102nd post!

Clearly I was paying attention to post count lately and 100 is just too common of a celebratory number for blogger. So, 102 it is!

That being said of course, this post will be remarkably similar to most of my previous ones. To pretend to celebrate though, I am going to start off by showing some work by Laurent Craste, a maker in many mediums whose works I have just discovered and now adore.

Iconocraste au bat IV (2012)

Porcelain, glaze, baseball bat.

Dépouille "à la scène galante" I (2012)

Porcelain, glaze, nails.

Iconocraste au pic (2010)

Porcelain, glaze, pick.

All of these pieces are part of his "Abuse" line, and according to a recent interview of him by Dirty Magazine he says that he had "always been fascinated by the phenomenon of vandalism, especially the ransacking phases that accompany revolutionary insurrections, when the works of art are destroyed because they incarnate an ideology, or symbolize a specific social class... and at the same time I am also totally fascinated by the destructive impulse, the violent nihilistic action." I'm looking forward to my next trip to Montreal where I can hopefully see his work in person.

Otherwise, I've been on a Dollarama kick lately, and I've slowly been collecting pieces to try and updo my hideous dining room chandelier. In a perfect world I 'd like to get it to look like the one from Urban Outfitters that I was coveting last year, and that don't have anymore. Just as well, couldn't afford it anyway. So far, I think I've got most of the dangley bits, mostly from the craft section of Dollarama, of all places. I need to work on the center and the dishes around the "candles." Apparently they are actually called "Bobeches," and I think if I find some glass ones, they can be painted in glass paint to retain that see through look. Ideas a plenty!

Sexy colour explosion.

More ice rink action! Since my friends and I could never afford to go to a Leafs game (and I'm a Habs fan anyways), we took advantage of a recent Leafs viewing party hosted by the ACC here in the Tdot. The leafs were actually playing in and against Ottawa, one of my other home towns, so we watched the game live on the jumbotron. My friend was super excited about watching a Leafs game at the ACC, despite the fact we weren't really, and tried to sit at ice level. We threatened him with our chiropractor bills for the busted neck we'd have from staring up at the screen all night, and we took pictures at ice level instead before moving further up to much better seats.

Yep, he's excited.

Sadly, about 20 seconds after I said "looks like we'll have some overtime tonight" to my friends, Ottawa scored in the last minute of play and won. Montreal won against the Islanders that night, so I'm happy regardless.

We're mid-way through February already, eh?

I've been staring at archival supply websites for days. There's been a lot of math going on for the past few days. Somewhere, there are several teachers laughing. The highlight to this torture is that I am getting paid for it. Not enough, but it's something.

January was an interesting month, and generally speaking, a good start to 2013. The job hunt continues, but I may have some freelance jobs and part-time projects on the horizon, so that's something. I've been volunteering a lot with two organizations (actually in my field no less!), so that's been keeping me busy. Parts of the apartment are cleaner from the January Cure as hosted by Apartment Therapy, but generally I ended up ignoring it. While an excellent idea, I think a lot of the challenges were meant to be done in a day, but in my apartment could not be. Cleaning my room would, and still is taking a long, long time. It doesn't help that I received another load of stuff from the homefront that needs to find a home. Thanks Mom. That being said, the principles were sound, and I'll probably take them forward. The outbox was used quite a bit though, and on a recent run to Goodwill we unloaded several bags of crap out of it.

Goodbye 11 bags/boxes of crap!

Otherwise, January, and bits of February have been a mix of food, skating and fashion (surprisingly). A bunch of us actually own our own skates and try to get out to the fry rinks fairly regularly in the winter. At one point in my life, two or three years ago, I was an okay skater. Then I fucked up my knee, while skating. In a desperate attempt to not plow into the poor guy who had crashed in front of me, I ended up going down pretty hard. I hadn't and haven't quite mastered the art of stopping on skates just yet. Usually, at least once a winter, I land on that same knee and it makes me psychologically skittish about skating on it for the rest of the winter. It's an asshole like that. We've tried out a few extra rinks from our usual Nathan Phillips Square (for all you Tdotters), specifically the Natrel Rink by the lake for a friend's birthday earlier in the month. It was unbelievably warm that night, so I ended up skating with the coat open and just a T-shirt underneath. Until I fell on my knee and called it a night. Bastard knee. 

