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!

tomorrow's the big day!

something really exciting is happening on saturday. my incredibly talented cousin, michele, is directing her very first play and it opens tomorrow evening in los angeles. you can't even imagine how thrilled i am for her!

good luck, sweetie! the whole family is so proud of you! i wish we could be there but you'll be in our thoughts.

xoxo

finished.

i can finally reveal my latest read since i just finished it about 5 minutes ago. it is 13 by mary-lou zeitoun. it was another fantastic story about a troubled young teen, in some ways similar to the main character in lullabies for little criminals but in some ways quite different as well.

i hadn't heard of this book or the author before reading it...just found it by perusing the fiction shelves at the library. i still don't know anything about the author and am looking forward to googling her after i post this. just like after i finished lullabies, i feel like i need to find out everything i can about her. i hope she has another book out but from the limited search i did last night i don't think she does.

i have 2 more possible reads from my browsing at the library on saturday. fingers crossed at least one of them is as addictive as these last 2 have been...

***
edit: thanks to chelebele for reminding me to tell you: this "13" is totally not the same story as the movie "13" which was also about a troubled teenager. the novel "13" actually takes place in ottawa and the main character is more "angst-y" than troubled, rebelling against her parents and catholic school upbringing.

fun times at 6:30am

once again i'm up with the sun. it feels good, actually. i seem to get so much accomplished these days unlike last summer when i got out of bed around 10:00am most days.

so going through my bloglines this morning i found a new post from the vintage society blog. she showed off a cute little fall outfit she put together using polyvore. this website is almost like playing dress-up!

here's what i put together this morning:


the docs may seem like an odd choice with all the fashion-forward choices on the website but i needed something to try and cover up the boots that came with the tights i chose. and besides, i sort of fell in love all over again with my old docs in the springtime. they're one of the few things i still have around from my leather-buying days. anyhow, i liked the bit of edge they gave to the dress.

anyhow, have fun playing around but be warned...it could become a little addictive!

i luv farmers

i was an early riser again today. 7:00am. why is it so easy to wake up bright and early when i'm on vacation but as soon as i have to go back to work i drag my sorry ass out of bed only after two alarms have gone off?

today i was motivated by the farmers' market. what a great way to start the day...shopping for fresh, local produce and handing your money directly to the farmer who grew it all!

i was so excited by all of the lovely fruits & veggies that i went a little crazy. i'm most excited by the corn on the cob (because i loooove corn on the cob), the strawberries (because i thought the ontario season was over so it was a lovely surprise!), and the yellow watermelon (because the woman gave me a sample and it was the sweetest melon i'd ever tasted!)

after the market, i drove out to mississauga to pick up my camera that was finally fixed. i'm so happy to have it again!

on to the grocery store to pick up a few groceries for the week.

back home for a quick lunch.

then to the dog park to take noah for a walk.


he had a fun time running about and sniffing just about every square inch of the grass. he didn't want to sit still for a photo so the picture is a little fuzzy but i like it because it looks like he's laughing.

thanks (and then some)

thanks, everyone for your sweet comments & emails about molly. wednesday was a really terrible day all around and hearing from friends and family over the last few days has really meant a lot to paul & i.

***
paul's been on holidays all week and so we've been trying to do some real "summery" things on as much of a budget as possible. we've spent the last 3 days swimming at a really fantastic outdoor pool...perfect for beating the crazy humidity & heat!

(i borrowed the image of the lovely olympic pool we've been enjoying from here)

we finally made it over (twice!) to ed's real scoop for the yummiest homemade ice-cream and gelato. yes, we've tried both. mmm...a scoop of dark chocolate and green tea ice-cream go soooo well together!

renting movies is always a cheap way to spend the evening. we rented two this week: volver and music and lyrics.


we give volver two enthusiastic thumbs up (soooooo good!) and music and lyrics two thumbs down (paul's thumb is enthusiastically down!). we've also borrowed a bunch of movies from the library (free!). we have 2 more pedro almodovar films to see (paul reserved them after we watched volver), elizabethtown, and ohmygosh...i can't wait...49up! i'm sure i've mentioned on here before how obsessed i am with the 7up documentary series. for any toronto folks who haven't seen any of these, you must borrow them from the tpl. they have the whole series thus far.

