Everyday Ayla

Thanks!

2011-06-29T18:30:00.000-07:00

I wanted to make sure I did a quick shout-out to all the people who've been treating me amazing lately! I have some amazing friends, family, and almost-family (especially considering they've mostly been completely ignored in the last year). I've had cards and gifts and surprise parties and shopping trips! Sooo much more-so than I deserve.So I'm so appreciative of the congrats, even though I still don't feel like it's ended - its just on to the next project!
The monkey card is especially accurate - it says "If you can swing it... take some time to celebrate!" Well, it's been busy. After getting a job the day before the last day of school, I had 4 days to soak up doing nothing, before getting completely back into the swing of things...in real life this time. It's been almost a month now I think... and I'm finally starting to realise how lucky I am. I have an amazing job designing for a very well respected design/build firm in downtown Vancouver. I've been involved with some awesome projects, and (crazily enough) got introduced as "Ayla, a designer at our office" over and over today. (It was client meetings all day! Fun!) And can I just say - totally surreal! The amount of power I have over designs is also awesome (not just a cad monkey after all!) and I'm feeling very needed and appreciated at work (there were small fights over me :P) BUT I don't want to brag at all - this was all big fat plain LUCK! Sooo I'm not going to complain about the workload or the pressure or the fact that client's don't understand space planning when their 'space' is a box drawn on a napkin at a scale of their choosing - I am just going to enjoy and do my absolute best! Oh, and smile lots! Smile and nod. : D

Thanks again for all the support all ya'll - you know who you are! Love you!

Go Canucks!

2011-06-15T07:50:00.000-07:00

Tuesday Inspiration

2011-06-14T09:13:00.000-07:00

Found Here

Happy Tuesday Friends!

Hope you have a cheery one :)

Grad Show Display...

2011-06-12T19:41:00.000-07:00

Since I never took pictures at my grad show, I knew I wanted to do a little mock-up of what I displayed and take pictures... mom still hasn't seen it!

So I finally did that tonight. In reality, the grad show was in an open-office workstation at the Herman Miller showroom downtown Vancouver. It wasn't such a blank canvas, but anywho, here's what I did:

Portfolio stand on the right made by Ron, the tray held my business card and some take-home notebooks with my card clipped onto the front. And of course them there succulents (fake!)

The portfolio stand worked great for viewing at standing height, and got lots of comments! :)

The card design... on a tile of my favorite colour (I tried sooo hard to get my name to match the bright red/orange I wanted, but wasn't 100% happy.... I am not a graphic designer or photoshop officianado!)

So there's that - over a month later!

Purses

2011-05-19T12:12:00.000-07:00

Procrastinating and realising I need a woven basket purse for the summer! Etsy is full of vintage ones, I've discovered, and I am planning to pick one of the following:

Source

Final Material Board

2011-05-16T13:01:00.000-07:00

Finally remembered to bring this home from school today; a bunch of people's boards were stolen from the classroom this weekend so I was lucky it wasn't mine - I didn't even have a picture of it! So now I do. Phew.

Back at it with the construction drawings for this - its a luxury skybox for a record label of my own invention ("Moontide Records") which is a label for blues/roots/surfie type artists. Laid back, yet luxurious, with lots of green design thrown in (see recycled corrugated cardboard carved wall/ceiling feature).

Coming up on the final week...

2011-05-13T15:31:00.000-07:00

I wanted to do a quick blog post .... seems like yesterday I was counting down at 3 weeks, and now its 1 week (plus a 5 day extension on the major project) until school is done.
I'd wanted to chronicle everything during this intense school process, and enlighten people as to what it is we do as interior designers/design students. I don't know how to do that still, and simply haven't had the time to show a whole lot of stuff. When I have time I will upload the pages of my portfolio which was prepared for our grad show a week and a half ago... which went really well.... I officially decided I feel ready for the work world!

In this moment, as I think about my final gruelling week of homework and studying, I am:
- amazed at what I've learned to execute and create
- excited to get finished with school forever
- not looking forward to NOT seeing my 20 peers everyday (and so thankful for the amazing friends I've made)
- extremely excited to soon be able to clean my house and trash a whole wack of old work, boards, drawings, etc.! That will be sooo fulfilling and liberating!
- can't wait for the freedom of no school and the lovely summer to play in!
- can't believe how much work I still have to do ... wow. anxiety.
- a little nervous

But anyways, since I really don't feel like I can capture the feelings I have right now, I'll wrap it up.

The REALLY exciting news is that I just got called for an official interview where I had my work week/internship next week! This is like .... my dream job for right now. It's a lot of office planning, some retail, some institutional.... simple basic stuff, but its a large design/build office which means there are lots of resources, learning opportunities, ecological design practices, and the people are amazing, down-to-earth and personable and exactly who I'd like to work with and for. SO let's hope this means I can start work as soon as I graduate - I did not expect to be able to do that AT ALL !!! (I'm cautiously hopeful, as the phone call contained the words "we think we've figured out where to put you...")

So I am celebrating by eating the whole $5 little bin of raspberries I bought the other day! (they really shouldn't be eaten without an occasion)

expensive raspberries, reflected ceiling plan on stand to get into autocad.... renderings from Seniors housing project

Must Watch

2011-05-07T09:41:00.000-07:00

Advanced Style: Age and Beauty on Nowness.com.

don't forget to...

2011-04-27T18:50:00.000-07:00

Source: ruthlessjerry.tumblr.com via Christine on Pinterest

Long time no blog (I miss it!) BUT - only 28 more days until school is finishetinado!

(pronounciation: fin-eesh-ee-na-ta-doh!)

Modernism Week - shops and stuff!

2011-03-22T11:30:00.000-07:00

There is such an amazing selection of vintage shops in Palm Springs. You can pick from thrift stores (every other block has one it seems) and vintage/designer shops. These photos start out from the day we walked the design district street and wandered in and out of shops... Some vintage, some not.

Charming Hilary and some outdoor furniture

The beautiful Kristie at Trina Turk's Residential store

Vintage shop window

Pretties inside said vintage shop

Another vintage furniture store. Stacks of classics - love the Danish mid century modern teak stuff

A booth in the modernism show called Urban Burp - could have stayed there for hours!

Vintage cowboy fabric...

Kristie looking through the stacks of amazing fabrics

Sarah and I took home a yard of this ship fabric. I'm in love with my 1/2 yard, not sure what it will become yet though!

Best L.B.D EVER! check out that lace! I know it's blurry, but the bottom hem shows it pretty good... just scrumptious

Old posters sporting the most beautiful colours...

More old Classic pieces

This place is amazing. I am going to find it really difficult not to go again next year, but this time do more of the home tours and seminars that our silly school was too lazy to sign up for until it was too late. I HIIIIIGHLY recommend it; both the Modernism Show that runs every February, and Palm Springs itself.

(plus, my aunt has a spectacular place there, good to sleep 6! Anyone else in?!)

Fresh is Best

2011-03-21T18:21:00.000-07:00

This was my favorite thing I saw when first arriving in Palm Springs. Crispy fresh blue sky.

just another butterfly-style house taken drive-by-shooting style. Still lookin' fresh 50-some-odd years later.

The boys cooked one night. We had HUGE steaks and asparagus and potatoes. All Delicious. Mind you, that's Sarah, not a boy, in the fluorescent jacket (thrift store find!), but she never really left the kitchen : P

We peeked into a lot of houses this way... At least these guys had the decency to have built-in step stools for us!

FRESH Grapefruit. Best thing in the world right there. Yes, we jumped at every tree we could and stuffed them in our purses.

The Kaufman house, designed by Richard Neutra in the 1940s. It is phenomenal. (and FRESH!) If only we could have gone in...

Best ever fresh salsa! Hilary aces it!

More fresh lookin' architecture... haha like my theme yet?

The freshest Grapefruits ever .... an inside view... glorious!

More beautiful old and fresh architecture. Hurrah!

Ace Hotel Lunch

2011-03-17T18:06:00.000-07:00

It's about time I shared some goodness from my little trip to Palm Springs! (it was already a month ago!)

I'll start with one of my favorite places we went, the Ace Hotel.

We went for lunch after a morning spent walking the street in the Palm Springs Design District, which was breathtakingly lovely, as you can imagine. But stepping into this hotel's restaurant actually made my heart beat a little faster...

and now I'm dying to go stay at The Ace Hotel in Portland!

The little foyer; loved the Navajo-esque rugs and yummy leather chairs... not to mention: Macrame!

Yes, lots and lots of Macrame! I love that Palm Springs doesn't for a second deny it's 1960s celebrity status!

The Lovely Hilary, with her favorite style of print :)

Simple lovely table linens = yum

Buttery leather soft seating, globe lights, natural stone ... all laid back but super sleek at the same time

I fell in love with that tile... it had a pearlescent glow to it and was just pretty in such a simple way.

See the Macrame elephant sculpture on the wall? Now there's a reason to learn macrame!

Big beautiful windows with - get this - SUN streaming in! Not so great for photos like this, but I would never complain!

Cute little menu. Can you see why I took a picture of this page? ;)

I can't explain enough how inspiring it was to be around good, timeless design. Everywhere you looked there was something to look at and inspire. It just made me so happy.

Anyways, thats where a handful of us ate one day ... I'll try to share more this week as I'm doin' little to nothin' on Spring Break!

PS:

Here is a facebook album if you want to see lots of photos!

and another one .....

The Glamorous Life of .... me

2011-03-07T08:46:00.000-08:00

This is it for another 5 days.
Palm Springs suitcase still not unpacked.
Drawings splayed everywhere.
AutoCAD the only thing I've seen in a week.
But at least the morning sun looks good in here :D

Sidenote: I thought about moving the honeycomb cereal box, but let's be honest here ...
(at least my other 3 cups are out of the frame)

Palm Springs

2011-02-24T17:10:00.000-08:00

Modernism week in Palm Springs was amazing and beautiful and inspiring and oh-so-fun!

I want to share it bit by bit, but I don't really know where to start and I am really busy back at school now ...

So for now, a photo of us girls. Add 3 guys to it and you have our whole group. Loved it.

Happy Friday!

2011-02-11T17:04:00.000-08:00

I had a pretty so-so day, and by so-so, I mean nothing about it went good. But oddly enough, I'm in a great mood and kinda talkative and hyper and happy! Don't ask me how it hapenned.

