Hanging empty frames as wall art... It sounds pretty stupid. But bear with me.
Today's post is a Pinterest Challenge, issued by the most popular homeowners in the world, Sherry and John from Young House Love. The Challenge is simply to recreate a Pinterest project that you've been meaning to tackle.
Admittedly, I've only been "meaning to tackle" this particular Pinterest project for about 2 weeks, which isn't very long in the grand scheme of general procrastination. In addition, I'm aware that this project is incredibly small in scale and not very "challenging" at all. But that's what makes it so fun to try!
It's from Cupcakes and Cashmere, one of my all-time favorite bloggers. A couple of weeks ago she posted some pictures of the interior of her home and the above photo is of her bedroom. I loved loved loved the stupidly simple idea of using mismatched, freshly painted, empty frames as wall art. And since the Salvation Army on Broadway in Vancouver has decently priced frames, I knew that this little decor project would be a quick, easy and affordable one.
Here's my mini version, although since I rent my apartment I wasn't able to exactly match the wall color to the frame color as the above homeowner did:
This was hung in a corner area on "my side" of the bedroom, above a little glass-top Ikea table that I use as a storage area for my jewelry and perfume. It seemed like a nice place for a cluster of cute frames.
I did originally purchase five frames from Salvay, but ended up having to nix two of them from the final project. One was an odd color/texture that wouldn't take the white paint and instead turned pink (very strange). The other just didn't look great with the other frames, ultimately. There is plenty of room on this wall for me to add more frames to this in the future though, which I will most likely do. I'll be on the hunt for something with pronounced and interesting texture, because that'll be a perfect addition to this trio.
If you've got a spot on your walls that needs "something," try this out!
Anyone else think it's wild how quickly some flowers' "blooming period" can come and go? If you blink you might miss some of the blooms around here!
These pictures were taken a few weeks ago, and now many of these flowers have already finished blooming and reverted to looking quite dismal. Some don't even have any petals left on them at all!
I took these photos in the Davie Village Community Garden, which is a lot in Downtown Vancouver (on the corner of Davie St and Burrard St) that is totally covered in community garden space... as you may have deduced from its name.
. this pic was taken a few weeks ago, things have progressed a bit since then .
The lot has pretty decent exposure to sunlight for most hours of the day, which you might find surprising since it is located downtown in a large, busy city. Here's what it's surrounded by (A):
. davie village community garden .
I consider the Davie Village Community Garden to be a fairly #nifty part of Vancouver - I always walk past it quite slowly and spy on it from the sidewalk... but have yet to actually walk through the garden and really check out what people are growing in there. Probably drugs. Or vegetables. I'll let you know what I find out!
Glancing at the weekend weather forecast on Friday night, I saw that it was going to be in the 70s and sunny on both Saturday and Sunday. That kind of weather does not go uncelebrated around these parts, so you bet your ass I scouted out a hike for myself for Saturday.
Dog Mountain was a perfect choice - its trailhead is at the Mt. Seymour Ski Resort (which is only about 45 minutes out of the city) and the hike was described as both fun and moderate. At 2.75 miles, it was also a pretty short hike on a well-traveled trail - both of which were important to me since I'd be hiking alone. (Dave, by the way, is in Massachusetts right now!)
I arrived at the Ski Resort, strapped on my boots, packed up my backpack, familiarized myself a bit more with the trail, and started off.
. not a bad day for a hike .
I started at the "You Are Here" marker and took the yellow trail to the red trail. The summit of Dog Mountain is at the end of the red trail here:
. trail to dog mountain .
I expected the trail to be full of people - it was, after all, a stunnnnning day - but the trail was empty! It was indeed well-traveled, though - there were plenty of footprints in the snow. Just no people! It was a tiny bit eerie to be walking out there alone but I opted not to cry about it.
Since it was such a short hike and I was full of energy, I switched between hiking and jogging the whole way up. In the shaded areas, the snow was a little bit icier, but in the sunny spots it was really easy to jog through the slightly melted snow.
I was more than halfway through the hike before I finally saw a few other people on the trail. Ultimately there were about 7 of us on the summit together, where the views offered by this little mountain were spectacular. Thank goodness for the clear, sunny day.