today after swimming...and gelato...we visited the lovely library at kew gardens. such a nice branch to hang out in. i'm definitely going to go back and spend some time there before the summer is over. and while browsing there i found 3 novels that looked interesting. i figured if i took out all three at least one of them would hook me. i'm happy to report i think i've found one! but just as you can jinx a new relationship by talking about the person too much, i'm thinking i'll keep the title and details to myself so as not to jinx my new relationship with this book. if all goes well over the next few times we get together i'll reveal its identity then. ;)

saying goodbye

we'll miss your squeaks that came out of nowhere.
we'll miss the way you reminded us it was dinnertime.
we'll miss your purrs when we pet you.
we'll miss the way you raised your head when we rubbed your cheeks.
we'll miss taking you outside to munch on grass in the backyard.
we'll miss watching noah give you kisses and you barely tolerating them.
we'll miss your fiesty little attitude.
we'll miss your crazy bedhead.
we'll miss the way your ears turned bright pink when you were really happy.
we'll miss the way you lifted your head up when we called your name.
we'll miss all of your little nicknames: mollywog, booboo, babygirl
we'll miss our little molly.

we're just happy that we got to spend five and a half years with you.
so many funny memories. you were quite a character, miss molly.

an open letter to haven kimmel

dear haven,

a week or so ago, i borrowed your book a girl named zippy from the library after searching online for hours for my next book to read. it had good reviews and i remember eyeing that awesome cover everytime i walked into a local bookstore. i was so excited to finally dig into it!

you're a great writer...so witty and with a kind of subtle humour. i liked the book right away. but then i came to the part about the baby pig...and then your pet chicken...and your hamster...and the bunny. i tried to overlook it and just move on but today the bunny situation was all i could take. i'm sad to say i'm parting ways with you here on page 71.

i see on amazon that you have a few more books out and i'll probably give them a try later on. i just think we need some time apart right now.

best,
-krissy

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

before a nap

i'm a bit sleepy today. i think i stayed up a bit too late. i got up early again and drove paul to work because he had way too much stuff to bring with him to take it all on his bike or on ttc. it was the perfect opportunity to head to queen west and pick up a few supplies to try out a new earring design i've been dreaming up.

noah won't stay out of the neighbour's yard and it's driving me crazy.

oh yeah, and our 3rd & 4th zucchinis are almost ready to be picked.

here are a few more outfits i fell in love with on facehunter yesterday. i find these "street style" sites so inspirational.









now if i can convince noah to give me some room on the couch, i'm going to take a catnap.

facehunter.com

another productive day today! i was up at 7:30am and managed to get a bunch of errands done and still have time to bake up a whole bunch of shrinkies. i think they will probably become stud earrings. i also gave them all a coat of finish and will do the 2nd coat tomorrow. i love seeing them all lined up in neat colour-coded rows while they dry. unfortunately, you'll just have to use your imagination for now...

so with the camera still in the shop, i have to find things to blog about that can include pictures from the web. somehow i was led to facehunter tonight while looking through one of my contact's pics on flickr. what a great discovery! it's another one of those street style websites like wardrobe_remix or hel looks (although there are a million of them out there now).

here are 4 of my favourites from tonight's perusing (in no particular order):
i love the ruffles and little wicker case.



i'm a sucker for a red dress and those tennis-ball-sized beads are such fun!



trapeze dresses are so cute and the big ladybug applique is adorable.



i plan on continuing to build my collection of coloured tights this fall/winter and i'd love a pair in this electric shade.


i'll have 4 more pictures to share tomorrow...

my summer "to-do" list

so one of the advantages to being a teacher is the 9 week summer vacation. this is week 4 and i already feel like i've done a lot.

* had a picnic in high park with friends
* taken noah (the pooch) to cherry beach for walks on the off-leash trail
* hung out at cherry beach with a blanket, noah, and a good book (lullabies)
* read an amazing novel
* spent a whole lot of time in the studio getting ready for the winter "one of a kind show"
* spent a few days up north at my mom's
* gone thrifting at goodwill's 50% off sale
* took part in a small craft fair
* enjoyed many breakfasts & dinners on our backyard deck
* celebrated our 3rd year anniversary (today!!) by going out for dinner at the same restaurant where we had our "reception" (for lack of a better word)

there's still so much i want to do though. luckily there's still 5 and a half weeks left before i go back to work. i'm going to make a list (and probably continue to edit it as i think of other ideas) so that i don't forget. then if i need an idea of something to fill my day, i can refer back to this list.