Anyways, I got a mark back today that started with a 5 and ended with a 5 and then a %. yep. Beaut. But I had a good sit-down with the one who wrote those 5s down, and we decided it was a good learning experience! ha! In reality, my design was pretty, but it was also pretty complicated and hard to build, and therefore, with the nature of the drawings, I made it hard on myself. Such is the nature of Interior Design school. But what happenned next was, my good friend Sarah kindly tore the worst comment out of my mark sheet, chewed it up and will *poo it out later. And therefore, it never happenned.

* just kidding, she said she was going to poo it out but really she spat the pink wad into the garbage can.... just in case you wanted more clarity and specifics ...

That's us at the IDS West show, back in October. That's super motivating and insiring Caitrina on the right, who I also thank for this photo stolen from Fbook. And we are relaxing on the most beautiful Montauk sofa (I want) in between hauling free design loot around. Tiring. note: good lighting for making sofa look pretty, bad lighting for making people look pretty!

Oh Sarah, how I love you. I cried of laughter slash real crying, because then a few other classmates got all sympathetic and made me realise how much I needed sympathy for such a crap mark which made me feel worse... but at least Sarah took the worste part away. I shall love her forever.

Paula, sitting in Sarah's beautiful and comfy denim palette chair. Sarah's awesome at stuff, and since I love her, I dedicate this post to all kinds of awesomeness she has up her sleaves.

So, the weekend is here, and one week from right now I will be sitting in the sunshine of Palm Springs... Oh boy, do I ever need a lil' vitamin D. (I mean, I bought the capsules, but it's just not the same!)

Thanks for listening, have a good weekend internet!

2011-02-10T14:30:00.000-08:00

Didn't think so. ;)

Have you heard about Vivian Maier?

2011-02-09T18:39:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I haven't blogged about this yet!

I feel like a nerd saying somethin' like that... but it's true (so is my nerdinness)!

Vivian Maier (thanks mom for showing me this in the first place, by the way!) was a street photographer/nanny in Chicago who lived from 1926-2009. Her work was discovered way later (in 2009) after the photos had been taken, stored, some un-developed, and some still on the roll. Nobody had seen them.

Her images are amazing.

Here are some of my favorites:

There is a book and a film coming out some time soon, but for now you can keep seeing new images of the collection regularly on this blog: vivianmaier.blogspot.com

And watch a little preview of the film here: "Finding Vivian Maier"

Happy Friday!

2011-02-04T13:56:00.000-08:00

Random fact: I am not one of those people who thinks of cilantro as a garnish

I Have Seen The Rain

2011-01-29T10:47:00.000-08:00

Beautiful performance by Pink and her dad, Jim Moore.

I have never really been into Pink's music, but lately keep noticing myself gravitating to her sound; she's now my new favorite. This song, in particular, makes me cry; enjoy!

whats breaking my back today:

2011-01-27T20:41:00.000-08:00

it's a dental office reception desk. This is what I have to do to get my design built (in theory) - 20 hours and counting, even though you can't tell by what it looks like! I only have the specs left, haleluja, then onto (in no particular order):

a) building the floor of my wood frame house model

b) building a light fixture

c) drawing a 3D model on cad for design projects

d) drawing a bathroom in vectorworks

2011-01-08T15:24:00.000-08:00

Dear Anthropologie:

Can you please give me all your stuff?

Well, thanks for the daydream anyway.... click

How my Term is Looking...

2011-01-07T16:16:00.000-08:00

Blah, blah, blah (school's back in) start your engines!

This week was a good start to the last 20 weeks of school (ever)!

I have my Mondays off now, so the week started on Tuesday with Vector Works. Its a computer program that is used for 3D drawings (among other things, but that what we're using it for). This is the 3rd - THIRD - different piece of software for 3D renderings I'll be learning. Gotta hone those skills. Gotta hit all the bases. Gotta have a listy resume. . . !

Our instructor (also the president of AIBC - Architectural Institute of British Columbia) went through all the different commands and buttons on the program which was quite confusing, because some parts of it are like AutoCAD and some are completely opposite. Anyways, as we start to use it I'm sure it will be easier. It's supposed to be a lot more user-friendly than AutoCAD but that wouldn't be too hard now, would it?!

After lunch we started Interior Construction & Renovation class. In it, we look at how homes are built in wood framing. We took a bunch of notes about wood grades, spans and lengths and different framing styles, etc. By the end we will have completed a model that is a 3/8" = 1'0" scale model of a framed house with a foundation. She showed us examples of some and they were so cute!

Wednesday all day we have Design Projects. It was exciting to think of having a brand new project to design from conception to final drawings... at least that is what I was expecting. Instead we were given the assignment of revising our floorplan that we did on our IDEC competition (the eating disorder centre) and then adding more design elements, creating working drawings, ceiling plans, material and finish boards, millwork drawings, 3D models (which we now have the opportunity to do by hand, not computer) .... the whole works. So, it is pretty neat because we get to get detailed with what we've already done, and make it more 'finished'.

Thursday was Building Code. We will be taking lots of notes and memorizing a lot. This isn't something always included in design school; at least not this in-depth, but just another thing that makes us more valuable to prospective employers. Done at 11:30 Thursdays so the afternoon is for going to the gym!

Friday (today) the morning we have Lighting2; a continuation of the last lighting class. Our first assignment is to build a light fixture. It needs to be 80% recycled materials. Yay! I'm excited for this. And the second assignment, in partners, is a research paper. The topic we got is lighting for seniors; what is required and why. I kind of love this topic actually, because its all psychological and interesting. Older people need brighter lights because their eyes yellow. Some older people are even depressed because of the lack of light getting into their eyes. So if you feel like nursing homes are cold and bright, that is why it's done.

This afternoon we had Millwork and Furniture Design. It's an exciting one (even though it lasts 20 weeks and goes until 5:30 every Friday afternoon). We are doing millwork drawings for a dental office reception desk first. Then the millwork for our Design Projects (so the eating disorder centre's kitchen, library and reception desks). Then we get to go have classes in the joinery shop and build something! So excited! Once again, just another thing added at BCIT, nobody else gives Interior Design students this kind of hands-on joinery experience.

And that's it! For 10 weeks! And also, I get to go for a field trip to Palm Springs in there - February 18 - 22 to attend Modernism Week. We will see some amazing modern architecture and design from the 50s and 60s. I signed up for a tour of one of William Krisel's butterfly houses, like this:

I love it when design lasts like that! It's unreal. Seeing a home like that today would look modern. Imagine seeing it in 1960.

Holiday Pics

2011-01-04T20:34:00.000-08:00

I don't really feel like typing anything right now really, so here's just some pictures of what the holidays looked like for me. It was MIGHTY relaxing. Didn't do a very good job of getting pictures of much though...

Pile of handmade gifts! (we did well!)

Ruger's turkey!

He actually liked me a lot more than it shows here ... hehe loved havin him around (a guest pet as my cousin's family was out of town)

A typical moment in the living room...

The view out the window ...

Lynella and Tara - best mom/daughter duo ever!

Canmore's show on our way home... pretty!

New Years buddy, Elijah!

Ron and his buddy Sheldon, bringing in the new year...

2010-12-21T11:40:00.000-08:00

Lonny Magazine
It's more than anyone bargained for.
It's super inspiring every time I look at it.
It's ecologically sound, as prints are only made to order (for $34.95 a pop) and are on FSC paper.
It's free online.

Go see the holiday issue - so good!
And also the website has extra goodies!

Yay!

Feeling out Fonts

2010-12-17T00:54:00.000-08:00

the idea came to me the other day: what if i used a font that totally didn't match the thought associated with it; that could be kind of funny right?

So off I went to dafont

And I had a little fun...

I was surprised a little by the impact made by the font! I tried to think of something SO opposite of what that font was, but then I'd type it in, and sometimes, it really didn't look all that off! Y'think?

Beautiful Things

2010-12-16T14:00:00.000-08:00

2010-12-15T23:13:00.000-08:00

The last 3 days I've done ab-sa-loot-ley nothing! Its wonderful! Well, actually I did read a Shopoholic confessions thingy book. I don't normally like them, I think I tried reading one before, but this time I just soaked it up - hehe but I find myself wanting things now. Its not a real good thing. But, let me tell you, I'm not just wanting measly fancy clothes and shoes, I mean things that are like crazy awesome too . . .
Par example . . . (I think I just threw in a little French there!)

This pantry. Now, don't ya'll be phoning me at once complaining that I brought on the jealousies with you too! Its tough this wantin' businness!

from this blog, house of smiths

Tomorrow I shall organize my life - school stuff, papers, bills, clothes, printers (there are 2 sitting on my bedroom floor right now not in operable condition!), cupboards, purses .... so there!

Arbutus House: Centre for Eating Disorders and Depression

2010-12-07T18:10:00.000-08:00

The final product. . . and then we had enough time to sigh with relief and do a little happy dance for about 4.8 seconds. . .

On the plus side - only one big submission and 2 exams left!

Healthcare Facilities Research!

2010-11-22T12:13:00.000-08:00

Today marks the start of a new project.
An international student competition sort of project. And this year's differs from others because it has pretty well no parametres other than being a healthcare facility. we have this week to research and find out what our community needs, where a good location would be, and how we plan to implement our solution. They are giving us such a broad topic to make us think about helping others and the need for doing pro-bono work at times and what that might entail. So I definitely have a lot of research to do (yay for living with a nurse!) to find out what our healthcare system is lacking at the moment and how we can offer something different in the form of a facility.
We will be judged on :
- Quality of Research & Sources
- Support of goals and design concepts in the executed design
- expression of the clients needs expressed in project
- space planning: functionality/flexibility/accessibility
- aesthetics: imagination/creativity
- life safety, health and welafre issues successfully addressed
- sustainable decision making
- presentation & craftsmanship
All sections are worth 10% (with a grand total of 80% - ok so math isn't our strong suite?!)

And you thought interior design was all vases and cushions :)

now to finish up all the assignments we kindly got extensions on ... : P

If you can, please pass along any info you may have or contacts that I could talk to about what other healthcare services/facilities we need in the lower mainland!

"Aint got no...." (time)

2010-11-19T15:21:00.000-08:00

A very good reminder for me! Even though I aint got no time....

Happy weekend!

2010-11-14T19:15:00.000-08:00

2 DOWN!

3D Rendering - Art Gallery

2010-11-11T13:57:00.000-08:00

Here is a project I just completed. Literally JUST. So I'm celebrating a little by blogging. :)

Just 3 views of an art gallery we were given the plans for. All I designed is the finishes and lighting; and I picked the lovely artwork :) I have become infatuated with sketchy portraits. Its a new love. Anyways, I hope you like it! I seemed to have troubles with every step along the way in this drawing, but the end result looks a lot better than I thought it would. Still annoyed about the colour of the big chandelier though, I wanted it to be deep mossy green but no matter how dark I made it, it kept looking yellow when I added the lights...

