papercutting magic

Discovered this amazing website today called The Heart of Papercuts -- it's dedicated entirely to papercutting, one of the prettiest things ever.

Couple amazing things? This ad from the New Zealand Book Council. I cannot imagine the work that went into this ad - I can't even imagine anyone in my neck of the woods going through this much trouble to make an ad encouraging kids to read. Maybe if the ads were like this more kids would. It's an amazing bit of filmmaking.

Something else that's amazing? This framed piece of paper-art genius. What I wouldn't give for this in my very own home. I think Elsita might be a genius.

peacock necklace

Saw this adorable little necklace from oh hello friend today while poking around the Rachel B Blog.

Pretty pretty and also whimsical and fun? Of course I'm in love!

whitney smith pottery

Honestly. So pretty.




Visit Whitney's Etsy shop here.

summer dresses

If these aren't the most perfect dresses for me to have when we go to Austin for SXSW in March, well then I just don't know what to do.

Freesia Fantasy Dress

English Breakfast Dress

Easle on the Eyes Dress

It's a Cinch Dress

The Mary Alice Dress

Sun Streams Dress

Beach Picnic Dress

Tudor Style Dress

Currant Events Dress

before and after wow

Man alive -- that is one dramatic before and after room makeover! I can't even believe it's the same house! I love the idea of the way oversized light fixture.

john murphy frames

Saw these lovely John Murphy frames over at Design Sponge and I'm in love! I'd love to have a couple of these for the little gallery walls springing up all over my house. A great little photograph or vintage oil painting would be adorable in these. And for $55? That's a totally acceptable price for something this pretty.

hot Bunny Radio Playlist for January 21st

CKLU 96.7 FM

6-8pm (18:00 - 20:00)

* denotes Canadian talent

italics denotes a new release

CLICK HERE FOR PODCASTY GOODNESS OF TONIGHT'S SHOW!!!!!!!

• Otis Redding -- Respect -- Live in Europe (VINYL)
• Otis Redding -- Can't Turn You Loose -- Live in Europe (VINYL)
• Terra Diablo -- That Always Works -- Vice CD V13
• The Be Good Tanyas -- Lonesome Blues -- Chinatown *
• My Morning Jacket -- Mahgeeta -- It Still Moves
• Rheostatics -- These Days Are Good For The Canadian Conservative Youth Party Alliance -- Night of the Shooting Stars *
• Frank Black -- Pure Denizen of the Citizens Band -- Teenager of the Year
• Tift Merritt -- Broken -- Paste Music Sampler 40
• Juliana Hatfield -- Bottles and Flowers -- Only Everything
• Damien Jurado -- Gillian Was a Horse -- Caught in the Trees (VINYL)
• New York Dolls -- Lonely Planet Boy -- New York Dolls
• Hawksley Workman -- Song For Sarah Jane -- Meat *
• The Weakerthans -- Bad Time To Be Poor -- The Secret Sessions: A Tribute to the Rheostatics *
• Willie Nelson -- I Was Just Walkin' Out The Door -- You Don't Know Me: Songs of Cindy Walker
• Liz Phair -- Shatter -- Exile in Guyville
• Built to Spill -- Hindsight -- There Is No Enemy
• Big Star -- O My Soul -- #1 Record/ Radio City remastered
• Immaculate Machine -- You Destroyer -- High on Jackson Hill (VINYL) *
• Jason Bajada -- You Are a Runner (And I Am My Father's Son) -- Loveshit
• Basia Bulat -- Once More, For the Dollhouse -- Heart of my Own *
• The White Wires -- In My Bed -- Girly, Girly, Girly *
• Daniel, Fred & Julie -- Runner -- Daniel, Fred & Julie *
• Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins -- Born Secular -- Rabbit Fur Coat
• Neko Case -- Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth -- Middle Cyclone
• Maow -- J'ai Faim -- The Unforgiving Sounds of...
• Ruth Minnikin and her Bandwagon -- Sleeping and Dreaming -- Depend on THis *
• Dead Man's Bones -- In the Room Where You Sleep -- Dead Man's Bones
• Kate Maki -- Message Delivered -- Two Song Wedding *

MUSICAL NOTES THIS WEEK:

