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Vegetarian Party Food : Three Quick Crostini Toppings

Christmas! (Swipe and Click)

    A Family Tradition : Making “The Mix” - Homemade Nuts and Bolts Snack
    Vintage Paper Part I : Christmas Cards

    A Sampling of My Sister’s Amazing Collection of Vintage Treasures

    vintage bird eggcups
    My sister Camille and I are quite different in many ways, but one thing we have in common is our love of vintage things. Visits to one another's home always include time spent poking around and admiring what's on display.While I only began to appreciate vintage when setting up my first apartment as a young adult, she began collecting as a small child. When she was the flower girl in our aunt's wedding at the age of four, I remember her being far more excited about the little porcelain bird figurine that she'd been given -- an old piece handed over from our grandmother's curio shelf -- than she was about the beautiful dress she got to wear and her fancy hairdo.Her lifelong love of garage sales, thrift stores and flea markets, has resulted in a vast assortment of amazing old treasures.Her focus is more on small decorative items that are funny and/or cute. You just can't look around her place without smiling.If something came with its original packaging, it is propped up on a shelf or hung on a wall, intact.I love the way she sets things up, in a way that looks fresh and tidy rather than cluttered and dusty.I was at her place for a get-together on Saturday, and took a few minutes away from socializing with her lovely friends to quickly snap these shots around her living room and kitchen. They represent a minuscule sample of all that she has.

    A Handmade Purse for a Cute Kid

    handmade crocheted bag purse for a child based on dadas place primavera flower granny square


    Keeping with the tradition of hand-making the gifts I send to my cousin Lisa's little girl Delilah, I crocheted the four year old a colourful kid-sized cross-body bag for Christmas. According to her mom, "the little purse is getting lots of use, she uses it whenever she wants to dress up "cool" when they play "rock stars"". I'll call that a win!

    My cousin sent over these darling photos of Delilah with her bag ...

    Out to a Concert : Lou Doillon with Andy Shauf at The Drake Hotel

    lou doillon performing in toronto at the drake
    c="http://www.loulou.to/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/lou-doillon-performing-in-toronto-at-the-drake.jpg" alt="lou-doillon-performing-in-toronto-at-the-drake" width="640" height="480" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-31661 blk-brdr">
    I've mentioned before that my friend Meghan and I, upon meeting six years ago at a place we both then worked, first bonded over our shared love of concerts in smaller venues -- we both have a passion and a large dose of admiration for artists who perform their own original creations.Meghan got tickets for this show and I tried right after she did and the show was already sold out. I messaged her to say I'd missed out, and being the pal that she is, she offered me her second ticket.We met up on Wednesday evening, for a bowl of soup at Ravi Soups, before the show.It was during the coldest time we've had so far this winter, so the hot soup made for a welcome dinner. I went with their Mushroom and Wild Rice one, which was delicious. Loved the cheese biscuit with red pepper jelly, that comes with every bowl.

    Our Favourtie Cookie Recipe : Ginger with a Spicy Kick

    No doubt about it, these are our favourite cookies!

    They're nice and ginger-y and come with a spicy kick, thanks to the freshly ground pepper they contain. I've shared them with quite a few others and everyone has really liked them, so you and your people will probably enjoy them too!

    The recipe makes about 40 cookies which is more than we usually need at once, so I like to bake a dozen as "drop cookies" (pictured above) when I first make the dough and then save the rest in the freezer, shaped into two tubes which we just slice and bake whenever the desire for fresh cookies strikes. Or, you can make even more dough to store in the freezer by doubling the recipe.

    Note that the dough spreads out as it bakes, so make your tubes smaller than you'd like your finished cookies to be, and leave space between them on the baking sheet.

    The last time I made the dough it was just before Valentine's Day, so I formed one tube into a heart shape before freezing it. But, that step is optional -- they're just as tasty in a plain old round shape! If you do choose to make them heart-shaped, make the dough the day before you bake them, and then store then in the freezer overnight, so that they'll hold their shape when you cut them.

    Dancing Date Night : Opening Weekend at The (New) Velvet Underground

    dj lazarus velvet underground toronto reopening dance party


    A few weeks ago (in this post) I wrote about a nightclub we've liked for ages, called The Velvet Underground, that closed down in October after over 20 years. We and a whole bunch of other fans were sad to see it go, but then in January found out the place had been taken over by a different group of people, Embrace Presents, and was to re-open.

    Well, the grand re-opening was this past long weekend and we were there to welcome it back, at the dance party featuring DJ Lazarus, held on the Sunday night of a the three-day weekend. That happened to be Valentine's Day, so it was the perfect time for a night out.

    The focus of it has changed, in that it had previously been a dance club with a live band every once in a while, and now it's become primarily a live music venue with a dance party every once in a while. We're happy with either format, as we're into both, live shows and dance nights.

    They've spruced the place up and added a new stage and lighting and sound systems but, in all, it looked pretty well like the same place we knew and loved.

    My sister, her boyfriend, and a group of old friends were out for the occasion too.

    There was no place to sit down because the new furniture hasn't been installed yet, so we had no choice but to stand around or get dancing. We happily chose the latter. It was a blast. My feet were sore when I got home.

    It was very dark in there, so my pictures aren't the greatest, but I'll post them anyway to give you a feel for what it was like.