A Very Murray Christmas

Bring it on! I'm now ready for the holiday season!



Are you ready?

Last minute holiday shopping at the Beaches

A quick reminder that the Beaches Artists' & Artisans' show is on today for the last day! So if you're looking for any last minute gifts or stocking stuffers, now's your chance! Or just come by to hang out and get into the holiday mood!

Hope to see you there!

And the Winner is...

Yes, it is finally time to announce the winner!

Congratulations to:

That's right, it's EVA!

I've e-mailed you asking for your mailing details!

And, as I mentioned, I wanted to send another small Halloween surprise for the best costume story! Since I really liked two, I am sending Halloween mail for Mary and Caddi! Mary's getting mail because of that amazing Edward Scissorhands costume and Caddi for the fun story about a Colombian couples costume! Watch your e-mails ladies!

Thanks for all your stories and entries!

Canada Day celebrations

As you might know, Canada Day is celebrated on July 1st. It's a national day off, yet this year was the first one I've really celebrated what looks like "the traditional way". I've always enjoyed the extra day off, sometimes spent it moving (it's Moving Day in Quebec), usually though, just taking full advantage of the Montreal summer (read: at a terasse having a drink most likely)

A week before in Quebec it's St-Jean-Baptiste day, which is the bigger celebration, so I was quite excited to see what happens on Canada Day in Toronto.

Since it seemed the right thing to do, we went out for a picnic by the beach. Just some sandwiches and salad, but it was nice to be outside and by the water. I'm definitely more the 'by-the-water' than 'in-the-water' kind of a gal.

In the evening we returned back to the beach since there were supposed to be fireworks. We had no idea that the entire beach would be packed. There were people everywhere and a ton of boats gathering in the same spot. The above photo is at the east end of the beach, which was much more quiet. As we walked west, more and more crowds were gathering.

My priorities haven't obviously changed... "Oh, look! Food!"

The fireworks were quite impressive.

All in all a nice Canada Day, it was fun to try the whole picnic and fireworks thing. Interestingly, practically everyone was dressed in red and white, with maple leaves everywhere (the pictures, don't think people being covered in actual maple leaves... Oh, you didn't?).

And, as Finnish person, I must say that I still enjoy fireworks in the summer. So pleasant! If you're not Finnish (or Nordic) please let me explain: it's really, really light at night in the summer. The sun doesn't set in the north and in the south it just gets dim, like dusk, not fully dark. So, we only get fireworks in the winter, namely New Years.

Cutting, gluing, creating

It's been a long while since I've done anything really creative. I'm starting to realize that making something, even if it's small, helps fuel more creativity.

I haven't written many letters recently. I haven't made any paper crafts.

The longer it's been, the harder it is to get back to it. I feel like this lack of creative space, both physical and mental, makes it hard for me to even write.

To help alleviate the distinct need for creating things in my life, I needed to start somewhere. The easiest and most useful task as to start going through the few magazines I still have. Ripping out pages with images I like will hopefully help with the creative rut.

Next step, start adding them into a notebook. I'm creating a Christmas notebook to help me get into the Christmas spirit.

What do you do when you feel you've been stripped of your creativity?

Friday Inspiration - Winter

This is the time I still love winter and snow. Especially since there's hardly any snow in Toronto right now...


I've been collecting some wintery photos in Pinterest, check out the board by clicking the picture above

Do you have any love for winter or do you prefer some other season?

The tree is here!

If you've followed my blog for a while now (or if you know me in real life) you know that I really, really like Christmas. Every year I put the tree up the first weekend of December and try to add a few other decorative touches for my home.

This year it so happened that our move was scheduled on December 1st. Then we had to wait of our furniture and other things to arrive, so I only got the tree up two days ago.

I love the fireplace. It was just calling for a couple of stockings. I have a few more ideas how to decorate the fireplace (hopefully) without going overboard with it.

I will take more photos, but there are still some boxes around. I do have a few other decorative things to put up as well. I'll share some more photos once I have a better handle of the place.

Do you have decorations up yet? Will you decorate your home?

