Happy Holidays!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
No matter what religion you are and where in the world you reside, I wish you health, happiness and love!

Creative Process...

I found that my crazy schedule leaves very little time for me to be creative. I lack the focus when it comes to actually work on my art, even though I am always craving to do so.
I found a mini temporary solution to this: Join Swap-bot swaps for either note cards or ATCs. This gives me a serious time line I need to meet and having a deadline helps me focus. Also, it allows me to stretch my brain a little to come up with an idea to satisfy a theme. I have been joining swaps with random themes in order to be able to come up with ideas that I wouldn't of otherwise.

I love looking at other artists work and process of coming up with a final finished piece, and I decided to share with you my creative process.

The theme for the ATC is Love. The word Love has to be somewhere on the ATC.

First I start out with sketching out ideas, not necessarily related to what I will end up putting together. In this case, I was just browsing and using different images to sketch out ideas of things...




After I have my sketch and idea, I decided that I want to create a cut paper illustration of the bunny idea.
Therefore, I had to choose the papers I will use in the piece. I am the least organized person when it comes to my supplies, and thus I usually have no idea what I have and work from the latest I have purchased. One day I will be organized, one day...




And now time for lots of cutting and gluing takes place. Of course I am super messy and sticky when I use glue.



And here we have an almost finished ATC... I let it sit for a bit until I figured out how to finish it



Can you spot where the word Love is?

And finally the back receives a label and my contact information, next stop the post office!



Creating these ATCs to trade also allows me to come up with an idea for an ACEO to add to my shop

The food of Italy

I think that this post may as well be wordless...the pictures are enough to leave you starving...

Just looking at it makes my waist band feel tight.


















and this was just a taste of the picture click over to my Flickr for more!

T.dot is one awesome city

It feels like I am starting to enjoy my city to the fullest for the first time!
Until now, I was more of a night owl exploring the hottest night clubs, but this year I am acting a bit more my age (did I just say that) and actually venturing out during the day.

As many of you were aware there was a little thing going on called world cup...and Toronto had a pretty awesome street party to celebrate the 3rd place and finals games.



I made it to the party in time to see Alex Cuba perform and do a little salsa two step on the streets.



After this we headed down gallery and old appliances stores filled Queen West



to find the Sneak Peek Exhibition at the Gladstone hotel showcasing the work of the KeyHole Session Artists



After we had enough of the sometimes tasteful sometimes not nudes we headed back on the search of food.
Found the very interesting and very full Unmarked restaurant that may also be called nude (that remains unknown at the moment)


but decided to eat somewhere more in our price range. Summerlicous is on and there are awesome priced meals there but we were not in the mood for a 4 course meal.

For more pictures head over to my Flickr

This weekend is off to
Rib Fest
Midnight Volleyball
Brazil Fest
International Jazz festival at the Beaches
and perhaps Salsa on St. Clair

Adventures in food

There is something about breakfast food that leaves me... well speechless!!!

So here we go a wordless post about my recent English style breakfast ;)











Yes this is how much coffee I put in one cup of coffee....

And before you ask, these were 4 different meals for 4 different people.

Yummy on a budget

Milestones restaurant has the right idea with their little Monday night special
Girl's Night out


The price is right and the company is even better!
It's summer time, simply made for patios and Stilettos ;)





Nothing should ever come between girls and their good friends...the bellinis



And of course a girl's night is not complete without some munchies.
There are 6 to choose from, but the first two are salads. Our server, simply asked us if we wanted the last 4 from the menu. Smart Man!



Yummy Yam Frites

and



Hot Spinach & Artichoke Dip

and



Crispy Honey Phyllo Shrimp


and last but not least



Baked Goat Cheese and Slow Roasted Garlic Flat Bread Platter

And if you still have some room after all of the wonder seen above, add a little meat loaf to the mix ;)



This is happiness at it's best and of course it does not kill the budget.

Cheers!

"Sex and the City II"

A pleasure, simply a pleasure movie.
Love love loved it!

If you are a closet Miranda, Samantha, Charlotte or a Carrie you will enjoy this movie top to bottom.
This movie was the perfect Friday night escape from the hustle and bustle of everyday gray life.
The colors, the shoes, the friendships and of course the loves are back and just as wonderfully shiny as ever.




