Michelle Alynn Clement - Scissor Quirk.

Tune Tuesday - Numero Uno.

Oh yes, you read right. :)

There will be a new "Tunes Tuesday" feature right here, starting now.

Mainly cuz I have a new tune addiction every week, and often love to read into the lyrics I attach myself to upon first listen. And then I realize I should look into the artist a little more, too - but don't have the time. Or don't take the time. And I always love to be introduced to a new music, and I hope you guys do, too! So, here goes: my first "Tune Tuesday" goes tooo...

Amy Millan!

 

For those who haven't heard Amy Millan before - she's lovely. Her first solo album, "Honey from the Tombs" is great - one of my favorite songs being "Hard Hearted (Ode to Thoreau)". She just put out another album in September, called "Masters of the Burial" and it's a lot more chill - my first thought upon finishing my first listen of it was that it's not long enough....lol.

To my happy surprise, I found out she was Canadian - yay! She also used to be (I'm not sure if they're still together?) part of a band called "Broken Social Scene" (I'm not sure how familiar my American friends will be with them...) - which Feist was also a part of (cool, no?) and Emily Haines - who is another amazingly talented girl.

And then I learned, after listening, that lots of the songs on her newest album are re-records of other great songs, including Death Cab for Cutie's "I Will Follow You Into The Dark", and "Old Perfume" (I recognized DCFC's song, but didn't know the others were covers...). They blend so seamlessly into her songs, it's such a great listen from beginning to end.

She says of the album, "Together, my own songs and these covers create a bed where the lonely can rest for a little bit, where little hopes, little deaths, and big loves are flammable but fallow...This record is the dark of the night. It's the sound of someone climbing into bed. The soundtrack of the time in between when the candle burns out and your dreams begin. The time of night when all we have tried to bury comes back to us masked in midnight mind stories. Light the fire, pour up one more, draw the curtains and tuck in."

Love that. You must give "Buried Ghosts" (my new favorite) a listen if you're looking for something to calm your ears. Watch out, though - you might just fall in love with the whole album accidentally!

Til next time. :) Happy day!

The Latest.

Oh my word. This last week has been kind of nutty. Not that many of the weeks around here aren't, but it felt particularly crazy, work-til-3-am-every-night busy.

So what have I been up to? Here goes:

1. Hubby got his US Visa! :) Until a few weeks ago, he's been unable to travel into the US (because the US government is silly, it seems..) without this Visa because of his Bulgarian passport. After a few paperwork-gatherings & return trips to proooove that he was indeed tied to our lil home here in Canada - approved!

So we've excitedly booked our holiday trip to the East Coast to Philly to see Z's parents for Christmas, and we'll be going up to Washington DC to hang with his brother & then New York, cuz, well it's New York, and I've never been - there are many friends to visit out there! Sooo excited. Must see a ballet while we're there, too. Eeek!

(amazing photo from right here.)

2. Planning our travels. I've, well..we've both been working from home for a while, and jobs are starting to turn up for the Spring, so we've been planning where else to getaway now while (we can) - lol. It's hard to vacation in the middle of a contract - doesn't go over well!

Anyhoo - we'll be jetting off to Vegas soon, here, for a few days. And then to Mexico or Cuba for hopefully 2 weeks in December, too. Dude. I'm psyched. I've been jonesing to travel since way back when and now we can!!

(photo source.)

I love these vintage Vegas postcards I found in my searches, too:

(photo source.)

We're travelling cuz we haven't had a honeymoon yet, for various reasons, and cuz we've only been around our little local islands for the last few years, vacation-wise. And we still don't have either booked - it's so us to not have things booked yet, and to try to mush it all in at once. Hah! As long as it looks somewhat like this (hah!), I'll be happy:

(photo source.)

I'm totally kidding. I'll be happy anywhere. I'm just sooo psyched to be travelling with hubby far away, finally! :) Yay!

3. Halloween! :) It was Halloween! We actually hadn't done Halloween together yet (weird, I know..), so we dressed up - I as a nerd and Z as a caveman, with our day-before, thrift-shop-found costumes, with a bag of necessary tootsie rolls, and headed out to The Orpheum (this gorgeous old theatre in town) to see a screening of "Nasferatu" - this cool silent vampire film. The Symphony Orchestra was playing the score - it was rad.

