31.3.11

the papery

i love nothing better than a day off. on these magical days, i like to do one of two things:
1. sit at home in my pajamas and surround myself with my stamps, three pairs of scissors (no significant differences, i'm just constantly misplacing them, usually between the couch cushions*), and lots and lots of paper!
2. prance around downtown and pretend i am a fashionista or a professional photographer, of which i am neither.

today i opted for the latter. while downtown i visited the papery - a store I try to get to whenever i have a chance. it's full of so many different kinds of paper, note books, and stationery i literally have to talk myself out of having a conniption. today i picked up a calligraphy pen with refillable inks. i will conquer you wedding place cards!








the papery on fort street in victoria, bc

*j hates when i lose them between the cushions and i have been lectured multiple times.

found / outstanding in the field

i would kill to attend an event by outstanding in the field. i love the idea behind these dinner parties and the feelings they inspire. they set a loooooooong table in the middle of fields, along beach coasts, mountain tops and inside barns and diners enjoy a very communal dinner while they commune with nature. outstanding in the field describes the importance of re-connecting diners to the land and the origins of their food. i think this would be really exciting - it's like dinner on the patio times ten million! i think there would be a real sense of togetherness despite the fact that you may not know the people sitting near you - but you would be sharing in this experience together.

now, i've got my own giant dinner party to plan,* but if you have 200 dollars to spare then you could attend the pemberton bc event, the aldergrove bc event or the st catherines on event.**





*ahem, a wedding. j is making the table lists as we speak and needless to say, it is a bit of a conundrum.
** why am i assuming you live in canada? click here for the full list of events.

30.3.11

i love letterpress

my mind has been very much taken over lately with the idea of a honeymoon. if you had asked us eight months ago where we were going on our honeymoon, we would have said greece. ahhh, what an unrealistic dream that was. even if we'd decided to forgo the whole wedding reception, we still couldn't have afforded it. to be honest, i'm not sure why we chose greece anyways.* but then recently my aunt offered to send us somewhere after the wedding!. at this point we just want to go somewhere warm and lay unthinking in the sun, while we make gaga eyes at each other the way newly married couples do. we are trying not to get our hopes up, because if the effort to renew our passports is any indication of what is to come, the honeymoon may not happen.

but today i would like to commemorate through letterpress, the gorgeous, history filled honeymoon we will not have (not now anyways). these invitations are by bespoke letterpress in brisbane and they do some incredible things with paper!






*yes i do, j likes ruins and i had recently watched an episode of the sisterhood of the travelling pants.

29.3.11

ted harrison squarespace site info















mail art from monday

i was tickled pink to find two excellent things in my mailbox yesterday. the first was an awesome piece of mail art from my friend callah. look closely and see how she outlined the little asian girl stamps over and over! now that's dedication! i'm excited to read her letter as the postman took forever getting it here!


i also received the hair pins i bought on etsy to wear on my wedding day in two and a half weeks (!!!). they are these adorable vintage buttons that have been attached to bobby pins (my favourite type of hair accessory). vintagevalleygirl was so helpful in putting together the custom order and lowering the shipping for me.



28.3.11

what i made

these are some of my favourite creations this week. pretty chic if i do say so myself! there is something so striking about a crisp white image or word stamped on black paper! the story behind the peony is that i saw it about two weeks ago but restrained myself from buying it because it seemed too expensive for one stamp.

but then...i couldn't stop thinking about it. so when i came across it again at a different store at a lower price (okay, 5 cents lower but still...) i knew i had to bring it home with me otherwise i'd be having peony dreams (heh, that sounds like a whole different issue) for who knows how long! it was worth it don't you think?






26.3.11

hello, please enjoy



sometimes you think you have something good. and then you realize it can be better. that's how i felt about my blog. i have a very simple aesthetic and don't like clutter. but the lovely and always optimistic mervi from my best friend jules (incredible and beautiful blog, and i encourage you to visit after our little chat), has shown me that you can have more, and less, at the same time.

mervi worked tirelessly this week (ok, maybe she got a little tired) to recreate my blog and my website. i love the colours, the fonts and my little hummingbird post man. i couldn't have asked for someone more patient. i felt like a kindergarden kid intermittantly trying to sit on my hands and waving my arm at the teacher. i had lots of questions and ideas (most ludricrous flights of fancy, as children's ideas so often are), but mervi took into account all of them with such grace. so thank you dear mervi, for the gift of beauty and inspiration.

this blog feels like a redecorated living room. you know how the living room is the kind of room that always loses out to the family room because it never feels inviting enough? no longer i say!

welcome!



24.3.11

feature art friday | gregory colbert

one of the classes that really changed my perception of "art" and made me come to love a whole new genre of it was a third year undergraduate contemporary art course. i remember it clearly because i was in second year (the program was being cancelled and so they let me take this course as it was the last time it would be run). i thought i might be in over my head but instead i was totally and completely infatuated with everything we were learning.

we each had to do a project and @tracybriggs did her presentation on gregory colbert. i fell in love with this photographer instantly. yesterday a friend from university sent me a message that said: "someone showed me this website with meditation music and elephants bathing and it was awesome and i'm wondering if it was you? i think it has fire in the name"

it was me. colbert photographs animals with humans in their natural habitat in an effort to recapture a time when the two lived in harmony together. if you want to experience this project fully go here, click explore, then click explore on the next page too (wish i could get you further but there is no links to copy after that). it's worth it though.