Hi Dan!

Also, since I'm a Ryerson Alumni, I get access to free skates at the Maple Leafs Gardens! It's the one awesome thing about Ryerson owning the Gardens! Yes, I'm fully aware it's actually called the Mattamy Centre; don't care. It will always be the Gardens. Somewhere out there there are some photos of myself and a friend having some fisticuffs at centre ice in Leafs and Habs jerseys at a recent free skate. It was pretty awesome.

Also, in the month of January, a fashion blogger I follow, Karen of CurvyCanadian, had her official opening for her brand new plus size store! Pretty freakin' excited pretty well covered my thoughts on this news. Your Big Sister's Closet is located on 3126 Dundas West in the Tdot, and she has a really good selection of established (to me) and unknown (to me) brands.

These were the best photos of the day.. little busy going from rack to rack, drooling to myself.

I did actually buy a few things! This lovely bag, and a great belt with a pair of giant gold clamshells for buckles. I also attempted to look fashionable when I went to the opening, and I think I did well. I can't prove it, because my attempt at change room photos failed miserably.

She keeps her facebook page up to date and is frequently posting pictures of new stock and some of her fabulously dressed clients. I shall be heading back soon, I gather she's planning on getting some swimsuits in, and it may be time to look at getting another one.

FOOD. I was going to get there eventually, not to worry! The past wee while has actually been filled with cooking, and some new recipes, most of which I didn't photograph! My enthusiasm for doing that lately has been low, not sure why. That being said, I recently discovered the amazing blog of Helga Von Trollop, and her recipe for Spinach Parmesan muffins. They were dinner that night due to the sheer luck of having all the ingrediants! 

 In retrospect, i should have added some garlic. Meh, next time.

With any luck, I can attempt to blog more often. Or at least on a vaguely regular schedule.

Apartment Theraphy's January Cure

So I've signed up for Apartment Therapy's January Cure. Our place is a mess and I need some extra motivation to get it cleaned up and organized. Beyond the cure itself, I need to change some of my habits to keep things clean around here.

I'm working on my list of projects from January 2nd, and I already have an outbox as per January 3rd. AT also has a blogger, Tara whose live blogging her experience doing the January cure. Motivation/Pressure much?

I have also discovered a new blog/Tumbler, which won't be helping my situation much, since it has several pages of gorgeous and ingenious storage and organization craft ideas. Have a gander over at fellow Canadian Melissa's blog Storage Geek.

Tally HO!

Happy 2013 everyone.

It's another happy new year, with compliments to the Graphics Fairy. More fun New Year's vintage-ery here.

We're quietly recovering from last night in this household, and I hope your night was equally fun-filled, and safe.

In other news, the revelers have hit the street, with pots and pans, their throats completely knackered from another ringing in.

Happy New Year everyone.

Christmas Decor 101: Presents!!

Alright so it's a bit of a stretch. But, when you think about it, wrapping is decorating the present. That's my story and I'm sticking with it. And we'll be ignoring that fact that it's been a week since Christmas... I've been celebrating the holidays and closing down the gallery, so I've been a bit busy.

I love wrapping presents, at all times of the year. At one point in my life, I had a seasonal job as a Christmas gift wrapper at a mall. Easily the worse job I've ever had, but I did take away some great techniques, and I still love wrapping presents. Now I just enjoy doing it on my own time with a bad movie on and a mug of tea at hand. I'm no the only one, clearly, as the lovely and charming Aunt Peaches will attest. I've tried to keep my paper and ribbon collection to a minimum to not have it take over more of my closet, so I have a lot of colours and themes that can be used for many occasions. I also try to optimize my paper and materials by having a theme every year for my presents.
Yes. I am that much of a dork. I've come to terms with this. Moving on.