• You can't go wrong starting the show with TWO Otis Redding songs...
• The Juliana is for Kelly and Kelly alone. Well and maybe for me....
• More amazing stuff from the kick ass Damien Jurado record...
• Let's hope the rest of this Hawksley record is pretty like this song and not super cheesy like his last couple discs...
• "I don't know if I could drive a car fast enough to get to where you are..." Oh Liz....perfection
• So are you listening to the new Built to Spill? You should be!
• I'm super hearting the DF&J record...
• This new Kate Maki = the best work she's ever done.

english muffins

Those of you who know me know that 98% of the time I have the exact same thing for breakfast every day. A glass of milk and a toasted english muffin with peanut butter. Well since Christmas my grocery store has been completely out of my preferred brand. I've been making due with other less-satisfying brands but when I saw this on The Kitchn today I thought hmmm....if I made my own english muffins then I would never have to worry about running out!

Who knew they were so ridiculously easy to make???

puppy cam returns

Free TV : Ustream

Oh man, remember this from last time??? We all best be preparing to get zero done until these darn things get adopted!

Although I must admit I think the Mastiff Puppy cam is my favourite...
Free video streaming by Ustream

Hot Bunny Radio Playlist for January 14th

CKLU 96.7 FM

6-8pm (18:00 - 20:00)

* denotes Canadian talent

italics denotes a new release

CLICK HERE FOR PODCASTY GOODNESS OF TONIGHT'S SHOW!!!!!!!

• MC5 -- Starship -- Kick Out The Jams
• Stevie Wonder -- You Haven't Done Nothin' -- Original Musiquarium 1
• Neil Young -- When You Dance You Can Really Love -- After the Goldrush *
• Luther Wright & the Wrongs -- Wish Me Well -- Guitar Pickin' Martyrs *
• Kimya Dawson -- Talking Earnest -- I'm Sorry That Sometimes I'm Mean
• Julie Doiron -- You Look So Alive -- Woke Myself Up *
• Neko Case -- Favourite -- Mint Records Presents: CBC Radio 3 Sessions
• Woodhands -- Talk -- Remorsecapade *
• Violent Femmes -- Lack of Knowledge -- Why do Birds Sing?
• The Lemonheads -- Pittsburgh -- The Lemonheads
• Elvis Costello -- Radio Silence -- When I Was Cruel
• Joel Plaskett Emergency -- Radio Fly -- Truthfully, Truthfully *
• Smith -- Baby It's You -- Quivers Down the Backbone Birthday compilation
• Beck -- O Maria -- Mutations
• Devendra Banhart -- Rats -- What Will We Be
• The Jam -- That's Entertainment -- Sound Affects
• The Apples in Stereo -- Please -- Velocity of Sound
• Thee Headcoats -- Greatest Lover in the World -- W.O.A.H - Bo in Thee Garage
• Mother Mother -- Polynesia -- Vice compilation
• Noah and the Whale -- I Have Nothing -- The First Days of Spring
• Bonnie "Prince" Billy -- No Bad News -- The Letting Go
• Daniel, Fred & Julie -- Clementine -- Daniel, Fred & Julie *
• Phosphorescent -- I Gotta Get Drunk -- To Willie
• Jonathan Richman -- When I Say Wife -- Action Packed: Best of Jonathan Richman
• Tom Waits -- Barber Shop -- Foreign Affairs
• The Replacements -- Answering Machine -- Let It Be
• Jay Farrar & Benjamin Gibbard -- Willamine -- One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Music from Kerouac's Big Sur
• Whiskeytown -- Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight -- Strangers Almanac
• Little Joy -- How to Hang a Warhol -- Little Joy
• Wilco -- Why Would You Wanna Live? -- Being There

NOTES THIS WEEK:

• Kicked off the first show of the New Year with 8 minutes of strangeness and noise..
• Man that Julie Doiron song just about sums up post-break-up doesn't it?
• Why do I always feel so bad for the deer in Neko's dream in "Favourite?" Like, way overly sad...
• Yay for new Woodhands!!!!
• "Baby it's You" might be the sexiest song ever written....
• Holy crap do I ever love that A.I.S song....
• Daniel, Fred & Julie -- Attack in Black and Julie Doiron playing covers? I love it already....
• I love when people do Willie Nelson record, especially a whole record of Willie Nelson...

