money can't buy taste

2012-01-25T11:16:00.002-05:00

I finally caved and got a cellphone. Surprisingly it wasn't peer pressure or all the yelling of my friends that finally did me in. It was me being really sick of paying my stupid phone company way too much every month for a landline I hardly use. It was so annoying. I figured for the same price I could have a phone that could do a lot more for me. It wasn't the Earth shattering ontological catastrophe that I thought this was going to be. I'll survive.

Making a sock for my phone helped a lot. It's cold in Canada in January!

Scrap yarn phone sock: $0

Smart phone: $50 less a month than my dumb phone & internet

Simplification Sunday: Week Four

2012-01-22T13:03:00.000-05:00

Well lookit this. Simplification Sunday number four. All my New Year's resolutions are intact. The year had a rocky start, but I can see that things are starting to calm down and I am enjoying some early benefits of trying to simplify my life a bit . . . though the road is long, rest assured.

So this week I
- did a quick sweep of my dresser to throw out a few more worn out things, add a few things to the heap for Goodwill
- took a big bag of stuff to Goodwill
- finally put all my sewing things together (which were tucked in drawers and containers alllllllll over my house) in one organized tray. Threw away anything I didn't need or couldn't identify.
- packed all my lunches for the week.
- got my stupid bike fixed, which for a busy girl in a big, ugly city, having my bike means everything goes faster, smoother, cheaper . . . it really does make me feel so much better. I hate transit.
- made a list of all the crafts I promised people or have unfinished . . . it's 14 items long. Scratched off one this week. I'm not going to say yes to any more crafting requests until this is down to 3 items or less.
- and best of all (for me), this photo above is all my outfits for the week. Done and done. I am NOT a morning person. I hate them. I feel like I want to die when I wake up in the morning. I'm cranky. Ugly. Hideous. Awful person. When I have my outfit picked out, and know that I like it, it makes my whole day so much better. I hate looking schlumpy at work. I've been in this habit before and it pays huge dividends for me in terms of lowering my stress levels and making me feel better about myself. And I get another 20 minutes of sleep in the morning . . . at least.

2012-01-16T07:39:00.000-05:00

Well, this is kinda cute! This photo will be appearing in the 2013 Icelandic National League calendar. I had forgotten I submitted it. It is an Arctic Riverbeauty and seemed very common from what I saw. I remember this spot very well. We were taking our bus into the middle of Iceland to start our trek and we had about an hour break at a place with a pretty waterfall. There were some sheep kicking around, too. Lots of sheep. Always.

I'm actually not super crazy about this photo . . . there's something wonky about it, but I should just be happy about it and stop whining. Right? Seriously, Erin. Tsk tsk.

Good heavens, I love that country and miss it so much. I want to move there ASAP.

Simplification Sunday: Week Three

2012-01-15T12:22:00.002-05:00

This week was a good week of simplifying, but it was also not so good in that I did say yes to a few crafting requests and some other things that maybe I should have said "no" to . . . oh well. Onward and upward.

This week I:
- quit The Committee from Hell, which should free up enough emotional energy and time for at least 17 lifetimes.
- cleaned out junk drawer in kitchen . . . really, when am I hosting a birthday party?
- did groceries and prepared some meals in advance (this is more of a battle for me than you can ever know)
- threw out some old, worn out sports clothes that I replaced over Christmas
- purged my first aid supplies and tossed most of it . . . seriously, Erin, your pink eye drops come with Norwegian instructions. You haven't been in Norway since 2007, nor have you had pink eye since then. Ditch them.
- unliked a bunch of stuff on Facebook. Everyday National Geographic posts a photo of the day, and every day I don't go look at it. It's just clutter and something I feel ill about not doing or taking care of.
- stopped all email announcements from Facebook. I live on Facebook, I don't need it clogging up my inbox every three seconds with a message I know I've already received.
- said no to two social engagements, I have a bad habit of booking myself up weeks in advance and end up feeling way too exhausted to be nice to anybody.
- I sorted and organized all my knitting tools because I made this . . . I tossed three lonely needles, some weird things that I didn't even know what they were

I really have to say no to more things for a while . . . and finish more crafting projects and school projects I promised people. Did things get simpler for you or more chaotic this week?

2012-01-14T22:32:00.000-05:00

I've been feeling a bit prickly about my crafting lately. A few very small things have come up that have made me really rethink my approach to sharing my crafts. Sometimes people are forgetting to thank me, or being kinda demanding about me making them stuff, or not paying me at all. I've been posting more of what I've been making for myself on my Facebook account and it's garnering a lot of attention and requests. Like so much attention I'm quite taken aback really. I know readers of my blog will identify, I'm feeling a little . . . hmmm, not used exactly, but a bit like a Craft Monkey that can just churn out cool things for free for anyone at any time. I'm a bit frustrated because (as everyone really does know) these things take a lot of time and money . . . and I have other things to do in life. Crafting and creating isn't my primary occupation, nor is it a meaningful source of income. Admittedly this is mostly my fault. I don't pay a lot for my craft supplies, I create just for the sake of creating because I love it, I'm pretty generous by nature, so I don't really care 90% of the time to just give stuff away. But . . . I think I might be at a bit of a wall on this one. So, I've decided I'm going to start charging and charging what I think it's worth. This doesn't exclude gift making by any means, but for crafting requests that I want to take on I will not sell myself short. It feels icky when I do, and I make really nice things that you can't find in stores.

This said, many, many of these requests are accompanied with the offer to pay for the piece & my time and sometimes people even pay me more when they think I've undersold myself. So I'm totally not slamming anyone here, I just realized that I'm at a point where my crafting has hit another level and that if I feel like I should be paid for something, it is up to me alone to open my mouth and say something.

I would really welcome any comments from my readers about how the negotiate this. I think all of my readers are crafty and generous and many of you have struggled with these same kind of boundaries, I know.

2012-01-14T10:12:00.001-05:00

Ohhhh. Did my crafting stars ever align yesterday. I met up with my swimming pal (ugh, I'm out of shape . . . but that's another post for another blog perhaps), and she had brought me presents from her Christmas travels, which included a very tasty praline from the South. I thought the packaging was adorable! On my way home from getting my tail kicked in the pool I scoured my Goodwill because there was a 50% off sale and found the cutest little brand new home for my praline package for only $.75! I love it.

2012-01-11T21:43:00.000-05:00

Usually the only thing I sew are quilts, which is kinda a big, onerous, tedious undertaking. I don't actually like sewing, but quilts are so worth it. Much like my sloppy, novice knitting, I'm kinda a bad seamstress, too.

Oh well. After a few years of with a sister in Japan and 70 years of crafty ladies in my family, I have so much good fabric. It is a shame I don't make more things. So I thought of a few smaller projects to make that might be nifty.

I like it. And it only took about 1.5 hours (including a snack and half watching TV online).

Scrap needle holder thing: $5 in materials . . . maybe.

2012-01-11T00:47:00.000-05:00

You asked. I deliver.

Some friends have been curious to see my bead stash. Well, here it is! The wall of my cabinet has just over 50 strands of beads. Then there are 3 large tackle boxes, 3 medium sized, and 20 small ones. The small have a dozen spots for beads. Then there are a few boxes of beads to sort and unfinished projects, the stacking containers of seed beads & spacer beads, and in the shelf above there is my big tray of findings (chain, clasps, jump rings, and the like).

The bottom photo is my new cover image for Facebook and shows off some of the treasures that are in those tackle boxes. As you can see, I have a bit of a penchant for bright colours. Oh glorious beads!

