Summer is a good time to make things.

Well, a happy Sunday to you!

Since I got home from our trip to France, one of my main goals has been to set up my little calligraphy and design biz. This week I finished making promos and updating my website, which gives me a huge sense of accomplishment. You can see my samples here. So if you ever need someone to write something pretty for you, I can do it!

In other exciting news, I found these twin mushrooms:

And I've been busy making things for friends. One of my recently completed projects is an art roll for a friend, filled with lovely pencil crayons and a sharpener. Perfect to throw in your bag, because you never know when you'll need to sketch.

All rolled up.

Filled with pencils and mermaids.

Today we're going to get some new kitchen knives (hurrah!) and roti (even better!).

What have you been working on this summer?

Patterns Patterns Everywhere.

Lovely French sidewalk.

Today I wore my belt as a hat.

Fancy.

To The Market!

There's a lovely little farmer's market just around the corner every Tuesday. And before this summer, I'd only been once. Shame! So I've committed myself to trying to buy groceries there every week, if I can. My sister and I made it out last week (and again, yesterday), and of course I documented the event.

Lavender from Niagara. And my sister.

There are two very smart guys who have set up a fry booth. They double-fry the organic potatoes, then toss them in sea salt and thyme. And then the smell wafts, and people come.

People like me. Let's just say it was worth the extra dose of insulin.

I took home a bunch of lavender and put it in some of small bottles that we've collected. I hung a few of them up on the wall beside our desk, dangling from a bit of baker's twine.

It smells pretty nice, which helps me concentrate when I'm writing grant applications.

Another item: I got a bit obsessed with red pants when we were in France, but I can't really go out and buy much right now. So I made a visit to the Double Take and found two pairs for $5 (success!). I took the first pair out for a walk, with some of my sweet honeymoon purchases: a navy top from Claudie Pierlot and sweet sandals from Camper.

After catching a show at the Fringe, we may or may not have ended the night eating ribs and corn that we bought off of Church Street during Pride. They may or may not have been delicious.

Lune de Miel!

I thought I should probably share some pictures that we took on our trip to France. I took a ton of photos on my sweet Diana, but it seems like it may be time for a new Diana - I think her lens is shot.

We started off in Paris for a few days. We stayed in a lovely little apartment near the Bastille, just a quick walk to the Marais. This was the view from the apartment - not bad, hey?

We ate at the Bistrot Paul Bert on our first evening, which was a recommendation from a chef friend. The white asparagus were delicious and HUGE, and I couldn't complain about the dessert:

We were serenaded by this guy outside of our apartment one evening - a one-man band.

We spent some time driving through the Loire and visited Chenonceaux, thereby fulfilling a childhood dream of mine. We got there early enough on a Monday that we nearly had the place to ourselves.

We ran through the maze, toured the chateau and I enjoyed wandering through the flower gardens.

Dinner in the Loire valley. That's some serious bacon in that salad. Following the salad, I ordered the "special" sausage for dinner. Our server said that she liked it and that it was very "strong". It was tripe. I tried to be open minded but did not succeed.

Our home-base in the South: Hyeres. Quiet and beautiful. We spent a day exploring and ended up at the 12th century castle that overlooks the town. No one else was there.

A dinner of mussels & chorizo in the town square.

We took a day trip to the beautiful Ile de Porquerolles, about a 20 minute boat ride from the coast of Hyeres. This is me in my swimmie:

A drive through the Riviera ended with dinner in Menton:

A brief stop at the beach in Eze:

A wonderful day in Aix-en-Provence, which is still a favourite town of mine. We stumbled across a strange little museum.

It was market day, and we strolled through the flower market (heaven!)...

...the fruit and vegetable market...

...and the meat & fish market.

Our day ended with a truly excellent dinner at the Bistrot des Philosophes.

We spent a few days wandering through the tiny, picturesque towns in Provence before heading back to Paris for another day.

Also, I may have purchased a few things. I'll photograph them and show you later. Promise.

I blame it all on getting married.

It's true that I haven't posted anything here for around 40 years (give or take). It's not that I didn't want to - it's just that everything I was making & doing centered around getting ready for my wedding, and I wanted to keep some of those elements a surprise.

So now it's done! And it's still a bit difficult to process for me. I'm so happy with all of the little details, and some of the moments were so special. The ceremony itself was definitely the most important and beautiful aspect of the day, hands down, but I was still left with a guilty feeling about how much it all cost.

(The ceremony, featuring paper birds mom & I made. And thanks to Mike McPhaden for the beautiful photos!)

Anyway, going to France for a few weeks helped to settle me down (thank you to Adrienne for the beautiful and free apartment!). Since we've been back, I've been able to settle in and get my new projects started. And I've also started possibly the slowest cleaning-of-the-apartment process ever known. We have to find a home for so many lovely things in so little space! Including some of the decorations we made for the wedding, like this little bicycle vignette:

And some new pottery pieces that we bought at Coriander Girl. Alison did the flowers for the wedding and I cannot recommend her highly enough. We knew each other through drama classes that we took as teens, and she's fun, and talented, and uses ethically grown flowers. We'll post some pictures when we get them.

My sweet friend Robyn gave us her old bed, so we finally got it together and hung up our art.

And here are the programs that we made. I painted & designed them, and Chris cut them all out by hand, rounded corners and everything.

And the invites. Which we were so happy with! I hand-painted the illustrations, scoured the free font sites, sewed the invites together (using paper from The Paper Place and Michaels), and hand lined the envelopes. It was so much fun.

I have so much more to tell you! But am off to The Remarkable Bean, which I hear is fantastic.

My feet could never point well enough to even consider ballet.

I love ballet clothes. I remember in high school, my friend Sarah and I would do some of our shopping at the giant dance wear store downtown. Nothing much has changed. A month ago I hopped across the street to the National Ballet school and raided their store.

It's hard to find a good ballet wrap sweater these days. I just saw this in the new Anthropologie catalog, and I think it is a perfect candidate for potential sweatership.

A few weeks ago, we headed to Montreal for a quick weekend vacation, and we were both sick for much of the time, but I did have just enough time to stumble across (gasp) - a whole store dedicated to ballet shoes. There may have been some hyperventilation. Here are some of my favourites from their website.

This was Chris' favourite pair:

I think these last two are my personal favourites:

Okay, well, thanks for indulging me. Happy Sunday!