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Monday, March 4, 2013

Monday Mail

Yay! It's mail time again!

Outgoing

I still believe I can't go too far when it comes to decorating envelopes.

This one was something different from the usual... I actually wrote the letter at the cottage and I didn't have my usual arsenal of materials with me, so I had to get creative. The front has random decorations basically built around the stamps and the back has drawings of items that happened to be at the table. I was writing the letter on the dining table, so there was quite a few things there.

Incoming

Check out this package! How cool is this?

A letter from Susanne as well. All gold and polkadotty.

Good week of mail, I must say!

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Montreal en Lumiere

Last night we went out to see what was going on for the 10th annual Nuit Blanche. There were a ton of events to go see and a whole lot of people milling around.

The events are free and there is a huge variety of different things to do. There are concerts and standup comedy, workshops and food. The metro runs all night and there are free shuttle buses that take you from one area to another.

The whole Place des Arts area was lit up. The buildings had different colored lights on them and there were light installations all over the place.

Everything was purple and pink.

There was the massive slide with an even more massive lineup to get to it. Everyone seemed to have a great time though.

Even though I still don't consider myself as a "winter person", I did have a good time walking around and I really love that this much effort is put into events of this magnitude in the winter as well. Montreal is well-known for continuous events and festivals in the summer, so a winter happening is more than welcome.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

What's up Montreal - Nuit Blanche

Tonight is the 10th year of Nuit Blanche. It's one night of activities all over the city, with the metro going on all night and a ton different locations you can access for free.

Source: snapwidget.com via Katri on Pinterest

I snapped this photo last night walking though the Place des Arts area. I'll hopefully get some better ones tonight. This is a giant slide built from the Opera house, right between the concert hall and the museum of modern art. And yes, it's open for everyone, not just kids!

"For one spectacular night, visual arts, music, film, theatre, dance, literature, flights of fancy, and many other surprises invite you to share experiences and discoveries."

If you get a chance, you should check it out! More details HERE

If the weather is decent, I'll take my camera and can share some of the sights with you guys after.

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.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Friday Inspiration - Transparency

I've played around with transparent mail before. I wrote a tutorial a while back and used the same method in my Halloween envelopes as well. I haven't really done much with it recently, but I'm starting to notice see-though mail again.