Every time Sisi and I spend time together, we can talk for endless hours about everything we can possibly think of. I find that as we get older, it gets harder and harder to find time to sit with friends in the middle of the afternoon and forget about all the things that needs to be done that day. So days like today, where Sisi and I find a corner at a café/restaurant and completely forget about time, are always special. Our moment together is all that matters and we are oblivious of what’s around us. Love you Sisi! x
The soundtrack to this weekend was “My World” by Tim Kay. The song is probably best known as the theme song to Jamie Oliver’s “Jamie At Home” series and we’ve had it on loop for the last couple days. On Saturday, I caught Nerissa watching an episode of Jamie’s Australian Tour Diary where Tim Kay performs a live acoustic version of the song. Nerissa kept rewinding to hear the song again. I thought I’d save her the trouble and buy the track on iTunes. Some songs you just connect with and 99¢ for a song that captures the spirit of the moment is totally worth it. P.S. The photo above was taken in Provence. In my world, the backyard doesn’t quite look like that yet but one lovely day it may.
Spring is here and the flowers are starting to bloom. However, none of our flowers right now are big enough for a regular size vase. So, I created a mini-centerpiece using a spare spice jar as a vessel. The flowers are crocuses which were the first to sprout up in the backyard. Our rosemary bush stays vibrant all year long and I added a sprig for color & contrast. The cut crocuses opened wide shortly after hitting the water but the delicate, paper-thin petals are starting to expire after only a few days. No worries. We have lots and they’re all free for the picking.
I wanted to put together a special package for Valentine’s for Nerissa. While searching through our hard drive, I found a photograph of scooters and macarons Nerissa shot in Paris. It’s a beautiful image and it was a shame it only existed in our digital archives. I came up with the idea of printing and framing the photograph and packaging it with a set of macarons. Unfortunately, sourcing macaroons in Vancouver was more difficult than I anticipated. There was none to be found near home or near work. With a little one in the house it’s hard to sneak out on long secret missions and I wasn’t able to put all the pieces together for the 14th. Luckily, the next special occassion, Nerissa’s birthday, is soon after Valentine’s. Perfect timing since I figured I would need one or two more weeks to get everything together.
I sent a message out on Twitter asking where in Vancouver I could find macarons. I was told La Baguette et L’Echalote on Granville Island or Thomas Haas. I chose Thomas Haas. I then packaged the macarons in a Ladurée souvenir box we bought in Paris; fitting since Ladurée started Nerissa’s macaron obsession. The framed photo and box of macarons were stacked together, tied with a ribbon and, viola, there it is. Bon Anniversaire!
Dinner last night was at Munch in North Vancouver. What a fantastic place! I had a nice creamy seafood risotto with a glass of Malbec and Peter had a bison burger. I could have seriously had another plate of that risotto but was too embarrassed to order another one. Well, I’m going back with my friend Sisi for lunch next week so I could have my second serving then. It’s nice to have a place like this in the city where Peter and I can enjoy a really good meal and not have to worry if Luna cries. How many places have a play area for kids and a full bar for adults? Yippee! We’d definitely recommend this place to other young families too.
Winter was mild this year which means an early spring. In our backyard, we’ve already seen crocuses, daffodils and irises sprouting up. The tulips are on their way too. We’re looking forward to warming the house up with weekly fresh cut flowers. Pictured above are clippings from last spring (dahlias, rosemary buds and baby’s breath) which should make their return sooner rather than later this year.
Four months, already! Lots of developments to report this month. Luna still loves to smile and has added cute silent giggles to her repertoire. Very recently, she’s added a tiny baby laugh to her giggles but that’s only happened twice so far. Luna likes to babble with anyone who talks to her. We call it “conversating”. I know that’s not a real word but she doesn’t speak real words so it fits. Luna has outgrown her bassinette and moved into a crib. Luna can’t do a full belly-to-back roll, yet. She can manage a 3/4 roll but if we put her flat on her stomach she gets frustrated that her body can’t accomplish what her mind wills it to do. Maybe next month, Luna. Even though Luna can’t roll yet, she can travel quite some distance by wiggling and kicking around. When we leave her on a mat for a few minutes it’s quite surprising where she ends up. In month four we’re using a Baby Bjorn baby carrier for the first time. Luna enjoyed being carried snuggly through Vancouver while we checked out the Winter Olympic sights. Lastly, Luna really enjoys being sung to. Her favorite songs in month four are James Brown’s “I Feel Good” and Lionel Ritchie’s “Say You, Say Me”.