* get out the sewing machine and alter some of the clothing i've thrifted
* keep working in the studio and get lots of stuff ready for the show
* visit allen gardens and walk through the pretty greenhouses
* spend time at the toronto reference library
* finally go and check out toronto's first "forever 21" store
* begin participating in wardrobe_remix again (once the camera is fixed)
* spend more time with friends -- invite people over to the house
* make it a habit to shop at the farmers' market each tuesday
* organize my studio desk
* go through my closet/drawers and give away bags of clothing to charity
* maybe even paint the bedroom
* go back to visit mom and swim in the lake again
* visit little galleries on queen street west
* start exercising
* go to the island

i know i'll think of more. if you have any suggestions, leave them in the comments, ok?

so, i guess i'm back

hi everyone! sorry to have slipped off the face of the internets for darn close to a year. i don't really have a good reason for my absence except to say that i just wasn't "feeling it". i wish i had a better explanation but i don't. however, i did have a feeling i'd be back eventually which is why i didn't make an official "goodbye" post. so here i am!

i won't bore you with what i've been doing for the last 295 days or so mainly because i can't really think of anything in particular. but i expect i will be sharing what i'm up to this summer in upcoming entries. unfortunately, my camera is at the nikon hospital and won't be coming back for a few more weeks yet, so most of my photos will be of stuff i can find online for now.

which leads me to the perfect opportunity to tell you about the most incredible book i finished about a week ago. it's called lullabies for little criminals by heather o'neill.

carla warned me it was sad and she was right, but it is so beautifully written. there were many times when i just couldn't put this book down. and even though i finished it about a week ago, i can't stop thinking about it. the story has really stayed with me. highly recommended if you're looking for a new read to dive into.

now i've started reading a girl named zippy: growing up small in mooreland indiana which is pretty good. it started off really funny but then there was a chapter i wasn't so keen on involving a baby pig. i'm going to stick with it though and see if i go back to enjoying it as much as i did at the beginning. i thought it started off with a david sedaris kind of vibe.


if you have any good book recommendations, please leave them in the comments section. i'd love to have more to add to my "to read" list.

ps. while i was gone, blogger messed with some cogs and gears---if you previously subscribed to my blog you probably won't get updates unless you re-subscribe. sorry for the annoyance.

this is totally just a test

just testing a new way to add pictures to this here blog...

(btw: this image came from Liana Kabel's awesome etsy shop)


...getting ready to jump into the blogosphere again!

quick post....

i know i said i wouldn't be around for awhile, but it's such a rare occasion that i'm crafty (other than my ratgirl stuff, i mean) that i thought i should post this.

paul & i went to a wedding on saturday and i needed a necklace to go with the dress i was wearing. i knew exactly what i wanted to make and luckily i had everything i needed on hand.


the coolest part: every single bit and piece came from my collection of odds & ends from thrifted jewellery. here's the story....my brother-in-law is as much of a thrifting junkie as i am but he goes to value village and buys those "junk bags" of miscellaneous jewellery looking for gold, diamonds and expensive watches that they've thrown in there (not knowing these things were worth $$). but then he's left with piles and piles of "junk" jewellery that he has no use for. well, he collected all of his castoffs over the years and handed them over to me knowing i could probably make something from it all.

after acquiring about 7 or 8 massive shopping bags of the stuff this summer, i went through it all and sorted everything i could use into ziploc baggies. now i have a little suitcase full of these great treasures just waiting to be deconstructed and turned into fun trinkets!

that necklace is the first piece of jewellery i've made from my windfall of "junk"! hopefully when life slows down, i'll be able to devote some time to crafting up more.

this is a picture i took in the summer after sifting through all of the bags. it shows everything i kept.


ok, back into hiding....
;)

hey folks,
just clearing away the cobwebs long enough to duck in and let you all know i have to continue my break from blogland for awhile longer. life has become so crazy and i kept (foolishly) telling myself i'd update my blog tomorrow, and tomorrow turned into a week, which turned into a month, and so on.

today i realized it's just not going to happen anytime soon. probably not until things slow down in december. :(

i've been in full-on "one of a kind show" craft show mode since september. for those of you in the t-dot, i'm sure you understand the pressure. for those that aren't familiar with this show, it's huge (750+ vendors, 12 hours a day for 10 days straight). i have to make sooooooo muuuuuchh stuffffff!

here's a little peek at the madness (pre-baking)

it's weird, it doesn't look like much but there are approximately 500 pieces all hand-drawn and coloured. the scary thing is that i have a lot left to make. can you say "carpal tunnel"?

back to the sweatshop....

take care, everyone!
krissy xo

ratgirl update

i spent the week before the cottage putting together a big order for snazzygirl and photographing it all. you can take a peek at all of the new goodies over here.