In several reviews the plot line is harshly abused, but for me it was simply perfect. Exploring the real life challenges with love, marriage, and age made this movie easy to relate to and enjoy. After all, you can wear designer gowns and have all the men in the world and still eventually end up with a major hot flash in the middle of a dessert!
Plus the gorgeous background of Abu Dhabi can be almost the 5th character in this movie.



So I say watch it, love and then see it at least once more for the shoes and then again for the clothes ;)

For I will always be a whole lot of Samantha in Carrie's shoes with Miranda's practicality and a touch of Charlotte's innocence.

Overall, this movie deserves 4.5 lip balms out of 5!

I misses you

Ohhh you poor sweet blog how neglected you are :(

I still love you and will be back to writing none sense in about 9 weeks.

"Alice in Wonderland"

This was my first IMAX 3D experience and with that a few words of advice: Do not be late for a popular move as you will have to sit in the second row and watching an IMAX movie that close to the screen is a horrid experience. For me it was migraine inducing and I couldn’t wait for the movie to be over.

Apart from most scenes being blurry due to my proximity to the screen, visually this movie was breath taking. If this movie earned bonus points for visuals, it lost them in story line. I am not very familiar with the original but the movie story line was bare, overly simplistic, predictable and simply boring.

I don’t usually read reviews prior to seeing a movie, and made the mistake of doing so prior to seeing Alice. One aspect that struck me was reviewers’ opinion of Mia Wasikowska’s acting as emotionless. While watching the movie I couldn’t help myself, but focus on her emotionless face and think that she could have done wonders with this role.




On the other hand, Johnny Depp’s mad hatter was simply lovable and made me want to give him a giant hug. Those giant colorful eyes were magical. And the Red Queen's insecure madness was extremely well played, leaving me to feel sorry for her poor soul.



Over all I give it 3/5 lip balms. Yes go see it, but sit in the back!

What's new, pussycat....woooaoaoaaa

As I buckle down to focus on the last 3 months of my program, which means that all I will have time for is to Tweet and occasionally blog how horrible my life is, I decided to take this weekend and focus on my Etsy shop.

Friday I was able to drive myself through the horrible rainy day to the Toronto convention centre for the Bead Oasis Show. Being around all of the beads and materials, inspired me for this very productive weekend.

Let me present the "Silk" collection, now in Peach Freshwater Pearls!!!



The Necklace available here!



The very popular Stud earrings
I am very excited that several brides all over the world will be wearing the Creamy white "Silk" studs on their special day!

And the dangly version of the earrings will be available in the next week



Lets hope that the next 3 months are a lot less painful than I imagine them to be...my promise to myself is that once I am done I will start painting again. That would be 3 years since I last held a paintbrush

Winterlude!

In my attempt to make friends with winter I headed over to ice cold Ottawa for a weekend.
Started out with a little cold walk amongst the ice sculptures



It was ice cold yet packed. Ottawanians have no fear of the cold!



I really liked the recycled garden. Eco chic, eco art.



Me getting frisky with a giant bum bum ;)



The Rogers Ice lounge... not exactly what I expected as I was looking for something more like the icy palace in James Bond and Die Another Day...




Of course no trip is complete without a skate on the Rideau Canal.

Over all, I am really really happy that the weather was wonderful, minimum snow to damper my mood. Icy cold sunshine and perhaps I am a little friendlier with the winter season.

It's NYE you have to be shiny!!!

What better excuse than NYE to wear a disco ball outfit and play up my make up.
I am absolutely addicted now to experimenting with all of the make up and different colours and such out there, gone are the days of pink eyeshadow and a dash of black eyeliner.

Time to have some fun!!!










Incredibly smooth skin thanks to Revlon's Beyond Natural Smoothing Primer and liquid foundation. The primer is incredible and just perfect for a night when you know you will be photographed a LOT.

Eyes:
Colorstay Eye shadow quad in Berry Bloom
Avon Big Color eye pencil in Lightening
The shiny blue eyeliner - Annabelle Glitterama liquid eyeliner in Celestial Sky

The only thing I regret is picking up an old mascara as I couldn't find my good bottle.

Now how do I make it so that the pictures are more true to color? The actual make up was really vivid.