News

This have been a little quiet over here lately, as they are wont to be sometimes. I have a few updates for you on some sewing and crafty things that I hope to share very soon....but first, I want to show you what's been keeping me so busy.

This beauty is ours! Home ownership has been a whirlwind experience -- we saw it for the first time a few days before Hallowe'en and take possession on Nov. 29th. The whole house-buying process, from viewing to offering to closing, will take about a month from start to finish.  Even though some moments were absolutely terrifying, I'm actually shocked by how smoothly things played out.

We are keeping our current apartment until Jan. 1, so we'll have about 5 weeks to paint, make some minor changes, and move. To say I'm excited is a complete understatement. (Just ask my fella and my parents, who have heard me talk about little else since we signed on the dotted line). I'm hoping to share our progress here on the ol'blog.

Now, I just have to keep my head from totally exploding before Nov. 29. SO EXCITED!

Project 365

I hope you all had Merry Christmasses and that Santa was good to you! My fella and I treated ourselves to a new SLR camera for our mutual Christmas present, and I am VERY excited about it. In fact, I have decided to beef up my photography skills by taking one photo a day for the entire year (known around the blogosphere as Project 365).

I'm not hoping to achieve feats of great artistic genius with these photos. All I want to do is challenge myself to do something creative every day, to learn how to use my camera better, and document little slices of life. By the end of the year, all I'm hoping for is a cool collection of interesting shapshots.

I'm still getting the hang of my new camera and haven't uploaded any of my photos yet -- so in the meantime, here are some snaps that have caught my eye on Flickr recently. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Pretty vignette from one of my favourite Toronto bloggers - Karyn at Make Something

A sweet appliqued tea towel from Angelina 79

Another shot from Karyn at Make Something. I like this one because it was taken at the coffee shop around the corner from my house (called - you guessed it - Hula Girl).

Cross-stitched ornament from Lena Corwin

Rachelredlips' beautiful version of the men's shirt from Collete Patterns. I got this pattern for my fella for Christmas and he wants his in black and white gingham too.

An adorable mitten garland by jbonikowski. This is on my must-make list for next Christmas!

PS - I feel like I should name my camera. I have a habit of naming inanimate objects that I have a special attachment to (I named my wedding dress Evelyn, and my KitchenAid mixer is named Beatrice...because she beats things).  Any suggestions for my new camera??  Ruby? Stella? Sanchez?

One of a kind show

I love the One of a Kind Show. I've gone for the past several years and always find one or two things that NEED to come home with me. This year was no exception. My fella was kind enough to escort me, which made it a) more fun and b) easier to not buy absolutely everything that I wanted. There's nothing like a voice of reason to make you back away from your fourth impulse buy of the day.

The first thing we took home are these cute little mason jar tealight holders, which are made by a local tinsmith. (See his website here). They're currently sitting on our kitchen table.

We also bought a very cool tealight holder for our mantle. (Notice a theme emerging here?) It's actually made from a bit of a recycled barrel from a winery in the Okanagan valley in B.C. I saw these last year and have been thinking about them ever since. (Visit the vendor's website here).

What I love about this is the inside of the candleholder is stained a dark burgundy from the wine, and the outside is marked by the metal that held the barrel together.

Finally, I totally splurged on this lightbox from a young designer named Christie Greyerbiehl. She takes vintage fabric -- in this case, an old bedsheet -- adds a screenprint design, then turns it into a lightbox.

Pretty, eh?

Bits and bites

My fella is away on business for the next week, so I'm planning to hermit-it-up at home for most of the weekend and hunker down with a few crafty/domestic projects. I'm planning to paint two pieces of furniture -- a craigslist couch and a side table I found on the curb (I have a serious addiction to curbside funiture) -- and make some headway on some sewing projects.

These efforts will show up on m'blog sometime soon, but in the meantime, here are some things from around the interweb that have ticked my fancy over the past week.

This recipe for Moroccan Spinach and Chickpeas looks really good to me. Plus, since I'm only cooking for myself for the next week (sigh), it looks like I could make a big batch of it and use it for dinners/lunches over the next few days.

I really, really want one of these.  But, the $65 pricetag is a little steep, so I'm considering trying to make one myself. It would be easy enough to find a frame and paint it white, but I'm stumped on how to handle the vase. Is there such a thing as a wooden vase that I could cut in half? Or is there an easy way to cut glass? Any suggestions?

I think my sewing to-do list just got longer. This is one of New Look's new fall patterns, and I am in lurve. I always tend to overlook New Look, but then they hook me with these adorable retro-y dress patterns.

And yes, I realize this dress is ridiculously similar to the one I posted about a few days ago, but this one has a cool hip detail! Which means it's totally worth adding to my list, right? Right??

Hope you all are enjoying your weekends!