Oh boy are my shoulders sore from doing autocad autocad autocad... and 2 more projects to go for Monday....

Thats all for now!

PS - I just noticed the last banister floating off the ground! Haha - woops!

Tomorrow....

2010-10-27T22:01:00.000-07:00

I am going to a talk by Demetrios Eames. He is the grandson of none other than Charles and Ray Eames. So yes, a tad bit excited I am.

And for those of you who haven't heard of the husband and wife design duo, maybe these mid-century modern iconic beauties will spark your memory...

Uh, yes.

I predict we will get to hear a bit about the Eame's design process and philosphy, indoor spaces, design and .... design!

I will take notes.

Oh and, yes I have been really busy and not blogging. I assure you, the busy-ness has been far less glamorous than what I have on tomorrow. Tomorrow will look like the following:
6am - wake up
6:45 - get to the gym at school, work out...
7:45 - shower and get ready
8:15 - have a pancake breakfast in the construction shop for United Way (mmmmm...)
8:30 - 3D rendering class
12:00 - head to BCIT's downtown campus for Eames seminar (did I mention it is just my class he is speaking to?!)
3:30 - head to HOK's Vancouver Office on Homer St. for another interesting talk
4:30 - go home and finish a biiiiig AutoCAD assignment for Friday morning!

2010-10-10T16:11:00.000-07:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am having my turkey tomorrow - today is for homework! It really doesn't feel like thanksgiving yet, but it is finally feeling like Fall, and I am really enjoying it. I was treated to a trip to Chase, where we watched the Salmon run at Adams River with the boy's family. It was a much-needed break and so good to spend time with my (other) family! we stayed at a resort that was gorgeous, the weather was perfect and fall-ish, and everyone had so much fun. The Salmon were interesting... I will show you some pictures, don't mind the dead fish .... haha! Here's what its all about, for those who don't know (like me before I went!):

"After fighting strong currents and rapids, the salmon are bruised and battered and their skin has changed to a deep red colour and their heads turn green. The salmon return to the same place where they began their life to spawn. The females lay around 40,000 eggs, the males develop humped backs and hooked snouts. They both guard the nest until their death and the cycle begins again. "

The resort where we stayed one luxurious night

(4 pillows for 1 person, white bedding and down duvet = my kind of sleeping arrangement!)

The traffic director at the entrance to the park - I thought it was cute!

All of the water just looked like this...

Some fish eggs nestled in the rocks

Fish accross the bank.

This guy was huge!

Uncles and nephews a-plenty!

Grandsons can never get enough of Grandpa!

He'd point and say "He's done" ... haha funny how easily kids get it sometimes

Me and the boy's feet...

This cutie again - cuter and cuter these days!

So I am super glad I got a little break this weekend! I got my projects done for Thursday, I've posted my telephone bench here for you to see, and lots of other stuff stressed me out, I was getting sick, but now I'm feeling better already since I've had a couple days of rest! Perfect! K, back to the homework now!

I thought I would give a little recap of the week ...

2010-10-02T06:53:00.000-07:00

... it seems like the weeks go by soooo fast, I know this whole year is just going to be a total blur and I want to be able to remember some little details!
(sorry this is long ... there I warned you)

Monday
Design Theory: we handed in our concept boards for the auction item. Little did anyone know, we also presented them (it seems like we present everything we hand in these days). My concept was good, but my board was not. Printer issues with the colour printer at school, then no time to make it prettier in black and white .... so I am re-doing it before the actual auction where this will be on display. Everyone else had beautiful concept boards and ideas and I can not wait to see the final products!

History - we had another lecture. This year we started on modern design history, which started around 1910 and continues today. So far, past weeks the lectures have taught us Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and a few other small movements. Today we learned about the beginning of the Bauhaus. So much of the furniture designed there is still available to buy today and still looks super modern; I can't imagine seeing it in those days. Pretty cool minds.Also, seeing pictures of modern homes sitting next to the tradition "of the time" ones, was just crazy. Love it.

Tuesday
Space Planning - this is an 8:30-3:30 class! A little long for my liking. But we got from 8:30-1:00 to finish our space planning project we got last week. It was not meant to be 'pretty', but to be a preliminary plan that works as far as adjacencies, traffic, sound, fitting people, getting people sunlight, everythings wheelchair accessible (which, most of us forgot about doing that for the front door so making the rest of it accesible was pretty pointless! haha!), and such .... but even though it was a 1-week project (with two 4-hour labs) it was worth 20% so the pressure was on pretty bad. And we were working in a 1/8 scale instead of the 1/4 that we are used to so it was kind of hard. But the plan was so big we didn't want to enlarge it. I had mine readyt to just make a final copy of, but I needed to straighten lines and re-measure furniture and such. It ended up taking the whole time because I totally re-did my open office space. Anyways, after 1 o clock we presented our finished project, just free-hand in pen. Then we put them all up on the walls and Michelle and Manon (instructors) went around and discussed the good and bad of each one. This took for-eeeeeever. And we stood from 1 until 3:30 without a break. I don't know why, but I guess it was enjoyable for the instuctors. Mine was second to last so by that point nobody cared and the teacher had seen too many super good ones - haha - and as it turns out, the scale of my furniture in the entire open office area was totally off and wouldn't have fit if I had drawn it properly. I swear I measured 1/8, i don't know how that hapenned! Some other people did it too, but.... bah I hate stupid mistakes.

Wednesday
AutoCad - In AutoCAD we basically had a lab because the instructor was going to teach us stuff but she kept talking about super elementary stuff we all know so I just kept working on my project. Our project in this class is an office space plan where we have to do a big reno with construction walls, demo walls, existing walls, and the same for the plumbing, equipment, and furniture. There are requirements for each room, etc. Boring.

Comm - awe. I love Communications (business; writing) this year. Our instructor, Deanna, reminds me of Julia Child. The way she talks with big fluctuation in her voice, and so sweetly, but she'll also surprise you with some things you wouldn't expect to hear from her mouth! Making fun of people and such. Anyways in this class we are writing a formal proposal to BCIT or our department, on a topic of our choice. Its actually really good to see how one writes a proposal and its amazing that by doing what the guidelines tell you, it actually does make it convincing! So we got lab time for that and I got mine almost finished. Its a proposal to get all ergonomic equipment for the computer labs in the school. I just need Deanna to read it over again, then I can fix and I'm done. But we got a one-week extension because everyone was complaining we have too much due next week! Haha - well, works for me!

Thursday
3D Cad - We got time to work on our projects again - this one is a little corner of an office with desk, chair, shelf, accessories, etc. 3D autocad was super hard at first.Now I'm getting the hang of it. And in future we will be able to import "blocks" of furniture from websites and suppliers of furniture, which makes it sooo much easier to not to have to actually build the furniture line by line. Anyways, it was good we got lab time for this too, except everyone's was sooooo nice compared to mine! So I want to work on it and really step it up this week, its due on Thursday.

Materials - Hmmmm materials we got "lab time" to work on our auction item. most people just went home! Including me, who had a headache and needed a nap cause I skipped going to the gym this morning.

Friday
Graphic Presentation - We handed in sketches of a proposal we started last week on the broadcast building on campus. Last week we went over and traced it through transparencies, interior and exterior views, then you can go back with trace paper and make your wavy lines that you drew while holding a transparency in mid-air into lines that make sense, and then you develop it into a sketch that the client will have no idea we actually didn't have to figure out the perspecitve of on our own! (thats one sentence!) I dont know how to explain it better without showing you and I don't have pictures! So I went to make photocopies of my sketches to hand in in the morning, and of course the 2 copiers are both down. one no toner, the other now paper. I was mad. Which was worsenned by looking at everyone else's work which was amazing! Ugh. I hate handing things in that I am not proud of in the least! Anyways, in class we learned about making graphic bubbles. That sounds ridiculous.... but designers use bubble diagrams to figure out adjacencies on a floorplan and show relationships before it gets developed into blocky rooms or walls. So she taught us how to make them look representable and something we could show a client, with a legend, colour-categorized (public space, support space, accounting department, etc.) and showing the most important adjacencies with arrows of different types, graphics showing the views on each side of the building, and we also used colours to show the path of traffic through the building - primary and secondary circulation. So we had an hour to do ours and hand it in. The name of the game was to not get too caught up in the actual space plan of the bubbles, and work on the graphics, font, clarity....because thats what she would mark. Lots of people were disgusted to have to hand in such a "mess" - haha - but I think its supposed to be kinda messy anyways. My kind of work! Then she showed us what we will be working on next. Because at the end of all this there will be a graduate show where we all have our portfolios, businness cards, resumes and work to show a bunch of people from the industry and such (who we have to make invitations for). We are starting with businness cards next week so she brought in some interesting ones for us to look at. We quickly concluded that anything too small or "tag-like" looking, we would have thrown out. There is something valuable about the standard size and shape of a businness card, there is no question what it is. So I have a few ideas I need to work on, and I am pretty excited! Next week we will learn about resume graphics (I'm so curious what that means exactly) and eventually we'll have a whole package that says "ME!". Fun stuff. Oh and also, in this class we had made a poster for our charity auction upcycled item, and my group won! Ok, well they only told us the top 3, but ours totally rocked so we probably won fully. I should find a jpg of that to show off to you!

Lunch - there was a guy named Paul Downton talking at our school about Eco cities and the changing climate. It was pretty standard issue information, but he was good and interesting and claims to have a book that is "too expensive". He's an Aussie though, so I like him :)

Lighting - aaaah lighting. Everyone is so ready to go home at this point.But lighting is really interesting. Today we learned about the psychology of light and how if everything is the same value of light in a room, the brain interperets it as a cloudy day, and you get depressed. Its true, studies show depression. This can also happen in elderly people with cataracts - they really need to brighten up their spaces if they want to be happy! Other than that, just talked about residential lighting a lot and how to do things to avoid crappy things hapenning. And then....home time!

So, looking back, it seems we had a lot of lab time this week. It is nice that they try to give us a considerable amount of time in class to do stuff, but it wasn't really like this the first couple of weeks, so I hope it does continue. Now its saturday and I am going to work on autocad, 3D and my auction item (its almost half done already) - lots of fun!

Classmate's Vlog:

2010-09-25T10:35:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to share with you .... PEARL!

