Field trip to NSCAD

On Monday we go to visit NSCAD's print shop. This is Joe Landry. He love printing things. He's very soft spoken and probably the most knowledgeable person about printing in this side of Canada. The thing he's standing by is working replica of a Gutenburg Printing press. These were made out of wood and were the first printing presses used mostly by monks.

This page is an example of one of the first printing pages with two colours. I can't remember the year, or any other things that might be of interest to you. I was too busy being fascinated by all the beautiful things Joe let us touch! That's right, we got to touch these super old papers and books. SUPER OLD!

 And here's a three color page. So beautiful.

Here's a little book. Joe was invited to speak at the archives and explain some of the printing history and he was passing around his books and papers like he did for us. Apparently Joe got this book in Italy for $45.00 some 30 or more years ago. Anyways, there were lots of people at this event, and one guy seemed to be just loosing it. He was freaking out. Apparently he worked for the National Archives of Canada who had just bid on the same type of book Joe was handing out for everyone in the audience to touch. Sadly, the National Archives didn't bid high enough to get the book, only a measly $400,000. 

And here's an example of different printed types.

 We got to print out our own keepsake! I printed this one and later smudged it.. twice. But I love the vintage cigarette ad.

That's me!

 We went downstairs to see where all the type was kept. This was a row of Helvetica, and I LOVE helvetica, so this was very impressive for me!

This is Britney and Taylor. Taylor is telling is an amusing story about how one time she nearly fainted at the zoo. Hysterical!

How to Burn a Pumpkin Pie

I had a great idea on how I was going to show the process of making a pumpkin pie. I was gunna take photos of the ingredients, and show off my new pie pan. As thrilling and exciting as that may sound, the end result was that I took no pictures, and after putting the pie in the oven I fell asleep on the couch watching the best of Jimmy Fallon. (which by the way wasn't that funny)

I'm not very impressed. :(

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Kijiji

Remember when eBay first came out and everyone went nuts for it? Yeah... I never really caught on to it. Sure, I browsed it a few times. I even bought a dog toy once when Lucy was teething and eating every piece of paper, book, and sock she could find. But the thrill of an auction never really got to me.

Kijiji is different. I'm obsessed. In fact, I often worry about my addiction. It hasn't affected my life that negatively, except for the shear regret I feel when I don't contact the seller first and miss a great deal. It's utterly devastating. And it lingers for months. I think about how if I had only been on kijiji sooner maybe I would have that bed from Ikea I've always wanted! (We don't have an Ikea here, but they will deliver for the price of your first born child and 100 dollars)

I go on Kijij a lot. It all started when Nick and I decided to move in together. I had some furniture, but we needed a couch. I had gone on kijiji a few times at that point, and even got this chair for 40$. (a tag under neath said originally $329.99 from Sears!)


Anyways, I love a good find. So one day while Nick and I were driving around, I was checking Kijiji on my iphone app. (god, making kijiji mobile is bad...) This guy posted a couch and coffee table for sale. It was perfect. I had been in love with that exact couch, and had saw it posted for $400 firm from previous posters. I didn't get it because I thought $400 was a little too much for my bank account to handle.

So this new guy was selling it for 120$ and the coffee table for 30$. I emailed him, Nick and I went over and got the couch straight away. The guy also offered us his coffee table, but I declined since I didn't really like the style of it. In the end he said we should just take it because it would be too much of a hassle for him to sell it later. (he was moving at the end of the week)

(This is the couch we got. the coffee table in on the right. I would have taken a picture of it but it was covered in crap and that would require me to clean it... But see how nice the couch is! It was super clean too. I wouldn't have bought it if I had thought it was dirty.. I know some people are pretty terrified of used furniture, but I frigging love it! A lot of it has way more character than regular crap you get in stores now. Except for this couch.. I mean, it doesn't have that much character, but who wants a couch with that?)

Anyways, thrills like that get me. What an amazing deal!

Now I know the in's and outs of Kijii so badly. Here are some tips for the Kijiji user.

1) The best deals come from inexperienced kijiji users. they just don't know how to work it. They ask their son to post something they'd like to get rid of from their house, and voila! New dining room set for $50, yes please!

2) The best time to Kijiji shop is at night, on weekends and especially in the few weeks before the end of the month. People tend to move at the end of the month, that's when they get desperate and realize how much crap they have. They will price low for a quick sale.

3) If you like it, contact them quickly. Things go quick, especially the good deals. Higher priced items take longer to sell. If you're really sneaky, you can set up a fake email account and offer the person a lower amount to see if they'll take the bate. I've never actually done this, but I know people who have. It also only really works on really expensive items. Over priced items nearly never sell. I know this because I see the same people re-posting their ad months and months later not understanding why they aren't getting any offers.

4) Everyone says they have an antique chest/chair/table, but nobody really knows what antique means. If you look up the definition of antique, it means over 100 years old. There are tons of things on there that are not antique. That toaster? I promise you it's not antique.

5) People over-value their crap. Some people think their crap is worth almost as much if not more than if you were to buy it new. It's friggin crazy!! Sometimes I wanna write them and tell them that their rocking chair, although in good condition is not worth $300. Especially when three other people are selling the same one for $20 and I can even see the same rocking chair in my apartment complex's dumpster. Junk.