I have about 150 finished beaded creations that I keep for myself, and another 30-40 separate for my Etsy shop. And though I really have no idea, I bet I've sold or gifted well over 300 projects in the last few years. So, yeah, I have a lot of beads. :S

2012-01-10T01:05:00.001-05:00

Now that the presents have been opened, I can share them with everyone.

For Penny

For Alana

For Marla

For Mom (She lives in Miami, so there is no need for a scarf!)

And for my poor Dad, well I just emailed him $ for a bottle of gin.
I don't think he was unhappy with that.

Simplification Sunday: Week Two

2012-01-08T12:24:00.000-05:00

Here is yours truly sporting two finished knitting projects. I'm a total lamesauce knitter. The hat is my first non-square or rectangle project, so I'm pleased, even if it is a rather crude product. I am also pleased with the relative success of this project because I modified a pattern to fit the scrap yarn I wanted to use, and I also had to make the hat ohverymuch bigger than the largest size. I have a big head and a heap of big hair, so I needed a hat that was at least 24" in circumference and 10"-11" from crown to edge.

Now if Toronto would offer up some winter weather, I'd be all set. I really like knitting.

This week in Simplifying was met with mixed results. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort for a little simplifying . . . especially when it comes to banks & phone companies, eh? Regardless, I managed to finish my hat, delete all the bookmarks on my internet browser (I bookmark then never look at them again), downgraded to a phone package that is more affordable and sensible for me (with more changes to come on that front), threw out two pairs of pants that were totally worn out . . . along with socks that have lost their mates, set aside books & CDs to give to friends who can put them to better use, and cleaned out the cupboard above my fridge. I gave my living room and bedroom a good clean up and my little heap of stuff to drop off at Goodwill is growing. I also acknowledged that I would not be sending out cards this year and that was okay, because I can send a card to anyone any time I like, right? No sense hanging on to guilt about Christmas cards in January.

I thought I'd delete my Facebook fan page for money can't buy taste this week as a way to further declutter my electronic life. I even posted that I was shutting it down, then I ended up not being able to do it. I'm too attached to it . . . so I don't know what will happen over there, yet . . . weird.

2012-01-05T16:32:00.001-05:00

I've been spewing a lot of "I'm going to shut down my Etsy" kinda words & thoughts lately. Totally not feeling it. And then, today, in the death month for retail while I was waiting for my toast to pop, some kind woman in the UK adopted "An Organic Matter".

Maybe I'll be patient and let things sit for a minute . . .

Simplification Sunday: Week One

2012-01-01T17:41:00.002-05:00

How delightful is this? My fortune cookie fortune from a New Year's Eve lunch with my momma. So perfect for the day before the start of a New Year.

I've mentioned already that this feels like a year for simplifying, thinning out, finishing projects. That said, last year felt like that, too, then I went a little nuts and had three jobs and flipped around Asia for a month. My mania often trumps the best of my intentions. Oh well.

Here is the first of what I hope will be weekly posts, "Simplification Sundays". My life is so ridiculous sometimes; like how and why do I have four bank accounts for the love of God? This needs to change. So today, I transferred to a snazzy new wallet, cleaned out all my rewards miles (of which I have laughably few) and biffed the cards and other crap I don't need. I started a to-do list, did laundry, finished a scarf, cleaned a bit, said no-thanks to a time burning extra curricular commitment, and fully organized my desk drawers.

If this lasts until March, I deserve a huge reward in the form of many cookies. Me thinks.

2011-12-30T21:58:00.000-05:00

This is the kind of day 8GB memory cards were built for. I spent hours and hours prowling around the historic Art Deco district, then a long splashing walk on the beach. Miami is a great city!

Back to Toronto and the realities that await there tomorrow.

Happy New Year, kiddos!

2011-12-27T23:47:00.000-05:00

It only took 7 days in Miami to seal the deal on my full blown obsession with Art Deco. I was always a little iffy about it, the colours too pastel, the wood veneers too crummy looking, or something. But I've changed! And now I'm obsessed and have spent most of the evening ferreting out Art Deco poster art on the web prompted by the exhibit I saw at the extraordinarily hype Wolfsonian Museum today.

I think I need a coffee table book on the subject, no?

Contraband museum photo: $0, a worthy souvenir to prompt a new obsession

2011-12-26T18:43:00.002-05:00

I didn't buy this . . . but I kinda wanted to. Hilarious and ugly, but oh so sweet in some special way. Love the flamingo especially. Maybe my mom can find me one at a yardsale for $.50.

Souvenir not to be had: $9.95 US

2011-12-25T23:23:00.000-05:00

I'm not so big on many of the things that usually go along with Christmas - noise, fuss, commotion, consumerism, parties, crowds, gluttony, secular carols, awful popular theology, seasonal merchandise. I'm a total Grinch.

So this kid was very, very happy to spend the day on a mini-non-Christmas-themed-adventure with her mommy. We slept late, checked out a swank, historic Florida hotel, hit up a weirdo coral castle, a seaside National Park, had cheeseburgers for supper, drank disturbingly cheap beer and went for a late night swim in her outdoor pool. It was great!

In all of this, maybe my favourite thing was seeing palm tree nurseries for the first time. It had never occurred to me that Florida requires cultivated palms to meet their various and sundry landscaping needs. It is so strange . . . are there even any palm trees in Canada?

2011-12-24T23:11:00.001-05:00

Today was pretty cool because I saw a Man o' War for the first time in my life. Not too many of these critters kicking around the waters of Lake Ontario or the Bay of Chaleur.

I still went swimming. Three times.

2011-12-24T09:09:00.000-05:00

Occasionally the Fatster does some quintessentially cute kitten things. Two years ago we busted her batting around some ribbon and ornaments under the tree. She's still embarrassed by the scene.

My mother had me fix her computer, so I thought a snazzy homemade Christmas themed LOL Fattie would make an excellent new desktop image for her.

Merry Christmas, Momma!

2011-12-23T20:47:00.003-05:00

I'm quite enjoying my jaunt to Miami so far. It's a really groovy place. I'm most excited about a whole sunny day of prowling around downtown taking pictures of the historic Art Deco buildings and some time at the beaches. Very delicious.

I'm also using the headspace that being on vacation affords to weigh options for New Year's resolutions. I've settled on a few, and when final I'll announce what I feel like sharing. Overall I sense that 2012 is going to be a year for finishing, wrapping up, simplifying, purging, and making do with what I've got. Taking cues from Emily & Andrea and their pre-move weekly destash resolutions, I may commit to doing one thing a week to simplify my life.

As a bit of a head start, I've done quite a bit of purging & destashing in November-December. I've also shut down my LinkedIn, my Google +, purged almost all blogs from my reader (who needs 74 blogs in their reader that haven't been updated since 2009?), unfollowed a heap of people on Twitter. I've also settled on a plan of attack that will allow for scheduled posting on another blog I author that should streamline things. I'm also considering shutting down my Etsy, my Flickr, and my Twitter, but there's no rush on any of those I suppose. Regardless, it's time to wrap some things up and streamline, eh?

My cute kitten has a special blog post for you tomorrow. Stay tuned.

2011-12-20T23:02:00.001-05:00

I'm within arms reach of a glass of extraordinarily cheap, but surprisingly and adequately tasty, white wine. The doors to my momma's balcony are wide open. It's 20 something odd degrees, afterall. And this East Coaster is once again bathed in salt air.

God Bless America. Kinda. Right?

