I was out of there by 11am and had about an hour to kill before I had to head downtown so I went to Ikea to check out their Xmas decorations. We had donated all of our Xmas decorations to the Salvation Army before the renovations started - I figured since we were all grown up anyway there was no point in keeping the tree, etc. - so we're starting from scratch. I thought I'd just buy some green, blue and gold Xmas balls, arrange them in a bowl on the coffee table and call it a day. I didn't buy anything at Ikea though because the shades of blue, green and gold available weren't quite right. So the search continues...
I met SA&WC for lunch at Jules on Spadina and then headed to the One-of-a-Kind Craft Show with SA. I was there to check out the jewelry competition - and there were over 90 vendors there! I knew prior to going that selling at a craft show wasn't my thing, and I'm even more sure of it now. I'm in the market research phase of my jewelry business venture and the more I look into it, the more I think perhaps it's best to keep it a hobby.
It was my first time at the show and I had been warned prior by colleagues that things there were expensive. I'll admit that some things were, but I do believe that hand-crafted, unique items warrant a premium in price. There was certainly stuff there I wouldn't classify as "one-of-a-kind" but whatever.
Debra Jackson I saw works by a few artists that I really liked, but because I don't yet know how I'm going to decorate my condo, it's premature to buy anything. Some of the paintings by Debra Jackson had a Georgia O'Keefe vibe. She had some fantastic flower paintings that I thought would look great if hung in a series of 3. (I really like the assorted white flowers on the dark brown backgrounds done in acrylic she had on display at the show, similar to the image above) There was another painter that had these bold paintings of fields of flowers but I didn't pick up his card and now I'm kicking myself because I don't know his name. There was also an artist represented by an agent in Montreal (Christopher Fenn) who featured various instruments done in watercolour and embossment that would be perfect, I think for a music room or study - neither of which I have in my condo. Maybe one day when I have a house...I thought Jan Phelan's clay pieces were lovely too.
And Liscious Inc. was there. I've seen their products in a few home furnishing stores in Toronto - I even bought the frosted Bamboo motif panels for my best friend as a housewarming gift. I really like these panels (maybe the cherry blossom motif?) and will probably include them somewhere in my decor...I like the floral black motif wall tiles too...
Anyway...so what did I buy? Dvorak from BC was present and accounted for so I bought their Better Than Sex(!) Chocolate, which I'd discovered last year at the Granville Market. It's dark chocolate that's 72% cocoa - but it's brilliant marketing because who can forget a name like that?! And it IS really, really good. As for whether or not it's better than sex...well, as with everything I suppose it "depends" doesn't it? ;)
I bought some moisturizers too: humble'bubble's organic antioxidant body butter that smells good enough to eat, sort of like - sniff sniff - sweet peanut-chocolate-butterscotch brittle, and Urban Venus' shea butter sticks that I thought would be perfect to take out with me every day - no more having to up-end a travel-size bottle of lotion while I'm waiting at a stoplight!
Oh! And shortbread! The most heavenly, buttery shortbread from Coach House Shortbread Co. (featured this month in Toronto Life) Among their sweets, I tried their original, lemon and orange cardamon (which I ended up buying - YUM!) and of their savoury, the stilton-rosemary and cheddar-chipotle.
It took us about 3 hours to get through the show and then we headed back to SA&WC's place to wait for our friend WL to go out for dinner at Sushi Time on Queen. This is the 2nd weekend I've spent hanging out downtown in what will be my 'hood next year. My best friends live within 5 minutes of each other now and about 10 minutes from where I will be moving to next September. WL predicted that I'd be spending every weekend downtown from now until then...which probably isn't too far off considering I've already got plans down there for the next 2 weekends.
SA and I spent the rest of the night at WL's watching movies...the original plan was to watch Mean Girls, but he couldn't find it, so we ended up watching Imagine Me and You, a movie in which the actors all eerily look like someone else:
Matthew Good = Rupert Everett
Piper Perabo = Jennifer Garner
Lena Headey = Keira Knightley
Darren Boyd = Jay Mohr
The movie starts with a wedding - and this is how I sort of envision my own wedding. I love Rachel's hair (so elegant!) and her dress (the style and shape is lovely but I'm not crazy about the length of the gown) and the purple flowers everywhere!! :)
We followed it up with Disney's Sleeping Beauty, which neither of us girls had seen before. W said it was really gay - high school gay, that is - and it was. But it was also gay-gay because W knew all the lyrics to the songs, hehe! Anyway, S and I were a little exasperated by how dumb Flora, Fauna and Meriweather were but I suppose it's just the jaded skepticism of our old age(!) Perhaps if we'd seen it first with the wonder and innocence of childhood, we'd feel differently.
Today was far more low-key. I slept in til about 11am, puttered about before going out for a 1pm massage, came home for a late lunch with my mother before heading out again to buy a new mattress. That was pretty much it.
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