You can just buy the wood frames that you stretch canvases on at an artist supply store and staple the fabric to them. The frames are easy to put together. My only tip is that you must own a staple gun. Don't staple yourself. (What?) You can also use some thin batting and staple it to thin plywood or masonite.

Extra wall space. It's hard to imagine. I'm thinking of taking the pictures up to the ceiling, salon style.

Staples will work. If you don't have 4 hands, one way to do it is to lay the canvas face down on the back of the fabric. Pull the fabric taut to the middle of one side of the frame and staple. Pull the fabric taut to the other side (opposite) and staple in the middle.

Work your way out to the edges, keep int the fabric as taut as possible.

Repeat for the other two sides.

That make any sense??

The canvas, fabric and staple thing reminds me of the time when I helped my friend Liz cover this thing that was essentially a cedar chest on legs. Anyhow, the fabric going around the chest part had spaces for the legs, and would go underneath the chest. The edges were to be stapled on the inside edge of the chest. Liz, who is one of the most meticulous people I know, had measured very, very carefully. When we pulled the fabric up, however, it came short of the edge by a few inches.

Liz started flipping out like a mammal. Some instinct caused me to look under the bench. We had almost upholstered the cat - when we weren't looking, he crawled between the fabric and bench, figuring it would be a keen place to take a nap.

Things that have happened since going off for dinner.

Dinner. Tuna on spinach / potato pancakes, with avocado & tomato. It's surprisingly tasty, FYI.

Accidentally kicking the kitties' water dish causing a tsunami of kitty water over the kitchen floor.

The clothes dryer malfunctioning, causing the brief end-of-cycle buzzer to continue it's shrill noise until I went and dealt with it. It's never done that before.

Gave the kitties some playtime. Cos.

Thanks for the tips, y'all. The nice thing about dating a contractor is east access to tools (looks at rug steamer that she's been studiously avoiding using today). The bad thing is he'll laugh at me when I inevitably staple myself using his staple gun.

But wouldn't I want to use glue? Or would that create ripples?

Here's the area I'm working on: Long shot. Closer. (Please to ignore this mismatched candles. I'm burning them as fast as possible.)

I am also tempted by black-and-white photography, much like this: [link] but... mergh. I am unsure. Grump.

Glue really doesn't work, because you can't pull it tight. If you staple in the middle of a side and stretch to the other side and then do that on the other two sides, then continue to fill in with lots of staples, it ends up flat. Really.

Would thinking of it as a flat work, j? A really short, skinny flat that doesn't have to stand up on its own, that will be hung on a wall?

If you want to try something cheap and fast, pick up a piece of foamcore--or even corrugated cardboard from, oh, a refrigerator box. Lightweight fabric--cotton batik, frex, and masking tape. Tape all along one edge of fabric, lay the foamcore or cardboard down in the center of it, and fold the edge over and stick the tape down. Make sure you press the fabric w/in an inch of its life before you start. Tape the other edge, then carefully maintaining even tension, fold up that edge and stick it down to the back. Do the center ends, working out to the corners, where you can fold and tuck, and even snip away excess fabric if it's too bulky.

The beauty is, this piece is lightweight and easy to hang, and should hold up as long as you need it to.

I finally made it to Orlando. My flight arrived about 11, I got to my hotel about midnight. I'm going to bed now.

Or later. Hec, sorry about Emmett and his dog friend. Too bad dogs are so bad at sending postcards.

Emmett's going over to play with the dog tomorrow morning. So he'll get some quality Maklo time before he goes.

Back from two games and all day in Burlingame. We won the first and made a furious rally in the bottom of the sixth but lost the second 13-11.

This tournament was played by Pony League rules, which means the baserunners can take leads and you can steal as soon as the pitcher makes a motion to home. We usually play Little League rules which for our level means, no leads and you can't break for the next base until the ball crosses home plate.

Anyway, Emmett was awesome at catcher in tonight's game. He threw out two baserunners at third, and pounced on a short bunt and threw out a baserunner at first. That's three out of eighteen outs (in a six inning game). And it's really hard to throw somebody out in Pony League when they've basically got a running start and are halfway to the bag before the catcher gets the ball. But Emmett threw perfect laser beam throws and erased them.

There might have been some woofing from his Dad in the stands.

Also he'd been in a bit of a hitting funk all tourney but had two big hits in our last rallys, including a line drive over the shortstop's head to drive in our last run.

In some ways the best of all worlds: Emmett played well, we had a closing rally and we didn't win so we don't have to play in the finals tomorrow night. These wrap around tournaments where you have to play the final on a Monday are brutal.

I hope ND is safely ensconced in his hotel bed by now, free of airline security worries.

Personally, I'm afraid to go to bed because Matilda will be up from 2 to 4, loud, screaming and alert. As she has been for the last three weeks.

No wait! I hear her loud cry already. Well that takes the suspense out about when she's going to awake.