Wine: $7 per gallon
Plane ticket to said wine: somewhat more than $7
Christmas in South Beach: I could do far, far worse

2011-12-18T15:36:00.000-05:00

I sure hope people judge me by the company I keep, because my friends are so delightfully weird it's sometimes really hard to believe.

This is Fattie enjoying her new car that Morgain bought for her. Morgain thought it was unfair that I get to go on all these big trips and Fattie's just stuck at home sleeping.

Car: $0, present from Morgain
Morgain: $0, worth her weight in gold

2011-12-16T20:54:00.002-05:00

If I was Oprah and had a Favourite Things episode, Terrie Mangat fabric would be maybe 12% of it right now. At least.

My ever-in-progress masterpiece of a quilt features a block built around her teal Our Lady of Guadalupe print, which is totally stunning! Lady is over one foot tall!

Then, in a typical frenzy of 11pm Googling I found (and have since ordered a yard of) THIS:

Lookit lookt. It is amazing. The print is called "Temple Pieces" and is fabric based on Wat Arun in Bangkok, which is absolutely without a question one of my all-time favourite travel discoveries in my whole life. I was there in July and nearly wept at how wild and wonderful the place is. It's decorated with all the broken China and porcelain used as ballast in ships coming through Bangkok in days of yore. Checkit out:

2011-12-09T19:58:00.004-05:00

I was having one of those mega-crap death days from the 19th circle of hell. You know, the kind that make you want to just give up and go drink . . . on a beach in Thailand . . . forever?

And then I came home to this. Two of my favourite best friends in the world had timed their mail sending love perfectly. All of a sudden my cranky-assed, horrible self was standing on the stairs with a bottle of red in one hand and two packages containing a picture of a beautiful child, handwritten thoughtful & loving notes, and the glorious treat of this tote bag* & chocolate**. I just melted.

For all the jerks and evil in this world, there's gotta be at least the same number of brilliant, courageous, loving women who make it all so worthwhile.

Thank-you Ann & Andrea!

*I almost stole this tote bag from Andrea when I visited a few weeks ago. The fabric possessed me! I drooled and fawned. So the crafty sneaky thing made one for me! I love it so much.

**This lasted 4 minutes.

2011-12-03T11:12:00.004-05:00

I was scouring the internet for fun resources to help me & my friends along in our efforts to learn Icelandic and found this amazing video, "How to knit like an Icelandic man." It was so cute and funny. I posted it to my Facebook and my friends just lit up around it. At this time, I had just joined Twitter and thought I'd see if this one Þórgnýr Thoroddsen was part of the Twitterverse and give him a shout out for being so clearly hype.

He was. And this is where it gets weird.

His Twitter profile listed him as "Founder of the Free Stöff Wall, Reykjavík" . . . which is exactly where I got these dishes in August of 2010.

Dishes: $0, courtesy of the Free Stöff Wall

Small world story: $0, courtesy of the internet

2011-12-01T11:56:00.002-05:00

I'm having the wanderlusts really bad over here. Well, I always do, but it seems especially spikey these last few weeks. I would love to hop on a plane to Iceland tomorrow, keep on going to Norway, Finland, Russia and perhaps check out this thing they call the Trans-Siberian railway . . . and end it all with a good snack in Ulan Bator.

Photo: Bead store in Tokyo. This is probably one of my top 5 all time favourite bead stores.

Holiday Gift Guide

2011-11-29T18:34:00.002-05:00

I'm starting to see loads of gift guides popping up all over the place. I'm doing the handmade thing this year and keeping it low key. I'm lucky that way because I have the time and supplies on hand to do little crafts for the people that I want to remember at this time of year. But if you're not crafty, this is what I recommend:

image credit, thanks!

A hug. And maybe a nice note to say this is why it's great to have you in my life. That's pretty much all I want this year. Of course, if you want to give me beads, I'd be really okay with that too.

2011-11-27T22:18:00.003-05:00

Whoops. Forgot about this one. My Dad came to visit me for Thanksgiving (Oct 10th) and since we share the same bah-humbug gene we eschewed the traditional turkey and potatoes for a marathon afternoon scouring second-hand stores. I got a little bitter and whimpering at the Goodwill on St. Clair because I saw a lady cradling a huge bag of yarn at the cash. I felt so . . . usurped!

Anyway, I was still moping about and pouting two Goodwills later when, as they say, "Lo! and Behold!" an even better even bigger even more colourful bag of yarn was tucked behind a pillar at the Goodwill on Sherbourne! So suckit suckit suckit. Boo yah!

And as an added bonus, apparently Thanksgiving is beach weather in Toronto now. So Dad & I hit up a crowded, awful, ugly city beach, drank beer clandestinely and I sorted my yarn. Now this is something to be thankful for.

Yarn: $15 at Goodwill on Sherbourne

2011-11-25T23:25:00.004-05:00

All the buttons mysteriously crumbled off my favourite hoodie. Maybe 'cause I wear it 9-10 times a week. Whatever. Anyway, I lost most of them on the street and I didn't have 7 matching buttons at home to fix it so I used this as a very thin, lame excuse to hit up Queen Street (aka the Mecca of bead/fabric/craft/button/ribbon/yarn stores in Toronto). But when I finally found myself standing in the button store face to face with at least 15 good possibilities for fixing my sweater, I just couldn't do it.

I felt overwhelmed. I just can't bring anything more into my house. Especially not when there is stuff at home that will work. It's weird. I'm usually not adverse to buying stuff - new, used, scrounged, whatever. Lord knows I have enough craft supplies to last me from here until the end of history . . . but I'm just in this really strange time of feeling like I need to empty out my apartment so I can move. Move to New Zealand, move to Iceland, move God knows where for a job. I just want stuff gone.

So instead of 7 new buttons I bought 4 duck buttons for my new friend Anne at work. I think she'll really like them.

Then I went home and fixed my sweater with 7 mismatched buttons from my stash.

Things will be okay: $3.80 worth of duck button

2011-11-17T17:53:00.005-05:00

This is where the majeek happens, kiddos. Not really. I think it's magical, but that's because research is kinda self-serving that way. This is my little carrel in the library at U of T. As you can see I have quite the contempt for bare walls.

And in case you're low on trivia about Robarts Library:

- named after a guy who committed suicide

- built in brutalist, Cold War style architecture so it looks like a godawful fort

- you have to go up nine stories before there are any books from Robarts library (the building houses several of University of Toronto's 30+ libraries)

- built to look like a swan/goose/turkey (depending on who you ask) . . . no joke . . . see here

- the thing was never meant to be open stack (i.e., someone was supposed to get your books for you), so the whole thing is so confusing there are street signs inside the building and conveyor belt tracks still showing. Seriously. You need to know local, external geography to find books in here. Sussex. St. George. Harbord.

- there is a Starbucks and a Subway inside, too, just so you neverhavetoleaveever

2011-11-12T23:15:00.005-05:00

Here are the things I like about my beading enterprise:

1. Buying beads

2. Receiving beads

3. Thinking about beads

4. Talking about beads

5. Organizing my beads

6. Shopping online for beads

7. Playing with beads

8. Designing things with beads

9. Making things with beads

10. Looking at the things I make with beads

Here are the things I dislike about my beading enterprise:

1. Describing them on Etsy

2. Tagging them on Etsy

3. Pricing them on Etsy

4. Anything related to Canada Post

5. But above all else, product photography really gets to me for a number of reasons. One is that Etsy crops your photos so you get weird snapshots of your photos that I haven't figured out how to plan for. I hate not seeing the whole necklace in the thumbnail around the site. Other than that the problems are mine - I'm impatient, I'm not a perfectionist, I'm a sloppy photographer, I hate posed photos, I have a 5 year old point and shoot that doesn't do well in my dark city apartment in these northern climes, I dislike editing photos, on my Flickr and Facebook I just dump the photos straight from the camera to my social networks, my necklaces are too long for a neck form and I never do a good job showing off the scale of my pieces and my photos all have a different shade of off-white background and on and on and on.