le creuset = l'amour

This year Santa brought me a Le Creuset braising pot. No word of a lie, this pot is changing the way we cook things in our kitchen. I love it so much I'd use it to scramble and egg if Marc wouldn't roll his eyes at me for doing it. Browning meat has never been so exciting and wonderful. Kitchen nerds? Yup....

tea towels

So before Christmas Skinny Laminx had an insane sale and I caved like a house of cards. I bought a goldenrod colt towel that is too pretty to even think to wipe the counter with and the colt circle towel in sand that is now prettying up my guestroom bedside table. I even bought another bunch to give as gifts. Swoon!

felted wreath

So is it too soon to start thinking about next Christmas?? Cuz Pickles is giving a tutorial on how to make this super adorable felted ball wreath and I'm thinking if I start poking away at it now, come next December I'll have a lovely little felted ball collection to put this together.

I mean, I know you can buy the felted balls but where's the fun in that?? They're easy enough to make - I think you just have to tackle it slowly and not at the last minute.

Hmmm......maybe I should take orders and make a bunch of them? Wishful thinking I think...

nice globes 2009

So I'm a bit late on this, I know. Anyway, here's my annual rant on some of this year's Golden Globe nominations. Not that any of this really matters but I always have fun rambling about this kinda stuff so here we go.

To be honest I haven't seen many of the movies nominated this year but I'll do my best.

Best Motion Picture Drama: I don't so much care which one wins but if it's Inglorious Basterds I'll cry. That movie shouldn't even be in this category. I bet it's Avatar though.

Best Motion Picture Comedy: My heart of hearts wants it to be (500) Days of Summer because I loved every second of that film but I doubt it'll win. As long as it's not Julie & Julia I'll be happy. My guess? The Hangover. And rightly so.

Best Performance by an Actor Comedy: The thing I like the most about this category? Seeing Daniel Day Lewis and Joseph Gordon Levitt listed in the same category. Whodda thunk the kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun would one day be listed in the same category as one of the greatest actors ever.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: If this doesn't go to Anna Kendrick then this award is rigged.

Best Animated Picture: If you're talking quality of a project then it HAS to be Fantastic Mr Fox but it's hard to believe anyone stands a chance against the Pixar giants etc.

Best Original Score: This will likely get swallowed up in the inevitable Avatar tidal wave but really it should go to Karen O for her brilliant soundtrack for Where the Wild Things Are. That soundtrack captured the true essence of a film like few others ever have.

Best Television Series Drama: Man what a category!!!!!! 4 of my favourite shows ever all in one category! This season of Mad Men was pretty spectacular though so that's my pick. But if it's Big Love, then I won't argue with that either - this last season was brilliance!

Best Performance by an Actor in a Drama Series: Again - what a race!! I really hope it's Jon Hamm but if it's Michael C Hall it'll be totally deserving - his work in this season of Dexter was really excellent.

Best TV Series Comedy: The face that Entourage is even nominated makes me question this whole process. That whole last season was a write off and was one of the worst TV seasons of all the shows this year. I bet Glee takes it this year though -- that show is taking over the world!!

Best Performance by an Actress in a Comedy: I love that Toni Collette got nominated this year -- I'm a huge fan of United States of Tara and think her ability to play 5 separate roles so incredibly well makes her well worth the win. I just don't know if anyone stands a chance against Tina Fey though.

Best Supporting Actress in a Series: This has to go to Chloe Sevigny I say -- she was all kinds of batshit crazy this season of Big Love.

Best Supporting Actor in a Series: I REALLY want John Lithgow to win for his work on Dexter this season -- he played one of the best TV villains ever!!! As long as Jeremy Piven doesn't get it for essentially doing more of the same I'll be happy. I bet Neil Patrick Harris wins it though.

And that's my opinion for this year.

what I did on my christmas vacation: felted goodness

My latest felting creation -- a felted Jabba the Hut I made as a Christmas gift. Teehee!!

what I did on my christmas vacation: puppy time

Being off for three weeks allowed me to spend oodles of time with Miss Sadie. We took long walks in the bush almost every day, we played, we ran errand and we lounged.

Here's a pic of Sadie and her new BFF Piper. What a couple of dorks. This photo is Richard's.