I ate lunch at the top while enjoying the warmth and the beautiful views of Vancouver and Richmond:
. relaxing and eating lunch .
Before heading back down, I asked one of the other people on the summit to snap a picture of me:
Jogging about half of the time on the way back down, I definitely got in a decent cardio workout on this hike. I even got a little bit of a sunburn. Helllllllllo warm weather!
This was my secondhike in the Mt. Seymour area, and there are tons of other trails around there to explore as well. It's a super convenient recreational destination for us and a great reason to get out of the city!
Apparently I've got a big hang-up on the two Urban Outfitters nail polishes I bought back in the fall, because they seem to keepcomingupinmyblogs. Here we go again.
I was in Forever21 in Vancouver recently - surprise, surprise - and as I waited in line for the register (with an absolutely G.D. adorable summery dress, by the way), they totally "got" me with the bins of stuff in the checkout line.
Is anyone else a total sucker for that shit near the registers? Why am I even asking, I know that you are. We all are. It's (social) science.
What caught my eye was thissss little guy - a pinky-lilac based polish with tons of blue, red, silver, green, and yellow glitter, which came in both tiny little round glitter specks and slightly larger hexagonal specks.
. pink icing by love & beauty .
SOUND FAMILIAR? If so, it's because it's almost the same exact description that I used to describe Lollipop, the Urban Outfitters polish I was raving about back in October.
. lollipop by urban outfitters .
So I decided to snag this Love & Beauty brand polish - adorably called Pink Icing - just to see how it stacked up against Lollipop. A Dupe-Off, if you will. ("Oh lawd Jesus, it's a dupe-off!") Here are my conclusions:
First I applied a base coat and a coat of white polish to all of my nails. Knowing how sheer Lollipop is, I wanted to make sure I had an opaque base for these swatches.
On my left hand I then applied two coats of Love & Beauty's Pink Icing...
. pink icing outside .
. pink icing inside .
And on my right hand I applied two coats of Lollipop:
. lollipop outside .
. lollipop outside close-up .
. lollypop inside .
As you can see, Lollipop has much more glitter than Pink Icing. Specifically, it has a LOT more of the larger hexagonal glitter, which gives it a much chunkier feel. Pink Icing is a lot more concerned with being "pink polish-y" than with being the headliner of Glitter Fest 2K13. It's also got a much more opaque base than Lollipop.
So the Forever21 version is not exactly a dupe, but these polishes are sort of like first cousins. The Love & Beauty version was $3.80 CAD, and the Urban Outfitters was originally $6, but I bought two of them at the time at 2-for-$8. So at nearly identical prices, you might as well go for the one that has a buttload of glitter in it.
I said back in October that Lollipop reminded me a lot of those old school plastic clown/balloon cake toppers from back in the day, whereas Pink Icing appropriately reminds me more of the frosted animal crackers you can find in stores nowadays:
Essentially, you turn your ring fingernail into the kind of nail that everyone wants to party with. The rest of your nails are basically just the Fancy One's entourage. Like, look at my pinky nail. It's totally Turtle:
I used Rimmel London's #332 Baby Pink and Love & Beauty's Crystal Silver. I wrote about each of them in more detail hereand here, respectively.
If you haven't noticed or picked up on it yet from my blog... I like laughing. A good, hearty laugh is the best way to accessorize whatever the hell else you're wearing, as far as I'm concerned. Like, if you have a good laugh stashed away in your purse, you can basically just throw away your Chanel sunglasses, because you don't need them. They're overkill.
My love for laughing means that stand-up comedians are as valuable, to me, as gold. It blows me away that someone's chosen career pathis to make people laugh. Um. Sweet job.
Last Wednesday I was trolling Facebook (you were, too) and noticed that one of my FAAAAAAVORITE stand-up comedians, Ted Alexandro, had posted this status update:
To which I promptly commented, "Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!"
In other words... I approved.
My siblings and I have been huge fans of Ted Alexandro since we first saw his half-hour special on Comedy Central years and years ago. Not only is his material hysterical, but his delivery and mannerisms just compound all the funny things he's saying. I'm pretty sure I laugh at every single thing that comes out of his mouth. (I'm sitting here right now laughing to myself as I type this, thinking of his "I believe this macaroni necklace is for you" joke. I'd share it with you, but it's not on YouTube. You'll have to just use your imagination to fill in the blanks.)