We joined the throngs of costume-wearers on Granville Street and grabbed a few drinks and had lotsa fun. :) And I'm totally wearing my costume's sweater vest again, I think it rocks.

 (We took lotsa blurry silly photos - there are more right here.)

4. Regina Spektor!!! Eeeek!! So, by some fluke, the day before Halloween - as I was searching for Nasferatu tickets - Ticketmaster pops up and there, at the top, is Regina Spektor. Playing the Orheum here in Vancouver in 3 days!! lol...You can bet I was buying those tickets in the blink of an eye - I suspect we got a few of the last ones, too, cuz we were in the nosebleeds at the very very back. But I'm so thankful we got them!!

(I totally didn't take any pictures, but it was as lovely as these pics I found via google search...)
So we went on (last) Monday night to her concert, and it was seriously the most amazing ever! She sounds gorgeous - even more gorgeous - live, and was playing piano and pounding chairs with drumsticks and there was even acapella singing, too. :) Be still my heart.

Annnnd...right after the concert I was up til 4 finishing my bookmaking homework. lol...I made a really fun illustrated book that I'm going to make one-offs of and get them up in the shop, I just need some time to put them together.

Since then, I've been learning how to blog-code, coding many a blog, taking on some freelance animation, getting back into the whole animation thing (I'm feeling mad rusty), trying to find software, thinking about Christmas shopping, enjoying Letterpress class, and wishing I had more time. lol...

The last week in a nutshell. After I get through my to-do-today list, I'm going to draw shop goodies. :) Yay! Thanks for the sweet words, guys!

I'm a Sassafras Lass!

Eeeek! Okay, so I have to say super-super thanks to everyone for the kind words I've already received (thanks soo much!) - I'm so happy and excited and over-the-moon to announce that I'm now part of the Sassafras Lass Design Team!

Not only do their DT girls seriously rock my socks (I'm crazy humbled to be welcomed into such company!!), but I've had a major scrap-crush on all things Sassafras for years and years now - their goodies are just always right up my alley & so amazingly rad!! :) Yay! Thanks so much Rebecca & the Sassafras team for having me!

On that note, I haven't scrapped in a bit, now, and I'm going into serious withdrawls. There are no scrap stores around me (or I'd have my hands full and busy...lol), so I've been dreaming about how cute and perfect and just-for-me their Monstrosity line seems, no? I'm such a monster freak. lol...

(All images from the Sassafras blog.)

Anyhoo - thanks for the sweet words, as always, my lovely blog readers. :)

The facelift is pretty much complete - what do you think of the new design? I've been learning to code stuff this week and have been having some fun with my very favorite colors. You know, the colors I use over and over again. Always. lol. What colors do you stick to? It's an interesting phenomenon - I can pick the exact shades by 'like' without referencing them. lol..

More soon. :)

Dude.

I'm still blog-prettying-up, here (I have this habit of not planning my design, and just winging it, which slows me down. lol). It's almost done, but the links in the middle bar are not, so they might be kinda funny tonight, as is the banner, still.

I've been bombarded with a slew of freelance work all at once - when it rains work, it pours, always. :) Busy, busy. So much to update!

In the meantime, check out this rad news!! Eeek!!! :)

More soon, very soon. Must sleep now.

Construction.

*edited* - Sorry, dudes. The lopsided banner and lack of complete facelift is crazy bugging me, but the blog'll be under construction til Wednesday or so. lol.

I have massive homework, halloween plans tonight, class all day tomorrow, more homework, a Regina Spektor concert (yay x a million!!!), class, then I'll finally be back. lol...thanks for hanging in there, and happy halloween! Tons of updates coming soon. :)

Hello, folks.

Please 'scuse the mess you might see over here for today (and maybe tomorrow) - doing a little updating to the look of the place right now. :) Done soon!

(photo source.)

Winter Ensembled.

