Mail Love - a letter from a hotel

I was recently in Montreal and stayed at the Marriott Château Champlain hotel downtown. I was traveling light, so I only brought with me a pared down craft kit. I also wanted to try out making something with the limited supplies available, just to see what I can come up with.

I scoured the room for things I could use* and this is what I found:

Montreal guide book, a hotel notepad, some brochures and paper coasters.

Many hotels still provide paper and a few envelopes, so those are often available as well. I wanted to be creative and was genuinely curious what I could come up with without resorting to the hotel stationery.

The letter part was pretty straightforward, I just wrote the letter on the pad. I flipped through the guide book and found a few pages I liked. I folded one to make the band around the letter.

I used a folded map from a brochure to make the envelope. (There are a few ways I've used smaller pieces of paper to make envelopes in a pinch. I can write a tutorial if anyone's interested)


The page I chose for the band around the letter was just long enough to barely touch on the other side, so I had to improvise a bit. I folded a paper coaster and glued it on the back of the decorative band.

The back of the envelope is secured with a bit of the tape I brought with me.

I tried a few different things for the address label. The coasters had a plastic coating on one side, so I wasn't sure the glue would stick on it. I also tried to find a page from the guide book to use, but in the end I felt i might as well go with the simplest solution. I ended up ripping a sheet from the notepad and using that for the address. At least that would be securely glued on the envelope.

Here's the final look at the envelope:


Pretty simple DIY letter, but it's genuinely made from what I had at hand. It was actually pretty fun! This definitely started a whole train of thought on what kind of other things I could make. I think I'll try them out soon...

I challenge you to try it out, just try using simple things you have at home like flyers or ads you get in the mail. Please let me know if you try it out. I'd love to see what you come up with!

*) Remember, don't be a dick. Just use things that are legitimately there for your use or would be tossed after you leave. Brochures and disposable paper products such paper coasters or cardboard packaging are ok, anything in the hotel binder is probably not. Use your best judgement.

Travelling crafter - the bare essentials

When I travel I like to have the option to do a little bit of crafting if the creative mood strikes me. I use my daily planner as a scrapbook alternative and I try to send at least a few postcards, maybe even a short letter if I get the chance. Because of the potential for little crafting, I like to be prepared whenever I'm on the road, so to say.

I have written about a more extensive traveling mail art/craft kit before HERE

This time I'm only in Montreal, a city I lived in for 8 years, so I don't really feel like I'm *really* traveling. I am, however, away from my regular masses of craft supplies, so I put together a few essentials. I only packed a carry-on for my flight, so this means there is no extra room for things I might not absolutely need. This also means I had to  really figure out what are the absolute necessities. This is what I came up with:

Two pens (2 for pen related catastrophes or various writing surfaces, of course)
A pencil
Glue roller
Two rolls of thin washi tape
Scissors (which I realized later I couldn't bring after all. You know, because flying)

And, as before, everything is packed in the highly professional, not to mention adult-y, panda pouch. For street cred, obviously.

I'm thinking I probably could've managed without the tapes and maybe with one pen (but having only one pen is just madness..).

Anyhow, I'll report back how I did with this kit.
 
What do you think? Did I forgot something? Would you take more items? Less? What would you pack?

I've missed you!

I'm coming back soon! I Promise!

There are so many things going on right now and the last few months have been insane! I have a lot of stuff to tell you guys and I'm so happy to see at least some of you still come by here. 

I am currently packing up all of my earthly possessions into various sized cardboard boxes. 

I haven't had time to do crafts like I used to and I am way behind in all my snailmail correspondence. I will write to you all soon!

I wanted to just come by to share how much I've missed writing this blog. I've missed the comments and interactions with all of you! I get so inspired when I write!

I'll be back soon! A few more weeks I hope!

Photos are from my recent visit to Toronto. More about that trip soon as well.

Vegas Vacation

I spent a long weekend in Vegas and came back home late on Monday. I really love Vegas. It's such and weird and surreal place, but I always have a great time. I mean, I did get married there, so I do have a special place in my heart for it.

