crafty commercial

How cool is this commerical?!


(found via craftzine blog)

isn't this necklace the best? (mary-jane shoe on one side, "sensible shoes" on the reverse) i've had my eye on it since last december when frederica (friend and maker of the necklace) and i had our booths next to each other at the ooak show. when i told her the name of my blog she couldn't believe the coincidence. i finally broke down and bought it for myself at her studio sale last weekend and have been wearing it ever since.

it also helped to remind me that this blog has been sitting woefully neglected for far too long.

i'm on summer vacation now (as of last thursday at noon). the last couple months at work were a bit stressful to say the least. i found out i was declared "surplus" which means there wouldn't be a teaching job for me at my current school come september. after two rounds of job searches, three positions turned down after cold feet about teaching kindergarten, and a week or so of being on pins & needles waiting to find out where i'd be placed, it turns out that i got a fantasic placement at a great school teaching (almost) exactly what i wanted! (yay!!!)

it was really sad leaving my old school though. i'd been there for 4 years so lots of tears!!!

before i left i had a little party for my knitting club girls. i baked cupcakes and brought in icing & a variety of candies for them to decorate with. they were a huge hit! i also made each one a little knitting necklace as a souvenir and hopefully will inspire them to keep up with their knitting.


on the last day of school i almost forgot to take a picture of my most favourite part of the building. this sign put a smile on my face everytime i saw it. the fact that it is hung in a school is, to me, pure irony!


ah, grammatically incorrect signage.....i'll miss you so.

wardrobe remix 03-02-08

here's something interesting i've realized this weekend. desperately needing to do laundry has made me way more creative about my clothing choices. i think this is my most favourite outfit i've put together in a really long time and 2 of the items i haven't worn in years...and the only reason i am today is that all of my "high rotation" clothing needs to be washed.

dark blue denim shirtdress: clothing swap (eddie bauer)
yellow shirt: thrifted and altered child's "dragonballz" long-sleeve
red leggings: thrifted
black argyle socks: my dad & stepmom (i ask for kneehighs every xmas so most of my favourites are from them)
black rainboots: thrifted
green scarf: thrifted sweatshirt fabric that i cut into a long rectangle
black belt: a gift from my cousin & her husband
house brooch: i made it myself
black calculator watch: casio

***
here's a closeup of the house brooch i made about a month ago. i am so in love with this and had so much fun making it. i'm thinking about doing a series of these.

today

today was a good mail day.
i got some soft grey legwarmers in the mail from my stepmom, nicole. they're original from back in the 80's...

and i also received the little otsu dayplanner i ordered a couple of weeks ago.

i love that you fill in the dates yourself. so since january is more than halfway over, i won't have any empty pages because i'll just start numbering from today's date.


today was a good library day.
i picked up 3 items i had holds on: a vegetarian cookbook ("enemy of the steak" heh heh), a novel ("love is a mix tape" by rob sheffield), and a dvd ("who killed the electric car"). the novel came at a good time. i'm about 15 pages away from finishing the book i'm reading now ...sooooooo goood! thanks michele!! xoxo


today was also a good freecycling day.
i picked up a great gold frame from a generous person on the toronto freecycle group. i'm collecting frames for our little wall of art in the studio/guest bedroom. i'm not sure if i'm going to keep this one gold (looks cool against the red wall in here) but i may paint it with a super shiny laquer in hot pink or turquoise. *by the way, i just put a postcard in there for the photo. i'm hoping to fill it with a cute print from etsy. maybe even one from my favourite artist on there.



and this weekend was a good crafting weekend.
i was successful in making my largest shrinky piece yet! very exciting! i've got a few possible ideas for this...

and here's a picture that gives you a better idea of just how big she is (4" tall) compared to my regular-sized pendants.


also bought a couple of cute new things this past weekend. i'll post about them later in the week.

