cut & run jewels

I'm not sure if it's the need to create something, or the need to exhaust myself with a tiresome tasks, or just plain procrastination from other parts of my life? But last month, I decided to take part in a craft show that had nothing to do with the thing that I'm trying to establish in my life. It was a pretty low-key event and the focus was mostly on the bands playing, not the craft. Which was totally okay with me because I committed myself to making JEWELRY, not granola. Jewelry – something I know very little about!

I have made a necklace or two over the years. You know, when the mood hit and I needed something cathartic to do. But this time I had to be organized and I had to make sure the pieces were well made and not just put together like an experiment. I had 5 nights to accomplish my task and the first four I wasted rethinking everything I tried to make. At 12am the night before, I had four pieces. Four piece do not make a craft table. I was a little stressed. Miss L, who also participated in the show, received many texts from me saying I was over it and not going. But somehow I managed.

**Shout-out to k-boy! ... who came to the rescue and helped me string some beads in the wee hours of the night.


the necklaces.


the set-up.


The meaning of CUT & RUN....
This term is the shortened form of the earlier phrases 'cut and run away' and 'cut and run off'. It has been suggested that it has a nautical derivation and that it refers to ships making a hasty departure by the cutting of the anchor rope and running before the wind. (more found here)

I thought this was the perfect name since I have a love for most things nautical and I have a tendency to 'cut & run' in my life. Oh, and this jewelry venture is mostly likely a one time thing.


the people listening to the music.

my friends made babies.

In the last year, three of my close friends had babies. I still find it odd that we are at that stage in our lives - to baby or not to baby. Sometimes, okay almost always, I feel like this particular decision is still so far away. But when I see my friends with the little humans they made, I am reminded that this is not the case and the time is now.

Here are the cutest babies of 2011, placed in order of age...


Curious Little J.


Lucy, the happy little bear.


Sweet as pie Mr.A

all I need now is a cow.

A few months ago I was curious about homemade yogurt. I thought it would be a nice compliment to my handmade granola. I mentioned it to K, and lo & behold! he said his mom might have one because he remembers her making yogurt when he was a kid. Karim called up his mom and sure enough she still had it! Thank-goodness for big suburban homes where nothing gets thrown out! The yogurt-making kit is from the late 70's or early 80's and came with a very old, and very dangerous looking thermometer, which we have replaced. The machine works perfectly and is super easy to use. Plus, homemade yogurt is so much cheaper! We buy 2 litres of organic milk for 8 bucks which produces 2 litres of yogurt! I still want do some experimenting and throw in a vanilla bean at the boiling stage and see if I can make natural vanilla-flavoured yogurt.


The styling on the instruction book cover is VERY dated, which kind of makes it great. And look at all the recipes I can make with homemade yogurt! hah. Dip, anyone?

The dangerous thermometer came in this playfully-designed box.


Here is the yogurt chilling, the middle stage, before it goes into the machine for 4 hours.

ACE magic in Palm Springs.

I'm not sure what it was that made our stay at the ACE so fun and memorable, but it was definitely a highlight of the trip. We only planned to stay for one night but I could have stayed five. We spent all day poolside - drinking cocktails, sunning ourselves and relaxing in the driest, hottest heat ever – which I, of course, loved. The hotel was pretty empty, 15 guests or so, and maybe this is what made our experience so sweet. The rooms were the perfect aesthetic, the food was simple and good, the staff was nice and it was affordable (but this could have been because it was 47 degrees and no one was insane enough to venture to the desert).

I have been looking at the cost of taking another little holiday out there, 3 days in LA, 3 days at the ACE, but I'm afraid it won't be as great the second time around...I honestly think the stars and the moon had something to do with it.



Checking in, and full-on happy!




I got up at 7am the next morning and went straight to the pool.


Our view from the pool loungers.

K fully relaxed.
Dinnertime at the King's Highway diner.

After the ACE we headed North East... through the Mojave desert, Vegas, Death Valley and the Sierra Nevada mountains...and do you know how we made it all that way without a glitch? Because of Mr. Navigation (please see image above). We didn't have GPS or any detailed maps and we wanted to avoid major highways and take the smaller roads, so K made a point to spend 10 minutes on Google Maps each morning before leaving the hotels. He would jot down all the directions on his 'handy' clipboard, which he brought from home, and which I teased him about the whole trip! I thought he was being a buzz-kill, but after everything was said and done and we were back home I was very grateful for his navigating clipboard.

LA in 20 pictures or less.

I have a tiny crush on LA. I like the sun, the vastness, the close proximity to the desert and the ocean, and that even among the pretty there is some grit. The driving is the only thing that gets me and stops this crush from being a full-on love affair.

We rented a sweet apartment in Silverlake from a very helpful stylist. It was the perfect location! It was close to all the places we wanted to check out, which cut down on driving across the city all the time. It was clean, quiet and there was always somewhere to park outside. oh and Intelligentsia was down the road... the most important thing - morning coffee!
(the image above was the view from the apartment)

Some of the things we did...
Explored a few areas in and around LA; Silverlake, Los Feliz, Echo Park, Abbot-Kinney, Santa Monica. Visited the LACMA, a graffiti + street art exhibition at the MOCA, farmers markets, a flea market on Melrose and Griffith Observatory. Ate kick-ass vegan food at Sage, delicious pizza at Gjilena, a fancy dinner at Cliffs Edge and the best avocado sandwich ever at Trails Cafe (where we spotted Danny Pudi and Donald Glover from the show Community, who we both think are pretty cute and funny). Oh and of course shopped 'cause things are still, somehow, cooler and cheaper in the U.S. of A.


