Wrapped and Mapped

Lynda and I try to push the envelope with every occasion and this Christmas was no different. We had planned the gift wrapping a year ago and collected old road maps, opened them out and flattened them for this Christmas. It's interesting to note that with the advent of Mapquest, Google Maps and GPS units for cars, paper maps have become all but obsolete.

I did the wrapping and Lynda did the embellishing.

All in, the grand total of the gift wrapping for all of the gifts would've come to under a dollar. The ribbon came from a rather large roll that we scored at the Value Village, the little clothespins were from the dollar store and the metal rimmed tags were from the ReStore at 50 for 50 cents.

We think they came out just fine.....

Christmas Storage

A while ago, while still in Dubai, I had recognized the need for proper storage for our Christmas decor. Lynda and I were habituated to getting ornaments from 'The One' at the post Christmas sales and we wanted to store them nicely as opposed to being thrown in a bag and stuffed away somewhere only to be be pulled out the next year, damaged.

With little or no budget, I decided to utilize the boxes that the spares were shipped in. I have three boxes in total. The one for the crib is purpose built to size, but the other two have been modified to suit.

The Crib Box made from 1/4" MDF. The cardboard box contains the figurines

One of the shipping containers is configured as upright storage and for bulk decor and larger ornaments. There are two drawers that fit one over the other and rest a foot off the base. This allows, boughs and wreaths to be placed at the base of the box. I fitted handles that we salvaged from bulk welding spools and cheap casters make for easy mobility.

The box looks bad from the outside, but keeps everything clean on the inside

The first layer with the ornaments wrapped in tissue paper

Second layer

The base with the loose boughs

The third box was configured to act like a chest of drawers. I used the covers of the boxes that held our printer papers as they were sized well to hold the ornaments. I used three boxes in the last level to hold bigger ornaments. The drawer holders are brazing rods held in place by 1/4" plywood. Simple really.

The move from Dubai to Bahrain and then to Canada took it's toll on the exterior

First look at the inside

Some of the 'drawers' pulled out

A look at the inside showing the construction detail

And finally, all of the ornaments laid out while decorating the tree.

All New.... Now with Dog!!

Wow. It's been over a month and a half since my last post. So much has happened since then. We got a dog... finally. He is 3/4 Pug and 1/4 Jack Russel. Essentially his mother is a pure Pug and his father is half Pug and half Jack Russel. We named him Coach, a name that we had decided on much before we decided on getting the dog itself. We got him from London Ontario on a grey foggy morning just as Aaliyah was recovering from the Flu.

He is great fun and after being off dogs since we had to put 'Puppy' to sleep in Bahrain, we're very much back in the game.

Here is Coach captured in pensive mood while enjoying his 'kill'