I don't really gamble much (penny slots, anyone?), but I always enjoy wandering around, snapping photos. And eating. Oh, the food...


I'd happily go back right away.

I have plenty more photos and stories to share with you.

Cottage adventures

For a second winter in a row, a group of my friends decided we need to rent a cottage for a weekend. You can see our last year's trip HERE. Last weekend we all packed up and headed out of the city for a few days in a cabin by the lake.

The cottage itself was nice. Smaller than the one we had last year, but it worked for us for the two nights we stayed there.



I have to say I was really impressed how it was decorated. There were details inside I would love to have in my own home.

I can now hear my friends laughing at me for having a picture of that chair here. But, I love it. It was awesome, just look at it! (It might or might not have been the reason I chose that particular room to stay in)


[If you look right in the middle of this photo, between the branches of the tree in front, you can see my friends skiing on the frozen lake.]

This year we weren't at a place where you could rent equipment, so those of us with less equipment were a little more limited with activities. Not that I really mind, cross country skiing last year was not my fave... Skating on the other hand, it was fun last year. So much fun in fact, that I now have my own skates. Which, for the record, I have actually used. Just this cottage weekend alone, I went skating three times in two days.


[There was an impressive amount of snow already, see Chris for scale.]

The weather was amazing. We got a lot of snow, but the pretty kind, and it was below 0, but only by a few degrees. It was the perfect outdoor activities weather.


As the evenings got darker, we lit a fire in the fireplace, had great meals and a few drinks. There were some dips in the hot tub (no photos included), a game of scattergories, a yoga challenge (pro tip: don't play if one of your friends is a yoga teacher) and a lot of lazing around, reading books.

It was a whole lot of fun. I think we need to do this once more to officially make it a tradition.

Pretty balconies and fire escapes

As you might remember from before, I am a sucker for architectural details. There's always a good chunk of pictures of buildings any time I travel. Obviously this trip to New York was no different!



I've been to NYC a number of times, but I just love these older, ornate buildings. I have a curious obsession with fire escapes especially.



We have them here in Montreal and I just swoon every time. I point them out to whomever I'm with and continuously get excited about them.



Let me tell you something... I have this romantic notion of one day living in a place where I'll have one of those fire escape landings outside my window. I can then crawl out the window to enjoy my morning coffee sitting on the landing, looking around in my dreamily urban, yet friendly neighborhood...

Sound good to you? Ok, then stop reading right here!

Natural History Museum - NYC

I felt today would be the perfect day to share photos of what we did last Sunday. We sent a better part of the day at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The museum is impressive and you've for sure seen it featured in movies and TV. It's been featured in movies like Night at the museum, Miracle on 34th Street and Spider-man 2.

As much as I'd want to share everything, I'll stick with some of the highlights (and some of the photos that turned out well, it's pretty dim in there).


The main entrance is already pretty impressive.


There are dioramas everywhere. Those are the large 'display cases' with animals in their natural habitat and in action. They're frankly quite impressive. And pretty large too. Obviously the size is often correspondent of the size of the animals displayed. These things are hard to take photos of though.


Leading up to the Ocean hall, was a wall of all sorts of creepy crawlies. Not my favourite... Chris seemed interested enough though.


The hall itself was impressive and not least by the gigantic whale hovering over the two story hall.



A few other impressive marine dioramas.


We decided to see one of the special exhibitions and chose (shockingly) "Our Global Kitchen". When you get tickets for the changing exhibitions, you'll get a time to go there. It makes sense since this one at least was fairly small and any more people would've definitely made it near impossible to actually enjoy it. This was actually the only time in the entire museum it felt crowded. There was a chocolate making stop along the way, which was constantly packed full of people.