Shes a sweet gal in my program and will be vlogging our journey through this treacherous land of BCIT INTD 2nd year full-time!
Soooo if you feel like having a deeper view of what we dooooo and stuff like that, she will show you and talk to you and she's pretty funny too. Oh, and you might see me in some of the videos. And you will definitely see our ugly ugly school. Here is last week (not to be confused with THIS week) - subscribe to her on Youtube and you will get all her vlogs!

Cya later alligators!

School & Recycling

2010-09-23T22:27:00.000-07:00

I am super duper busy spending long days with these guys! Thats everyone in my program, plus 2 of our main teachers. What an awesome groupe of people; SOOOO great to work with and just really cool. It's good, because we will be spending A LOT of time together!

I need to write a concept and make a concept board type thing for my upcycled-item-for-auction item (I think I mentioned it in my first 'school' post). I want to take a photo of the item(s) before and then the item after, which will end up being a telephone table/bench like they used to always use because phones had little cords and you had to sit by it to talk! Not all that common anymore .... so these pieces of furniture are a bit novel now, although fun and interesting! ...but, y'know, something like these:

The one I ended up finding looks sort of like the below one though, except the magazine rack part is between the side table and the seat...

Not as purdy, but it is going to do the trick (and I was really worried I wouldn't find one at all!)

So the whole concept is that we don't need these pieces anymore....and we don't need cords....so let's put them together to make something really unique!

I will be wrapping old (useless, discarded, tangled) cords from phones, tvs, computer equipment, etc. ALL around the frame. I will just recover the chair with some recycled fabric and other than that it will be all cords!

Its a whole "done with the past, look to the future" scrappy type of thing. Okay, I dunno, I am trying to explain it to myself as I type it too and I'm not sure exactly how my concept is going to be portrayed! I was thinking of getting an old telephone to sit on there as well. Maybe connect it to the table top. And make it so that it hides a charging station for your ipod/phone/cell phone....to give it more of a purpose.... I actually just thought of that as I was typing.... Initially I wanted to do that with a drawer or shelf, but since my telephone bench doesn't have that, maybe adding a phone to it would be better! But I was thinking maybe I would use the phone bit as a concept 'board' and explain the piece by writing things on the phone or somehow attaching it to a sign. Or make a speach bubble coming out of the phone? Or I could do that whole thing ON a board. Yeeeeeaaaah.... like ............. (hello Picnik....)

I love Picnik. So then that could sit on the piece at the actual auction on the day. And it could just have a 'part' in my concept board that she wants on Tuesday. I hope to have to whole thing at least CLOSE to completed this weekend, so I will share pictures then.

Does anyone have any good ideas of how to make it obvious that it would be for a charging station? I think just connecting an extension cord to it would work, but I think there should be spaces/holes/pockets to put your phone/ipod etc. so it is more "thought-out" looking than a dangling extension cord from the back of it! Comment lots of ideas please!

I wanted to write more and make this a proper blog post, but I can't be bothered and I think sleep is more important and I am trying to be good about going to bed early. Sooo this is it for now!

top 5 tips when thinking about lighting in the home

2010-09-17T12:24:00.000-07:00

My aunty Sue was wondering....

"Sue Nimegeers said...

I need help with my lighting....give me your top 5 tips when thinking about lighting in the home!!?? "

I kinda love this topic so I'm gonna write a quick response while I'm on my lunch break!

#1. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR
- If you see 2 bulbs that look the same by the label other than their prices, always go for the more expensive one. You will get better quality light, colours that are true, long lasting equipment, and you will be happier for it!

#2. Always use more than one light source .... so, have your task lighting (lamps or wired-in lighting for particular tasks), your accent lighting (accenting art, an alcove, etc.) and your ambient lighting (most of us think of it as a ceiling mounted light). Referred to as "LAYERING light", it makes a room individual and interesting. Put it in in that order, using the ambient lighting to balance it out. But make sure there are still "pockets" of light, and its not over-lit, which destroys the whole purpose of layering light. Which brings me to ....

#3. BALANCE the values in the room. Yes, you always want light, medium and dark values in a room and light can help with this. Note: everybody reacts differently to different uses of colour in a space, but everybody reacts the SAME to lighting. Everyone will always look first at the brightest thing. So, if you want everyone to notice the circle of light attached to your ceiling first, make that your brightest spot. : D ... but that's not the "brightest" design idea...hehehe!

#4. I will say, for environmental purposes, use CFL (compact fluorescents) instead of incadescents. This is where you will DEFINITELY get value for money, and the colour rendering, warmth, etc. is no longer
inferior to that of incandescent. I promise you. Also, people who say they get headaches and such from fluorescents are wrong. They get it from the glare that comes from the way they're being used. Improper lighting techniques can not be blamed on the bulb used!

#5. If you have Halogens or BR-Lamps or PAR-lamps (R38/PAR30/20 commonly used if you have recessed or "pot" lights), do not touch them when installing. They'll burn out fast (and they're innefficient incandescents to start with!).

And another note, because it drives me crazy when they are done wrong: bathrooms or change rooms (retail especially) should have more than 1 light source. The absolute worste thing to do is stick a light right above your head shining down on you. It creates big shadows that highlight under eye circles, cullulite, and everything we hate about our bodies! If you HAVE to have a light straight overhead then at least have another one that is wall-mounted in front of you (think behind or beside the mirror) or on a wall to the side of the mirror, to counteract all those terrible shadows. Swimcois the absolute WORSTE for this! Their sales would probably double if they lit their change rooms properly!

Hope this helps! See-ya later!

You got time to click on links, right?!

2010-09-09T19:05:00.000-07:00

Oh thank you all so much for the sympathy comments! Its just what I needed! Really, I don't know what it is about comments but they really add so much to the blogging experience! ;) Especially those of you coming out of lurker status. . .

Class today was ... hmmmm.... long. exhausting. overwhelming. eye-openning. interesting. exciting. motivating.

I could go on and on about how great my new instructor is. She's the head of the 2nd year of Interior Design at BCIT. She teaches, I think, 5 of my classes, so the 22 of us in full time will get to know her well, and I can tell, it will be a relationship worth having! I don't even know where to start... she has stopped designing as a career and focused on teaching now, but she also always has her head planning something else as well. Like this summer she organized a design tour of London with a group of 8; she invited "huge, internationally known, Interior Designers" and all showed up except one. They gave seminars and toured the city from a design perspective. She also has taken on the task of introducing BCIT students to the concept of Biomimicry; this year will be the second year with it in our course content. She's taken seminars on it through Janine Benyus - and you need to take twenty minutes to go watch her talk about it - and is convinced that this is the way to design, to solve every problem, and will be HUGE (instead of "eco-efficiency") in a good, big way. She also foresees biologists being present at the table of designers, architects, clients, engineers, etc. in the initial planning stages of a built project. So she is also developing a 2-year diploma program in Biomimcry to begin at BCIT (currently only available at the Toronto College of Art and Design, as far as Canada goes). We are so lucky to get to learn more about this as it is still somewhat in its infancy, and will be such a valuable asset for us.

She also has extended education in lighting design and so is able to teach us a lot - so valuable, as in this field, the lighting aspect really needs more course room than it gets! She has made sure that BCIT gets 95% more education in lighting than any other Interior Design courses available in Western Canada. What else...she set up a program where students went and studied in Italy a few years ago, in a remote area that didn't even have so much as a postcard available to buy. She then decided to buy a little cottage there because she fell so in love (the photo of the view she showed us was amazing). Today she was wearing a necklace made of bycicle inner tubes and old wire. It was all spiky and scary, and was pretty awesome. She is not the type of instructor who teaches the curriculum the same over and over and over again, she likes to change it up and keep herself interested, therefore, new stuff is always coming up. Cool. So now that you have a little picture of her...

Today in the morning we had Materials2. We learned lots about "efficiency" as taught in "Cradle to Cradle" (get yourself a copy! Or watch him talk on Ted) and then Biomimicry. We watched a video on landfills in the US, which was pretty insightful. It made me think: how many things do I touch in a day that I will throw "away". "Away" really is quite the concept, as it really can't go too far!
I challenge you to count yours! Every paper towel. Coffee cup. Tissue. Cheese wrapper. Napkin. Razor. Soap bottle.

I am super excited about this class because we will really analyse what "green" is and which building materials actually are, and which ones just tout the "chlorine free" or "green" or "natural" or "pesticide-free" horns. . . not to be cynical, but find out what they DO have in them, where they DO come from, how they ARE made... that means a lot more. The other assignment we have for that class is to recycle a found object or piece of garbage, make it desireable and new again, and they will be auctioned off at the 2nd annual BCIT Farmers & Artisan Market on October 8th. All proceeds will go to charity. We're also going on a tour of the Vancouver Landfill in a couple of weeks. We'll be goin to the Gaining Ground Conference (we get to pick which seminars we attend), HOK offices, participating in the Canadian IDEC competition, and we will also go to a green roof seminar.
(yes, all this just for materials class!)

Sooo much to think about, all buzzing around in my brain. And thats not to mention the Lighting class that was this afternoon (lots of review and new knowledge) and AutoCAD (the 2011 progam seems to be giving me lots of trouble. ugh.).

I think I am going to start a blog where I share my Interior Design projects, assignments, inspiration and ideas more. I feel like it needs to be a bit seperate, and less personal, so I will post that here soon.

Thanks for reading on! Sorry, I didn't mean to make this go on forever, but think how crowded it must be in my brain right now! Now go get educated by Ted!

Where have all my commenters gone?!

2010-09-08T23:10:00.000-07:00

First day of school! I'd thought I would write all about it in analytical detail. But its not looking that promising right now. You see, it is hard to keep blogging when the comments keep reading 0! And I know for a fact that there were 16 people here yesterday, 10 the day before that, and 21 the day before that. So come out of the millwork and give me a little love! Come on people! Otherwise forget it, I'm striking. I won't tell you about my first early morning start, heading to the school gym where I got my locker set up, my little jog around the park....or about having a lovely little shower and getting set up with laundry service so that my gym clothes and dirty towel are washed up for me every day. (I paid for it til June to keep me going every day!) But whatever, I'm not telling more about that... Or about playing bongo drums in a big cirlce for orientation. Or about our teachers advice ("If they catch you sleeping in the classrooms in the middle of the night they will kick you out... I guess they don't want you to literally live here... but if you bring a sleeping bag and just do an hour at a time under your desk they probably won't be able to catch you...") or classroom (We're supposed to plaster it with inspiration and we can even paint it! [as if we could all ever decide on a colour scheme]), or my shiny new outfit I wore and the ruffly new bag I carried. Nope. None of it. :)

- ayla

Boy's Birthday / Etsy Love

2010-09-06T18:22:00.000-07:00

How cute is this card I got made for Ron, by CookieBits! I was super impressed, and I think I'll be back to her shop for more hand cut cards!

