decadent girl brunch

I have never had dessert at brunch until I started brunching with these girls!
We certainly are treating ourselves to the finer things in life.

I had a beautiful Sunday brunch at l'ouvrir with Anabela, Charlyn, Melinda, Nikki and Nikole. This brunch was especially lovely because it was the first time we were all able to come out.

All the more reason for dessert at brunch.

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I have been grinning from ear to ear! Thank you friends, your kind thoughts have really touched my heart. You inspire me, push me to try new things, and always encourage me to do better.

This first dress is far from perfect, as I still have a lot to learn. I enjoyed every step of making it, from tracing, to cutting, to sewing and altering. Not only did I learn how to navigate these foreign books, but I picked up a lot of new tricks in dressmaking from seeing what others were doing in class. Thanks for offering this class Karyn! I have wanted to do this for a long long time.

Of course, I was looking forward to photographing the dress, but a little nervous about being the model. Rosalyn came over to help me set up, style, and photograph. We make a great team Roz!

I made dress ‘S’ in the Stylish Dress Book II. Karyn made 2 beautiful dresses in this pattern out of Liberty of London fabric. They are SO perfect! Look here, and here.

(p.s. some of you asked where I got the gingham fabric from. I got it at World Sew on Queen Street ages ago! But I think they still have it.)

the first dress

In this dreamland of white balloons,
I prance around in my gingham dress.

When summer heat comes,
join me for a picnic of sandwiches and tea?

Until then, I will be waiting here in my land of white balloons.


This is the dress I made in class. My first ever! I hope you like it.

(I couldn’t have taken these photos without Rosalyn's help! We had fun!)

the basin

Our basin is pretty wide, 27” wide. We chose it because we were thought the extra space would be good for when we start a family. I think 2 adults, and a child could share this space, right?

But if we were being really honest, we would tell you that we chose the wider basin for Mr. Mojo. You see, he likes to sit on the basin ledge when we are washing our hands. He likes to wait for the water to warm up, and then he will stick his head in and demand for water. Sometimes from the tap, but usually he wants us to feed him from our hands.

The water has to be slightly hotter than lukewarm. He is so specific.

our bathroom : part 1

Before





After

The bathroom that came with the house was a little cramped. I couldn’t even take a photo to show you where the mini sink was (it was right of the toilet, practically touching the it), or maybe I just didn’t want to step inside...(hopefully, that will be the ugliest photo I post on this space).

We enlarged the bathroom to make it more spacious, and also included an area for laundry which was not there before. The bathroom looks pretty bare right now; there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, but I thought I would show you the progress we made.

Picking bathroom fixtures was my favourite part. It was pretty simple. It started with my desire to have a claw foot tub. I researched our options of getting an old one re-glazed versus a brand new one, and all my research made us lean towards a new tub. I found that the cost of getting an old tub, plus reglazing it costs about the same as a new one, and I was told that a reglazing is never as good as the original porcelain finish (correct me if I am wrong). Plus, older tubs tend to have rust spots on its bottom, and around the drain, I felt like I wanted a tub that will last a very long time. So a new tub it was! After we chose our tub, it was easy sailing from there. We just picked a toilet and basin to match.

I thought we would be getting our fixtures from different sources, but once we found Addison’s Inc., we were set. I fell in love with his store when we first walked in, I felt like a kid in the mother of all candy stores! Plus, Mr. Addison is such a charming man. Jin always brings him coffee. He likes his coffee with cream, no sugar (just in case you were wondering).

If you are in Toronto, you should visit his amazing store. You will be in for a treat.

I posted a little about it
here.

goody bag

Things that make me long to go on holidays.

Chocolates for Paris.
Tartufo, my favourite. mmmm.
a pretty floral compact mirror from Porta Portese (a crazy sunday market in Rome, ahh, I remember it well).

May brought this bag of goodness for us on Friday from her 4 month trip to Rome.

I love everything about it, even the paper bag it came in brings up fond memories of places I have already been.

Thank you, May. And welcome home. I missed you.

tufts of snow

My favourite kind of winter day is when I wake up to a bright sky, and the air is still.