How to make a Gallery Wall

So I decided to make a gallery wall. I'm still unpacking and trying to figure the apartment out. Some paintings don't fit well here, or there. Every time Nick comes home something has changed. The good thing is, for the most part he doesn't seem to care. Once he made me take down a painting of a Buddha I did. It's really neat and I really love it, but he said it creeped him out. I took it down thinking I would put some other painting in it's place. Eventually I decided that I didn't like the other painting and while Nick was away on business I put the Buddha painting back up!

I told dad the story and he said that a good compromise was to say "Hey, why don't we just leave it up for a week and if you still hate it I'll take it down." So I had that line stuck in my head, ready to whip out when the topic came up. But to my surprise, Nick just sorta didn't react to it! When he got back I pointed to the painting, and he said "Oh, you put it back up?' and I said "Yeah, I really like it!" and that was it! Muhaha, I will save dads advice for some other ugly thing I wanna put up later!


Anyways, I went online to try to figure out how to make this gallery wall. Research is key, and if you want to make your own gallery wall, I would suggest googling it and trying to find the ones you like and why. Some I find hideous. I mean, like, make me dizzy ugly! The other problem was that I didn't remember the term "gallery wall" and started looking up "collage wall" for a really long time. In the end I found a few that I really liked, and a ton of blogs that described exactly what I was going through. I decided to go for black frames since I had quite a few already, but no idea how to display them. I also had some wooden bulletin boards nick brought home from work for me and that's where the painting began.

The first step was creating some consistency with my photos. Originally, a few frames were green, brown or wood colored. I'm sure some people might like the randomness of that, but I wanted consistancy. I went on an art attack and painted them all black with some acrylic paint. I'm pretty sure acrylic paint wasn't the best choice, and if I had any, I would have used latex. The acrylic doesn't really stick to varnished wood, although it worked out really well with the untreated wooden frames.

So there I was, 9:30 at night painting frames on my old rug that I don't mind getting paint on. It looked something like this.


After getting all the frames painted I went online and looked up an episode of the Maryiln Dennis show that I had caught only part of where they made a gallery wall. After 15 minutes of trying to get that to work with no success I found a blog that showed a much better easier solution.

(the original Marilyn Dennis show had the girl placing all her frames on a giant piece of art paper on the floor to decide the layout. I didn't have any giant pieces of paper, so I had to go the smaller route)

(Sorry for the bad quality photo. It was taken with my iphone... not always the best shot. You might not be able to see that I labeled each piece of paper as well, so I knew what photo I'd be dealing with)

I ended up using old scrapbook paper and cut out pieces of paper the same size as my frames. I taped them to the wall to represent the photos and show where each frame would be positioned. I wanted to use nails, and didn't want my walls full of holes so having them positioned before hand was really helpful. I ended up repositioning them quite a few times. I found it best to stick the bigger ones in the middle and work the smaller ones around them.

(This is the hammer that smells bad. I know you know the kind. It's from the dollar store, but it smells like oil or some terrible plastic they wrap clothing in sometimes. Ugh. When this hammer isn't in use I put it on the deck. Bleck!)

Finally, my wall was finished. Nick came home from a business trip and said he enjoyed it but that it had too many clocks. (I know, its just one clock, but he just HATES clocks... the ticking drives him mad!) I'm going to say that means he loves it. I'm very happy with it, and am thinking I might add more. I have a few more frames laying around, but don't wanna make it too busy.


You might notice the letters on the bulletin boards. They don't exactly mean anything but I just love typography and thought the might spice things up. Right now they are tacked on but I'm planning on gluing them down. I'll still be able to tack things over them... but really, I just like the look of the bulletin boards, I don't really think they will be functional ones.


This is a far away shot. Looking at it now on my computer screen it looks a little bare, but in real life it seems so much fuller. I might add things, but I'm just worried about how carried away I'll get. (I tend to get carried away with a lot of things) Anyways, I would love to hear your comments!

We got Lucy!

So there's a really lovely, long, terrible and wonderful story about how I got my dog Lucy. She's from Korea and I think she's pretty happy to be here.




She had been my puppy for two years in Korea, and one summer in Canada. When I moved to the city my apartment didn't allow dogs, so I had to leave her at my grandparents house for a year. (She loved it there, a really great house, with other dogs and a doggie door to the back yard. Dog heaven if you ask me!)

So now our apartment is dog friendly! (a very rare thing in the city) after finally moving into this apartment, I have my puppy back. She keeps me company when Nick is away, and gives me lots of cuddles.This is Lucy sleeping in her bed. That's her pillow, and pooh bear toy. She loves squeaky toys and rips the stuffing out of them if you let her.
This is Lucy out for one of her morning walks. She hates that harness with a passion. When I try to put it on here she sits but then turns her head to avoid it. Love hate relationship I think.And this is her exhausted after a walk. She is cute, but doesn't have much energy. Once Nick and I brought her out to a baseball field to play. Nick ran circles around her. She only lasted running for about 15 minutes and then would lay in the grass and catch her breath. Poor thing. Takes after her mom I guess.

We moved in!

This is probably a good time to get this blog going. It's a new start to the school year and I'm finally getting into the swing of things. So we (me and the mister) are moved into our new place. It's big and beautiful, and just 30 seconds from a lake and a mall. What more could I want? My favorite thing about our new place are the ceilings in the living/dining room.
They are so high!! I feel like I could crawl up there and just hang out. Sorry for the messy picture. That's all our crap not sorted out. Maybe when I get my act together I will take some lovely after shots to see what it's like in here.

Anyways, it will probably take some time to get it the way I want it but for now I'll just hang out with my lovely ceilings.