I also got him this vintage bowling shirt from BeyondTheDoor on Etsy. It's to make him more of a player, just like Charlie (haha!). We Love our Two & a Half Men! I should get a picture of him in it though, it looks great on him!

AND this Agenda is in the mail (I can not wait!) from Etsy seller An Artful Agenda

There's my Etsy love from the last little while .... always another great shop to be found. Got any new favorites to share?!

Happy Birthday Dearest!

2010-09-04T13:06:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Ron's Birthday at our house with a few friends...just food and good conversation!

We had some tasty pizzas (chicken/taco bbq and proscuito/feta), stuffed b.l.t. tomatoes, strawberry walnut salad, homemade limeaide and angel food cake ....there were fantastic cards to read and gifts to open, a little cutie to make us all smile, candelight for our lightless-living-room, beachy tunes, crayons and paper tablecloth to sketch on... and my very own amazing young chap, in a sparkly green birthday crown (with no evidence of that to be found!).

It was so much fun to entertain (for once!) and try some new recipes, and everything worked out well! I love our friends, you all made it a great evening in and a perfect way to celebrate a birthday!

Ron, you make me so happy and you deserve soooo much happiness. I hope this year is your favorite one yet!

Maybe the sky is crying because summer is over...

2010-08-31T14:37:00.000-07:00

Fox and the Sound

2010-08-31T14:29:00.000-07:00

Don't Stop Believing - Journey Acoustic Cover

My friend from highschool, Kendra's band. She sounds a-flippin-mazing! Way to go girl! I still remember the first time I heard her sing, and I was like "woah, do that again!"

Us

2010-08-27T10:22:00.000-07:00

We're around the 4 year mark now. We think. Not too sure. Hard to determine, really.

Photos by Susie :)

Tour de Bedroom

2010-08-25T18:29:00.000-07:00

I've finally got my bedroom to an organized enough state that it can now be proclaimed: Good Enough

Moved in June 1st, so it has been 2 months! Anyways, this is the green room now (plus a little 60s effect; couldn't resist!):

My $20 craigslist find of a dresser, which really needs a coat of paint. And some better knobs. I forgot it had knobs AND pulls when I bought the green flower knobs, so it looks a bit weird. Oh well, good enough!

And the cute summer quilt, made by my momma!

No, I do not have a bedskirt but I am accepting donations. Grin.

The closet corner of my room. And an old sled. And some art of me, raindrops and a black and white postcard.

Then you can see my drawers on top of my "Razzberry" table.It works, since I didn't have enough drawer space in the dresser. Stack of magazines are a perfect alternative to hanging the mirror! haha ... or the lazy man's way...

The shelf of doooom! But everything has a place and its all very find-able! From Halloween decorations to textbooks to greeting cards, flooring samples, my passport and highschool diploma - its ALL there!

The stack of books I'm reading:

Cradle to Cradle McDonough/Braungart:

You MUST read this book if you are even remotely interested in our efforts to 'greenify' the way we live. This gives a fresh perspective, written by an Architect and a Chemist who have been researching and studying this field for the past 20 or 30 years. Its very interesting, and I have to read it for school this Fall, and it was recommended to read it and take notes over the summer. It talks about remaking the way we make things. And how being 'less bad' is 'no good'. Excellent stuff, seriously, you will be surprised. (can't wait for the class we're reading this for!)

"Things that have come to pass" Me:

This is actually just a diary that my best friend Nicki gave me when I turned 8. There are things written in it from that age until now. I plan to keep it up until I die! Its my only "real" diary.

Oh Ye Jigs & Juleps! Virginia Cary Hudson:

I came accross this book at a thrift store, and had to have it: It was written by a 10 year old girl in the early 1900s and is just like her daily essays of her view on life. Super cute and fun to read but I haven't read it all yet!

Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life Karen Rauch Carter:

Pretty much the best book I've encountered about Feng Shui. If you're curious about the ancient Chinese practice, read this book, she makes it very easy to understand for us westerners! I love learning about Feng Shui, and I can tell you it hasn't been practiced for hundreds of years because it doesn't work!

Simple Abudance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy Sarah Ban Breathnach:

I was in the habit of reading this everyday but haven't been so good at it lately. I always looked forward to reading the page or two dedicated to each day. It makes you notice and love the simple things a bit more I guess, and makes me want to cook, clean, garden, decorate and do everything with simplicity and, well, abundance! Truly a worthwhile book, every woman should read it for a year, or even continually would probably be cool.

Sorry, were you expecting fiction?! I can't remember the last one I read. Used to love them, but really, I just don't even bother trying anymore... Meh, I enjoy me some learning material anyways.

happy day!

Vintage Typography

2010-08-24T12:48:00.000-07:00

I love any type of vintage typography or graphic design.
Actually let me rephrase that. I love vintage.

But this stuff - they had to DRAW this stuff. With pencils and paper. I don't know, it's just more real looking to me. I found this link via twitter, and I think I re-tweeted it, but because I'll never go find it there, I thought i would:

a) let you enjoy it and
b) put it in my blog archives!

The page of way more of these is HERE

I don't even know if the ones I chose to show here are my favorites, so definitely check it out!

Inspiration Archive

2010-08-22T23:08:00.000-07:00

A regular customer at work who is a structural engineer and knows that I'm taking Interior Design came in yesterday and handed me a disc he'd burnt of different Architecture/Design photos he's archived for inspiration!

Nice guy, eh?! I was pretty happy.

There are hundreds of pictures, each one so inspiring and original and I know I will reach to that new folder on my desktop many times this coming year!

Here are a few that I've found inspiring today:

There are so many equally as great, the guy has great taste (in my humble opinion) so I am excited to have an inspiration archive!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Heavens to Etsy

2010-08-18T14:11:00.000-07:00

Before:

After:

(or click above)

Etsy has changed their whole layout AND Blogger has changed again since I was last online! It has been awhile. . . But some new items are brewing for Dust & Dawn around here. As you can see, more Melamine will be a part of that! Yay!

What have you been up to, darling blog readers?

Kittens Inspired by Kittens

2010-08-10T23:50:00.000-07:00

I used to have this book, simply entiteled "Kittens", and I remember looking through it over and over again, assigning a personality to each kitten. But honestly, this little girl does the most amazing job of it. - funny!

found via Kelly McCaleb's blog

Sorry I have not posted in a long time, but my to-do list is sooooo looooong . . .

Thanks, I knew you'd forgive me. ;)

$8 Art

2010-07-23T12:02:00.000-07:00

My latest find at ValueVillage, from a Manitoba artist! I love the saying...

Not entirely sure about the little man, but I'm sure he'll grow on me!

Recent Loves

2010-07-23T00:30:00.000-07:00

What do these two things have in common?

I love them!

Squirrel it is not

2010-07-09T10:59:00.000-07:00

Did I mention that this cute little fella resides in my backyard?

One day when I came home from work at 10:30pm she was standing in front of my step... and I scared her a little when I finally saw her (I think I was texting at the time and nearly walked right into her!) then I ran up my steps and she got up all backed against the fence.... then ducked into a hole and took off. But boy was that a close one! Now I am so paranoid about being outside (so much for enjoying that hammock!) or leaving the door open or anything! I took this picture last week, the first morning I saw her, but at least then it was from accross the whole yard. The thing is, she's like a baby so there must be more somewhere, no?

I just know I am that clumsy bimbo who'd get sprayed by a skunk, so what do I do?!

by the way, I have begun my love afair with Picnik.com. It has photo editing stuff for free, which is, in my opinion all one needs. It even has those photoshop effects like posterize, film grain, cross process, etc., that seem to work quite dandy! So far I've created my new header and my rosie picture, and its really quick and fun!
However, all of my Polaroid-style photos I make using "Poladroid" which I think everyone should download, it's so fun, you get a little polaroid camera that sits on your desktop and spits out a polaroid whenever you drag a photo into it. You even get to shake it and watch it develop. :)
my house is hot
and did i mention i have a skunk living in my backyard?
oh and i'm finally getting a decent wireless plan and a blackberry. woot!

Canoe-dalling

2010-07-08T15:28:00.000-07:00

Thank-you to all who played along in my little guessing game! You were ALL right! hahaha....

See the green rod in the hitch?! Okay well it is hard to see, but it is easy to see that the Canoe is resting on it. He was sure he gave it all away when the green thing went in, but I didn't have a clue what it was for!

I didn't take any pictures of us paddling, but once we got to the other side of the lake, we just enjoyed our own little private beach :

The boy sittin on his "throne". He made me one too after this!

He even packed a game of snakes and ladders! Here's a picture of how bad he beat me the first round! He caught every ladder up! But I beat him the next 2 rounds : P

The glacier-fed water certainly felt good, but it took a few yelps to get to the fully submerged stage!

total bliss.

Guessing game...

2010-07-08T11:37:00.000-07:00

the boy had a surprise activity planned for the day....
we got in his truck with our bathing suits, shorts, lunch packed in a cooler, and a blanket.
we drove until we got to his mom and dad's house (i thought, oh great, we're going to clean his tool trailer which is parked in their yard) where he went into the shop to reveal ..... (excitement mounting yet?!) a big long green metal rod with a little horizontal bar accross the top and bits at the end that stuck up. Stuck this mossy coloured creation into his hitch and got back into the truck. As we drove to the front of the yard I was instructed to go in the house and get a jug, ice, drinks, etc. and find some old beach towels because we forgot that. Out front, boy backed up to the trailer, which clearly wasn't going to mount onto the hitch with that green rod. . . I still couldn't figure it out.
Can you?
Well, then the lean-to door was openned to reveal what made it all make sense. It looked like a banana. We hoisted it up on top of the truck, strapped it down and drove off proudly. After a stop at Tim Hortons we whipped accross the Golden Eares bridge and followed the Golden Eares mountain peaks until we landed at Alouette.
Had an awesome day! Do you know what we did?

Here's another clue to give it all away: it is featured on the Canadian 100 dollar bill.

Sorry no photos, that will be the next post!

Vintage Beach Blonde

2010-07-04T00:24:00.000-07:00

I saved this image that I saw on the Sartorialist a while ago. I keep going and looking at it again.

I don't know why, but I really like it. That lace on her sarong, the interesting body angle and shape. The blur and the rocks and her blonde hair. It just feels like a far away place and time and I love that.

