Blanket fort party!

My husband is pretty much the best person ever. He made me a huge birthday blanket fort almost entirely on his own (in my defense, he built it late at night for the most part, while I was asleep). After many hours of solid work and trips to the Salvation Army for more sheets, he had created a masterpiece. We celebrated with an awesome birthday party.

 

blanket fort!

If you've ever read XKCD, you'll notice that the comic sometimes delves into adults acting like kids, just for the fun of it:

I read this strip a few years ago on my husband's birthday, January 10th. He was napping, and when he awoke I was building a blanket fort in our living room. His FAR superior engineering skills (and his grand ambition!) took over, and we created a fort that took up most of our living room and stayed up for about a month.

At the time, we were engaged and living in Nova Scotia, but John had to return to Kansas due to immigration and money issues. He was leaving at the beginning of February for at least 6 months, so we spent our last bittersweet month together in that fort, playing Tetris and watching Naruto and sleeping.

John is a Permanent Resident now, thank goodness, so we never have to be separated like that again. Now, despite how sad we were at the time, remembering the blanket fort that took over our living room is a fond memory that we've been meaning to recreate. Last week, John had the brilliant idea to turn my birthday party into a giant blanket fort party. We're collecting sheets galore to make an incredible giant project that will probably stay up for months.

If you want to try this out for yourself, this article, written by a father with extensive fort experience, has some pretty great tips. If you'd prefer to fill up a portion of your house with a ball pit, check this piece out. :)

Pictures of the completed fort and birthday party to come next week!

the full effect.

Alright. You've seen my desk go from naked:

To lightly decorated:

But things have changed since then.

I'd write more about the transformation, but Blogger has eaten my drafts twice now and I am tired. :(

My desk, part 2.

So here is my "made over" desk. It's not done yet, but this is what it looked like after a little bit of rummaging around my apartment.

As you can see, I've added a bunch of things to the wall: post-it notes bearing inspiring quotes and a to-do list (that kept falling off, darn post-its), and a trio of food info pages from a magazine put out by our grocery store. The pages feature tomatoes, apples, and eggplants. They seemed like fall-appropriate foods to me.

 I've added a shiny silver piggy bank to my desktop. On my shelves, there is now a storage box and some electronics (USB computer speakers and my pair of external hard drives - I've saved all the digital photos I've taken since 2004, plus I have a huge music collection).

While this is an improvement on the naked desk, it's still not how I'd like it to look. I want to better-organise the shelves, add some cork board tiles to the walls, organise my desk drawer, and just jazz the space up in general. I'll be back on Friday with the final product. 

Now, I'm off to decorate!

My desk, part 1.

I've been promising desk makeover stuff, so I'd better start delivering. This week, my desk will be featured in a three-part series. Is that extensive coverage or what?

Today I'll show you the raw materials I started with. Here is my (mostly) naked desk in its natural habitat.

So far, there is a lamp, a vintage toothbrush holder housing pens, a little box holding paperclips and the like, a decorative tea light holder sitting on the base of my lamp, a calendar off to the side, and my external hard drives sitting on the top shelf.

As an unemployed lady, I can't really afford too much by way of "sprucing things up". Until I'm employed, it's an unpainted, imperfect desk for me, decorated with stuff from around the house and a few dollar store accessories I splurged on (yes, when you're as poor as I am, the dollar store is a splurge - so is the desk, for that matter!).

Stay tuned for the makeover, part 2, tomorrow. It's a minimalist makeover, but that's not enough for me, so part 3 on Friday will show the final, overstyled product. I was never very good at minimalism.

Desk, part 2.

It's official: I am in love with my desk. Sitting and working at it makes me feel productive and accomplished, even when I'm sitting here eating yogurt and watching YouTube videos. The power of a desk!

Another non-productive use of desk time was spent looking at Miss Vu's desk on flickr. She redecorates her desk fairly often, being one of those "creative types". My desk is smaller than hers, which leaves less room for experimentation, but I plan on having some fun. In case you're into that sort of lovely craziness too, here are my favorites from her collection.

Pretty adorable, right? Hopefully my desk will look this nice soon...

Desk.

Lately, I've been craving a workspace. When we moved into our current apartment, there was no room for a desk, but I happily did most of my studying at school or at the dining room table at night. However, now that I'm at home during the day, when there is tons of light pouring into the dining room, I can't really sit there with my laptop. Sitting at the couch isn't really the greatest alternative, either.

Enter kijiji (a Craigslist equivalent). Within a few days, I found a $20 desk and brought it home using my friend's car. Now that it's sitting pretty in my living room, though, I have to take the next logical step: decorate it!

Naturally, I popped over to my Pinterest page and started looking for inspiration. I want to incorporate the area into the rest of the living room, but still have it feel like a productive space. Here are some of my favorite desks, workspaces, and home offices.

Love the simplicity!

The three clipboards on the wall might be a fun alternative to a cork bulletin board!

The wall-mounted lamp is a great way to free up desk space. Love the colour scheme too!

This bulletin board is great! You can close the shutters to hide your work when company comes and still have that beautiful green colour and interest.

This is just head-to-toe adorable. Shelving could be a good way to incorporate businessy things with pretty artwork.

Some drawer organization inspiration! I love the cute little lucite dividers.

In an ideal world, this would be my living room.

Hopefully, I'll figure it all out soon. My desk might find itself with an exciting new coat of paint (white to red? I think it'll work), and who-knows-what on top of it, in its shelves, in its drawer, and on the wall above it. I'll keep you posted!

Oh dear goodness, do I ever want this bed.
I've wanted a canopy bed since I was a little girl,
and the nature motif just seals the deal.
source.

source.

...yeah, I could live there. Between the giant semicircular window, the spiral staircase, and the shelves upon shelves of books, I think I'd be happy as a clam.
source.

Beautiful. Gorgeous. WANT.
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Photos of the day.

Building a blanket fort in the living room. Saturday January 9, 2010.