featured

One of my cards was featured on Decor8 this morning! I woke up to a bunch of orders on my etsy shop, so that was really nice. Especially since I took new photographs of all my cards and even managed to add some new designs! Yay!!

homemade candy bars

When I saw this post at Chow Magazine (via not martha), I got all excited. Why not make your own homemade candy bars! They'd make lovely stocking stuffers, I think. Love it.

stocking crazy

Yesterday I purchased almost $50 in socks and tights from a Portland OR company called Sock Dreams. I've been wanting to buy their stock for a while, but now that the American dollar is sinking to just pennies a glass, I made my move. I'm so excited to get my package...just in time for all the cooler weather we've been having.

crafty tutorials

Wow, 2 really great tutorials found on my blogroll this morning. The first comes from The Small Object on how to sew up some great no see-thru curtains.


The next tutorial is from How About Orange about how to stretch your own fabric to make wall art. So easy!

the tiniest apple

A very yummy and very tiny Newtown Pippin that I just ate for lunch. I bought it at the UBC Apple Festival and you can read about my write up here.

knit happens

I just posted a new card in my etsy shop, knit happens!

Also, the beautiful project is having a sale! From now until December 1st, when you buy 3 cards you get a 4th card free. Whooop!

the gocco cult

This morning's New York Times had a great article about the gocco. I have a very little used gocco machine and I'm always wondering if I should go ahead and sell it on ebay or if I should take it out of the box more. The article, along with some inspiration from the etsy sellers above, is making me think about that little Japanese machine more and more...

design fetish

Waxing poetic on coffee lids.

rain, rain, go away!

It's been raining non-stop for the past week and I realize that it's time to purchase me some rain boots (or how about rain slippers!)


These ones spotted at Tamara Henriques are so pretty they are the perfect thing to beat the grey days of autumn.

to stain or to paint?

Now that I'm back from holidays, I'm totally into making my apartment feel more like a home. I haven't made up my mind about wall colours yet, so I'm starting small. I bought a dresser at a garage sale for $10...the same one as in the photo above. But mine is painted white. It either needs repainting (I'm thinking teal like in the photo below) but Cornelius might be more inclined with stripping the paint and using a stain like the picture above. Personally, I think it's a bit too staid. For me, painting just seems so much easier and much more fun. Thoughts? Both of these photos came from Apartment Therapy's fall colours contest entries.

the kaunas devil museum

My friend Craig alerted me to the fact that Boing Boing just featured the Kaunas Devil Museum that we had visited in September. It was such an awesome place...3 floors filled with devils. My only regret was that we didn't visit the basement with its "diabolical decor"!

the perfect cup

After starting each day with a great espresso in Europe (like this great cup of coffee in the Turkish part of Brussels), I think it's time to purchase a good grinder and a good espresso maker. Our current grinder is an old school traditional Dutch ceramic hand grinder but I'm thinking we need something that has a more consistent grind...and takes less manual labour. Any recommendations?

i'm tingling

Whoop! One of my cards is featured on the etsy greetings blog! Want to see more? Visit my etsy shop.

housesitting vacation

Check out that awesome apartment block I saw in Berlin! And because I can't get enough of vacations, I happened to stumble upon this site: housecarers.com. It sounds ideal if you want to look after a kitty in Queens, NY or take in something a bit more labour intensive...like olive picking in Tuscany for a few weeks! I heard about it through a couple who will be renting and (doing small renovations) to a house in France for a year. Sounds pretty ideal to me.

coming back from vacation is a lot of work...

Phew! Put a kettle on, because I'm going to need a whole lot of caffine. We arrived from Frankfurt on Monday night after an 11 hour flight and I'm still suffering from jetlag (going to bed after midnight and waking up at 4am is not my idea of a good time), but it's all worth it. Our trip was amazing and filled with great art, great food and lots of adventure. I've got lots to share, but it will take some time to get organized. I've spent the past day uploading photos onto flickr, but I've only uploaded up to day 7 of our trip...and we were gone for 35 days. Oi!