pretty paper | basic grey

oh goodness me. tell me this isn't the prettiest crafting paper you have ever seen? i don't even normally craft with paper this busy. it's all about solids for me. but i saw this basic grey out of print* paper and i just had to have it. except now i don't know what to do with it! yes, i could make envelopes (i probably will) but then what do i do with them? it's just so special it needs to have a really special purpose. ack! any ideas?

and don't even get me started on the fact that it's double sided...

* those are both a company name and a product series name. yes, it's confusing for all of us.

fifty-two projects | project thirteen

this is project thirteen of fifty-two projects (in no particular order). to see more projects, visit the link on the right side bar, or click here.

project thirteen: have a dinner party on the next friday the thirteenth. invite all of your good friends. at the end of the meal, no matter what kind of cuisine you served, bring out a tray of fortune cookies. make sure you organize the tray so that you know who gets which fortune cookie. the reason for this is because earlier in the day you carefully pulled out whatever fortunes were in the cookies, and replaced them with fortunes specific for each of your friends. 

alteration: i didn't have my dinner party on friday the thirteenth. aside from this being project thirteen, there didn't appear to be a great deal of significance to this number. also, i was unable to pull out the fortunes, to attempt this definitely would have broken the cookies!

i wasn't actually sure where to find fortune cookies. i had this idea that i would have to go to a chinese restaurant and beg for some. i looked restaurants up online and many of the local ones were in china town (surprise!). while i was down there, i asked a random man on the street where the best place to find fortune cookies would be. i wasn't sure if this was inappropriate but he sent me to a little grocer right across the street. sure enough they were right at the front of the store. bags of a dozen for ninety-nine cents! of course i bought three bags because there was only four in each bag that had "openings"

i tried to make the fortunes i wrote very similar to the originals, both visually and verbally - but more personalized of course! (you can see the fortune i wrote for myself at the bottom of this first image). i put the cookies next to some lemon sorbet and make little flags so that there was no confusion as to who's cookie/ice cream was whos. each person read their partner's fortune for them and then we all enjoyed some delicious desert. yum!

the traveling journal update

the traveling journal is just leaving lodi california and i thought you might like to see an update of the latest pages! if you aren't following the journal here - you should be! it's only going to get better and farther away! the following images are by ann in lodi:

what i made wednesday | white sphere mobile

you should know that i have a thing for mobiles. i mean for real, they get me seriously excited. i think it has something to do with the alteration of space when you hang one and the way it affects the room. additionally, they are really pretty. they seem to defy gravity and i adore their fragility and perfect sense of balance. i've always told my friends that if i were to drop everything and become an artist, i would make elaborate mobile creations. actually, there is an artist who does make something similar to this idea and she is one of the very first artists i posted about on this blog: here.

you know how sometimes people talk about a diy and they say "it's so simple you could totally do it yourself!" but it's not always so "simple?" well this one was. i'd had the idea in the back of my mind forever, and wanted to get more use out of my giant hole punch (what? you don't have a giant hole punch?). so i sat down to make this with only an abstract idea of what i was going to do and less than two hours later i was done!

i punched a bunch of holes in white eighty lb cardstock paper. i covered them in a light layer of glue and laid string across them as seen above.

i took more spheres and set them on top of the glue covered ones to "close" the string inside.

i used these lil' guys because i was in a bit of a time crunch but i thought later that you could use a giant needle to "thread" the string through to the top and then just knot it off! much cleaner looking probably.

you can see here how i screwed the hooks into a large circle of white cardboard (i used the lid of a hatbox to trace the circle but anything works!) i tied my string with the white closed off spheres attached to the hook. i screwed the hooks in a pattern i chose (for example, eight on the outside, four on the inside and one in the middle, all evenly spaced)

 i hung three spheres on the outside hooks, four spheres on the inside hooks and five spheres on the middle hook.

and voila! a beautiful mobile/chandelier!

jewelry chooseday | pacific opal search

ages ago i posted these pieces of jewelry - as seen below. then the other day i saw a girl wearing a series of bracelets, some of which had the same colour. she told me the stone was called "pacific opal." i don't think the blue/green piece below is pacific opal but i can't stop thinking about it! i want it. bad. or something very very similar to it.  i want to magpie up my wrists with this colour and mix it with gold bangles... where can i find you beautiful bracelet?

mail art monday | gastronomical sovereignty giveaway

my friend kristy over at gastronomical sovereignty* had a giveaway. the prizes include a number of handmade recipe cards written by kristy herself. she thought it would be fun if the cards arrived at the winner's homes in style, so she proposed i make some mail art to go along with them. i used two of my favourite magazines,** real simple and wallpaper to create the three envelopes below. it was really exciting to work with a theme, and i tried to make each one have it's own subcategory of food based on the different ways people feel about it.

the yellow envelope is a depiction of healthy eating, portion consciousness and optimism in sustainability. the red envelope represents those people that use food to connect to each other, and also view it as a source of sensuality. finally, the blue envelope is a representation of where kristy lives and eats. it's an oasis of enjoyability, and an invitation to come dine in our city, victoria bc.