Looking into it further, I discovered that Ted was going to be performing not once, not twice, but THREE FREAKING TIMES while he was in Vancouver. IS IT MY BIRTHDAY OR SOMETHING? Oh, wait, no it's not my birthday. Although 2 years ago on my birthday I did get to see him perform in Boston and meet him briefly after the show. Magic.
So tickets were reserved for Ted's Saturday night show in Vancouver at The Comedy Mix - a venue in the basement of the Century Plaza Hotel - and I was El Pumped.
On Saturday evening, I practically danced to The Comedy Mix with bells on. Dave just walked beside me, normally. He was excited, too, he just doesn't dance when he walks places.
Arriving at The Comedy Mix, the two of us were offered front row seats... which I boldly declined. Neither Dave nor the man seating us could believe it, but I've been to enough comedy shows to know that the front row is a fahkin awkward place to sit. ESPECIALLY if any of the comedians are in a pissy mood that night and want to turn the heat on the people in the crowd. {Turns out I made a good decision - the guy who performed before Ted was kind of a dick. When he thought he was losing the crowd, he started picking on the women in the front row and making fun of their laughs. Class act. I won't even bother sharing his name here, because #PSHT, but suffice to say it solidified my anxiety over ever sitting front row at a comedy show.}
The MC for the evening was a local Vancouver guy named Ivan Decker and he had some really great jokes. He had the whole room laughing and warmed up for the first act, who - as indicated - wasn't the highlight of the evening.
Ted's set didn't disappoint - some older stuff, some new. There was a terrific new-to-me bit that used Netflix in a great metaphorical joke about marrying too young. (Dave found this joke especially hysterical.) Another, more familiar joke was a tale about Ted giving an innocent ride home to a woman half his age who startles him by inviting him back to her place for beer and coke. ("Don't let her know you think that's insane..... Don't let her know your first thought was Coca Cola.")
Here's some of his material, since I can't give you a play-by-play of all of his jokes:
He does shows all over the place, including many in the NYC area, so I hope that you can check him out someday in a venue near you :)
Here's a short trailer for his upcoming Teacher's Lounge webseries, which looks hysterical to me...
My sister Mallory saw Ted perform in Pittsfield, MA a couple of years ago and was so insanely excited to meet him after the show and take a picture with him:
. she may have had a few .
After I met him at his November 2011 show in Boston, I kicked myself for not asking to take a picture with him. Mallory was also unimpressed that I hadn't scored a photo shoot with Mr. Alexandro. Well get ready to be unimpressed again, Mal, because I once again forgot to ask him for a picture when we chatted with him briefly after his Vancouver show. #oops
The moral of this story is... we should all laugh as much as possible. And take pictures often.
There is a market half a block from my apartment that has the most beautiful flowers for sale. The owners of Kits Food Mart take time each day to cover their entire storefront with rows and rows of bouquets, potted plants, orchids, and seasonal flowers.
It's an irresistible display for many passers-by - too beautiful to walk past without stopping in to purchase something pretty to take home. I know this because each day from my apartment I see plenty of people walking by carrying the market's trademark carefully wrapped flower bundles.
I've purchased some plants from the market in the past - it's where I bought both of our lemon cypress trees - and now that it's springtime, I've become one of the many people around here who love to pop into Kits Food Mart to buy fresh flowers. It's such an easy way to add some cheer to different corners of the home.
Last week I picked out 3 different bundles of tulips (pink, light purple and a darker purple), as well as some other pretty purple buds to mix in, and then brought them home to put them all together. This bouquet has been living next to my work desk ever since!
Some quick tips from someone who doesn't know toooo terribly much about plants or flowers:
First, hold your flowers up against your vase to eyeball how much length you need to cut off so the flowers sit at the height you want them to.
Cut all of your stems at an angle.
Remove all leaves below the water line.
Mix a little bit of sugar into your water before you add your flowers.
Find someone better than me to teach you the very best way to "arrange" the flowers. I can't help you there.
Are you filling your home with flowers this spring? What's your favorite flower for the home?