So product photography is the bane of my craftacular existence, but it is so so so rewarding and happy making when one of my pieces gets adopted. And even better, I updated my photos for Potted Fuchsia (I will eventually get everything onto a white canvas background and the last shot will feature my hand holding the piece to show the scale of the beads & overall size of creation), and she promptly got featured in a treasury! Victory is mine!

Potted Fuschia

Fuchsia'tion Treasury

2011-11-10T08:18:00.000-05:00

I know this is horribly dumb and stupid and small town of me, but I think I might actually be less nervous to go to the Philippines than to go to the Filippino grocery store at the end of my street. I seriously never think to go in there and the three times I've done so I just get overwhelmed by the wall of mystery sauces. I feel like a huge, white ogre or something.

But they have spaghetti sauce in bags, Erin, by the kilo.

Culture shock 100m from home: $3.99

2011-11-08T08:18:00.000-05:00

Lookit the cute kitteh tea I got from Cats Say Nyan! Thanks, Lannie! The tea is really delicious, too.

2011-11-06T12:09:00.013-05:00

Since it's the winning end of Daylight Savings time today, I have an extra hour and I thought I'd do a bit of a picture-heavy tutorial. It's a funky knitting project this time around. I know, hilarious that I'm doing a knitting tutorial, but sit tight you'll see where this is going.

So, two things - I'm a crummy, crummy knitter. Sloppy, no skills. I learn stuff, then it falls out of my brain. Also, I don't buy yarn at yarn stores. I've just scored a monster heap of unlabelled, mismatched yarns of mixed pedigree from Goodwill and yardsales. So that means when it comes to knitting I have to be pretty creative in coming up with projects that only involve a straight knit stitch and that have no demands about gauge, quality or kind of yarn, or patterns.

Step One: Make a heap of a bunch of yarn that looks good together. Colour is your only consideration here. Seriously. Add your wools, your squeaky acrylics, your cottons. Add full skeins, add scraps. Whatever. (NB: I'm about half way through my project, so my heap was much bigger a few months ago)

Step Two: Sort it into rough colour groups. I've used three and that's the minimum for producing the effect seen in this project, but you could definitely go higher. There's just more to remember if you do. And I don't want to have to remember anything when I'm knitting.

The Whites

The Greys

The Browns

Step Three: Haul out some circular needles. Long ones. Big-ish ones. Size 8, maybe. Ones that are about the size of a pen at least. (See what I mean about being a crummy knitter, now?)

Step Four: Grab without thought one ball of yarn from one colour group, and one more ball of yarn from another colour group. Say, one brown and one white to start off. Treat them as one yarn now. See here on my needles how I've just knitted with the two yarns together?

Step Five: Cast on a blanket appropriate number of stitches. NOT 400, because then it will be too wide and you'll have to hack your project all apart. Somewhere around 150-250 should be good. (See what I really mean about being a crummy knitter? Seriously. I'm hopeless).

Step Six: At the end of your casting on row, cut your two yarns and leave a good 4-5 inch tail. These tails are going to make the fringe on your blankie. Probably better to have too much than too little.

Step Seven: Put the two yarns aside. Throw them in a tote bag. Forget about them until you run out of a colour and need to fish all the whites/browns/greys back out and start again.

Step Eight: Grab two more balls of yarn, but in a different colour combination. For my three colours this means I can have brown/white, grey/white, and brown/grey. I cycle through these three options. So since, I started with brown/white when I cast on, I'll grab a grey/white this time and then brown/grey for the next row after that. Do not over think about your selection. Over the course of the blanket the yarns will likely all have a chance to meet each other!

You can see here on the left that my last row was brown/white, and underneath that, the row before was grey/white, so that means the row that I'm starting now is brown/grey. Make sense? Just keep cycling through the colour combinations available to you based one the way you separated your colours.

Step Nine: When you start your second row (and every row after that) simply leave a 4-5 inch tail and tie it to the tails left at the end of the row before that. Once you bind off you can trim all these tails to the same length or tie in double knots or something to tidy up the edges. Haven't gotten that far yet, though.

Step Ten: Knit all the way across one row.

Step Eleven: Cut your yarns, leaving 4-5 inch tail.

Step Twelve: Set aside those yarns and don't use again until you run out of that colour. When you do exhaust your supply of one colour, say greys, fish out all the greys and make your little pile again. This keeps things looking interesting, well-distributed, and not overplanned. And it prevents you from using your favourite yarns over and over again at the start of the project and not having enough to get you through.

Step Thirteen: Knit for about eight months. And you'll eventually have a fabric that looks like this!:

I like this project a lot because it's eating through so much of my mystery yarns, it's totally mindless and requires no skills other than knit stitch, tying a knot, and casting on/binding off, and the fabric that results from it is really interesting, dense, and it is very forgiving of using a totally whack combination of yarns.

Step Fourteen (Optional): Fight cat for control of the project. She's totally obsessed.

2011-11-02T17:00:00.002-04:00

I made this (well added the text below an image I snagged from the internet). It's my new Facebook profile picture. It seems about right.

2011-10-29T11:51:00.002-04:00

I'm in serious Etsy shop updating mode. I hate some of my old photos and I need to add a photo to every listing that better shows the scale of my pieces. That and I'm in the middle of a massive purging of my belongings in general. So, I need your help!

Please leave a comment letting me know what item in my Etsy shop is your favourite and I'll do a random number draw Monday morning at 10am Eastern for a lucky winner and pop it in the mail as soon as I get your mailing address. Make sure I know how to find you! I'm going to do the same thing on Facebook, so you can play over there as well. And, yup, you can play twice (blog and Facebook) and win twice (blog and Facebook)!

To sweeten the deal for you (as if it weren't sweet enough already), I'll do one give away for every 20 comments. So it's worth your while to spread the word.

Thanks guys!

Erin

2011-10-29T08:18:00.000-04:00

These are the sweeter things in life: A 1960s Italian craft book that will yield this year's roster of Christmas cards. So, so delicious. It's craft time, my friends!!!

Old book: $2.49 at Goodwill

2011-10-28T18:40:00.005-04:00

I'm a bit of a shithead. I've travelled quite a bit in the last 5 years, but have not seen even a scrap of my own country. Case in point - I've seen my sister in Japan more than my sister in Montreal in the last two years. Cringe. This is dumb. Heaps of people spend lots of time and money to come check out Canada and its right here in my face all the time.

So, when the MegaBus add for $10 bus tickets to Montreal came through, I click click clicked and arranged for a 5 day jaunt to Montreal & Quebec City. It was so good! I ate Swiss food for the first time, homemade fudge & sausages at the farmer's market, bonded with my sister and a dear old kindred from undergrad, had some good beer, found some beads, visited botannical gardens and took short ferry trips and long hikes around waterfalls. And through at all of this I was enormously grateful that I grew up in French Canada and could flip the switch between my homeland's two official languages with surprising grace.

Vive le Québec! Vive le Canada!

2011-10-27T08:18:00.000-04:00

Ack! I cannot resist the cobalt blue! I have really gotta stop collecting stuff. I know, I know, I'm a moron to say this three years into this blogging enterprise, but I'm almost done my degree and will have to move soon.