Reunited

2010-07-01T01:11:00.000-07:00

Dreaming of being in my Renderings

2010-06-29T11:20:00.000-07:00

Aaaaaaah.... to have a pool in the backyard... and this nice beach-front property with a view of the mountains to the north.... These renderings have just made me kinda dreamy. But its a nice day and my grassy green tree-covered back yard will have to do. I'll supply the bathing suit as long as the sky keeps supplying that sun!

Bring on the Freckling!

Have a good Tuesday, hope it's sunny wherever you are!

green yellow mustard pink brown

2010-06-22T11:49:00.000-07:00

Hi There! Long time no blog. I'm just working in Photoshop right now, I can't seem to decide which style of logo I like for this project I'm doing, but I do like playing around. Your opinions?
Also, there is a material board. I need to render elevations and perspectives all in photoshop now. I love PhotoShop.
In other news, I got accepted into the 2nd year Diploma program. The one I've been hoping to get into, yeah, that one. If you follow this link you can see the layout of the year and how that you take 9 courses at a time. The most I've done at a time before is 4, which is considered full time and kept me very busy. So, lets double that, plus a little. Meanwhile, I must keep up a 65% average to finish, and a 75% average if I want placement into a practicum/work experience position. Yay! How fun! Well, it certainly will be interesting. I am trying to relish in my sleep-ins and flexible schedule right now. And now...back to that!

- ayla

Stuff and Squirrels

2010-06-05T12:17:00.000-07:00

Wow! It’s June already?! I’m moved into my green room! My bed won’t be here for another week (now I know the answer to “why buy a mattress anywhere else”) but I have a little camping mattress on the floor for now, which will do just fine! I’m discovering far too many clothes. Ugh. Why?! I really don’t need more than what I have time to wear. I would love for that to be simplified for me, but then there’s all the things that you think you will want to wear, and you know, that top that would be perfect for a walk on the beach if it was exactly 21.75 degrees out, and the skirt that would be just right on a cool day in windy Scotland. Yeah, it’s pretty much that bad. And then my roommate asks me if I want this top she’s getting rid of and I’m all ‘yep, cute, thanks!’. Do you think it’s a real addiction? Like do actual people get some sort of actual chemically satisfying reaction in our actual brains to tell us that it’s actually good to have this much stuff?! What’s up with that anyways? Now the fabric, interior design samples, books and school supplies I can justify. Even though it was 2 whole truck loads of it. I think they are things I need. Right? Right? Anybody?

I did a little discovery of the neighbourhood this morning when I donned my bike (or did my bike don me?) and headed to our very own "Central Park". It has an outdoor pool, stadium (today Highschool students were having a track and field comp there), a little pond, horse shoes field, law bowling place and a baseball diamond. Its all in and among forest and paths that are great for biking through! However, and it's a big however, there seems to be an issue with feeding the squirrels... there are signs saying do not feed the wildlife... there are people throwing crumbs with their children right there too. And what is wrong with this? Well, you see, the thing is, when you feed them, they're no longer scared of us. And when they're no longer scared of us, they tend to not get out of the way when you're coming at them with a bike. Not one but two squirrels today caused me to swerve, squeal the breaks, scream and put my legs straight out in front of me with my eyes closed so as to not have to see or feel what goes down under my tires. I was mad. Especially at the lady with her daughter feeding them. This was before the 2 incidences, but still, I gave them a little "ugh" as I rode by. They heard.
Next time I go I'll say more than that, because I can see it REALLY is a problem!

Off to school now. Happy weekend to all you who have one!

Photography Class, age 15

2010-05-21T12:24:00.000-07:00

I love sorting through old stuff. I seem to have a lot of it, I find out when I try to pack. This morning I found these photos from my Highschool photography class I took when I lived in Australia. We learned (I use the term lightly) to use a good old 35mm SLR camera and how to process the film and develop it. It was a bit of a nightmare, that developing. And the reason I had permanent yellow stains all over my uniform skirt. Cute. But oh the fun of taking the pictures! Often we'd walk down to Eastern Beach and snap away... not artfully, of course, just get the job done.

I kinda love this one now, and how the water droplets from the developing (or I got on the photo paper during exposure, I don't know which!) ended up printed on the photo! If only it was on purpose ...

A very fuzzy picture of me and my friend Megan

Here is probably the only interesting thing I did in that class!

Overlapping those 2 pics to expose them like this:

Me and Dennis, who is now in London persuing his career in fashion, you can read about it here!

Oh what a mess I always made of the developing...

If you look closely there is one reasonable picture on that negatives sheet:

Its me! So it turned out probably because it wasn't me that took it ...

New Place!

2010-05-13T23:41:00.000-07:00

After finally getting to see the place, I am pretty darn excited to get our pretty little butts moved in there!

Here is a walk through starting from the back of the house, into the kitchen. (hope it's good enough for you Mum!)

The Kitchen viewed from dining area

Kitchen and hallway

The Living Room viewed from Dining area

Doesn't it feel kind of like Mexico?! The previous tenant did this lovely swooshing paint technique. Lovely indeed. :) But such a nice, big,bright, fireplaced room! Fireplaced is so a word.

Front Entry

And the flooring guy I guess. He won't be there when we move in.

The bit of floor at the end that looks like it leads to a hallway really is just a little alcove to put shoes or something else I guess.

As you can imagine I am sure, the living room is to the right of the picture, through the big hole. But there are other means of access to the room, not just the big hole, so don't worry.

And if you look left from here you will see the freshly carpetted hallway - and a nice big closet on this end, another one at the far end and another halfway down! (one for me, one for Chantelle, and one for our coats because the front closet in the above picture actually has water heaters in it) YAY STORAGE!

Proceed down hallway and on your left ... A bathroom almost identical to my current. A tad narrower though. And browner.

The small, "extra" bedroom. It has a fan. Wanna come stay?

The big room

( we're so excited about the full sized closets!)

My Bedroom! How perfect is that colour for me, like come on now, was that planned well or what?!

LOVE IT! Oh glorious" double wide" (only if you're used to my current one) closet, too.

The other wall (West facing, if I figure it right). Do I get an honourable mention for this photo? Oh yeah, it's so amazing, I know....

And the grand reveal oh whats beyond that bright window...

This is the extra little "add-on" outside of the kitchen. That you can only access from outside... it's a bit mysterious, but it seems like a good place to put my bike? Or a treadmill of course. Or... we'll see!

NOW let me take you to the front side of the house under the stairs where you can wash your nice sparkly clean white linens, intimates and the like!

Duhm....duhm.....DUUUUUUUUHMmmmmm.....

There's gotta be one down side to it, right?!

Oh but the yard! And it's all ours!

Spot the skytrain tracks?

They have birdseed hanging on the clothesline but I think that could change.

As well as the site of a demolished shed.

All in all, so private and lovely!

Yay!

I'm going!

2010-05-13T12:12:00.000-07:00

Its another beautiful day in Vancouver. What am I doin' in here?!

And today I finally get to see the new place I'm moving into in 2 weeks!

Love you all and your comments (boy I missed them!). I will update you with pictures of the place soon I hope!

An update on the last little while:

2010-05-11T23:42:00.000-07:00

Went home to see these girls do this:

And Nella just be cute and eat and sleep and make cute faces and be cuddly and perfect:

And do a lot of this:

And some of this:

(playing quelf)

In mom's cute little old house:

But boy was I happy to come back to spring-land (so cold in Calgary!). Got some warm weather, a little colour and a few extra freckles this week!

Vancouver Destination for you...

2010-04-28T13:29:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been to Dressew?

Well, if you're ever in Vancouver and you like fabric, you should go there. It's A. MAZE. ING.

Last time Dad was in town, we went there upon recommendation by my cousin. Here's me in front of their ric-rac wall.

There are also floor to ceiling walls of cord, ribbon, lace, brown buttons, orange buttons, snaps, straps, sequins .... and then there are the bolts and bolts (and bolts) of fabric!

Its fun to look at even if you're not a sewer. I couldn't leave without a few meters of the giant green ric-rac. And Dad even enjoyed it!

Just TONNES of stuff. Like the kind of stuff you always wonder if you can get somewhere, y'know?

Go if you ever get a chance!

My Morning

2010-04-20T12:59:00.000-07:00

Today I got up at 1030 and took my bike to "Banana Grove", the little grocery store a few blocks from here that used to smell really strange but they seem to have remedied that!

This is how my bike basket looked when I got home. I went over a bump and the strawberries flew out! I need some more practice at this! But it was only half an hour from the time I left my house to the time I got back with a bunch of food! I've gotten better at buying fresh stuff that I have to use up instead of stocking up once every couple weeks and half of it going to waste.

By the way, here is my bike (minus his basket)!

So I made a big asparagus, mushroom and tomato ~~omelette~~ scrambled eggs for brunch and it was yummy!

Now, I think today's goal is to see if I still know how to sew before work. It's raining now so it will be a good day for it!

Directed Studies: The End

2010-04-15T16:22:00.000-07:00

Directed Studies: 19 hours to go

2010-04-14T12:51:00.000-07:00

Progress...

Directed Studies: 2 Days to go

2010-04-12T23:20:00.000-07:00

Progress...

I am pretty much in love with the colours I've chosen for my walls, base and hardwood flooring in the apartment. The Base colour is called "fossil" by Benjamin Moore and it's so great and greyish but creamish, I just love it!

Thats the stuff!

Directed Studies: 7 Days to go

2010-04-08T22:25:00.000-07:00

Here's what I've been working on this week!

Drafting... oh how I have a love/hate relationship with thee...

You see, drafting is an art. But it is a pain-staking one. And it is more complex than it may appear (I dunno really, how does it appear?) But if you've never done it, let me enlighten you a little bit.

There is a special way to sharpen you lead so that it doesn't break and make a mess on your clean white paper.

There is a special way to roll your lead holder as you draw a line so your lead stays sharp.

There is a special way to get clean, crisp lines (doesn't always work, unfortuntely, but it looks so nice when it does!).

There is a special way to draw curves with a french curve (that I wish I could master. Always dread the curves!)

And then of course there are line weights. The #1 reason any student gets a crappy drafting mark.

4H, 2H, H, HB leads, all produce a different weight of line. Today I didn't switch out my 2H one, I just go over certain lines harder or press light if I need a lighter line, it is my favorite, most versatile lead.

The blue-ish tone you see in my walls will not be blue after it's copied, it will be a nice grey faded look that is called Poche`. Created by colouring in the back of the paper where the walls are. Wall Poche. "Nice wall Poche". I'm strange but I do like my poche. I wish I knew how to do the hyphen right.

Floor Plan

A closer view of the apartment side of the plan

(See what I ended up doing with the living room, Britta?! Because I was told to not have my two exits that close together so I moved the door which inspired the loss of the curved wall.)

