soundtrack

track list

Bill Callahan • Our Anniversary

The Kills • No Wow

The Deadly Snakes • Oh Lord, My Heart!

Arthur Russell • Close My Eyes

Destroyer • Poor in Love

Bibio • Lover's Carvings

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy • You Want That Picture

Daniel, Fred & Julie • Bonny Black Bess

Kurt Vile • Monkey

spring in vancouver

I love this time of year in Vancouver. The magnolias and cherry trees are starting to bloom everywhere. All of the north/south streets are in full bloom and the others are coming. Soon it will be snowing flower petals here. It's a magical time of year that makes me want to get on my bike and head to the seawall, to Commercial Drive, to all of the places that I haven't visited in way too long. It makes me love my camera, too. Is it spring where you are?

a day in the life of rebecka from AB synth industries

 

Rebecka is a fellow landscape architecture student that I met last year when she came to the school I go to on exchange. We had some amazing times involving pickled eggs, nachos, and Joe Montana. I really wish Rebecka was still here in Vancouver, but now I have a good reason to visit Sweden. These photos give me about 12 new reasons to want to go there, too. Let's take a look-see...

On my bike. Malmö. Sweden.

I’m happy to share my morning bike ride, through my city, with you. It’s one of the highlights of my day, moving, passing and thinking, time dimensions intertwined. The 20 minutes bike ride always takes longer. This is what I see…

First, the horrifying view of the demolition of the landmark and Scandinavia’s largest Ferris wheel, one of the few chances to get a view over my flat city. It’s a great loss for the city and its people. I’ve been observing the dismantling and people who observe the dismantling.

I pass the legal graffiti wall and the now so empty plank that later gets filled with music. On the other site of the road a construction site with the worst housing project appears and remind me of the gentrification process the neighborhood is facing. A few months ago this site was derelict and later became a political art project with shacks against capitalism and homelessness. I was invited to share a soda with one of the temporary dwellers.

My mood takes a positive turn when I bike around the corner and this beautiful former church approaches me, it glows in the night and consists of dancing people and once it was filled with my papier mâché animals for The Very Best concert.

The historical city center, the large squares, the statues of fat men on horses and hordes of biking people, all that I have to pass. Later the waterfront, a place that once consisted of one of the world’s largest dock for constructing ships, now a university and polished offices. My office, together with flourishing cultural expressions, like last summer with an extravagant dance show. And all the restaurants have pictures of the old industrial site.

At last the dreaming view that sometimes makes it hard to concentrate on office related tasks. It changes constantly, weather and enormous boats. 9 h to Finland, announced with loud speakers that fills the entire harbor.

The city moves. So do I.

Thank you Sarah for letting me borrow your bike in Vancouver!


Thank you Rebecka for sharing these beautiful photos and you were brave to ride that bike I lent you! Check out Rebecka's blog AB synth industries, too. And, please, come back to Canada soon! Next week's guest post will be from Melanie of Kittenrocket. Check back!

sunday morning

For you this morning:

Check back tomorrow for an amazing guest post in the A Day in the Life series! 

overwhelming

Dear friends, here's the deal...I have just a few weeks of school left and I've got to get 'er done. I have some wonderful guest posts lined up for you here on the Sadie blog and I'm sure you'll enjoy them all. I just want you to know where I'll be for the next month and a bit...at my desk, in my studio, in front of  my computer, in a pile of trace paper, covered in marker. If it seems a bit quiet around here, rest assured, it's just temporary and summer adventures are on their way! And please keep checking back and leaving my lovely guest bloggers lots of comments! I'll be posting when I can and will be putting the Sadie shop into vacation mode for April and then having an exciting, fresh relaunch of all this fun stuff in May. I'm looking forward to photoshoots, making things, and having weekends again! Do you have summer plans yet?

These photos are from a late spring day in the Alberta Rockies. Taken with one of my favourite cameras, my Fed 5, an insanely heavy-bodied Russian rangefinder. Look at those colours and soft textures. I dream about these mountains.

a day in the life of danielle from dinosaur toes

Welcome to the second post in the day in the life series here on the Sadie blog. I'm so excited that the talented Danielle from Dinosaur Toes is sharing a day in the dinosaur toes workshop with us all. Here we go!

my days are pretty uneventful and spent most offen in my pajamas, but i wouldn't trade them for the world because i can't imagine ever enjoying another job so much!