Maybe I should just go back and reblog everything, but this time the prices I list can be for an online yardsale. Hmmm?

Pitcher: $2 at Goodwill ($1 for you, OBO)

Candle: $1 at Dollarama ($.25 for you, free with any other purchase)

2011-10-26T18:49:00.008-04:00

My dear friend Margaret sent me this small heap of her now-deceased momma's jewellery with the request that I turn it into a mala (prayer beads widely used in some Eastern religious traditions). I was so touched that she'd have such implicit trust in me on this. But, I guess if you can't trust me with beads & theology your expectations might be a bit high!

I mixed in a few antique copper spacers and seeds to give it an Earthier, organic feel, which is very befitting of my Margaret.

I was nervous because the silk I use only comes in 2m stretches and I have no brain for estimating how much a given project will use up (too many variables!). But I was lucky and had a few inches left to spare. Knotting is an incredible art - tying one tiny, tight knot between each of the 108 beads gives the whole piece a fluid, smooth, durable vibe. I adore it. The cross is a variation from traditional malas, an obvious nod to Christianity and was of sentimental import to Margaret. I made two pairs of earrings as a bit of an extra and in the end was able to use up almost every bead. (The dark navy beads in the first photo was a present for me for helping with the project)!

I ended up describing this as looking like "antique India" and she loved it! What a great project! I had so much fun reviving these special beads in new treasure for Margaret to tote around wherever she goes.

2011-10-25T08:18:00.000-04:00

I really gotta put a moratorium on this bead gathering habit. Cripes. I'm drowning over here under crates and containers and mountains of glorious beads. I don't mind, but at some point in the future I'm going to have to move all of this to Iceland. And that won't be cheap!

Container of beads: $.75 at Goodwill (who said moratorium?)

2011-10-22T08:18:00.001-04:00

I'm thinking the real Buddha may have been a little more sun-kissed than this fellow.

Tchotchke: $2.02 at Goodwill Thorncliffe Park

Bad history: $0, sometimes forgivable

2011-10-19T08:18:00.000-04:00

I wonder how many other people would buy a stray lid off a tin can and hang it up on their walls.

Lid art!: $.99 at Goodwill Thorncliffe Park

2011-10-17T08:18:00.000-04:00

Okay, so maybe I was a bit of jerk on this one. Or maybe it was still a month in barter-haggle-happy SE Asia seeping through. But there was no price on this blanket and so I insisted at the cash of the Goodwill that it was a throw ($3.99) not a blanket ($5.99). I do think its a throw. I do also think that the Goodwill probably could put that $2 to better use than me.

Ugh.

Guilt: $3.99

Freedom from Guilt: $2 more . . .

2011-10-16T09:08:00.004-04:00

I was featured in two treasuries within ten minutes last night! It was very cool and very heartwarming. Thank-you to the two Etsy crafty ones who helped me out with this. This one is about the colour heather and features the necklace that I named for all the sea heather my friend Elizabeth used to pick when she was a kid.
And here is the pineapple treasury that featured my cute little yellow cellphone charm!

2011-10-15T11:16:00.004-04:00

It's tough in some ways being a country kid in a big ugly city kid kinda life. Toronto, by many accounts, is a super friendly, happy, clean city. Toronto, by my account lately and generally, is rude, hostile, aggressive, dirty, and unfriendly. It really grates on me and after 8 years of temporary hereness I'm really clawing my way to the finish line and cannot wait to get the heck outta Dodge. The gulf of culture shock seems to be widening at this moment. It's the kind of place where people cut in front of you in the lines in stores, shove themselves into already full elevators and then yell at you when they bump into you, where three trains at Union station will come and go before anyone will pause for the three microseconds it takes for you to squeak by and get onto the platform, it's the kind of place where "government issued ID" means "Ontario driver's license", where the one time I really needed an outdoor swim Lake Ontario coughed up a dirty syringe, where every time I leave my bike locked up on a busy street people fill her basket with trash (or pour sticky sugary drinks over her or steal her bell), where people look at you as if you are bat-shit crazy for talking to a stranger, but if you are bat-shit crazy for real people ignore you, where only some drivers pull over for emergency vehicles and at least three cars run every red light blocking huge intersections downtown for the next three hundred cars, where everysinglefreakingday someone honks at me for no reason other than that I'm on a bike. Stop honking at me! It's stressful and isolating and weird.

But it is also the city with a museum just for textiles . . . and this is a museum that has a huge sale every year of all its samples, and they're so lovely they even have a table full of beads. So I'll survive another day . . .

Wool panels: $5/each, for a quilt to hide under

Beads: $21 for this heap, because it had been two days since I bought beads

2011-10-14T08:18:00.000-04:00

Maybe I could write 40 thousand words about how much I love Marimekko. No. It transcends love. It has to. I took a 6 hour train ride, then a 13 hour ferry ride, then walked an hour to go to the Marimekko flagship store in Helsinki in 2007. And, yes, I looked at everything, drooled on the merchandise, freaked some kind Finns out, and finally settled on a $18 pillowcase. Sigh. That day stands as one of the top ten moments in my life. I kid you not.

I don't ever want to be a hater, and I don't ever want to go hipster about Marimekko and begrudge their success, but it makes me a bit antsy that they're creeping into North American markets. They now have a line at Crate & Barrel. Hmmm. Eeeep. Ack!

Okay, just chill, Green. Roll with it.

Marimekko remnant: $1.99 from Crate & Barrel (Yorkdale), shout out to Lannie who first discovered Marimekko at Crate & Barrel for me and then made the lady go back into the basement and get the box of scraps.

Frame: $0, roadside find from a framing store in Bloor West Village

2011-10-12T23:09:00.006-04:00

This is my latest treasury, called "What a trip!" and it features places I've been (and loved) and places I want to see (and know I will love). This is kinda what my apartment looks like - a mish mesh of a thousand different patterns and colours and styles, heaped from floor to ceiling.

And all my tresury love has found a reward! I was featured in one called "Heavy Metal", which is almost funny because metal is definitely my least favourite material to work with. Shudder. So cold, hard, and colourless. The girls at the bead store used to laugh at my for my contempt of metal and love of plastic and more plastic! But it is still so flattering and exciting to get noticed in Etsy!

Check these and other treasuries out! Etsy is so full of awesome, crazy affordable art! And if you read my blog and are on Etsy, leave a comment to let me know where I can find you! Love to have some friends over there, too!

2011-10-12T08:18:00.000-04:00

I'm soooooooooo over Goodwill St. Clair West. Adios! My hunch is that the 50% off sales everysingleweek kinda killed their inventory. Goodwill Thorncliffe Park is where it's at! It's totally out of the way, but kinda close to the Science Center . . . so . . . we can make it work.

Decorative box from India: $2.02 from Goodwill

2011-10-11T00:55:00.002-04:00

I just wanted to share this with you. Nothing to do with anything in particular. Just my life. This is my new commute. So not only is my new job great, exciting, interesting meaningful work, where I've made fast friends and learned a heap. I now stare down the barrel of my shortest commute ever in 8 years in Toronto. And yup, my house is at one end of this bike path and work is pretty much at the other.

It's just me & my bike, the blaze from the East, and a few retrievers on these ever-colder fall mornings.

2011-10-10T08:18:00.000-04:00

New buddha!

Mini prayerful dude: $6, at Type Books (Forest Hill)

2011-10-08T22:47:00.002-04:00

Ah ha! I made another one . . . I love oranges, teals, salmons, chartreuse, lime, corals, fuchsias, turquoises. Sooooo delicious. Click here to visit this treasury and check out the awesome shops that are part of it. And click here to visit me on Etsy.