Section through building 5'-0" back from the front door. Poche still in the works as my marker is drying out - can't switch now though, can I!?

Elevations of study carrels, custom ethanol fireplace in lounge, art classroom wall and dining room wall

The perspective

And my RCP (reflected ceiling plan; as if you looked at the ceiling in a huge big mirror). This is still the rough copy and i will trace over it tomorrow so I'll then officially have ALL my drafting done!

Proud of me?

Now, I have to assemble my furniture and material boards, assemble these onto boards after getting them printed, print my AutoCad drawings (fix some of the specs in them first), write up a concept statement, render everything ... and voila! Done!

Directed Studies: 9 Days to go

2010-04-06T11:21:00.000-07:00

I am so not in love with sketchup right now. Brilliant program. But just not worth my time this time. I've used it as a "SHORTcut" for creating the perspective drawing that is required. But this time, I think it would have been easier to do it the proper way and draft out the vanishing points, station point, base line etc. and draw a quadrillion lines all over a million pieces of trace paper to make it as perfectly in perspective as we've been taught. Instead, I am going to print this on a big sheet of paper and sketch onto it until I've faked it enough to trace over and make it look "drafted".

But seriously... what a mess. I couldn't even get it to draw windows this morning (added for a little drug-dealer-monitoring. Like it would really make a difference.)

Good Mail Day!

2010-04-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

Instead of dwelling on this morning's critique about accessibility and the possibility that people could do drug deals in my library.... I'm being positive!

It was a good mail day - GREAT actually!

This awesome card from the awesome Susie, who, if you've never met, I feel sorry for you quite frankly. :P

And my free Moo cards that I ordered!

They came in brilliant packaging (love)

And they feel great and the pictures all look crisp and bright and nice like they were supposed to!

So Impressed!

Yay!

Have a good LONG weekend everyone!

Directed Studies: Day 29

2010-03-31T22:43:00.000-07:00

The rough draft of my floorplan is complete! Tomorrow morning I will get a critique (hopefully a useful one, not one where all I get out of it is "oh...hmmm....I see....what about this - points - ....mmmm....okay, yeah.....") and I'll let you know how that goes!
And then I am going to look after Claire for a few hours! Very excited!

Why is it that my 2nd half of the day is always way more productive than the first?
Anyone else like that so I don't have to feel so bad?! hehe!

Goodnight!

Can I just say...

2010-03-31T12:08:00.000-07:00

..... I love blogs!? I have been reading blogs all morning. It's been a while since I've done that. And yes I am putting off a certain drafting job that needs doing. But guess what, it's me that will reep the consquences of procrastination and I am well aware, so never you mind! (tee hee ... words I will regret)

So, yeah, I was feeling slightly guilty that I'm not getting anything done this morning save feeling inspired by my on-lap computer sitting in my pjs in front of a warm fire. (on-lap...lap-top... I think I like my version better :D)

Do I use perenthesis too much? (Do I care?)

But I do need to share something I painted a few weeks ago when I had a free Sunday with the girls and they showed me this idea of pasting images from a magazine onto a canvas and then filling in the background! You will not believe how much fun this is!

I did this on a little 9 x 5 inch ish canvas and, as you can see, pasted an image of a girl diving off a diving board with clouds and sky in the background on the top and an image of diamonds on the bottom. The diamonds got covered with a lot of paint with just some of the magazine image still showing through. Same with the diving girl I suppose. But I like it, I like it a lot. You should try it and let me know how it turns out!

Directed Studies: Day 27

2010-03-30T13:09:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I went to Crown Wallpaper & Fabric to look for both wallcoverings and fabrics for my project. Unfortunetly for students they gave me some bins of old samples to take from so I didn't get to pick from their entire fantastic and amazing showroom. : (

Basically it was slim pickins. I did find a couple fabrics though, and some nice pieces not for my school project, such as this one:

and this one (love those animals!):

I see some sewing projects on the horizon!

So this morning I laid out all the materials I have picked so far to use and I have over half of what I need I think, so that is good. Here's what I've come up with:

I've changed the yellow and the purple because I happened upon some glass tiles that came in all 4 of the other colours I had chosen - crazy! - and a slightly different yellow and purple so I thought it made sense to go with the tile colours. The tiles will go on the wall in the front entry where the ceiling stripes meet the wall. You know. Basically the rooms will be white/grey with feature walls or other touches of a colour featured in my fantastically colourful colour scheme. Yes, I'm Canadian, therefore I shall not spell colour without a U. Thanks very much!

The Fabrics that I was able to work with from Crown are pretty great, but I need more fabric for all the different seating and stuff still! I've recycled a bit from last year's Architect's office project, but I'd like to find a plain grey upholstery fabric to do the rest of the chairs in. Here's a closer view of the fabrics that worked:

Circle-y, eh?

... so those are all put away with their sheets of paper, each representing a room/area on the floorplan.

My plan is to start drafting tomorrow! My least favorite part, but it will feel good to get that started!

So...?!

(tell me what you think!)

Lighting Smighting

2010-03-23T20:27:00.000-07:00

As I was looking for some lighting (what I really want and can't seem to find a picture of is something dangly and small that would look raindrop-like. Help?) I found this amaaaazing designer who makes stuff like this:

And then, google made me stumble upon this art by Stuart Haygarth:

And I had a thought! Maybe the fact that I've always enjoyed the lighting aspect of Interior Design could be paired with this artsy fartsy stuff that looks like it would be SO fun to make!

Who knew?!

K back to work...

Directed Studies: Day 12

2010-03-15T11:26:00.000-07:00

Layers and layers of trace paper to figure out all the layouts

More layers and colours and bits taped all over the place

A final trace over everything that seems to work.

It reminds me of my Architect Office Project! Haha - whatever works; straight lines weren't!

So this is all my planning done so far. Hopefully not much will have to change.

Clockwise from top left:

- Centre's Kitchen

- Dining room for 20

- Accessible Men's Washroom

- Accessible women's washroom

- Art Classroom

- Teacher's Office

- Regular Classroom

- Art display area

- Front entrance

- Lounge with seating for 12

- Appartment - Bedroom, Kitchen, Bathroom, Living room all in under 550 sq. ft.

- Appt. Entry to centre and from outside

- Secondary means of egress/ hallway

- Counsellor's Office

Centre:

- Library

- Study Area in Library

- Front desk

- Librarian's office

A page in my sketchbook / my thought process

The colours as accurately I could get my phone to take it! There should be more yellow/green tone to all of them.

A quick sketch and trial of making those colours with my rendering markers and crayons - that might be a challenge!

Next I think I'm going to choose all my furniture pieces... Its hard not to get boring with those choices because it is an educational centre and low-funding kind of place.

Anyways, please let me know all your thoughts and ideas!

Directed Studies: Day 9

2010-03-12T16:07:00.000-08:00

I really wanted to get some opinions on the colours I've chosen to use as stripes on the ceiling but my camera is on vacation in Langley. I tried to find a paint website that let you choose colours to give an idea of it, but really they look nothing like what I have here in my hands. Anyways, this is what I've chosen to use as a colourful spectrum look. It will be amongst lots of white, so don't get your knickers in a knot just yet.

In actual life the orange is the only one that is about right. The red-orange is a lot brighter. The teal is a lot deeper. The blue is a lot airier. The aubergine is deeper. And the yellow-green is yellower and brighter by far. But you get the idea? Just to show you how non-rainbow (fa-la-la-la-la daycare space!) my concept will transform to. We hope. Nothing is for sure yet!
I kind of hate the colours when I look at them on here. I swear, that was the closest they had and I tried 3 different paint manufacturers. Maybe they're scared to make their colours too intense on a computer screen. Whatever, either way, I am super excited to show you guys the real thing now! (And how this colour will be applied!)
Ciao for now, have a good weekend!

Whats Your Type?

2010-03-11T19:48:00.000-08:00

Do you know what type you are?

Turns out I am Plastica.

Do yourself a favour, take a break, turn on your speakers and head over for tea with this classy gentleman.

He'll figrue you out in no time. Then come back and tell me!

I love cool stuff like this. Internet rocks.

Thank-you to the Make Something Blog (rocks) for the link to the Pentagram site.

Directed Studies Day 6

2010-03-09T19:00:00.000-08:00

So my concept has changed slightly. Basically, I'm thinking more of a rainbow and how that it's the outcome of grey and dreary rainy skies (Vancouver!). Corny, I know, but I think, as a concept, it works. I am envisioning:

- drawing the eye upwards using interesting lighting techniques, colours/patterns on ceilings

- bright, colourful and open space

- curved hallways

- use of glass, like the raindrops that refract light

I also want it to be modern and chic in a way. . .I was thinking of using a lot of black and white to contrast large, bold swipes of colourfulness. Stripes of colours on ceilings?

The reason I came to this concept was because of my original concept; it was just a step too far for a concept, and did not identify with where the center would be. It has to celebrate the historic and cultural background of the area and mine was headed more toward that of another country. So I just took the good bits; the contrast I saw in the tango photos, the passion, the colour, the 'art in an unexpected place' concept. And came up with rainbow. ( Gag.)

I hate how tacky it sounds, so I ask you this: Can you come up with a 'cool' (for lack of a better term) way of describing my 'rainbow' concept?

PS I am long past the excited stage...I was pretty frustrated last night and earlier today trying to fit ALL the rooms (I won't bore you with the details, but it's a lot) into the space of this existing building. Anyways, that's Interior Design school - I would love to see how easily my instructors could put together this project; like, am I stupid or is this really a huge challenge?!

Please comment, I need help, ideas, input, a good laugh, a link to something cool ...you get the picture.... thanks!

You Are a Part of Something Beautiful

2010-03-08T18:56:00.000-08:00

I thought this was good... even though at the beginning of the song I thought it had a weird sound. It grew on me as it went on, and it ends up being pretty deep and...beautiful.

Directed Studies: Day 1

2010-03-04T13:01:00.000-08:00

I don't know where to start on how excited I am right now!
Here are some hints as to what my Interior Design Project is:

http://www.downtowneastside.ca/
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/carnegiecentre/

Yes, it is a Community Outreach Continuing Education Centre in Vancouver's Downtown East Side :)
Its a place where people of the community can come to receive guidance, education, and art classes in a safe, social area. It will also have an attached tiny apartment. And that is basically it. Imagine reception, classrooms, library, and art display areas as my design challenges. This is SO different from anything I've had as a project before and I'm beyond excited to get started! I have 8 weeks and tonnes of work to do!