These are some pics from our annual trek into the bush to get fallen boughs for my Christmas window box display.

what I did on my christmas vacation: up in the air

Marc and I also had a date night to see Up in the Air, the new George Clooney movie in which he plays a man whose job is to fly around the country firing people on behalf of their employers. I really, really liked this movie and what I liked the most about it is that for once, here's a George Clooney movie that he's not the life and breath of. Even though he's good, this movie is really all about Anna Kendrick -- she is what makes this movie great. She should run as fast as she can in the opposite direction from the Twilight movies and straight towards bigger and greater things and I suspect that's exactly what she's doing.

The movie is a bit disjointed in some places but all in all, it's a great story with great characters (if not a wasted character in Jason Bateman -- why did he take that role at all??) but for me, all about Anna 100%.

This movie also made me never want to travel for work ever again. I mean, I don't really relish work travel to begin with - I would just always rather be at home with Marc -- but watching this guy who travels 300 days out of the year just made my skin crawl.

what I did on my christmas vacation: fantastic mr fox

Over the holidays we ran full force to see Fantastic Mr. Fox -- a movie I was beyond excited to see and it did not disappoint on any level whatsoever. The latest effort from Wes Anderson, one of our favourite filmmakers, this is easily one of my favourite films of 2009.

It's stunning to look at, the story is charming and funny, the soundtrack is expectedly great (including my 2nd favourite Beach Boys song!!!), the casting is perfection -- I have nothing bad to say about this movie.

This will be a movie I watch to cheer me up when I'm sad.

what I did on my christmas vacation: french food dinner party

Our friends Mike and Jocelyn hosted an insane French food dinner party over the holidays -- basically they assign courses, email you the recipe and then you all gather to cook and eat. I love this style of dinner party -- it's kind of like a jacked up potluck. We started eating at 6pm and finished about 2am. This party was epic.

Here's the night in a nutshell. A nutshell complete with recipes:

Began the night with a lovely aperitif courtesy of our friend Sean -- a sparkling French wine mixed with Cassis. I could have had about 10 of these.

Following the pre-dinner drinks we were treated to a Pissaladiere courtesy of Miss Gomm -- a delicious little tart of buckets of caramelized onions, olives and anchovies.

Post Pissaladiere it was time for the mushroom soup from Les Halles that our chefs Sylvia and Randy confessed was essentially made of pureed mushrooms and tons of butter. It was like velvet in a bowl.

Following the soup was Moules Normande, another insane recipe from Les Halles.

It started like this, with a gigantic pot of mussels, a plate of mushrooms and two enormous pots of bacon.

See? ENORMOUS POTS OF BACON.

Then to the enormous pots of bacon he added apples and an entire container of cream.

Then enter the giant pot of mussels. People were fainting from anticipation.

After the mussels, we ate something that I will not soon forget -- a chicken liver salad with hot bacon dressing and croutons. Sounds innocent enough until you watch it get made. Basically a meat salad served with bacon fat drizzled over the top of it!!! My heart almost stopped eating this salad.

Here's Dan beginning the process. He cooked the bacon pieces ahead of time and here he is putting the bacon fat from that cooking back into the pan to cook the bacon in a second time.

This salad will go down in history as the most delicious and likely unhealthy salad in the history of salads.

At this point in the night it's about 1am and what's better to do at 1am than eat cassoulet??? Man, eating a giant bowl full of beans, duck conflit, pork belly and pork sausage at 1am is an art I have not yet mastered.

Here's Mike with the hero dish of the night that they spent days, literally days, preparing. Delicious.

Our course was the dessert course and by that time we'd actually had some excess food casualties. There were good efforts made by all but the sheer volume and richness of the food proved too much for some party-goers. Alas we have no pictures of our delicious pear clafouti but take my word for it when I say it was light and fluffy and delicious.

This night was epic on every level and I'm not even joking when I say that the next day I could literally smell the butter oozing from my pores.

I recommend re-creating this entire menu yourselves. Just start eating earlier in the day.

Oh and at the end of the night Mike impressed us all with his table clearing skills. Very impressive.

what I did on my christmas vacation

So obviously I took a bit of a computer break over my Christmas holidays which is pretty much par for the course when I take any kind of vacation. I tend to technologically shut down -- no Facebook, no Twitter, no blogging -- and I must admit, it's pretty much heaven.

Other than that, my holidays were chock full of lovely family and friends, great food and some epic naps. Hope your holidays were just as great!!!!

So the next few posts will be a bit of a catch up on some things that maybe are worth sharing.