I would love it if the whole world was this colourful!

Thanksgiving Sale

2011-10-07T22:18:00.004-04:00

To help kick off your holiday shopping or maybe just to spice up your own wardrobe a bit, I'm offering 50% off at my Etsy store for the next 7 days. Just enter code "THANKS" at the checkout and a new beaded masterpiece will be on your way. You can always fire me a note here or convo me on Etsy. Tell your mom, tell your friends, tell your best friends' kids' teachers!

2011-10-07T08:18:00.000-04:00

I have precious few fond memories of my career as a chemistry student. And precious fewer souvenirs. The degree is nice and all, but I almost like these coffee cups better. If I had more foresight I would have snagged a few Erlenmeyer flasks from the lab for posterity (and flower holding).

Mugs: $0, collectables from event planning

2011-10-05T08:18:00.000-04:00

How great is this Annamoa fabric from IKEA? It's pure Tyrolean bliss, eh? Goats, cobblestone bridges, pine cones, mountains!

I wanted this just for the sake of wanting it . . . and just staple gunned it to my bedroom wall. Seriously. I'm so not getting my damage deposit back.

Annamoa fabric: $7.99/m at IKEA

Patch & repair walls: $sigh . . . .

2011-10-04T22:01:00.005-04:00

Uh oh . . . I did it again. I was fussing with Treasuries on Etsy. Meet Iceland! I think the next one will be my Christmas wish list. I've never made one of those, but I have a million and ten favourite things on Etsy that my mom should buy for me. Right, momma?

This is an Iceland treasury in honour of me starting back to Icelandic lessons, which is an act in honour of one of my favourite places on Earth. The ways in which I love Iceland are multiple and pure. I love its greyness, the way it envelopes you, the way you know you're at the ends of the Earth when you're there. I loved the fog and the mist, the soot and muck, and glacial ice and damp sky. All of this assumes some particular form of grey, so that even when you take a full colour photo life persists in greyscale. It's amazing.

This place is my soul. The middle of everywhere and nowhere, 2010.

2011-10-03T08:18:00.000-04:00

This lives on my desk. It's probably the best 7 word summary I've ever found of me and my family.

Frame: $0, roadside find

Scrabooking paper: $.17, on sale at DeSerres

Cardboard: $0, scrap from packaging

Letters: $1 per package at Dollarama

Pithy sanity: $0, thank-you Tolkien

2011-10-02T10:51:00.002-04:00

I generally can't resist destash, but I especially couldn't resist buying this lot from my friend Emily. Funky stuff, lady!

It kicked around my tackle box full of pendants and charms (yes, I have a tackle box full) until I accidentally hovered a pair of lavender hoop earrings over it . . . gasp! Voilà! Lo! Behold!

New present from me to me: About $10-13 worth of materials and treasures

2011-09-30T12:42:00.005-04:00

beads, beads, beads (above)

globetrotting - beads from around the world (below)

Uh oh. I think I might have a new fixation. :S I made my first two treasuries last night! I've been having a hard time finding Etsy fun because the jewellery market is so competitive and I don't have time to dump into really understanding how the beast works or thinking much about strategy - keywords, tags, search ads, forums, labs, and on and on . . . but this might be promising. It maybe is even more fun than shopping!

And as always, my cute little shop is here.

Internet fun: $0!

2011-09-28T17:43:00.002-04:00

This blog is all about found treasures, roadside finds, slightly broken stuff, crafty things, and the excitement of turning unwanted destash into your most favourite thing. Well, maybe there's no better way to describe my cat - the Fatster, Fattie, or plain old Blue, depending on how you know her.

Me being determined to get a kitten in January of 2002 in rural NB, ended up me being the owner of a quasi-feral year-old mongrel whose teeth all fell out due to early malnutrition. After a year hiding behind the washing machine, she surrendered to the domestic life and has been surrendering ever since. Someday, fingers crossed, she'll cave and sit on my lap.

Happy 10th Birthday(ish) kitten!

Cat: $0, roadside find

2011-09-26T08:08:00.000-04:00

Whoa! My first batch of cell phone charms were a hit. So I scored some more cords and whipped up a proper collection of them for my Etsy shop.

I'd like it very much if the last person without a cell phone made her fortune selling cell phone charms. That kind of irony suits me just fine.

Charms: $2.75 each over here.

2011-09-25T08:18:00.000-04:00

I don't even have a love-hate relationship with IKEA. I should. I think. I don't even hate that it rips of high end Scandinavian design. I don't even hate that you always have hardware leftover or that their instructions drive me to drink. I don't even hate that their products are of mixed pedigree, made under dubious working conditions, in countries I can barely find on a map of the world. I should, but I don't.

I just love it instead. I love the monstrous tacky prints and the schlocky names that I can read thanks to 6 months of Scandinavian immersion at the Universitetet i Oslo. I love that orange crabs and a mint field are a perfectly acceptable aesthetic. I love that every time I grace one of their acres of homogeneity I get the jitters and just want to squat in their stores and decorate.

Ethics, you've met your match.

Korts: $.99 for 6 packages, As-Is section IKEA Burlington

2011-09-23T08:08:00.000-04:00

I don't have many Martha Stewart moments . . . okay, maybe I don't have any Martha Stewart moments. I'm okay with that, except she got to make mashed potatoes with Snoop. That lucky ________. Right, but this comes close. This was for Jamie, who is awesome because she likes drinking and quotations in equal measure, on the occasion being included in a great art show!

Card: Homemade, $.50

Book full of quotations on drinking, "Keep Calm and Drink Up": $10.99 at Type Forest Hill

Ribbon: $1 for 4 at Dollarama

Friendship Points: Check . . . that's how Jamie and I roll

2011-09-20T23:39:00.001-04:00

I wish I were a travelling Buddha . . .

Icon for the collection: 100 Thai Baht at Chatuchak Markets, Bangkok

2011-09-18T15:22:00.002-04:00

I scored a sweet new job this week that I'm pretty excited about. It's work that's totally up my ally in an environment that I think I'll do pretty well in. Of course, this means I need some new creations to wear on my first week. I hope I make some friends!

Above: biggest beads ever from Thailand (note the quarter in the picture), 600฿ ($19) ,spacers and findings from my stash

Below: peach pit beads from Miami - $6.50 US with some hype wood beasts from Tokyo 350¥ ($4.45), spacers and findings from my stash

2011-09-17T17:36:00.002-04:00

If your a fan of beads or if you are my Mom, you might find my Facebook page for 'money can't buy taste' designs kinda appealing.

You can find it here. This one (below) is going to be called "Yardsale" and I'll list it soon . . . gotta get the beads under control.

2011-09-17T12:51:00.002-04:00

I'm diversifying, yo! That's what e-commerce is all about, right? Okay, the real story is that my craft supplies are taking over my apartment and I'm drowning in unfinished projects . . . so, I took that little bag of empty cell phone charms and whipped up 8 cute little charms for my Etsy shop.

I hope they get adopted before I end up on an episode of A&E's Hoarders.

2011-09-16T08:54:00.000-04:00

Ah ha! The trash gods provide yet again. After a month of living like a Boy Scout and reheating my coffee in a pot on the stove, this find marks my triumphant return to civilized living!

Popty microdon (that's Welsh for microwave oven): $0, shout out to the folks in Forest Hill who replace things just for the sake of replacing them!

2011-09-14T08:54:00.001-04:00

If you don't know anyone from Winnipeg I suggest you get on it. They're good people. Almost spookily so. Or maybe I've just been in Toronto too long.