Before even knowing this was going to be the project, I did a lot of concept brainstorming and was especially inspired by these photos of people doing the tango on the streets of Buenos Aires (well thats where the searching started; Buenos Aires photos). And now I have a concept on day 1 of my project! This is such good of news, because honestly, concept is everything and last time I wasted waaaaay too much time not being sure of this. (as many of you might remember!)

The concept means the space can be bright and cheery and energetic and dynamic and cultural and textured and also have a sleek artistic side, as the tango does. It's such a good combo in my mind. :)

Time to get started!

yabidabidoooo

2010-03-03T23:17:00.000-08:00

View an Etsy Front Page Treasury List - The Vault on Craft Cult
You can click the link or you can go see the newbie hangin' out on my right column there. And then wait for it....wait for it.... DOOR KNOB!

I was an "alternate pick" for the front page, which means my item showed up after other ones sold :D
Still didn't sell the door knob though.

But go dust & dawn!

- it took me so long to figure this out! I couldn't figure out how I had so many more views yesterday on Google Analytics (on which I also watch who comes to this blog, so if you think you could hide forever, think again!) but then I found it on craftcult.com so it all made sense. :) -

Other news:
I'm all signed up and ready for my class to start tomorrow morning. I am itching with excitement to find out what type of Interior I will be designing this time! Be prepared for me to switch back into designer-blogger-mode, as seen August 2009.

1940s Hair

2010-03-01T15:26:00.000-08:00

Check out Casey Brown of "Elegantly Amused" on YouTube for hair tutorials!

My Before & After:

After trying the front bang-curl part about four trillion times, I finally settled with it like this, but my hair really doesn't do that 'neat and tidy' look she does so perfectly!

So fun though! You should check out her YouTube channel and blog and Etsy shop and whatever else she's got linked from her blog. Pretty neat chicky!

Inside my Purse

2010-02-27T10:17:00.000-08:00

I've looked at lots of people's versions of this and enjoyed. So what the heck, why not?

I think this is a sign I need to simplify a little.

1. little bag that holds tide to go, perfume, hair elastics, tissues, feminine stuff, nail file etc., 2. sun glasses, 3. headset for phone talking in car, which is never in my purse when I actually need it, 4. purse hanger, 5. bunch of stuff to mail to Susie - just put that in there yesterday!, 6. Pen Again, 7. 1 chuppachup, 1 eaten chuppachup (oops), 8. change purse, 9. Shell Receipt for gas, 10. bobby pins and hair elastics, 11. daytime cold relief tablets that worked their magic the other week, 12. nice little map of vancouver that was handed out downtown openning ceremonies day, 13. Value Village receipt, 14. Used transit tickets, 15. Notebook from Korea that feels like a passport :) love it, thanks Sin Hye,16. Gum, 17. Paperwork to be filled out for healthcare benefits at work, 18. burts bees lip balm, 19. chapstick cherry lipbalm, 20. paper clip, 21. hair clippy, 22. Aveeno Intense Relief Therapy Lip Balm (BUY IT!), 23. pen, 24. Reese Peanut Butter cup wrapper. woops, how did that get in there?!, 25. Thing that smells like my mom because it has Sunflower perfume sprayed on it :) , 26. address written on post-it for last etsy thing I mailed out, 27. receipt - Salvation Army, 28. Shoppers Drug Mart receipt for trail mix and juice, 29. a work schedule written down from a few weeks back, 30. reusable shopping bag, 31. Burts Bees hand cream. Smells like icky play dough. So do not like. But I like the little container. (fyi I don't like their lip balm either, why am I the only one?), 32. vintage pouch that holds cards I rarely need to get out, 33. wallet, 34. bandaid wrapper

Congratulations if you got through that list! If you did, you should get a prize! Like some used transit tickets or something!

Care to share yours? I would love to see!
Next up: a list of other fun things to do other than what you really should do :)

Sunny Saturday Stroll

2010-02-25T00:12:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday, February 20th, 2010, Langley, British Columbia

I <3 the shadow of me and my boy amongst swampy duck water. : )

The heat of the sun, the sounds of the splashing ducks, the sights of Spring's signs, and the scent of fresh air. . . aaaah I will revisit this day in my brain for a while.... :)

to-do list

2010-02-23T11:14:00.000-08:00

This week's to-do list:

1. sign up for march/april class
2. job in Langley (wednesday)
3. name approval request for R
4. post more etsy items
5. finish logo
6. finish portfolio and submit to school
7. at least 3 work outs
8. a day downtown/olympics
9. craft project (gift)
10. clean up R's place
11. start brainstorming concepts for directed studies and collecting materials!

I feel a little like I've got a lot to think about and do in the next couple of weeks. . . but it's all good, it's all stuff I love (other than working out) and it will all mean I'm better off in the end!

In other news, yesterday I found the duvet cover I've always loved from Ikea at Value Village!!! It looks like this:

And even though it is not the softest (it is still Ikea) it looks so fun and crisp with the perfect shade of orange with white, it just brightens up the room and makes me smile! And it's clean. Am I weird because I am not bothered by the idea of buying bedding used? Yeah, I thought so. But I only paid $8.

[ i just wanted a place to put that to-do list so that it would get done, thanks for bearing with me! ]

Vancouver Olympics

2010-02-19T11:25:00.000-08:00

I have never seen cloud and fog look so pretty before! But really, this is a beautiful city. It is nothing like I imagined it would be when I moved here. I would not have guessed it to be this relaxed, this cultural, this artistic or this "outdoorsy".

I have yet to go down town and really experience the olympic action, other than seeing the torch go by on the day of the openning ceremonies. But I will, and I will take photos! But even at work the buzz and Canadian pride of everyone coming and going can be felt. It's pretty cool...

One of my items...

2010-02-19T10:40:00.000-08:00

was included in a treasury on etsy :D

That should get a few views, right?

I keep on making things for gifts and not for etsy. It's easier though, y'know, to know what people want and would like? It is hard to know what everyone else would like. But I try to stick to what I like so at least it has a direction to go in.
Yesterday I actually made something for myself. Craziness.

So if it were your birthday tomorrow, what would you want?

A Letter From a Genuine "Check-Out-Chick"

2010-02-17T11:16:00.000-08:00

Dear people hurriedly lining up at express:
I'm standing over here at lane number 4 with no one in line, yet again!

Dear guy with really stinky reusable shopping bag:
I love that you're not using plastic, but did you know you can wash these things? Try that next time. Thanks.

Dear lady struggling to get coins out for 5 minutes:
Please invest in a change purse that opens wider. I think I might start handing those out for the needy at my till. It would really be a gift to us all.

Dear manager:
Can we please check the 50's and 100's ourselves so that we don't have a whining line-up wondering why I'm standing here waiting 5 minutes for you to run up from the back of the store just to put my bill under a little light 10 feet away from me to reveal that it is real?!

Dear Customer who remembered to tell me how his strawberries were:
You make me happy!

Dear little kid who wants to use the occupied mini shopping cart:
I am so sorry, if it were up to me we would have millions of them because they are so cute to watch you use and I know they make you so happy, but we only have 1! I know, 1 is a crazy number to have, but it's true!

A ways away...

2010-02-16T12:52:00.000-08:00

Leif, Laura

Moxie, Mom

Wade, Tara

I miss you all and am thinkin' of you!

And I can't wait to see what's in that belly, Tara, hopefully it won't get scared off by the face your husband is making :)

Laura, we never really got a photo together that weekend, but I did have a photo of what I made you to represent for you guys, works I guess!

A Happy Valentine's

2010-02-15T14:51:00.000-08:00

to fulfill my girly needs

to fulfill my ha-ha needs

so cute...

so random...

so us...

And I got him this Whaley cute card

Judge me and Fix me

2010-02-10T17:35:00.000-08:00

Any volunteers to make this have more contrast?! I need a photoshop buff. Because the spool is yellow, it just doesn't do high contrast black and white it seems. Ultimately I'd like it to have a hard edge around the spool too, and more black lines. I'm not sure if I love it yet but I'm thinking it would work as a logo if it had the contasted lines I'm talkin' about. What do you think?

Morning Creation

2010-02-10T12:34:00.000-08:00

Some cute ol' fabric I've had sitting around forever

It used to be a curtain. And I remember sewing the random pleats into it one day back when we lived in Australia. That's all I did to it. So today I finally made it fit as a skirt, added a zipper and a hem.

Surprisingly enough, it does stay up without the belt, but I like the little touch of 'modern' that it adds. :)

Dear R...

2010-02-08T14:32:00.000-08:00

thanks to black*eiffel :) Exactly how I'm feeling. except that I know he'll come back again so I can miss him again...and again...and again...:)

Before & After

2010-02-04T17:56:00.000-08:00

Now I'm goin' around with my bottle of spray paint... hmmm... what else would look good white....?

Updating the Shop

2010-02-04T10:07:00.000-08:00

There are a couple new items in the shop and, if all goes well, a couple more will be joining them today! INCLUDING the most amazing vintage red suitcase.
I am really excited about what I'm adding. . .

But, I'm curious, what do you guys think Dust & Dawn needs more of / less of?
What would make it stand out?
What sucks about it?
I know that I need more items to draw more people...

So go ahead and leave anonymous comments if you want, I just want to hear the honest truth!

woops...

2010-02-01T13:32:00.001-08:00

Look what happened to my sewing machine today! I turned on my lamp (which happened to be sitting right up against my sewing machine, but I couldn't totally tell because the shade was in the way) Then I walked away to cut out some stuff in the kitchen....then I came back to a funny smell!!!
I was able to unscrew the lamp from the bulb, but the bulb was NOT budging!

luckily, it has no impact on the functionality of my machine...

but it does look pretty darn funny!

Anybody got a good caption for this photo?!

PS I'll be back in a bit with a post about the baby blanket I made in under 2 hours this morning...with a light bulb stuck to the corner of my sewing machine!

Just so ya'll know,

2010-01-29T10:54:00.001-08:00

there's some new bloggers in town.

Lane & Jocelyn!

No pressure, guys, no pressure...

Fantastic Salsa

2010-01-29T10:08:00.001-08:00

(because it just doesn't feel like a blog post without a decent picture)

This is an amazing amazing recipe that you can just throw into your blender and be eating fresh, healthy salsa 10 minutes later !!!

1/2 small red onion
1/4 cup fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 garlic clove (or as much as you want!)
2 tablespoons of canned pickled jalapeno chile, drained (in Mexican food section at the store)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 (14.5 ounce) can of diced tomatos, drained

And that's it! So good with some plain ol' Dorito chips. :D Enjoy!

Have a happy weekend!