(I don't think 'ensembled' is actually a word, but it seems to work here for title purposes. lol...)

Anyhoo - I forgot to update about the skinny jean search, here - thanks for your suggestions both here and on twitter/e-mail/facebook! :) I did manage to find some lovely ones and I love em so much I've been wearing em all week...lol. I got some black ones from American Eagle (totally surprised me, but they rock!! I never buy pants there...) The shopping was done last week, and this week I've been having fun combinging the new fall/winter stuff with the old closet stand-bys.

I'm currently obsessed with navy tights and my new biker boots, and I collect coats (ha ha..) - this particular one has been in my closet for years, I have a habit of buying them on sale on boxing day (a classy coat lasts forever, no?)
 


Anyhoo - my website is *still* not up and hosted and online. lol...my plan was to finish Sunday, and then I got finished Monday only to find out that uploading it online was not so easy the way I'd planned it, and it took a day and a half of troubleshooting to get her goin. I'm finalizing and checking everything today.

Also, today...cleaning, organizing, fixing my desk up so my place + brain are workable. I plan on working on some shop/for-fun stuff for the next week or so to give myself a post-website-building break. And I need to sew and cut some paper for my sanity.

I'm quite liking these overcast fall days we're having because I can leave the biiig windows in the apartment open and enjoy the light without boiling to death in the sun...lol. Lovely!

More very soon. :)

Wild Thing, I Think I Love You...

Omg. We went out on a little much-needed Sunday date-night after working all weekend long to see "Where the Wild Things Are" - it was hard enough for me to wait a week to see it..lol - and, anyhoo - it was lovely! Definitely not what I expected, I thought it would more - uh - uplifting? then it was. It was kind of a downer, but really leaves a lot of what you get out of it up to you, and was totally heart-wrenching.

Not to mention it was gorgeous. :) The animator/compositor in me usually picks apart movies (it just happens when you know how they're made, you can't help it! lol...), but the whole time I was just trying to figure out what was what because it was just so seamless...they integrate 3D animation and good ol Jim Henson Shop costumes/puppets (which I love love love & are fantastically mind-bogglingly cool, and am so happy they did instead of doing it all 3D!! Nothing beats the real thing!) soooo well. :)

On that note, I'll stop dorking out about animation. But you must see it. :)

 

 

(kw is my favorite, by far...)

Speaking of dorking out, we're trying to figure out where to go/what to be for Halloween, and I totally wanna hit up a thrift store and be a dork for the night. Literally, a dork. I'm craving big-rimmed glasses and high plaid pants. Hopefully thrift store shopping will happen soon so we can put together our costumes. :) Yay!

I'll have stuff to share soon - I just almost-aced a bookkeeping test tonight, have to finish drawing a lil design project, and the portfolio website is done with the exception of loading it up onto the web (yay!), so this week I get to make shop stuff and draw and scrapbook a little, too. Dude.

Seen any other good movies lately? Do share!!

Whew!

Hello, hello!

Well, where did the time go since I last blogged?? Dude. It flies by waaaay too fast. There is just too much cool just-for-fun creative stuff on my list-to-do-while-off-work and none of it seems to have gotten done so far! Agh! I mean, I've been working on stuff...maybe there's just too much. lol..

Anyhoo, I spent a morning or two shopping for fall clothes this week - I totally spoiled myself, which is part of the reason why I shop like, twice a year. lol...I like lump sums. :) Anyhoo - I'm furthermore banned from shopping cuz I now have enough plaid and tights to last a while. I also had class for the last three nights - small business, bookmaking, and then more small business.

I'm actually feeling crazy inspired from the small business classes, too - I just get in the room, and, even though our teacher is an accountant and usually talking about not-creative things, I can't help but come out of there with a million new ideas. :) Same with bookmaking!! I'm looking up suppliers and such to start making journals to sell in Bubbly Shnooks!! Eeek!