A previous year's Christmas wrapping theme.

This is arguably the coolest wrapping paper I have. Not only was it found at Ikea, it's reversible. Oh yes. For this wrapping theme a few years ago, I spent an afternoon in front of the TV cutting out the fronds or petals of what became the floral decorations, and tacky glued them all down. The natural curve of the paper definitely helped here.

I'm also cheap. This is both handy and detrimental depending on the situation. I'm cheap because despite lusting over the beautiful paper from Anthropologie pictured below, I refuse to pay $12 for 3 sheets of paper that I have to get shipped to me.

*Swoon. Etc.

The bright side to this paper is that I can attempt to recreate it, in true DIYODS style! I found a fantastic tutorial ages ago on Eco Salon to make prints using a rolling pin. Done and done my friend.

So instead of using the foam shapes, I made lines with a glue gun on some craft paper. They kinda looked like bark lines on a tree.

In retrospect, what I should have done was wrap the craft paper around the rolling pin first, and then done the glue gunning. I also should have had a plastic thing to put the paint o and roll the pin through, rather than paper. The paper absorbed a lot of the paint before I could really roll the pin through it. 

The final turn out worked out fairly well once I had done a few practice rolls. Might do something in a brighter colour like the Anthroplogie paper next go round.

Merry late Christmas to all.

Christmas Decor 101: Trees

The Tree!!!

If I haven't made this alarmingly obvious already, I love Christmas. The season, the weather, decorating, food, all of it. I really, really love Christmas trees. Real ones. If they have to be fake, let them be silver or blue and made of tinsel from the 50s. One year at home when our family tree kept falling over, we had to trash it. I was gutted when my Dad suggested we stick with the fake decorative trees my Mom had a collection of at the time. My Mom agreed with me, and we went out on Christmas Eve and found another tree, luckily. We ended up having a forest that year. Although I don't seem to be the only one who is okay with this.
I think having a real tree is technically not allowed in my apartment building, but I only bring them in after the landlords are gone for the day anyway, or on the weekend. I also don't put real candles on a tree, and turn the lights off on them when I'm going to bed, so the fire risks are at least mitigated. I digress.

The Archives' Christmas tree last year. Note the red and green film stock, miniature hollinger boxes and "cold" sticker decorations.

New York City's Christmas tree back in January of 2011.

My home Christmases are filled with the weirdest collection of vintage, homemade and wonky ornaments and decorations that have been collected throughout my parents' and my sister's and I's lifetimes. All of them have meaning to us; an empty pack of cigarettes from when my parents were first married, the "Monty Python Angel" that sits atop our tree, the giant Chinese Dragon with beads coming out of its nose attacking the small Christmas village at the bottom of the tree. This year might a little quieter since my parents are attempting to downsize for a move planned in the spring, but it will still be uniquely decorated. I've kept this tradition with my smaller collection of decorations and ornaments, which includes some model boats from Halifax, a camel and paper star from India and a set of 1960s long, multi-coloured teardrop (maybe?) shaped ornaments that I found at Value Village years ago.

Last year's tree. Note the crazy penguin near the middle.

This year's tree has mooses.

And cacti. And chilli peppers. Yep.

I retrieved most of my weird Christmas light collection from home recently, so my tree has been decked out with several extra strings of lights this year.
The metal tinsel adds extra sparkle.

One of these days, I am going to have my own tinsel tree, antique or not. I've been very inspired by Meg Allen Cole's old Threadbanger tutorial to make my own tinsel tree, although maybe to a smaller scale than hers! I cleaned out the local Dollarama recently of this awesome blue/silver tinsel, so I have most of the supplies at least. I tried to upload the actual youtube video, Blogger didn't like that idea. Hence the link and no preview.