Monday Mail

I took a weekend long break from my blog to basically just relax.

I saw many dear friends, some who came to town for the holidays, some who are already here. We had a great dinner on Friday night at le Quartier Général. It's a BYOW* place I've heard great things of, but haven't managed to get a reservation until now. I had a phenomenal duck tartare! If you're looking for a great bistro style restaurant, I'm highly recommending le Quartier Général!

I sent a few things in the mail last week. The biggest effort was, hands down, the Easter mail. This week my plan is to catch up with my regular correspondence.

Outgoing

Pastels galore! They went out in all different colors and with different contents. Above are just a few examples.



I also sent out a package in pink-ish hues. Some flowsies and some uber-cute tape I found from NYC. I've been hogging it until now for some reason... Of course some vinyl letters and washi tape too. Just to make sure it won't be subdued or anything silly like that...

Incoming

I got a few Easter cards myself.

How was your weekend?

* Not sure if I've mentioned this, but I know at least my European readers might not be familiar with the concept. BYOW = bring your own wine. It means exactly that. You bring your own wine to the restaurant. Which, I have to say, is a really awesome concept.

Friday Inspiration - Easter Eggs

I always love it when I see a new twist on an old tradition. Easter is definitely a crafty time of the year, not to mention colorful, so it's great to see new ideas with old favorites.

Generally speaking I love a monochrome look and subtle mixing of patterns. There's something so classy about a black and white combo. It's unexpected for Easter, but looks great!

Source: ohhappyday.com via Katri on Pinterest

Source: obviouslysweet.com via Katri on Pinterest

Source: oleanderandpalm.com via Katri on Pinterest

If you still want to go with more colorful eggs, there are new ways to do that. I love the graphic take on more traditional colors.

Source: howaboutorange.blogspot.ca via Katri on Pinterest

Source: marthastewart.com via Katri on Pinterest

And finally +1 for all us nerds:

Source: instructables.com via Katri on Pinterest

What's your favorite?

We're hunting wabbits

With someone who's two cats are named after Bugs Bunny cartoons, you can't really blame me for making wabbit-season jokes.

I couldn't stay away. I wanted to share the final pastel-y, see-though-y goodness I sent earlier in hopes they would reach their destinations before Easter. You saw the cards I made and here's the whole package.

I think they look so fun! I used all different colored plastic envelopes and stuffed them with more colorful things. Besides the egg cards, there's some candy, egg-shaped confetti and, of course, these:

Emergency bunnies. Each vellum envelope contains individually wrapped bunny-gummy candy, the oddest bunny shaped confetti (seriously guys. Is that not the awesomest, yet creepiest confetti ever?) and some bunny ears cut out of paper.

Please note my mad drawing skillz (you always spell that with a 'Z'), a proof that 8 years of art school did not go to waste!!!

So, what do you think? Would you like to receive something like this in the mail?

Easter egg card DIY

It's time for Easter mail. Once again, I'm using a popular holiday as an excuse to send more mail.

For once I have plenty of photos of this project, so I'm breaking it into two separate posts. This first one would be a fun project for kids to do as well. (I think. I don't have any, so I'm only assuming.)

I wanted to make a simple card to use in my outgoing mail. I had plenty of other ideas as well, you'll see those soon, but besides all the other random things I was planning on sending, I wanted to include something fun to write the wishes on. Since this is Easter mail, what better (and, honestly, easier) than Easter eggs? Also, bunnies. Thou shalt not forget the bunnies!


To start out, make a template (I'm sure there are some online you can just print out. If you do that, just copy the shape onto cardboard). To make one yourself, you'll need sturdy cardboard (I used a cereal box), pencil and a round object to use for drawing circles. A glass or a mug would work, I used a lid from a mason jar. Draw a circle on the cardboard.


Then, using a ruler draw a line across the circle and roughly about an inch above. How much outside of the circle you draw the line depends how large the circle is. For example, the lid I used was just around 3 inches across, so I drew the line about 1 1/2 inches over. That was way too much, the egg looked kinda weird.

To make the egg shape, draw line from the side of the circle to the appropriate height on the line. Cut the egg out.