I haven't had a moment to make anything lately (well, apart from the website I'm working on, but it's not fun to show peeks of that....), except for the homework/projects I've been making in my Bookmaking class. Here's a little look at a simple Stab-Stitch book I made last week during the course:

 

 

 

The cover is made from a heavy creamy-yellow posterboard, and the pages are a lovely textured Canson paper alternated with a 'fancy paper' (it was hard to narrow it down to just once specialty paper, and we were only supposed to put two pages of it in...but I loved my skeletal system paper find so much I made it every other page!). :)

Anyhoo, the next few day To-Do's:

- Finish my Animation Portfolio Website

- Revamp the Blog (it needs a facelift, I think!!)

- Draw holiday goodies for Bubbly Shnooks

- See 'Where the Wild Things Are'

- Research schools (I really want to go back next fall...!!)

Otay - coffee pot, here I come! What's on your to-do list? Does it ever feel like it gets done??

Well, hello.

Hi guys!

Sorry, my updates this week have been few and far between! On Tuesday we had Z's friends  from New York and their adorable little girl stay with us for a few nights - we went to Granville Island and ate lotsa yummy food and took a trip up Grouse Mountain (and a ride on the tram to the top of the mountain) and enjoyed the freezing cold up there & saw some grizzly bears and wolves. It was fun!

I had class on Tuesday and Wednesday, too - in bookmaking class on Tuesday night we all shared our accordian books, and then the teacher took em home for the week to look at them, so I'll share mine here as soon as I get it back. :) Other then that, haven't had time to be crafty much - we went to an art show opening here in town for a few film school friends on Friday, and then I pretty much drew a lil freelance gig for the next little while.

We did take a break from work last night to watch "Away We Go" (which I've been jonesing to see for a good while...)

 

 

It was totally cute and charming, and John Krasinski was adorable in it. :) Totally recommend it! And the soundtrack is rad, too - Alexi Murdoch's "All My Days" has been a fave of mine for many years.

I've been listening to New Moon Soundtrack's "Satellite Heart" (by Anya Marina), Tegan and Sara's new "Hell", and Said the Whale's "The Gift of a Black Heart". Not to mention Karen O and The Kid's 'Where the Wild Things Are' loveliness - "Heads Up" is one of my faves from the soundtrack, along with Carter Burwell's "Lost Fur" (he did the Twilight Score, too, and does awesome work!).

Also, just found out that my fave-from-when-I-was-sixteen band is releasing a new album in a month, too! Yay!:

 

There is a soft spot in my heart for Dashboard Confessional, the new single from the album "Alter the Ending" is not their best song ever, but I'm sure the album will be lovely. :) I'm still psyched!

Which album/movie/soundtrack are you looking forward to or repeating over and over right now?

More craftiness from em very soon, I hope - the goal is to get my portfolio website done this week (finally!!) and then I'll have some time to focus on the shop & scrapbooking - I am hoping to have some Christmas goodies for Bubbly Shnooks up by the end of October. :) Happy day!

The Skinny.

Ok folks, seriously. I don't often post about fashion, cuz..well, I'm still living like a student (a la, little to no budget for clothes + lack of cheap thrift stores nearby, I guess). But I get to go shopping for a few key fall items very soon (finally!!) and am psyched! However, since skinny jeans have become a style staple of indie and rocker alike (what, like, years ago?) I've been trying to shimmy my way into a pair or 5 with no luck every time I go shopping. Agh!

No luck. You see, I think they design these pants for girls with no calves. Which, you know, is fine. But there should be at least one company who thinks about calves when designing skinnies, no?

I walk everywhere, you see. I don't own a car. I used to dance ballet, too, before constantly climbing up hills here in town and building up said calve muscles. We're talking almost as wide as my thighs, here. lol...I love em, but oh-goodness am I dying for some gray skinnies.  

So please, oh please....if your legs have some curves and you fit into a pair of skinnies, where did you get em? Where else can I look? Help a girl out!!

Oh yeah, and I don't know how I missed these pics of Drew, but I change my style icon to just plain these exact outfits she's wearing. I could wear them everyday (but with a different tee daily, you see - lol). Call me boring, but that's what I strive for.

 

 

Not so fond of the brown boots or lace-ups, though, they'd need to be switched for some flat slouchy vintage goodies. :)

Where'd you get your skinnies?? :) Til next time...