Never on Sunday...(and candy - real and surreal)

...go to the Forest Hill Loblaws. A nightmare. Busier than Christmas Eve! And why advertise two day specials which you then don't have, and try to fob me off with overpriced substitutes?!?!? Enough said about that. I did acquire some maple fudge and fake-o Toblerone which is better than the real thing (called Alpine!) so all was not lost.

And at least I still have the poppy I shelled out $5 for (because I felt for the veteran with the poppy box - a man who likely fought in the Second World War - consigned to standing all day in the Loblaws from hell getting run over by frantic shopping cart drivers operating cell phones and Blackberries at the same time ). The fact that it is still on my jacket constitutes a personal record for longevity of poppies in the Brouhaha universe.

KB's Energizer Poppy (lasts a long, long time)


My poppy, by the way, stands for both remembrance and peace, in case anyone cares.

Speaking of poppies, or red, I'd like to digress to show you a little chapeau I acquired earlier this week at Brava (vintage place up the street from work).

Don't I look like a "lady who lunches"?

Oh - maybe not with the diet coke bottle in hand. Let's try again, shall we?


That's better.

Where was I?! Oh, yeah. Today's trek was also highly worthwhile as I stopped in at the Goodwill before hitting the grocery store. I finally left Goodwill - nine neckties, two tops and a fancy set of beads later, all for under $30!


I'm particularly proud of the beads. They were sitting at the till and I was cursing the person in front of me whom I thought had scored them. However, when it was my turn to pay they were still there. I grabbed them - the lady at the till then told me that ten people had refused them because they were "too expensive" at $5 and that a few of them had tried to haggle. Chickenheads.

Then I came home and recommenced work on my latest mosaic, which started off like this:


Then ended up looking like this:

I then had to grout it. I really dislike black grout. For some reason with me it always ends up with the consistency of tar, and about as hard to shift (man, what is all that tar doing to my lungs anyway? SIGH). So, here it is after the grouting:

What a mess, eh? But (drumroll, please) voila the finished product:


I'm calling it Liquorice Allsorts . One day, I will actually do a mosaic with real liquorice allsorts - they are probably harder to chew than the plate pieces I used today, anyway!

Please note the very la-di-dah features:

(a) Actual gold content!

(b) Hallmark from an exotic place!

And finally, another detail shot:


All this, too, can be yours - after a trip to the Goodwill:


(Not to mention the spot where large items are disposed behind my building!)

And - JJ actually likes it! And - he suggested painting the rest of the unit yellow! I think I may be converting him to crazy coloured craftdom... heh heh. Who's the Voice of Evil now, Holly?!

I should note that this is my first project for the Crafting 365 Flickr group (which I found about on "Handmade Originals - thanks, Frances! I've put a little list into the left sidebar of this blog to track my progress. The link to the Flickr page is there if others are interested.

I am still knitting as well - work progressed apace yesterday on the argyle blankie as well... I hope to have the FO very soon (I keep saying that, don't I?)

Happy Guy Fawkes Day!