You now have a template for an egg. I also made one for a bunny. Same idea as the egg, just draw bunny ears on top of the circle.


To use the template, fold paper or cardboard in half and place the template on the folded side of your material. With the bunny, make sure the bunny's cheek and ear both touch the fold. Cut out your card.

And finally, decorate your cards.



I tried out several different colored paper and card, as well as a ton of different methods to decorate them.  First is drawn on with a gel pen. Second, not surprisingly, decorated with washi tape. In the first photo of this post I used pale blue circle stickers on different colors of pastel card. You could also paint on them, use crayons or colored pencils or glue on a collage. Anything you have at hand will work.

I have another post coming up with photos of the entire lot of Easter mail I sent out. It includes photos of the packaging and the other things I packed with the cards. That will be up in the next few days, so stay tuned!

Did you send out any mail for Easter?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Watch out for the snakes!


If you're interested, you might want to read some interesting details about St. Patrick (and what's the deal with the snakes) HERE

Have a great day everyone!

Time to catch up!

I'm fairly sure that time moves in clusters and not particularly evenly either. Sometimes I feel like there's nothing going on and all of a sudden things pile up like crazy. I had one of those weeks that started very slowly, but kept speeding up towards the end. Don't get me wrong though, I had an absolutely kickass week. It was like a big pile of awesomeness.

[Here's a look inside the Centre Bell to give you an idea. It seats over 20,000 people for a hockey game]

Chris and I had tickets to a Habs game (Habs = Montreal Canadiens (NHL hockey team)) and we had great tickets. Why was it so great? Free food! That's why. Well, the seats were good too, high enough to see properly, but not in the nosebleeds.

I got some really great stuff in the mail. Most awesomely a book from my sister. American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I've been wanting to read that for a long time. This also proves that you all should have a GoodReads account (also, add me as a friend) as apparently that's where she checked that I haven't read it yet.

[I don't know how many of you really care about hockey. If you do, you can probably find better sites for that than mine. For the rest of you, here's a Zamboni]

I was presented with some interesting challenges this week, at work and otherwise as well. I met some interesting people I hope to see more of and got excited about new opportunities.

Tonight we're having people over to watch UFC. Georges St-Pierre is fighting so we're all gathering to our place to watch the fight. (Did I ever mention I'm a fan of mixed martial arts? I'll happily discuss K1 vs. UFC if you're interested. I'm still partial to K1, but warming up to UFC)

To top this all off, tomorrow is St. Patrick's day. That's a pretty big deal here in Montreal. So, good times ahead too! Yay!

Do you have fun plans for the weekend?

It's not easy being green

A fun and easy DIY project, just in time for St. Patrick's Day!

It's getting very close to spring! I know this because St. Patrick's day is just around the corner! I'm not Irish nor, as far as I know, is there any Irish roots in my family either. Doesn't matter though, I like any excuse to do some crafty projects!

Until I moved to Montreal, I didn't really know much about St. Patrick's day. Being the history nerd I am and being especially fascinated by the history of the Catholic church (I'm not Catholic by the way, just interested in the history) I am familiar with a number of saints, just not necessarily the modern celebrations. Additionally, pubs have always been my favorite type of drinking establishment, so obviously I've had some inclinations what it might be. But then I moved here and was promptly educated of what it really means to celebrate St. Patrick's day. I can tell you more about it another time, hopefully with some photos.

Today though, I would like to share a small St. Paddy's snailmail project.


For this project, you'll need all things green. I had patterned green paper, some green thread, green confetti and some St. Paddy's trinkets, including chocolate coins.

I actually went to the dollarstore to buy a few little St. Paddy's trinkets. As it so happened, the one I went to had nothing. It's was Easter all over the place. So I had to improvise. I actually managed to drop by another one later, so I got a few pins and balloons.

My whole idea was to try a few new things as well as go back to the see-through mail, so I used my last green plastic envelopes. Remember that I wrote a tutorial how to make these!



I am especially proud of my silly little confetti bags. I used glassine envelopes, wrote on them with a green marker and stuffed them with improvised confetti. I put in green paper snippets in different shapes, sequins and craft jewels.

