Little Match Girl: February 2010

O Canada!

There's nothing like being in Ottawa while the Olympics are in Canada to make one proud to be Canadian!

I love this line that Chapters has going on. The Boy got me this canteen as a souvenir of our little Ottawa escape.

The world does need more Canada! Everyone would just be so polite, we'd never get anything done. :D

By the way, Canada totally just kicked Russia's ass in men's hockey! One of the rare occasions where the beaver will dominate the bear.

Ice Hockey: Canada routs Russia to reach semis

Yeah baby!

Inspiration: Trees

I can't get enough of trees. They have a peaceful, ancient aura about them that I love.

And I love that trees are the inspiration for jewelry, clothing, wallpaper and the like. Here are just a few of the great things to be found on Etsy.

wall sticker - contemporarydreams

tree of life necklace - ccvalenzo

jewelry stand - selinabeadsnbits

table stand - selinabeadsnbits

men's t-shirt - CritterJitters

Just the amount of tree-inspired jewelry that there is on Etsy is incredible! I could spend more hours (and money) browsing these than I care to admit.

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Just look outside your window for some inspiration.

I especially enjoy the look of the bare trees in my parent's backyard

You saw what our beach days were all about. Here's a glimpse at our day at the market in Varadero, an annoyed monkey and, the most memorable part of our trip, our Havana nights...ok, so we weren't in Havana, sue me!

This is a scooter rental place,

but the point of the picture is the cool Fidel Castro banner.

Statue of Pan in front of a pub in downtown Varadero.

A monkey in a dress on a goat -

I don't know why.

The inside of the hotel

Blue curacao with Sprite...pretty delicious

The guys smoked A LOT of cigars and cigarillos during the week.

It's a good thing we brought a few decks of cards -

drinking games and all-you-can-drink makes for very clumsy people.

Needless to say, we spilled many drinks, many times on the cards.

Keep Calm or Freak Out?

I've been seeing this poster a lot lately.

And I'm a little embarassed to admit that I had no idea what it was and that I was, in no way, inclined to even find. Then I came across it printed on a mug while shopping at the Bramble House with my mom. I had figured a while back that the poster was probably a British-thing (note the crown), and I figured who better to ask about this then my British mother. She didn't know.

I just found out that it was a propaganda scheme cooked up by the British Government in 1939 at the beginning of the WWII, in the event that Nazi Germany succeed in taking England. It was never distributed and it was only rediscovered in 2000. (source: Wikipedia. Don't judge, it has decent answers to all my questions.)

What prompted me to look it up was this:

Slogan by Olly Moss

I was browsing the t-shirts on threadless.com and came across this. I thought it was really funny, but felt like I was still missing something.

After looking it up, I checked out the image results for "keep calm and carry on" and some people are getting creative with this poster, using it as a template for different messages: "Get Creative and Make Things", "Keep Dogs and Carry On" "Don't Tell Me to Settle Down"

I think the "Now Panic and Freak Out" is the funniest. I would love to have both poster in the house, in different places and put the original in the entrance (or something) so people sit it first. It will be especially funny when people come across the second one.

This really opens the door personalize this poster for your home or office. Can you think of a clever slogan?

TGISB

Thank God it's spring break! Yesterday was my last class for a week, it ended on a sour note -we had the mid-term and it went miserably.

But I'm all about the silver lining. No class for a week, so I don't have to think about it. I can just mentally avoid the issue until next Thursday.

So I'm just going to sit here, have my coffee and enjoy the fact that I have nothing to do.

Have a good day, y'all!

Island Adventure - part 1

I miss Cuba...so I've decided to revisit by sharing some pictures of our little island adventure.

The Blau

Our "garden" view. I have yet to see how this is a garden

Complimentary bottle of rum

The beach

A classic

Wide open spaces

Pretty

Sunset on a tropical beach,

what more can you ask for?

And they laughed when I bought a disposable underwater camera.

I love this picture!

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It reminds me of the pool scene in Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes

Fickle

Clearly I can't make up my mind about what colours I want for my blog. But that's just the story of my life.

For now, I love the green and the aged look of the banner...but yeah, check back in a week.

lily & jae

Love at first sight!
I want these lily & jae dresses. And I adore how they look paired with the cowboy boots. I'm totally digging the western/roadtrip-through-the-southern-U.S. vibe of their spring collection.

is it really sad that I could just stare at these dresses all day?

It's too bad they don't have a retailer in Montreal (or in any other part of Quebec for that matter), I'm hoping they're planning on finding one though. For now, there is an online shop...and they do sell their collection at Victoire in Ottawa, which is exactly where I'll be in a few days. I don't know if they'll have this particular collection in, but their website is full of all kinds of great stuff!

Boots!

I love Zara and I love my new boots!
They had a great sale at on boots at Zara! I'm sure they had other stuff on sale too, but if there are leather boots on sale in a store, the rest of my world kinda fades. It took me forever to make up my mind, but I finally opted for these beauties.

They kinda have some of that "pirate boot" look from a recent post. Unfortunately, they aren't over the knee, but I can totally live with that considering what a steal these were.

I spent forever in the store agonizing between the black and the taupe. The taupe were gorgeous! and if it wasn't for the fact that I needed a pair of comfy black boots, I would have totally gotten them. I wish I could have just gotten both.

I really had to make an effort and choose the black. If I'm faced with a choice between black and any other colour, I will almost always go with the other colour, which leaves me with a closet full of very colorful pieces and barely any black to tie outfits together.

But now that I have made my choice and the taupe boots are out of the picture, I'm really happy with black!

folded and scrunched up

And I also love that these boots are tough enough to weather the harsh winter conditions...and that they are made in Spain -it's so refreshing when you find something that isn't made in China.

Wishful Thinking

So it seems like winter's on it's way out -emphasis on the word seems. This happens every year, sometimes several times. The weather gets warm, the snow starts to melt, we start taking out the lighter jackets, we start thinking of all the great things spring brings and our hope that hopeless, lifeless, desolate season that is winter has come to a close.
But just you wait, sometime in March, those hopes for spring will be dashed and we'll find ourselves knee-deep in freshly fallen snow. What's pretty in November/December (often October, let's be honest) is like a nightmare in March/April.

And after the fresh snowfall, comes the cold snap and the ice!

And a lot of the time, this cycle starts up again in April, albeit to a lesser degree...

Ah! The joy of Canada!*

*this comment is sarcastic and excludes the province of British Columbia, and especially Victoria.

It may not be as pretty as fresh snow,

but the important thing is that it melts...

even if it'll be back.

Silver lining: Just as the stores bring out the winter merchandise in August, they also bring out the summer clothes in February! It's bittersweet, all these new styles and flouncy materials and flowery prints are gonna have to wait another few months before they can really shine -it just isn't the same when they're hidden under layers and layers of clothing...but it is my light at the end of this very cold tunnel.

As per the usual, I love the American Eagle summer line