Taking a peek out the sun-roof before we got onto major LA roadways.


Arriving to our accommodations.


Our first breakfast in LA. I'm totally blanking on the name, but it was just down the road from the apartment. I would have to say this was the tastiest granola I had on the whole trip.


I was madly looking for a swap meet/flea market to check out in the LA area, and it seemed that we picked the wrong week to be there. Everything was happening the follow Sunday or already happened the previous weekend. But in my crazy Google research I found The Melrose Trading Post. I didn't think it was going to be very good, but I was pleasantly surprised. We bought two huge 1960's pull-down school maps for the stupid, low price of 65 dollars! I also found a strangely interesting, rusty metal, coffee-themed tray and some Gothic pendants.


Anchovy pizza at Gjilena.


Griffith Observatory.


The view from the observatory. All that dirt road needed was a cowboy riding a horse.


I crave these avocado sandwiches at least once a week!


We had to walk through this building to get to a photography exhibition and I thought it was pretty neat. It reminded me of the kind of stuff you would build with Lego as a kid, but just much bigger and with less colour.


Waiting on a bench for our tacos to be called.


We took a break from driving around and spent some time at a neighborhood park. Here we made fun of yoga poses, modelling poses, and each other... mostly of me tho, and my lack of cartwheel skill.


Santa Monica pier. I thought it would be gross and packed with tourists, but it wasn't so bad.


That's me on the right, riding back to Santa Monica.


I am sure I've mentioned a few times on this blog that I LOVE! lemonade. So when I saw this cafe on Abbott-Kinney, I was super excited. I had a cucumber-mint lemonade and it was incredibly tasty. So tasty that when I was back in LA in November, I made a point to have two lemonades here in the same day. Just to get my fill.


Inside the Viviver + Bentley shop – where beautiful handbags and jewelry live together. I wanted to buy the mini-sac, but couldn't decide on a colour so I left. I regret this.


The LACMA. Well worth the visit.

After LA, we decided to change our plans a little and head to the ACE in Palm Springs....

So it's 5 days till 2012. How did this happen? Even though 2011 was a mix bag of the good, the bad and the ugly, I'm not sure if I'm ready for 2012. Mr. 2011! can you please SLOW down already!

As you can tell, I haven't updated the blog in a very, long time. I promised more California images, but as some of my family will attest to, I sometimes make promises I can't keep.

Here is a list of things I was planning to blog about, but didn't...

- more Californian tales & images
- painted the mantle – from wood to ultra white
- refinished all the door hardware to their original condition
- babies enter the friend circle
- painted the stairwell down to the scary basement
- torn down and rebuilt the front porch
- a rant about how I hate the line of work I do
- a spontaneous trip to LA
- a planned trip to Chicago
- granola...
- redecorated the guest room – from light to moody
- Christmas – decorated, baked, prepped for the families arrival.

I, of course, really wanted to write about the happenings above. But I didn't want to write about the new porch, when I never finished the California posts, and so on. See my problem?
So here I go...attempting to do a quick round-up of the list above...give or take some.

road trip > part 2 : pacific coast highway

We bought an old fashioned map on the way out of SF. There's something so satisfying about using a paper map. Dragging my finger over my iPhone isn't nearly as fun, plus starring at the screen in a moving vehicle makes me want to barf. By the end of the trip, the poor map was battered & used - in a beautiful kind of way.


Taken with the Hipstamatic iPhone app equals pretty cool.


Same shot taken with a high-end camera equals just okay. Grrr! why is the iphone app cooler than my nice camera?



It was chilling and grey on the first day down the coast, but I still needed to run and see the ocean.



Can't have a messy mustache when greeting the sea!



A peach stop!

Karim looking into nothingness while in awe of a California peach.



We made a little picnic on the side of the road, literally the side of the road! Smoked salmon sammie anyone? Organic tomatoes? Perhaps, a paper cup of Cab? Thank goodness for Whole foods + Trader Joe's.


a regular camera...

and hipstamatic app.


I'm not sure if I am smiling here because we are close to the ocean or if the wine just hit me.

Is that blue skies under there?

hmm, guess not.



We had a little sleep on this beach.



I wasn't going to post these two pictures. They are tacky and awful. But here's the story and hopefully it will help you avoid our mistake. We stopped in Monterey, as two separate people suggested we do so. But once we pulled into town we realized it might have been a mistake. While driving around looking for a hotel, Karim asked if we were in Mississauga? Yup, that's what it felt like. Monterey was so beige, our motel was over-priced and there was no where to eat that wasn't glorified bar food. I'm not sure what possessed us but we found ourselves at "Bubba Gumps" (could have been the crazy hunger pains). Yes people, you heard me! A Forrest Gump themed restaurant. We ate the greasiest shrimp in the world, while getting served by the perkiest teenager in the world. I tried ordering something light and healthy but nope, it didn't exist. After consuming only a couple of shrimp I felt pretty gross. Karim thinks it was the decor that made me ill, haha. The next morning, we tried giving Monterey another chance but it was still beige. If someone can tell me what I missed? Did we not go to the right part of town? Tell me and I will take back all my negative words...

A cheesy picture of k and I doing a cheesy handshake through the sunroof. This is how happy we where with our driving adventure.