The best parts for me of the exhibition were example meals of people all through history (yeah, I'm sure that wasn't a surprise for anyone). With the dim lighting, it was hard to get photos where both, the explanation and the food were properly lit. I found this one of ötzi pretty neat, but I loved the details on some of the others. The displays were set as the dining spaces of the period they represented and meals built specifically for the historical characters, like Jane Austen (ice cream) and Kublai Khan (the first fusion kitchen).


The most impressive things were all the skeletons.



Dinosaurs! Not going to lie, the dinosaurs might have been the deciding factor when Chris and I decided which museum to visit. MoMa doesn't have dinosaurs, just saying...

There were exhibits on Polynesia...


...Africa...


...and Asia.


I took a few hundred photos easily and would've loved to share them all! Once I gave the camera to Chris for a bit, I continued taking photos with my phone. And towards the end I was exhausted and ready to go to sleep, but kept on going after brief break amidst all the exhibits. What a nerd!

I loved this place and will happily go again one day.

I have a ton more photos from NYC, I'll show them to you soon and maybe a few more from the museum too...

Back home from NYC!

As you might or might not have known, Chris and I were in New York City for the weekend. We only got home late last night. The trip was a whole lot of fun and I am now tired and sore from all the walking. I have a ton of photos and other New York-y things to share with you guys! (I took around 400 photos, so I'll need to go through, and edit, those)

Here's an unedited peek:

I will need today to regroup my thoughts. I have an event coming up at the McGill university next week, I need to prepare for that. I also have some new plans for the shop. And not to mention some more tutorials! I really got into those as the ideas just kept on coming!

Right now I need to get organized again, so I shall return soon with more coherent posts! In the mean time, how are you guys? Tell me what you've been up to recently!

Friday Inspiration - New York City

Source: 30.media.tumblr.com via Gillian on Pinterest

I love big cities and I have a soft spot for New York City.

Source: 24.media.tumblr.com via Maddie on Pinterest

There's just something about it... I know I'm not alone in this one. I mean, seriously, who doesn't love NYC?

Source: via Alyssa on Pinterest

Even though I've lived in Montreal for almost 7 years, I somehow can't get over the fact that I live in a place from where you can drive to New York. It's somehow very bizarre to me. Admittedly, it'll be a long drive, but that we're still connected by not just land, but a highway.

Source: bluepueblo.tumblr.com via Brie on Pinterest

I've been in the city several times and am always so excited to go back. The last time I went was over two years ago. It's been too long.

Source: kathychiu.tumblr.com via Tanny on Pinterest

But now, my friends, the car and the hotel are booked. We're looking into finding a few nice restaurants, the right museum and tattoo studio.

Source: evanjoseph.photoshelter.com via Irene on Pinterest

Soon we're off to NYC!

Have you been? Would you like to?

A few snippets from Quebec city

I wanted to share a few photos from our weekend in Quebec city.

Chateau Frontenac, which is now a hotel. I'm sure it would be a cool place to stay at, but maybe another time. It does look impressive though.

 Quebec City is a walled city, so you could see (obviously) walls, towers, cannons and other defence structures all over the place.

And, naturally, I was true to myself and basically kept taking a ton of photos of buildings. There were a lot of very quaint little streets and cute shop fronts.

And, the history nerd that I am, I chose one museum we would go to on Sunday before driving home. I picked the museum of civilization and found their samurai exhibit fascinating. I'm not sure if I've mentioned before, but I love, love, looove historical novels and read a lot. Basically anything I can get my hands on... One of my all time favourites is set in feudal Japan in the 1600s, so needless to say I loved every tiny bit of this exhibit. The others were fine, nothing too spectacular, but this alone was worth it for me.

I also tracked our walk on Saturday, this is the route we walked that day. I did forget to turn it on for a few bits, but it gives you an idea.

Quebec City

I just spent a weekend in Quebec city. I've lived in Canada for over 6 years and this was the first time I visited.

It's such a pretty city.

We decided to go since we can't really take any 'proper' vacation this summer (perhaps at all this year) so we decided to get out of town, even if it's just for a weekend.

It was an awesome mini vacation and definitely feel energized now.

How was your weekend?