caiti's five friday favourites

Today's guest post comes courtesy of Caiti at Life is a Canvas. As part of my new series featuring bloggers and makers that I admire, Caiti has offered to share some of her favourite links for your enjoyment! Be sure to check out her blog, it's always full of inspiration. Thank you, Caiti!

First of all, thank you to Sarah for inviting me to guest post for her while she is recovering from her vacation in Montreal! My name is Caiti and I am a designer of paper goods and blogger at Life is a Canvas: Creative Musings from CaitididDesigns. On the Life is a Canvas blog, I explore all the ways that we can celebrate creativity in our daily lives — not only through artistic pursuits like art, graphic design, crafting and writing, but also by infusing creativity into everyday activities like cooking, interacting with friends, our jobs, where we choose to shop, and the way we present ourselves to the

world. I am committed to the notion that we are the artists for our lives, and I know that I want to create a life full of color, vibrancy, passion, exploration, and authenticity.

One of my most popular blog series is a "Monthly Faves" post in which I pick several of my favorite links from around the interwebs to help inspire your creativity. I've picked out my five current favorites to share with you today.

{READ}

-Although this post is written by a photographer, I think Alex Beadon's 

"13 things I have learned as an artist" can be applied to any creative person's life.

{WATCH}

- The series of "Live the Language" ads for EF International Language

Centers give me a serious case of wanderlust, including the desire to

visit Sarah's hometown of Vancouver.

{LISTEN}

- I'm in love with the subtle, moody sounds of Gem Club -

Breakers. Perfect for an autumn stroll.

{DO}

- Make these gorgeous DIY gradient napkins with not much more than Sharpies and rubbing alcohol.

{LOVE}

- Running a tea shop out of a

vintage trailer is basically the most perfect, dreamy job I could

imagine.

Thanks again, Sarah, for letting me share some of my favorite links with your readers!

micaela's rad summer: el paso

Though it feels like summer is coming to an end, I'm going to keep it going here on the Sadie blog a little longer with a few more Rad Summer posts. This week the wonderful Micaela from Dolce Vita is bringing us along on her relaxing summer adventure. Micaela was also part of my previous guest post series, A Day in the Life. Her blog continues to be one of my absolute favourites. She is the kind of writer that you feel like you know personally after just reading a few of her posts. So enjoy her post and be sure to visit her blog today, too.

After spending an exciting summer traveling with my twin sister and girlfriends from one coast of the county to the other (NY & SF) and then spending two blissful weeks home in Wichita Falls, TX (that included watching my little sister marry her high school sweetheart), it's nice to soak up the end of summer lazily.

There is nothing like your husband gently waking you up at 4:30 in the morning just so he can take you to watch the sunrise with him at the scenic drive overlook (he even stops at Starbucks so he can get you both a Pumpkin Spice Latte to keep you warm). The lights of El Paso and part of Mexico is enough to take your breath away. 

I snapped the above photo of my husband while saying a prayer of thanksgiving that I get to look forward to endless more sun rises and sun sets with him. 

"The greatest gift is a passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination." 

-Elizabeth Hardwick

I enjoy spending delicious hours in a sea of stacks at my favorite used book shop. Admiring beautiful album covers like the above of Carly Simon's Boys in the Trees in boxes of vinyls that seem discarded to the side. As evidenced by my pile to be purchased, I can never leave empty-handed. random: I consider it a gift when I find an inscription in another's handwriting from years ago. A private note, a window to the past though it's not my own.
 

And no summer would be rad without enjoying copious amounts of frozen yogurt. Mine is never the healthy kind either... chocolate on top of chocolate!

xo Micaela

Thank you so much for sharing and being part of this series, Micaela. I also love spending hours in used bookstores and I, too, never leave empty handed! If you'd like to see the guest post I did on Micaela's blog you can take a look here. The next Rad Summer post will feature Chelsea and Charlotte of There & Here. Looking forward to it!

a day in the life of beca from tales of a tumbleweed

This week's day in the life post is an awesome one. From San Diego, California, Beca's day looks a lot like I wish mine were: coffee, swap meets, dogs, and the one thing I'm always missing: t-shirt weather! Yup, it seems there are very few weeks of summery weather here in Vancouver...who knew? Beca is one of the founding members of our little online book club (announced last week) and she'll be picking the next book. Now, on to her day!

It's 8:00 in the morning. We slept in today. It feels good to sleep past 6. We both have the day off today, a rarity. We usually get up around 5:30 on work days, so any time we get to stay in bed is cherished. This isn't my typical day, since I work 9+ hours, six days a week as the head pastry chef in a bakery, so it would just be photos of cake, dyed fingers, and stacks of recipe cards. 