And when a light dusting of snow has landed from the night before, and the snowflakes rest quietly on branches and twigs, fences and lights.

It hasn't snowed too much here this year, but I woke up to a thin blanket of snow yesterday, and a warm and cozy feeling came over me.

It is weird, but I really miss the snow.

favourite time of day

Mea and Mojo stay in our bedroom for now, we are planning to let them out when the commotion has settled a bit more.

Everytime I walk into our bedroom, Mojo gives me a "meow!". He always thinks it's meal time.

This is him, waiting for Jin to come back with his food.

He looks so sweet.

gifts

I want to show you some surprise housewarming gifts from these lovely ladies!! Thank you so much, from the bottom of our hearts! We love them!

The first thing I saw when we moved was a pile of bills, and among them was this beautiful hand letterpressed housewarming card in the mail from Tanya. The image is of how to build a bird house. I love the technical drawing!

This little bird came from my good friend Nav. She got this in Montpellier (doesn't Montpellier sound like the prettiest place on earth?). It is a Sifflet Oiseau. Mea and Mojo think I am a real bird when I whistle it.

Rosalyn came by for a visit,and she made us a beautiful piece of art. I feel so lucky to have a piece of her work. I have admired her since I saw her installation at the workroom.

My friend Pandora gave us a new "dinghy" for our yet-to-be-installed bath tub! The boat will always float to the top of the water, so I will never have a hard time finding the plug!

And, can you tell that I am in love with my white floors?

soft white animals

Roz has two pets, and they match eachother! They are both mostly white in colour! Roz and Andrew just got Kai, a Siberian Husky, a week ago.

I wanted to meet puppy Kai before he grew into a big dog forever. He was so full of energy and was pouncing on me, like a cat! After hours of fun, he fell into his puppy sleep, and he looked like such a peaceful boy. I love how clumsy and big puppy paws are compared to the rest of their body.

Chai is their bunny! He is a pooping machine! I have never seen a floppy eared bunny before, and I kept playing with his ears! He totally didn't mind. He also doesn't mind it if you touch his incredibly soft cotton tail.

Thanks for having me over Roz. It was cute overload!

Bye Bye Summer : weddings

Last Friday, was the beginning of the end of summer for me. Gabe and I finished the last wedding of the summer season. For the rest of the year, our photography schedule will be a bit more relaxed. I had such a great time going to other people’s weddings this summer! I learned so much about photography, but I feel like I have only seen the tip of the iceberg! Thank you Gabe, for teaching me so much, and taking me under your wing. He has such a great eye for photography and composition, I truely admire his incredible talents.

The best part about photographing weddings is that we get to be part of one of the most important days of these people’s lives! Everyone is always in a happy mood, and all I can do, is be happy with them! The happiness is contagious!

These are some of my favourite photos from our weddings this year, of course, I would love to show you all of my favourites, but there are far too many! Gabe has posted some more photos from the weddings and engagements this year on his flickr, take a look! They are so beautiful!

Also, go see his wedding photography website to see some of his weddings from past years, including some photos from my own wedding last year. See if you can spot me and Jinny.

au revoir summer. see you again soon.

Bright, on a gloomy day

It has been a cold kind of rainy today, so I had to take out some extra layers in the closet to keep warm. It doesn't seem like June. To me, June has always been bright and sunny, and the happy month my brother and I are born in, (and also the month Jin is born in too!) My eyes are looking for bright spots to keep me warm. Mostly I am noticing whites. I guess white isn't really a warm colour, but on this grey day, it is exactly what I need. And, a punch of bright pink and green.

Mea are you trying to sneak out the front door, again?
You have to rotate that knob to ring my doorbell.
These little flowers were everywhere, I do not know their name. Do you?
I told Jin I want to paint our backyard fence, white. What do you think?

1. clean 2. dirty 3. dirtier

I wish snow could always stay white, instead of becoming slushy brown.

This is a neat video my friend sent over. Watch it here.

It's cute isn't it? He found it on Kanye Wests' blog. Interesting.