Then I made shamrock shaped notes. To make one; take a square piece of paper. Fold in half. Fold in half again. Then use a heart-shaped paper punch as shown in the photo. If you don't have a paper punch, then just cut out a rough heart shape. Open paper.


I also made origami four leaf clovers in a few different sizes. You can find instructions online, I used this one.

I wrote little notes into the shamrocks and stuffed the envelopes with some green cheer. I also added some green paperclips and green thread to some of them. Just to keep with the theme, you know. The fancily shaped, pale green shapes on the envelopes are actually the address labels. I glued them on afterwards.

I only had 5 green envelopes, so I decided to send these to the few people I think would appreciate some unexpected St. Paddy's silliness. This is actually a preliminary project for something a bit larger coming up soon.

Oh, I really like sending mail on random holidays. As seen before...

So, are you celebrating St. Patrick's day?

Cards for Chinese New Year

The year of the Snake is fast approaching. I've never celebrated the holiday (well, not being Chinese would probably explain why) until I met Chris and, subsequently, his family. They are not particularly traditional, so the celebration really just consists of eating a lot, which often is the case with Chinese celebrations, a fact I wholeheartedly approve of!

This is not, as far as I know, a card giving holiday (red envelopes are another story) but I will use any excuse to send out a few! I also really felt like trying my hand at collaging. I only made a couple and sent them out to a few people I thought would either appreciate it and/or needed an additional snail mail-y surprise. Let's not forget the fact that I bought appropriate stamps too!


I don't have exact instructions for you on how to make something similar, these were the first full-on collage cards I've made. I snapped some photos along the way, so maybe they'll inspire you to try something similar out as well.

I basically cut the cards and the envelopes out of red poster-board. I took out a bunch of paper in the appropriate theme (I collect paper in themes, did I ever tell you that?) and then covered the front of the card with a larger piece of paper, I used gold-leafed paper I found in Chinatown and a few book pages. After the background was down, I started adding the embellishments.


Once the cards were done, I stuffed them in the envelopes I made and wrote the addresses on with a gold marker (stay true to the theme, right?). Since I had year of the snake stamps, I obviously used those. (My post office only had a few international ones left. It's a shame as I kinda liked them. I would happily use them on my regular mail too.) You can see the outgoing envelopes here.


I will for sure make more with the same technique. It was actually a lot of fun. I'm glad I got to try it out and I will continue improving my technique.

Have you made collage cards?

Walking around

I had some errands to run yesterday and since the weather was pleasant, I took my camera with me again. It's been a while since I've done that.

Just as before, I try to always keep an eye out when walking around. I find it help add even more to the charm of the area you live in.


I figure there's always something interesting to see if you take the time.


Sometimes it's just little details and other times it's windows covered in books.

I wanted to go closer to see the books, but it seemed to be someone's home. I figured I'll just take a photo and move on.

How are you guys today?

Monday Mail

We're almost back to normal now! At least when it comes to Monday mail posts... Christmas and the blizzard we got messed up the regular postal schedule and I still got some holiday cards early last week. So, this is (hopefully) the last week with a mail love post that's a tad Christmassy and all over the place.

Before we get into more detailed photos of the outgoing and incoming mail, I wanted to show you a collection of incoming holiday mail. I wanted to display the cards we got, so I taped them to the wall in the living room. I think the display turned out awesome and I don't see why I wouldn't do this with regular mail too... Maybe not in the living room, but I think it would look fun next to my work space.

Another great use for washi tape!

And onwards to the mail...

Outgoing


Another one of my brightly colored, all over the place pieces of mail. Sometimes I just feel like adding everything on an envelope.


Other times simple is better. The top one is made from a piece of drawer liner, so it smells like lilies and the second one is made from a book page.

Incoming

With all sorts of things coming in the mail, I wanted to share the few that aren't for Christmas. A cat postcard from an art exhibit and a letter. The envelope has puffy sushi stickers... Pretty awesome. Thank you!

So, have you returned to regular mailing?