i'm out of bed by 8 and my first order of business is waking up flojo so i can catch up on all the kisses i missed while we were sleeping.  the sun rises and sets on flojo, and my day wouldn't be the same if she weren't with me every minute of it!

once flojo is awake and has done her stretching and we're caught up on kisses, we open all the curtains, water the flowers, watch the birds, and because of the time of the year, sometimes i'll go out and pick a few flowers to have around the house.  the pink flowers are rambling roses that i cut from down in the woods.  chris and i keep saying that we're going to go dig some up so we'll have one in our yard!

a little later in the morning kona and i will walk to the mailboxes and take packages for the mail lady to pick up, or we'll walk up and get the packages she left for me.  depending on how warm it is, we may keep on walking for a while so he can sniff and i can exercise.

once i come back in i get busy making jewelry, taking pictures of jewelry, adjusting pictures, updating my website, and my favorite part...eating!  while i'm working on jewelry at my desk, i keep a drawer on the left side opened as it's flojo's play drawer.  she loves shredding boxes, then tossing the bits around, all while squealing like a little pig.  it's so entertaining, and i find myself putting down whatever it is i may be working on just to watch her!

I love this glimpse into Danielle's day and the beautiful photos she chose to share! I really wish that I lived in my own forest full of rambling roses, too. Be sure to check out Danielle's wonderful blog and the gorgeous Dinosaur Toes shop! And thank you to my lovely friend for sharing! Next week will feature a day in the life of Rebecka from absynthindustries (Sweden). Can't wait!

weekend worship

Saturday was altogether awesome: supermoon, laser tag, pizza and ice cream cake and cupcake birthday party for my friend Becky, and a great thrift store run. I had no idea what to expect at laser tag. I though we would be running around in a dark warehouse with little kids and that I would be the worst at it. Well, that's pretty much what it was, except add in the fact that it's totally awesome, too. The space that you play in was pretty much a huge maze, with windows and walls, ramps, and lookout points.

Game one I did awful. I didn't even know how to shoot people and was getting hit from every freakin' direction. Had it not been for the brief stalking that I did of my friend Mark I may have finished with negative points. Garme two required a change of strategy. I teamed up with Jeff (that's him on the skateboard) and we started at a highpoint where we just picked off huge groups of people for maybe five minutes. At one point we noticed there were about 20 lasers scanning our area looking for us. We were unpopular but also shooting everyone!

We executed a pretty awesome raid (which failed, but was fun anyway) and I repeatedly hit a guy who later turned out to be at the same party as us, which was a bit awkward because I was sort of driving him crazy, I think. Anyway, you can see from the scoreboard below that I came in second overall. That's me, N. Scratt, a variation on my bowling name. Jeff is Dr. Dude. He had 3% accuracy, that might have been part of his problem. What a fun way to celebrate my friend Becky's birthday! I'm so glad she organized this for everyone!

On our way home Jeff and I stopped at a thrift store that we hadn't been to in years, like, maybe since the last time we lived in Vancouver 2002. We remembered the basement box land full of messed up junk and saw a sign that pointed us in the direction of the "bargain nook" or something to that extent. Downstairs we encountered the same scene we'd been faced with so many years ago: crazy people digging through even crazier stuff. We happened to be down there when a new load of boxes was added to the pile. Jeff said he saw a woman find a knife that she liked and start digging through everything with the knife! Woah! We scored some great stuff, which I'll share in a later post. Until then, I'll let this snowy owl magnet give you an idea of both the randomness and the awesomeness the brave will find in the bargain nook. See that horse bridle sitting on top of the pile? I'm pretty sure that went to a steampunk in a tophat.

Other things:

Destroyer - what an amazing show, go if they're coming to your town!

This Joan Didion Essay On Self-Respect (perfect Sunday reading)

A beautiful bracelet benefitting Japan's animals by Upper Metal Class

these days...

Things that are making me happy these days...

More daylight.

Nicer days.

Longer walks.

Flowers everywhere.

New supplies.

Six weeks left of school.

Destroyer tonight.

five favourites on a tuesday: for japan

As you guys know, I've mentioned the need to do something to help people in need in times like this. The more I listen to the news, the more troubled I feel about my inability to help in a big way. So, I've decided to make sure that I'm helping in a small way.

For the rest of March 30% of Sadie sales will be donated to the Red Cross to assist with relief in Japan. Although I try to keep things light on my blog, I find it impossible to not talk about something of this scale, so I'm also providing a little round-up of beautiful things from other independent sellers who are doing something similar. I hope you find something among these objects that you like and that you'll help the handmade community with its collective effort to contribute to the relief effort underway in Japan. Thanks for taking the time to read this post!

