etsy gifts

I love Etsy! Not only do I sell my notecards there (hint, hint!), but I do a lot of my own shopping and browsing there. It's the perfect place to snoop out great gifts for the holidays. It's also a great way to spend your money since you'll be supporting the crafters and artisans directly, instead of buying junk from a stoopid giantMEGAcorp. Here are just a few of my favorite (under $30) things...

This beautiful limited edition print from AshleyG's shop:


A lovely letterpress desk calendar from ilee's shop:



Shuttlecock lino print!!! From johnathanapgar's shop:



This sweet mini raincloud necklace from sudlow's shop:

i ♥ snow

Snow is a rare thing in Vancouver. But on Saturday afternoon the snow started to fall and it hasn't stopped since. Last night, Cornelius and I decided to go play in it!

!luvyoujeannett3

Last night I tidied up my little corner of the livingroom, also known as my office. Inside a basket I found this little alphabet block set and when I opened it up, my heart melted immediately. Cornelius got me this little gift years ago and I had totally forgotten about the secret message inside.

oh, the turbidity!

Vancouver's water sucks. It's brown and murky and you can't drink it. Due to all the crazy rain storms we've been having, Vancouverites must boil water and it looks like there is no end in sight. Time to head to the store to pick up another heavy jug of drinking water.

more reasons to love my home

The other day I discovered another internet time waster, Curbly. Today I joined up. Lots of pretty photos of people's living spaces and some good how-to information, including how to build a platform bed. Plus, you can win some Ikea gift certificates just writing and sharing a photo of your "happy place".

housing

This afternoon I'll be filling out co-op housing applications. We love our tiny little colourful apartment and neighbourhood and ridiculously low rent, but it's time to go. Our building is too damp which is reeking havoc with Cornelius' lungs and it sure would be nice to get his computer out of the kitchen. We're all for small apartment living, but surely 2 people crammed into 400 square feet of space can use another couple hundred feet, I think.

As much as we'd love to Go Rural, we aren't ready for that for another couple of years, yet. So urban co-op housing seems like the way to go. It's affordable, there are many locations around the city in neighbourhoods that I like, and although I'm not into communal living, cooperation with your neighbours sounds pretty perfect. No matter how much cheaper it may be to live in the suburbs, I'd never do it. The social and lifestyle costs are just too enormous. I found a good article during my co-op search last night about living small in the big city. It's just too bad that buying a condo is way out of our reach, price-wise. Thank goodness for co-ops!

i ♥ hotel bars

Last night, Cornelius and I walked downtown for the third installment in our series of hotel bars.

The first was the tiny lounge at the Crown Plaza on Georgia Street. We both loved it and enjoyed 2 reasonably priced drinks and loved the little mix of nuts & other salty snacks. Great service from the friendly female bartender. A great comfortable room.

The second was at the Hotel Vancouver on Georgia Street. The lounge was too open and bright to be called cozy, but the seats were comfortable and there was a man playing piano. The service was very professional but the drinks were a bit pricier than the ones we had at the Crown Plaza. However, I did have the best martini ever. I can't remember the name of it, but it had Absolute Raspberry, Sourpuss Tangerine, freshly squeezed orange juice and cranberry juice. Delicious!

The third installment took place at the Four Seasons Hotel lounge. The room was wood panelled and cozy with a round bar in the centre of the room. While my drink was nice and strong, it was the complimentary nibbles that won me over. Wasabi peas, an assortment of herbed olives and salted nuts. Lovely presentation and everything from the little olive forks to the napkins were Four Seasons branded. But for all that presentation, the drinks were the most expensive that we've tried so far.

Looks like we've got a lot more drinking to do!

the petri dish

One of my favorite little Vancouver shops is The Petri Dish, run by Jackie Dives. The store, known for its locally made, cute and quirky items, will be celebrating its one year anniversary with a tea party on November 18.


The store will also feature new Sean Maxy prints. If you're a Vancouver resident, you might just recognize his work from his band posters for The Doers. I love his stuff and I might actually treat myself to a print, as an early Christmas present to myself.

blue buildings

I love this! (via Life Fever)

The borough of Delfshaven, Rotterdam, asked Florentijn Hofman to come up with a plan for a block of derelict buildings, which will eventually be demolished. The agreement with the neighbourhood is that the block will remain blue as long as there isn’t a new plan for the area. This was once one of the most unseen blocks of houses in Rotterdam, and by applying a layer of only 2 micron of blue paint onto it, it became Rotterdam’s most photographed one. By redecorating this block, which was built in the first years of the 20th century, people start looking again at what was and is there, and maybe think about what they will get in return.
It also puts in perspective blocks of houses as such, architectural 'fashions' and demographic processes like city migrations, by making those blocks look like toy houses or archetypal buildings on an architect's maquette.

keep on smiling

When you wear bright yellow shoes outside, people smile at you more often. Today I wore these shoes outside (great for biking!) and so many people gave me huge grins. They either think I'm crazy or they think I'm the kind of person who'll smile back.

holiday cards are ready (finally)

Oh I've been so neglectful of my blogging habits lately. No worries. My full time contract job is over and done with and I'm back to working from home again (hooray!), so I'm sure I'll be cooking up a storm and browsing the interweb for cute things to post here. Yay! Back to my regular life and you know what? I like it.

And speaking of cute things, I've put up my holiday cards on my etsy shop. They are ready for the purchasing and I've made them available individually and in a set of 6 (or more, if needed).