2008!

happy new year, everyone! hope you all had a fantastic & relaxing holiday whether celebrations of the season were involved or not. we had a great holiday break spent with family. now it's kind of quiet around here....

what better way to start the new year than with....CAR TROUBLES! ah yes, it's an ongoing struggle around this house. no sooner do we get something fixed and something else breaks. today the car crapped out on paul as he was coming home from practicing with his band. c.a.a. towed it but the really bad news is that our faithful mechanic is away in florida for a week. he's pretty much become like family to us and i just don't trust our car to anyone else. so if the estimate to fix it is too high this will be end of the volkswagon. a bit sooner than expected.......

in happier news, i've been doing some crafting just for fun. last night i pulled out my little red suitcase full of bits & bobs and put together this necklace:

(is that little wooden bird a religious symbol? for some reason i'm thinking it might be and i'm a bit concerned about that. can someone please let me know if it is.)

and made this brooch which has been swimming around in my head for ages!

(the pink isn't as bright as it looks in the photo....)

and tonight i finally worked up the courage to hack off the sleeves to this dagg & stacey sweater which i accidentally felted when i washed it last year. the body of the sweater is fine but the sleeves felted so tight that i couldn't bend my arms in it anymore.

and here's just a picture to show you how cute the back of it is....


so here's to a happy, crafty new year for all!!

chained to the studio

nah, not really but i have been spending a crazy amount of time in here. good thing i love what i do otherwise it would actually be work!

with october almost here, i'm starting to feel a teensy bit of panic about how much stuff i still have to make before the one of a kind show (at the end of november).

in other ratgirl news, i spent the weekend putting together a brand new order for snazzygirl and all those goodies got shipped out this afternoon. putting the order together is a breeze, it's the photographing, photoshopping, and writing of the descriptions that is kind of hard for me. luckily my honey helped me with the photographing. (thanks, paul!) xoxo

here's a tiny peek at a couple of the items that will be going up on snazzygirl very soon:



*****
edit: hey, the new stock is already up on the website!! and i also suggested that most of the old stock be put on super-duper discount and looks like that's already done that too! go check it out...

busy busy

sorry, i don't mean to be so quiet this week. it's just that my life hasn't been terribly exciting. it has pretty much revolved around sitting at my desk and working working working! i've seriously gotten so much done...i feel pretty good about it. but that feeling lasts for about 35 seconds and then i remember that it's nowhere near enough. i still have SO MUCH left to do. btw: for those new around here (hi! it's lovely to see so many new faces!!) i'm doing all this work in preparation for the one of a kind show that starts at the end of november and runs for 11 days. it's pretty intense (the prep and the show itself).

i just remembered that i sort of took that hiatus from the blog around the ooak last year. i don't think i posted a picture of my booth. let me see if i can find it on my computer.... found it!

and here's a teensy peek at what i've been doing this week. this might look like a lot of charms but it's only one batch of several that i've finished up in the last few days. i hand-draw every single charm individually. these will eventually become hairpins and earrings.

i'm waiting to take a picture of all of the charms in my little supply box when each compartment is filled up. here's a little sneak peek:

*****
i'm off to my mom's on saturday so i'm going to say "have a good weekend" now.

have a good weekend!

it's monday

goodies in the mail from my cousin & her hubby.


productive time in the studio.


bellyrubs on the beach.

all in all, a pretty good start to the week!

happy accidents

last night paul & i finally decided to take a trip over to ed's real scoop because ed's is supposed to be one of the best ice-cream spots in the city, as everything is hand-made at their shop. after reading online that they had a "creme brulee" flavour i had to get some. as we got closer to the neighbourhood, we realized it was the jazz festival and there was no way we were even going to get close to ed's among that chaos. change of plans and we headed over to the film buff for some of their ice-cream instead. it was still good and satisfied the craving.

after running a couple of errands we happened upon an art opening at a tiny new gallery. we couldn't help but go check it out because it looked totally intriguing from the street. we could see little colourful objects all over the walls instead of the typical paintings or photographs.

this show was just too amazing and we were so excited that we stumbled upon it! the artist is named lauri lynnxe murphy and she's from denver. she's also incredibly sweet and we had a great time chatting with her. the current exhibit features her beautiful mini-collages encased in resin. they are so lovely! lots of vibrant colours. some of her other resin pieces were opaque and had been painted and some were decoupaged. really wonderful work with a crafty feel. take a look:

kitchenette



egg



stir


15 minutes


toronto peeps, you should definitely get out to see this...

brayham contemporary art
1270 queen st. east
runs until september 2nd