cottage life

last week was our vacation up at the cottage. well, not our cottage (i wish!). it actually belongs to an ex-coworker of paul's. she and her husband have generously allowed us to borrow it for a week for the last 3 summers (paul traded a painting of their dog for the use of the cottage.) in fact, we went there for the first time on our honeymoon!

once again this year, our friends frederica and jim came to spend a few days with us. so much fun even though the weather wasn't great for the days they were there.

over the week we......

had a campfire (i love the smell!)


roasted vegan marshmallows and made s'mores!!! (omg, they were decadent!!)


canoed to a bakery across the lake...yes, a bakery at the lake!!

paul at the bakery


i knit up a pair of arm warmers


swam in the (cold) lake


we ate our dinners by candlelight


watched noah have the time of his life (chasing frogs, rolling in the dirt, sniffing all the plants, running around outside all day!)


and saw the most beautiful sunset on our last night there


a relaxing and lovely time, indeed! (sigh...)

gone swimming....

tomorrow morning paul and i head up north to spend the week at a cottage we've borrowed for the last few years. i can't wait to get there and just relax by the water and swim away the day. it's the perfect cottage for relaxing too...no tv or computer so no distractions from being outdoors!

i'm also hoping to do a bit of knitting while i'm there, since i've done that the previous 2 years we were there. other things i'm looking forward to: catching up on some magazines (the latest toronto life and toronto fashion arrived last week!) and eat, eat, eat! i'm especially excited about roasting vegetarian marshmallows over a campfire! i bought them last month when i was in nyc for this exact reason!

my only worry...how am i going to live without rockstar supernova for a week??? ack!

have a good week, everyone!
xo krissy

an afternoon with warhol and a raw deal for dinner

paul recently wrote out a big list of things we want to do and places we want to go before the end of summer. on saturday we did a couple of things from the list.

we started out by going to see the andy warhol exhibit at the art gallery of ontario. it was curated by david cronenberg and he narrated the audio tour (on the handheld set) as well. while the show was a bit smaller than we expected, it was quite good. there were quite a few pieces i'd never seen before, including a few i'd never even heard of (like "tunafish disaster"). while i wish it had been a larger exhibit, i did like how the pieces were put together...which ones were chosen to be beside each other. and the audio tour was excellent! i highly recommend picking up the (free) listening set if you go.

after the gallery, we just walked along queen street a bit and popped into caban, which is going out of business. unfortunately, 20% off of a $200 duvet cover = still too rich for my blood.

then we headed up to our old neighbourhood...the annex...around dupont and spadina to check out a restaurant we've been meaning to try for years! it's a raw food restaurant called "live". being such sad sacks, we didn't even go when we lived a 10 minute walk away.

as we stepped inside we were very excited! the inside decor is really lovely...exposed brick and linoleum floor tiles that look exactly like grass and leaves!


paul chose the artichoke dish and i had the raw combo plate.




our only complaint: we were shocked by how tiny the portions were! paul's entree had 3 artichoke hearts, a sliced tomato and a palm-sized amount of salad. honestly, this should have been an appetizer. 3 artichoke hearts! $11!!

my dish was only slightly larger. however it contained mainly salad with just a bit of a few other dishes, including one stuffed mushroom cap. one! $14!

now i should say, the food was delicious and the woman who served us could not have been nicer. we enjoyed everything about the restaurant except for the fact that we paid a ridiculous amount of money for appetizers disguised as entrees.

needless to say, i was STARVING after dinner. we headed straight to bloor street where we sat down in the park so i could enjoy my real dinner: french fries from chippy's.


consider yourself warned, my fellow toronto friends!

this is where i type some cheesy saying like "hair today, gone tomorrow"

a major transformation happened this afternoon!

BEFORE


AFTER


woohoo!!!

scissors and sewing

after watching my curbside found sewing machine collect dust for years,i finally went online to see if i could find instructions on how to thread it. i did...and then i stayed up until 3:00am playing around trying to construct a make-up bag.


i even tried lining it (with the same fabric because that's all i had). please excuse the red thread.


the most frustrating part of the whole project was using the dullest scissors imaginable, made that way by my darling husband who uses them for cutting paper. so last night while cooking dinner, i heard the familiar "clang clang clang" of the bell announcing the arrival of the scissor sharpening man making his way up the street! i ran outside and waved him down while i ran to get my scissors.




now this is a different guy than the one i posted about earlier. we have at least 3 of these businesses who visit our street on occasion. i can't explain it...the old-fashioned quaintness of this service makes me so happpy!

and so do my newly sharpened scissors!