But seriously, I scored this great vase as part of a Christmas present from the good folks at Modern Earth. I have no doubt they intended it to be a vessel for my beads.

Presents: $0, yay!

Beads: $x, let's not talk about it.

2011-09-14T08:54:00.000-04:00

When I get anxious, I make messes like this:

And turn them into this:

Blank cards: $1 for 6 at Dollarama

Scrabooking paper: $.17/sheet at DeSerres (SALE!)

Origami paper: 100 Yen at the 100 Yen store somewhere in Japan

Cards for the next 6 months: $4-5 total

2011-09-13T11:31:00.002-04:00

What's this you say? The finest little new website launched this morning . . . whoa. Really? Yeah, for serious! check it out -

www.eringreenster.com

(Don't worry - that's just my nerdy side, my crafty-junk loving side will stay put right here).

2011-09-12T11:19:00.008-04:00

I read somewhere that people like it when you give your secrets away. Think Martha Stewart. I guess that's the logic. But I thought it was neat . . . and so I present to you my First Ever Tutorial!

Here's how to make these:

Hug

Jersey

1. Procure 100% cotton T's from Goodwill or your PJ drawer. Make sure they're the kind of t-shirt with no seams up the side.

2. Wash and dry 'em.

3. Iron 'em. This facilitates slicing them into the most perfect strips.

4. Lay flat and slice. Now I have the ace in my pocket of excellent quilting gear. A nice healing mat, long plexiglass ruler and rotary cutter. If you have these, great! Measure them up and make slices that are about 1.5" wide. I tried 1" wide and that seemed a bit skinny, I didn't want to look too 'stringy'. I have a feeling scissors and eyeballing it may also work since jersey is such a forgiving fabric.

5. Cut across the width of the shirt (so that you're making it shorter one ring at a time).

6. I used 8 slices to make the layers of my necklace. But, hey, this is craft time - use as many as you like. You'll need one extra to make the fancy knot at the back.

7. I opted not to use strips that had bits of logo on them, thinking a clean look might sell better in my store, but I'll use logos in the ones I make for myself! Yes, ones . . . this is definitely a plural craft.

8. Now line up all your strips one on top of each other and treat it like a single, open circle.

9. This part is important - pull and tug the circle, stretch the fabric so that it curls. Not like your Arnold Schwarzenegger or anything, but don't be timid here. It won't look good if you don't make the strips curl.

10. Tug and rotate the circle by a few inches. Tug on this spot. Rotate. Tug. Rotate. Tug. Rotate. Until you're happy that you have stretched every strip at every point. It should be all curled into tubes now.

11. Take one strip, snip it open, and cut to about 10" . . . no hard and fast rule here.

12. Lay the circles all flat and smooth, one on top of each other. Now take that strip and wrap it around all of the strips to bind them together.

13. You can see in the photos above how to do step #12. Just wrap the strip around, tight coils, smooshed together, for one or two inches. No biggie.

14. Now thread the loose ends back under all those wraps you just made and give it a tug.

15. I tucked the remaining few inches into the necklace. Since the fabric is all curled up, it's pretty easy to unfurl it and tuck the stray ends into a tube.

16. Wear.

17. Accept compliments with grace! This has to be one of the best no-sew projects out there!

Notes: I'm tall and like big accessories, so I opted for men's L/XL T's, which produces stretched loops about 42" to 48" long.

If you make these on your own you HAVE to send me a photo!

2011-09-08T08:54:00.000-04:00

I have gotta be the luckiest little beader on the planet. After a typical Green scenario (involving a FedEx depot no where reachable by transit or by bike, several months, more than 20,000kms, and hundreds of dollars, I'm sure), I finally got my paws on a crate of beads and jewellery from Afghanistan. Procured by my Aunt (not Ant) while working for an NGO that helps Afghan women set up small businesses selling jewellery.

HYPE!

Treasures: $0, could not possibly have gone to a better home.

2011-09-07T12:11:00.002-04:00

Back to School Sale! at my Etsy shop. I've marked down the featured pieces at the top of my shop so that they can get themselves adopted soon! And I simplified my shipping - $5 for anything, anywhere.

2011-09-06T13:13:00.002-04:00

I always get a bit edgy about leaving my cat in the care of others. I know, I know, she's a cat . . . throw some chow and water in her direction once every three days and she'll be fine. Unhappy, but alive.

After a month in Asia I returned to find my house plants dead, microwave destroyed, and the cat in desperate need of a nail trim and brushing. I shouldn't expect more from a straight guy with cat allergies, eh?

Plants: $30, highly fungible entities in my world

Microwaves: $100, but let's see how long I can go without one

Note from Dad: $0, this is why I love this man

2011-09-04T12:44:00.003-04:00

All the yapping about my trip and newfoundlove of scuba diving paid off! My colleague Dave flopped this on my desk as an afterthought to our conversation about my next great adventure. I totally treasure moments like this and will totally treasure the book and the sunburns and saltwater that it will bring into my life.

Used Lonely Planet: $0, man, I work with some highly awesome people.

Diving in Roatan: $2000, because you can't take it with you

2011-09-02T19:09:00.002-04:00

I'm building a new online home. From scratch. It's gonna be hype, yo! All that stood between me and digital greatness was jazzying up my laptop. Now? Nothing.

Stickers: $1.50/package at Dollarama

Web 3.0 fame: $0, ready for it.

2011-09-01T23:05:00.001-04:00

I Twittered.

*gulp*

@eringreenster

My time: $0, but oh so costly

2011-08-28T15:30:00.007-04:00

Let's be honest. The real reason I travel is to buy beads. Procure beads. Hoard beads. Touch beads. See beads. Find beads. Love beads. Beads. Beads. Beads.

Fabric covered, Japan. Man the exchange rate on the yen killed me this time around, but these were delicious and lovely so they had to come with me.

Acrylic beads in Japan, I have discovered, are of a far superior quality. Tiny, neat drill holes, no seams, dense plastic. They're beautiful! These woods and whites will make one concoction for me!
Okay, these are just wild! Bright, huge, paisley! From Japan. A little pricey, actually, but I could not resist them. I should have bought more.
The greatest paper beads I've ever seen. Huge, thick, perfectly crafted from tourist maps of Phnom Penh by sweet little Cambodian orphans. How cute? They have their own store.
Super hype kukui beads from Thailand. I won't be hacking this (which I think says something about how awesome I think it is)!
Necklaces from a mall in Thailand. I'll combine the two and make one huge creation for me to keep.

Cheapy beads from the markets in Thailand.

There's more, but those are the highlights. I could not find a single bead worth carting home from Vietnam. Total bead FAIL. Oh well.

2011-08-22T12:23:00.003-04:00

I got a little obsessed with this coffee brand whilst in Japan. I loved the 1950s cigarette ad vibe about the logo, combined with the very 2011 streamlined, two-toned sparsity that a lot of companies are going for (ahem, Starbucks). The Coffee Boss is boss for sure!

So this parody mug was a pretty happy find . . . 'bozu' means bald in Japanese, or so I'm told.
Coffee cup: ¥530

Trip to Asia to get coffee cup: ¥310,279

2011-08-19T14:55:00.002-04:00

As much as I love to hate on Toronto, this mucky, hodgepodge city does have more than a few redeeming qualities. One of which is that no one is actually from Toronto. I'm serious. At my Dad's office there are 14 people from 12 different countries. At my old workplace there was a flock of chain smoking Russians (well one was Kazakh), a Sri Lankan developer with a name so long he just truncated it after 7 letters for the sake of us poor white folk, and more than a smattering of other folks from around the globe.