* surprisingly this gets easier to type each time i do so.
** both for the reads and the wicked images!

to make your own mail art - purchase a package here

sunday seller | scenic glory

i'm very excited that my friend lindsay from scenic glory has opened an online shop. i think the prints she sells are just lovely. her design aesthetic is clean but still maintains that cool indie chic look. i think these would make an excellent gift but would also look great in a framed series on the wall. some of my favourite prints are below. tell me that heart image isn't brilliant...

shop scenic glory

nienke klunder

someone lent me an issue of gup magazine recently - guide to unique photography. it was "the women issue" and i had a grand ol' time admiring the amazing photography and relatable subject matter. there is a lot of simple portrait shots that still managed to take my breath away. there was one artist in particular though who caught my attention - nienke klunder. her work reminds me very much of cindy sherman's, a feminist photographer who also took self portraits dressed in costumes and created a series of images. on that note, the work is also reminiscent of robyn cumming*, because of the way the faces are covered and the "girly" fabrics and materials are used.

these are some of my favourite photographs based on the images in isolation but this series depicting a wealthy woman transforming into someone poor and homeless, and this series of self portraits that look like entirely different people are definitely worth a look as well!

* my post about robyn cumming here.

feature art friday | danny brito

when i saw artist danny brito* make a mini zine on a beautiful mess, i was struck by how reminiscent his art was of a spanish surrealist i used to love - remedios varos (more information here). both of their works are affected by a sense of youth, whimsy and just a slight eeriness or awkwardness. however, varos' work is much more historical and dramatic, with grand storylines involving castles, prisoners and lakes of fire (also, everybody always seems to be sewing - woman in confined spaces equals feminist squelching). brito's work has a more modern touch to it and his characters do everyday things, like sip soda, put sweets in their hair and poison their boyfriends. *wink! i would love to have a row of these images in my walk in closet - either that or a commissioned portrait of myself!

* not to be confused with (as i did) "britto"

fifty-two projects | project ten

this is project ten of fifty-two projects - not in any particular order.
click here for more completed projects.

project ten: write the story of why you moved to the city in which you currently live.

alteration: no alterations. i love this project just the way it is.

when i was in high-school, back when computer rooms were a novelty, we were assigned to research potential careers. something led me to a job in bc and i thought "that province sounds nice, i wonder what it's like..."

so when the time came to apply to graduate schools, i applied to york (toronto) because the classes sounded great, western (london) because i liked the campus and....well, i was going to apply to ubc (vancouver) but the whole process didn't feel right. the school felt stiff and snotty. since there was a deal for applying to three schools, i dropped ubc and chose the university of victoria instead.

when i was accepted to victoria* the idea of moving there was irresistible. so we packed up, had a goodbye party and spent eight days driving across canada.

best. decision. ever. seriously - i have fallen head over heels in love with this city. it is the perfect amalgamation of city, nature, beauty, culture... victoria, i love you dearly.

* i thank the university gods every day that i didn't choose york (didn't get accepted to western!) because york professors went on strike a halfway through the school year. that would have been awful - i totally would have given up on my degree.

what i made wednesday

a quick note about blog awards: gentri lee left left me a note saying she has given me a blog award..."if i'm into that sort of thing." i'm not sure i am... what i mean by that is that i don't think the awards themselves have very much depth or detail. over the years i think they have become so watered down that they lack a history or real sense of meaning. what means the most to me, is that by "giving an award," one blogger is telling another that they respect and admire them. and is there really anything more wonderful then having someone tip their hat at you and rain compliments down upon you? i think not. and to that, i nod back at gentri lee, curtsy and say "but the pleasure is all mine!"

i have had so much fun in the past week expanding my etsy shop to include pink. this was a really big deal for me! i don't normally do colour and i really liked the way the shop looked in a black and white palette. but i must admit i had a lot of fun with the pink, and not only does my stationery shop look brighter - but i feel brighter too! or maybe that's because i'm attending/selling at/crafting at a craft show tonight! what's your take on the pink?

shop isavirtue stationery