First treat of the day for us was a visit to Mark & Shannon’s new place for coffee and a slice of lemon meringue pie. Mark converted a 70 year old schoolhouse in Strathcona into an innovative mixed-use multi-family dwelling. The conversion maintains 40% of the original structure with modern updates getting the schoolhouse to Built Green Platnium standards. Each of the five units have a flex-space that could be used for an income-suite, additional living space or a home studio. The main floor of the schoolhouse is Shannon’s studio/workshop with future plans for public community programming. It’s a beautiful and thoughtful conversion which I’m sure must be the talk of the neighbourhood. Now, about the pie…it was baked by Shannon’s mom and it was spectacular!
Breakfast today: Homemade whole wheat bread (freshly baked yesterday), coffee, Casa Giulia blueberry preserve & cheese tarragon omelette. I was also happy to receive my Anthropologie catalogue in the mail this morning. Like a magazine subscription, Anthropologie mails out a new catalogue each month with great photography, locations and styling. It’s incredible to think they’re essentially producing 12 different lookbooks with 12 different themes each year. That’s a lot of imagery/creative to produce. And it’s all top quality. Having produced a few photoshoots and lookbooks in our day, we really respect the effort and imagination put into these monthly catalogues. We’ve kept every issue we’ve received neatly stored in our library. It’s a nice monthly visual treat and it’s free to subscribe.
These days, I’m all about simple and quick breakfasts but…it has to be delicious, too. Today’s breakfast consisted of: homemade whole wheat bread with flax & sunflower seeds, hard boiled eggs, coffee and Casa Giulia blueberry preserve from Italy. Peter’s Note: If you can’t get enough of breakfast photos visit Jennifer Causey’s Simply Breakfast blog. If anyone is keeping track, Simply Breakfast is, hands-down, the number one breakfast blog. Jennifer has documented 507 breakfasts (and counting) over the last 3 years. Simply awesome!
Toys don’t really interest Luna in this stage of her life. She prefers human interaction and we’re happy to give her lots. However, we can’t be with her every second of the day so we got her a baby gym so she can entertain herself. Friends also tell us it’s good for hand/eye development. Luna seems to really enjoy it. She took to it right away. It’s definitely the best $25 we spent this week.
I love our mornings! As soon as Luna wakes up, she calls out to us with her cute baby sounds. And when I hear her, I lazily get out of bed with my eyes half open to grab her and lay her beside me. But I’m usually woken up to find myself giggling as I see my little Luna somehow wiggled herself out of her blanket and out of her pants laying sideways at the top of the crib with no pants on. Amazing, how did she do this! Then I grab her to lay her beside me as I watch her slowly look around still half dazed observing what’s around her. Then it’s followed with a few stretches with the sounds of her limbs cracking away. Then she stops, looks at me, and gives me the sweetest morning smiles and giggles. These are the little special moments we share together. A start of another great day!
You know the safehouses in Grand Theft Auto? No? Don’t play video games; not criminal minded? Well, neither is Nerissa. It took some explaining but we’ve come to incorporate the word “safehouse” into our parenting lexicon. In Grand Theft Auto, a safehouse is place where you can escape from the cops, get your stolen car fixed or covertly meet up with your associates. For us, a safehouse is far less nefarious. It’s a place where we can comfortably nurse, that has a properly maintained changing area or where we can get a decent meal and not feel guilty about Luna crying. We keep a mental catalogue of places around the city so that we can make a pitstop when out and about rather than rushing home. One day, I’d like to create a Grand Theft Auto style map with all the baby-friendly safehouses around the city. I think it’d be funny.
So far our safehouse list includes:
- IKEA, Richmond – the best family/changing area we’ve seen. It’s bigger than most downtown dens and looks like a mini-showroom.
- Whole Foods, Cambie Street – the eating area has lots of space for a stroller and other gear. Hippies love crying babies. Hippies love everyone.
- Little Nest, Commerical Drive – delicious food, good coffee and designed with young families in mind.
- Lilli’Q Cafe, Yaletown – During a long walk, we needed to find a place to change Luna and found Lilli’Q. We were a long ways away from the nearest safehouse so Lilli’Q was a welcome new discovery. There’s a comfortable changing area, a play area for bigger kids, friendly staff and nice drinks.
- Munch, North Vancouver – You won’t find a lot of kid friendly places with a full bar! Amazing food & drinks and would definitely recommend this place to other young families.