Japanese sulfur spa soap by Morning Calm

spring memory by Abby Trys Again

handsome buck cross stitch kit by LoveForJapan

dainty bow by amarilo

chevron forest pendant by OhMyAmpersand

a day in the life...

Dear readers, welcome to the first post in the series I've been talking about these past couple of weeks! I'm so excited to get it started and can't believe how quickly the middle of March has arrived. The first post in this series is a day in my own life, and I offer it up as a glimpse into my busy school world, which I am in the process of wrapping up. After nearly three years in the Master of Landscape Architecture program I am very close to finishing. Here's an average day in my life these past months. 

It always begins with Lola. Look at that face, how could I resist taking her on a walk? Then coffee, then this view down towards the ocean on my way to the bus. Probably my favourite part of my journey to school is walking past this amazing blue whale skeleton at the Beatty Biodiversity Museum at UBC. 

My school days are sometimes also work days, because I'm a teaching assistant in a first year design studio, too. I'll often spend the morning drawing and designing (I'm re-designing a suburban neighbourhood to be pedestrian and child-friendly), rush somewhere, five or ten minutes late no doubt, (as was the case on this particular day when I didn't realize the class I had to get to was actually in a different building that day) and then I'll return to my computer and work later in the afternoon. Pretty boring, really, but that's what I do. 

When I come home it is inevitably dark already, one of the problems with Northern winters and long work and school days. Sometimes I stop at the store on the way home to buy Jeff and myself treats or swing by the post office to send Sadie packages off, but mostly I just get home as quickly as I can to devour dinner and spend some quality time with the couch. I usually read every night, too, in my quest to make it through fifty books a year and tackle everything I want to read. I've been really slow on this goal this year, and I'm sure you can imagine some of the reasons why. I did just start this Joan Didion book though, at the recommendation of my good friend Camilla, and I'm loving it so far. Anything that channels California in the '60s is good with me.

So, that's it friends, my day. I promise to post a much more eventful day as part of this series later on. Next week Danielle from the wonderful Dinosaur Toes will be sharing a day in her life with us all. I can't wait! 

generosity

I got something wonderful in the mail last week and I wanted to share it with you all. My friend Micaela, who I've met through the blog world, sent me a beautiful handmade postcard that I will most certainly be putting up above my desk. It was so thoughtful of her to write to me and send me well wishes for my final weeks of school. Isn't this postcard so adorable?

Speaking of generosity, in light of the recent earthquake in Japan I just wanted to take a few seconds to encourage everyone to consider supporting the relief efforts of organizations like MSF and the Red Cross. I know sometimes it's hard to donate when you don't get to be involved in the results of your contribution directly, but giving is good for everyone. In fact, it's been proven. Have a great weekend, everyone!

five friday favourites

rocky top soap shop

the world traveler by happymine

vintage matroyshka kittens by ethanollie

I wanted to start by sharing a few of my recent Etsy favourites with you. First of all, I ordered some soap from the Rocky Top Soap Shop and I love it! Quick shipping, lovely packaging and beautiful soap. I ordered the activated charcoal soap and a sample of cucumber yogurt. (Yes, Jacqui! I found the charcoal soap I was looking for and I've got one for you, too!) I think next time I think I might try the tea soaps. Do you order handmade beauty products from Etsy? Which shops are your favourite?

Next, my friend Jasmine just opened her own Etsy shop, happymine. Check out her fun illustrations and show her some love! There's nothing like a good adorable animal-themed card to make someone's day.

And then (I always seem to find the cat-themed objects) aren't these nesting dolls kind of amazing?

I recently ordered a necklace from one of my favourite shops ever, Dinosaur Toes. Kind of a thesis-motivation present for myself. This chalcedony bullet necklace was tough to resist...next time! I'm super excited for the piece I picked to arrive. I have a great pair of earrings that Danielle made and got my sister a bullet and amethyst necklace for Christmas last year. My favourite thing about Dinosaur Toes bullet necklaces is that Danielle gets the shell casings from her own target practice. Definitely check out her shop and blog!

chalcedony bullet necklace by dinosaur toes

Shall we end with a video to start the weekend off a little early? I think so:

Chad's from Calgary, my adopted hometown. He makes all the music and draws the animations. Awesome. Happy weekend, everyone! News: I'm updating the Sadie shop on Saturday and a day in the life starts on Monday!