This, of course, means you get really groovey presents on a regular basis from all corners of Earth.

Old world postcards from Georgia: $0, from our thoughtful, bee-keeping, Georgian IT manager

2011-08-17T12:19:00.002-04:00

I guess if you spend a decade at Jesus School, you're kinda asking for a bit of this sort of thing.

Night light: $0, gift from my sister

Eternal light: $0, gift from Jesus

2011-08-13T21:01:00.003-04:00

I'm back in cyberspace! I was off doing what I do . . . making a mess, making new friends, making one hell of a life for myself.

I'll feel more blog-ambitious soon and get back in the groove of bringing you the finest in the tacky life on the cheap.

Bananas: $1US per bunch

Elephant slobbers: $0, complimentary

2011-06-26T16:53:00.002-04:00

My domestic streak runs pretty strong in some veins, and rather anaemic in others. Sewing, knitting, decorating? Yes! Cooking, cleaning, gardening? Notsomuch.

However, my fickle soul is easily seduced - this time in the form of Matryoshka measuring cups.

Butter, eggs, brown sugar: $8, No Frills

Stealing ingredients from Dad: $0, thanks!

Matryoshka measuring cups: $0, present from Ann

Baking not-flop: $8 and less than an hour of my time, an experiment worth repeating

2011-06-25T21:59:00.002-04:00

Tonight, I turned this:

Into this:
Scrap chain and pendents from deconstructed jewellery: $0, destash from a variety of sources

2011-06-19T15:45:00.003-04:00

I'm pretty sad that one of my favourite sources of beads is closing; Twice Found is this neat little pottery and vintage jewellery store on Markham that I discovered not more than a year ago! The great thing is that if you ask nicely the ladies let you dig through the heaps and heaps and bags of broken jewellery they stow in the back and sell you treasures for a song.

One of my last great hauls: $35, nine vintage necklaces, one bangle, and a beautiful Japanese potted vessel

2011-06-16T21:09:00.002-04:00

Sometimes all I want out of life is to just live out all my weirdness. This bracelet is a step in the right direction.

Gift from someone who really gets me: $0, imported from Atlanta by Ann!

2011-06-11T12:46:00.002-04:00

This is what my life looks likes and feels like right now.

2011-06-03T23:29:00.002-04:00

I celebrated my June 1 birthday with an absolute dear, dear friend at the 360 restaurant at the CN Tower in Toronto. I kinda bounced around and took 83 pictures and was pretty much wetyourpants excited the whole time.

To 29 years of life well worth toasting!

Beer on top of the world: $5.85, plus tax, tip and a really expensive meal

2011-05-28T22:59:00.003-04:00

Fenton Fluoro-Flo Choker (grabbed the picture here . . . )

Emily Fluoro-Flo Choker

So, everyone of you knows the feeling "oh, I could make that myself." It's like a little itch. A smug one. One usually spawned by shoddy Made in China mass craftsmanship . . . or zany markups that should insult even the most robustly waged.

Emily scoured the beads stores on Queen, Etsy, and Mokuba to pull it together. Took two brains and four hands to engineer it, but in the end enormously satisfying and eye-catching.

Fenton Original: $750

Emily's Homage: $75

2011-05-23T17:15:00.003-04:00

My cute little brightly coloured cuff was featured in an Etsy treasurey! (bottom row, third from left) It's always nice to be made to feel a little special and that people out there are actually thinking about your work. 3 out of 4 treasurey's I've been in have been because of cuffs and I have a hard time keeping them in stock. I wish they weren't so expensive to mail, though!

Ego: $0

2011-05-22T22:08:00.002-04:00

Above: My only watch ever. My parents bought it for me about 10 years ago. $80.

Below: My second watch ever. I still feel a bit guilty for replacing something that still works and I think I may have the glass fixed on the old one anyway. But I've kinda secretly lusted after Fossil watches for eight years. No joke. Eight. I used to sell them and craved and cried about them and couldn't fathom dropping that kind of cash on a watch. Yeah, $95 is serious dough. Well it was when I was paying my way through grad school at $8/hr.

2011-05-15T17:07:00.004-04:00

whoa. I just got a really good gift.

This is my Dad's Minolta. It took pictures like this.

I love it and will keep it with me forever.

Old camera: $0, thanks Dad

2011-05-01T19:21:00.002-04:00

I turned this:

Into this:

Old lady knitting scraps: $1 at yard sale

2011-04-23T22:35:00.002-04:00

I generally suck at forming habits, but here's one I'm really going to gun for - buy myself flowers on Saturday. I don't know why I haven't taken to this. I bike by the crazy luscious flower shops on Avenue Road every single day for years now and collapse in their gorgeousness and want all of the flowers. They're amazing and they make me so happy.

Here's to a life filled with abundance and joy! Happy Easter, friends.

Flowers: $16.42

2011-04-22T20:06:00.002-04:00

It's National Jelly Bean day. Though it is an American holiday, strictly speaking, I think I could man up and show a little binational solidarity, eh?

My favourite treat: $10.49 at Rexall

2011-04-18T22:50:00.003-04:00

So let's get serious for a minute, folks. If I'm going to do this New Zealand thing, I gotta get my head on straight and get organized. I have three oral exams left in my degree. I figure leaving after I'm done two of these is a good idea. Then I'll only have to fly back to Toronto to defend. I'll also need $ - flights, vet bills, quarrantine fees, first few months rent on a place, visas, driver's license fees.

Boxes: 2 for $10 at IKEA

Folders & hangers: $20 at Grand & Toy

Pet sheep: $? how much do they cost

2011-04-16T08:54:00.003-04:00

For the first time I'm going to snag a picture off the internet for my blog. Thanks, dude, the batteries in my camera were dead and I couldn't snag a picture of this wine I drank last night. I always buy based on the label. This held true last night, but it has an extra symbolic punch. Not only is it rockin - a little kiwi bird in her montgolfier - but with this purchase was my official psychological commitment to move to New Zealand. As soon as possible, ideally within the next 18 months.

Living abroad has always been a dream of mine. I'm sick of Toronto and frankly apart from home there is no where else in Canada that really yanks on my heart. I need the beach and a vehicle and access to ski hills.

And now I have nothing but steely resolve to get exactly what I want and just be so utterly myself, the CEO of my life, that I just had to run out and buy wine from New Zealand.

This blog might start looking a little different.

2011-04-01T15:24:00.003-04:00

Project finishing continues! I have created yet another masterful item of coziness for the cat to lick her butt on.

Isn't Marimekko fabric the best? It gives me jitters just looking at it.

1 yrd of textile euphoria: $50, thanks mom & dad!

borders & thread: $50

backing: $0, old duvet cover

batting: $0, perks of having an aunt with a sheep farm

warmest blanket ever: finished just in time for spring

2011-03-30T11:08:00.002-04:00

I'm on a rampage of getting shit done. I went on an out of character binge of starting projects before finishing the last. So not my style. Seriously. My beads have been in a state of strewn for two months now. Nutso.

On the tee this week is dealing with my bucket of scrap beads. I milked two cuffs out of the heap of renegades and will destash the rest to a deserving, crafty soul.

Feels good. So very good.

Cuffs: $5-10 each, I think

Getting shit done: $0, so so so satisfying

2011-03-29T00:14:00.004-04:00

I will take really good care of your kittehs while you're on vacation . . . . . . . iff* you pay me in really hype napkins.

Serviette house-sitting trophies: $0, thanks Walita!

*no, not a typo. Click here if you don't get it.