chicago/vancouver exchange

Back in January the weather and lack of daylight was feeling pretty lame, so I decided to set up a small package exchange between some blogger pals. The idea was pretty simple. You collect $20 of goods that represent your local area and send them off to your exchange partner. In return you get $20 worth of goods that originate from their part of the world. With participants from Western Canada, across the US, and a couple from the UK I hope that everyone ended up with a package as amazing and thoughtful as the one I received from Caiti of Life is a Canvas. Despite the fact that she's moving to Ireland (!) in short order, Caiti managed to put together a beautiful package with lots of Chicago amazingness. I had no idea that this particular chocolate company was from Chicago and feel pretty fortunate that she sent me some flavours that I've never seen before. She also sent along some tea, stationary, and more. Seriously, an incredible package! 

Below are a few pics of some of the bits I sent her from Vancouver in return. Soap from my favourite Vancouver shop, Old Faithful. A Canadian Easter classic (I have to wonder if Caiti enjoyed this thing...I personally think they are delicious, but many people hate them passionately). And, finally, a few paper goods from The Regional Assembly of Text. 

I'm going to be organizing a second round of this exchange in the spring, so if you'd like to participate shoot me an e-mail. I hope that everyone who was part of the first round had a lot of fun putting their packages together. 

Thank you, Caiti!

PS - I totally forgot to mention that Caiti even included some locally-made treats for Lola. Those are long gone, so alas, no pictures! But if you check out my Instagram feed (campandquarry) you can see a bit of her excitement there.

mail in america

This post is sort of a public service announcement, of sorts, because right now Canadian Etsy sellers are facing a big problem! Canada Post has locked out it's workers, so there is no mail moving anywhere in our gigantic country. Having just gotten back from Calgary, I had a few packages that had to go out this week, lock-out or not. I'd heard through the Etsy Vancouver street team that mailing things in the US is easy and cheap, so I decided it was time to check it out. If you live near the border, especially here in Vancouver, this post might help you figure out how to send out your packages in the US until this labour dispute is figured out. By the way, Jeff is a postie so I support them 100%.

From Vancouver we drove to Point Roberts, where we crossed in the regular vehicle line up. The border guard in the booth just sent us inside to fill out a quick form and pay $10.75 USD to get a commercial entry permit. We then went to two different mailing places in Point Roberts, The Letter Carrier (which doesn't ship internationally) and TSB Shipping Plus (which does). I had quite a few packages to send out and discovered that even with the cost of the permit it probably cost me only 2/3s of what I would pay to ship here in Canada. Of course, that doesn't take into account the cost of gas and my time getting out there, but while we were in Point Roberts we also filled up on gas that was 20 cents cheaper per litre and bought some ice cream and a few other things that aren't available in Canada.

The only down side of our trip? Do not eat breakfast in Point Roberts. The café that we ate at was super lame. They're baked goods were great, but the rest was terrible. Baked eggs on romaine lettuce? No thanks!