Mail Call : Recent Card Making

I've been making greeting cards for as long as I can remember, and now that my friends and family are so used to receiving them, I feel that if I don't make their cards, they'll think it's odd. As though I've been under-the-weather or something, and couldn't make a card. I'm sure they'd appreciate a store-bought card just (almost?) as much and don't expect me to always make them, but I really like to do it. I find it fun to just start cutting and gluing, never being totally certain how a particular one will turn out.

So, here are a few I've made recently ..

Then Versus Now : King Street West and Spadina Avenue

How I love finding historic photographs of my everyday places. Here's an old one of the intersection of King Street West and Spadina Avenue, taken in 1910. The people in the old streetcar would have been interested and quite confused, riding by and seeing the man with the cell phone in my current photo below!

Much Love Monday : Hearts in a Window and Snow

For the Much Love Monday link-up over at Anna's blog Much Love, my photo that includes a heart is this one I took last week of some precious artwork hung in a window for all to see.

My story about love involves a little trip I have just returned from, visiting my parents up north. I took the bus for this journey, stopping in many charming little towns along the way. I had brought a book along for the ride, but didn't end up reading at all ... I just gazed out the window, mesmerized by the scenery as it drifted by.

It was a pleasure to spend time with my mom and dad and their little dog Kiki. We didn't do much, aside from going thrifting one day, visiting a craft brewery, and taking walks. For our little Academy Awards party, I made a platter of nachos, the first my mother had ever eaten (How is it that she had never tried nachos?). Much to my surprise, my father watched the program with us .. another first, for sure.

I loved seeing some snow, as we've had so remarkably little of it this year in the city. But what I loved more was watching the landscape change from cold, white and icy, to sunny, mild and dry as the bus brought me home again today.

Bits and Pieces : Februay 2012

Eddie in a Bag

Happy Caturday! =↑..↑=

Impromptu visitors to our home would think we were very bad housekeepers because there are bits of trash all over! As I type, there is a bag left out from a Valentine's gift (pictured after Ed determined it was a perfect spot to sit!), but also candy wrappers from Quality Street Chocolates on the floor from Christmas, as well as a cardboard triangular box from a mini Toblerone bar.

I first realized that Eddie loves when we have Quality Street candies, after I received some as a gift from work a few years ago. Nick and I ate a few and as a joke, tossed the brightly coloured cellophane wrappers at each other. They ended up on the floor and the next day I swept them up along with the other dust that needed sweeping. I got everything into a nice pile and went to get the dust pan. On my way, the phone rang and I had a brief conversation. When I got back to my chore, I found that the whole pile of dust I had swept together was all messed up, and the candy wrappers removed and pushed around the room. There were some under the furniture and lodged into the corners. Eddie had found them and decided they made excellent toys. Since that time, I have bought him some for special occasions and they are always a big hit. We eat the chocolates, and he gets the wrappers. I have to remind Nick not to clean them up!