’ve also, of late, been adding designs to the Spreadshirt Marketplace, so check those out too.

Laters,
Paul

It felt so good to have friends and family here too, can’t wait until everyone comes back, can’t wiat infact for our next trip to England, hopfully we can make it over before the year is out.

Right now I am working on a few projects. This Blog will be getting an update, I have a couple of T-Shirt designs up my sleeve, and I’m helping Crystal out with her portfolio website now that she is pulling out the paints and starting to do gallery shows, we are both escited about that! So I’ll have a link to that in the next few days. I’m also going to be setting up my flickr gallery (finally), and will be adding lots of pictures from our awesome new digital SLR.

In other news, the wedding plans are still slowly coming together. We finished off creating the invitations, which I have printed, cut and folded, they are just waiting to be addressed and posted now. My next crafty job is to work on the wedding favours, at least I think that’s what they are called, the little gifts for each guest, I have a plan for those. I still need to arrange the suit hire for the boys and work my calender of events out for the time that everyone is over visiting from home. I can’t wait to see everyone!

My immigration plans took a knock today when we couldn’t make it to my medical exam due to the weather. We had freezing rain here this morning, and by all accounts Fredricton, the location of my examination, was hit much worse. It’s not too bad though I managed to reschedule for the 3rd of May, which isn’t too far away.

www.paul-lancaster.com

I’m now using the Wordpress platform over there too, so I’ll be archiving this old Blogger Blog into my Wordpress site eventually, but for now it will just remain here in the /blog area until I get around to integrating them. Remember to change your links.

Cheers,
Paul

On the subject of little beans, this week will see the exciting launch of Crystal’s illustration shop Little Beanz. Specializing in fine art prints, which will focus on celebrating childhood by highlighting an exceptionally unique little darling in each illustration. You can see some sneak peaks of her work over at The Micawber. But the shop will be launching on this coming Friday at 2PM EST. So don’t forget to check that out at www.littlebeanz.com. I’ve been helping out with banners and such for her shop and starting to put together flyers and posters for the launch too.

Apart from helping out with Little Beanz. I’ve also been starting to put together my own T-Shirt blog T-Shirt Advocate. Over the last year or so I have spent a lot of time on various T-Shirt sites and Blogs and thought it was high time I jumped on the bandwaggon. It will be a good learning experience in the worlds of webdesign, online marketing and “pro blogging”, 3 things I am intending to persue when my Visa is eventually sorted. Which reinds me, I was supposd to be doing a post entitled “priorities” listing my priorities right now, (immigration being the first one). My theory being that if I get things down on here then it will give me more incentive to get them done, a reader moderated ‘to-do’ list if you will. Getting back to T-Shirt Advocate though, the aim is to write about my favorite T-Shirts and shops and to research and report on different avenues for designing, printing and selling T-Shirts.

One last note, on the mirror I posted about, Crystal actually ended up painting it, and I cleaned up the glass and added hooks for our keys. I think it turned out really well, especially considering it was only 2 dollars…

Speaking of picture frames, we also have a bunch more that are ready to be painted black too, to fit in with the rest. I can’t wait until all our decorations are up, although it already totally feels like home here, it will be even better when all the picture frames are on the wall instead of the floor.

…I actually planned on starting all of this today but I went out to pick up Avie a new car seat. She is getting so big! I shopped around and managed to find a good one for a decent price, and then I had to head to the Honda dealer to pick up an anchor bolt to hook it up to our car. It’s all set up now though, Avie is going to love facing forward, she loves to see what is going on so it will be exciting for her I’m sure.

So that’s all my news for today, I’m off for a quick rock out on Guitar Hero before Crystal makes me watch Pop Idol. I’ve not really paid much mind to all the Pop Idol shows over recent years, except for a brief stint following Barnsley’s own Sam Nixon. I mean, if I wanted to watch bad Kareoke I’d be down at the KV Billiards, but that being said I really did enjoy watching This Guy! I’ve had the song in my head for the past week now.

The meat was the best part of it though, really succulent. Now that I have given the cooker a whirl I think I will be more adventurous next time, put my own spin on it and add a few extra vegetables (and I might even put turnip in it Crystal!).