Last year at work, as part of the new website design, we created a team section where we individually created compositions that represent who we are. For my self portrait, I decided to gather some of my favourite things and put them together to create a still life. Here’s a list of what you see:
- The framed pattern was a gift wrapper found at the Vancouver Art Gallery
– Framed illustration purchased from Yumi Yumi via Etsy
– My handmade Bricolage journals
– Baby Eames chair reproduction from Nood (50% off sale! btw)
– White Eames Eiffel chair from Herman Miller
– Skirt from Anthropology
– Matryoshka doll was a souvenir from my trip to Alaska
– Twigs & rocks from the beach where I live
– Brown shoes brought back from Paris
– Smena 8M toy camera
– Catalogues: Habitat, Muji, Anthropolgy
Last note for the weekend: hello to Hooray Design. Thanks for including us in your awesome blog.
We keep an inspiration board up in our studio. It’s a easy way to casually pin-up artwork, clippings and other tidbits that inspire us. Items currently include:
- paint chips and fabric swatches for on-going projects;
- few old photos that don’t have a home in our albums;
- spare art prints that we haven’t framed yet;
- reference material and souvenirs;
But most special are the hand-made cards & mini-crafts given to us by our friends. Those gifts always get a special spot on the board or in our library. Alice Cho holds the current record for most things pinned up.
Last night we borrowed Nerissa’s parents’ electric raclette grilll and had Jonathan & Anita over for raclette. Wikipedia describes raclette as “both a type of cheese and, informally, a dish featuring this cheese“. I’d describe the dining experience similar to a fondue but with the cheese and accompaniments grilled instead of boiled. While there’s one or two places where you might be able to order a savory fondue, it’s really hard to find a restaurant that has raclette on the menu. The only one, in Western Canada, that we’ve seen is the Grizzle House in Banff which is fitting because the dish has an old school Swiss alpine feel.
The cheese is grilled in tiny pans and served over bite sized potatoes along with sweet pearl onions, cornichons and sausages. It doesn’t sound like much but the flavor combination is really delicious. Raclette’s fun because you eat at a casual pace and the table has a communal feel fueled with conversation. Jonathan & Anita also brought over prosciutto, melon, pâté and manchego cheese. As an experiment, we melted the manchego in the raclette pans and grilled the pearl onions. Pretty yummy, actually. Those were probably one of the many raclette etiquette rules we broke last night but that was part of the fun; it was interactive and a new adventure for all.
Peter gathered all the green chilies we had growing out in the garden and I was surprised to see almost a full bowl of chilies! There was no way the two of us could use that many chilies so we decided to share some and give them away as presents. We gathered bunches of peppers together and created custom packets for each. We experimented with simple paper/tape techniques, different ways to tie thread and finished it off with an ink-jet sticker label.
(Updated: Jan. 30, 2010 with new photos.)
Cupcakes + pizza + lavender tea + storytelling = a perfect afternoon with, Sisi, one of my best friends.
How time flies…I can’t believe it was 5 years ago when Peter and I were making journals which we called Bricolage. I had a lot of fun making these journals. I would spend my days searching for great fabrics in the city then would excitedly go home to start making. We were living in a tiny condo in Downtown at that time (I think it was 550 sq ft!) so I would practically use the whole space as my working studio. I had fabrics all over the floor, ironing board in the middle of the living room and stacks of journals in every corner of our condo. It was really great fun! Peter’s job as soon as he got home from work was to make all the pins with the little hand-held pin maker we bought.
When I started making these journals, I honestly didn’t think anyone would buy them. But as soon as the orders started coming, I was really excited that people wanted them. I had orders from Europe, Canada & the States plus I had a store in Belgium that ordered a few dozen. I was happily busy!
After a few months, our journals were sold-out and I was ready to start something new. That was 5 years ago! Now that I am on maternity leave, and spend my days at home, I am ready to start making products again. I am so excited! I’ve started working on it already but things just take a little longer to do now with a baby in the house. As soon as it’s nap time, I quickly run to our studio and squeeze in as much creative time as I can get (vacuuming and other household chores have been ignored…they can wait!). I hope to launch our new products in late Spring or early Summer. They’re not books this time. Stay tuned!
On another note, our DIY Place Cards have been featured in a design and style blog called Paper n Stitch. Thanks Brittni!
Luna is now three months old! She is such a happy baby and entertains us with non stop smiles and laughter. She has a daily routine now where she naps at certain times of the day, then has her play time for about 1.5 hrs before yawning starts again and she’s ready for her next nap. As soon as she wakes up from her naps, she cries for milk and once she’s done feeding, we are treated with the loveliest smiles from such a little person. Sometimes I wonder what goes on in that little head of hers as she seems to find everything so utterly amusing. It’s a joy to see our little Luna so happy in her environment. It makes us realize even more that we have created such a lovely environment where she feels so safe & loved.