On this morning, we slowly pull ourselves out of bed and head to LeStats, a strange little coffee shop down the street. The coffee is good and hot. They also have the best jalapeño bagels.

After coffee, Doug and I get into our van, turn up the music and drive west to Kobey's Swap Meet with the windows down. It is our favorite early morning adventure. It's Friday, so the swap meet is mellow and full of treasure.

We class it up for lunch and get the best chicken sandwiches in town - Chic-fil-A, a weekend favorite that just happens to be in the parking lot of the swap meet. Perfect. A woman walks around and asks if we want mints or hand wipes. Like I said, class.

On the way home, we swing by the Florist Supply Warehouse. Doug gets a lacquer spray finish he needs for the sunglasses we've been making, and I see if they have anything I may need for the bakery. I swoon over the isles of brightly colored ribbons and shelves of moss. 

We get home and play with the dogs in the yard with their favorite toy - bubbles! We run around for a while before I get to work packaging up treasures for our etsy shop to ship out. I make a quick trip to my post office, run into at the bakery to check on how their day went, and then find myself at Target. Target is definitely one of my vices. I could spend days in Target, if only they would let me and my brood just move in! I ration my trips there so I don't put us in the poor house, but it's nice to wander around for a while and get everything on my list.

I come home and make a huge batch of spaghetti and meatballs with homemade tomato herb sauce and toast. Comfort food. We spend the rest of our night working on little projects, watching TV, drinking more coffee and snuggling puppies. It's been a good day. They're all good days!   

xo,

Bec

Thank you, Beca! I like that your day includes Target...we also don't have that in Canada! Be sure to check out Beca's stellar Etsy shop and her blog, Tales of a Tumbleweed, too! Next week's day in the life post will be by me, because I have an exciting day to share! It is also going to be the last post in the series for a while because I need to recruit some new participants for later this summer. Have a great week everyone and thanks again, Beca!

a day in the life of melanie from kittenrocket

This week's day in the life post is brought to you by Melanie from Kittenrocket, one of my daily blog reads. Melanie's illustrations are so bright and fun and I really wanted to get to know a bit more about her. Lucky for me she agreed to share a day here on the Sadie blog. She also makes jewelry and has a degree in a field that's related to my own area of study. I'm so happy that people are using these posts to introduce us to their pets, too. I know there are a lot of animal lovers out there. Without further delay, here's a day in Melanie's Montreal life...

It’s hard for me to write about my typical day because my days are very different -- I work part-time at an international NGO promoting women’s rights. I also work on several side projects, related to urban planning, which is what I have a Master’s degree in. On top of that, I try to spend as much time as possible creating things -- photographs, illustrations, paintings, jewelry, writing, knitting… I hope one day to work full-time as an artist and writer, and maybe even to photograph for a really spectacular magazine.

On one of my “creative days”, I am usually woken up by my cat, Fern, who always knows the time when I intend to get up and starts licking me about a half hour before that. The first thing I do is make coffee with my very awesome vintage Pavoni espresso machine – one of the best gifts I have ever received. While I drink coffee, I usually look at interesting pictures on the Internet. Lately, I am trying to listen to the radio in the morning in French. I live in Montreal, which is in a French-speaking province. Most people here speak English and French and I have had a hard time improving my French in the last few years (I have been lazy). I am really working on my second language these days…

After coffee I try to answer emails and categorize all the things that need to be done in the different parts of my life (Fern helps a lot). Then I might work on an illustration or on some other design-related contract and try to update my blog. After lunch I usually get pretty restless in my small apartment and go for a walk to work in a café in my neighbourhood. Montreal is brutally cold in the winter so I have to spend about 5 minutes layering up before leaving the house. Whenever I go out around the neighbourhood, I try and take one of my film cameras. I have a couple of plastic toy cameras and a Leica point-and-shoot that I got from a thrift store for $2.00. These are my regular choices.

I like taking pictures of things that get left out on the streets. I also love taking pictures of the contrast between old/new and industrial/handmade – there are so many strange juxtapositions of this sort in Montreal.

In the evening I try to work out and see friends for dinner or a drink. If I stay in at night I usually paint or knit and I try to watch some French TV. At the moment the snow is SLOWLY melting here and the sun is shining. Soon everyone will be out on the streets in Montreal and I will be incorporating a lot of sitting out on my balcony or on terraces into my daily schedule… it’s a tough life :)

Thank you for sharing these beautiful pictures with us, Melanie. I really have to get to Montreal again sooner rather than later! Be sure and visit Melanie's blog and shop! Next week's day in the life post will feature the multi-talented Kait from Yuppie Love. Fun times!