What does the fox say?

Just in case there is any chance you've missed this viral and extremely catchy piece of internet gold. Take the next few minutes and be bizarrely entertained:



Wasn't that something else? I'm certainly a fan...but not as thrilled when I realize that the song has been stuck in my head for the last month. Minor details....

How odd...

I feel like this explains exactly how I feel some days:

(source)

What a marvelous image! How is your day going?  

Dumb Ways To Die

Happy Sunday! Today I've brought you a very cute and catchy video! Take a peek:

Did I mention how disturbing and odd it is? No? Well...it is one weird video...but then again I'm not about to dip my privates into piraña infested waters either. Yay! Adorable life lessons! Which is your favourite dumb way to die? 

Couch Dying

Looks like we've made it to Monday and after my busy weekend of activities I am pooped! So once again I bring you a last minute post I've written before a very early bed time! Hooray! The girls at Used Victoria.com certainly showed off their craftiness at the Maker Faire this Saturday by spray painting some couches purple:

 

That's right! Bright purple! How cool is that? I had no idea you could just paint furniture but apparently they sell special fabric spray paint that you mix in with fabric softener and that's about it! Instant upcycle! Neat! What did you get up to this weekend?

Zombie Kate

My internet may finally be hooked up - but my brain has been eaten by zombies! Okay...not really...but a jam packed few weeks of packing, moving, and attempting to unpack has left me brain dead! Ack! And speaking of zombies...have you ever noticed how much zombies and babies have in common?:


Thank you Pinterest (go Lindsay and the spam filter yet again)! I figure the best remedy for my zombie-ism is a week full of plenty of rest and watermelon! What do you think? How have you been without me these last few days?

Kate's Spam Filter

Pinterest has taken over my internet life. As my (non computer based) life gets busier and busier I find that my blog following becomes too much to handle! Sure I can spare a few minutes here and there to read a few posts but once I skip a day my unread blog post list jumps to almost 500! After this past weekend of illness (meaning lots of sleep and not much else) I had a daunting 879 blog posts to catch up on! Youch! Enter Pinterest to the rescue! A wonderful site full of crafty and outfit inspiration that I can check with just a glance! Hooray! One of my favourite Pinterest boards I turn to when I'm in need of some eye candy? Lindsay's most wonderful "Kate's Spam Filter" pin board! Instead of an inbox full of "hey I saw this cool thing you should check out" emails she can just add the picture (and link) to the board and I can check it at my leisure! How fabulous! There are even a few themes developing on the board (and I am here to list them off for you):

1) Craft projects involving items I am obsessed with. Doilies, pom poms, chevron stripes, geometric shapes, and pyrex here I come! Just look at these neat pyrex dish lights for the kitchen:


2) Geeky images. Whether it be comic book, star trek, or star wars related - Lindsay continues to find gems that I always fall in love with (and then usually drag my geeky boyfriend Fraser in to check out too). I totally want this lego storm trooper and kitties print for my craft room wall:


3) Hilarious randomness. Linds is the best at finding ridiculously funny quotes and pictures that bring a tear to my eye. Perhaps our sense of humour isn't easily understood by most people - but Lindsay is one person who gets me. For example:


and finally...
4) Cats. Lots of cats. Adorable, adorable cats! Hooray!


Weren't those fun? Don't you wish you had your very own personal pinterest friend to find amazing images for you to check out? Well, I clearly don't have the time to volunteer but you can always follow my spam filter board or any of my boards in the meantime. If you still haven't taken the plunge into the most inspirational site of all time - let me know! Send me your email and I'll hook up you with an invite! Yay!

Friday Find: lizwill

The other day I met my friend Jordan for coffee. As the day progressed we very quickly realized that the coffee shop we wanted to go to was indeed closed, so we'd have to improvise! We ended up making coffee at my house with the half pound of coffee I got in Seattle, and the (both still in the boxes) coffee burr grinder and coffee press I'd bought while still living at my parents house. It was quite the epic ordeal (since I rinsed off the grinder and the semi wet coffee grounds clogged up the burrs) but we did end up with a Bodum full of extra deliciousness (like 1.5 hours later...)! We also got to catch up and he got to show me some of the fun Etsy shops he's been buying from and I just love the neat art of Lizwill! Look at the print Jordan bought:


Why yes that is a kitten ninja shooting energy from his hands! It's called "kitten juggles the cosmos" and I think it is wonderful! They have a whole bunch of bizarre and amazing prints for sale I can't decide which I like best! Take a peek at the fox, storm trooper, and moose ones I've been coveting:


Ah! So much fun and so random! As for me, I've been spending my spare moments packaging up a wholesale order for a shop in Vancouver so I'll be back tomorrow with part I of my vacation recap! Happy Friday!

Friday Find: postcards from

Instead of my usual friday find feature where I ramble about some etsy shop I'm in love with, I thought I'd switch it up a bit and do a post about a blog instead - because after all, this blog did come to me under extraordinary circumstance (well...sort of). On with my story.

A few weeks ago my boss told me he hired two new girls at work - sarah and kate. Our store is already plagued with sarah's (new sarah being our 4th) and I wasn't particularly thrilled with having another kate (since, if you weren't aware - that's my name). No big deal - I'm sure we can figure it out, and new kate will just have to suffer with the awful fate of being branded by her initials. The new hires started, were truly wonderful in every way, and I quickly learned that new kate is actually a kate m. Rats. I'm a kate m! Now what are we going to do? *Sigh* I'm sure it will work out and someone will get a nickname somewhere along the lines (even if we don't have jacob to invent them anymore).

So the work weeks passed, I got the pleasure of getting to know new kate m a little better and I heard that she runs a blog. Oh! I run a blog! What are the chances? Kamloops is a pretty blog-free city for the most part. What fun! I tried to nonchalantly pry info out of her to creep on her site after work and the verdict? I've been reading kate's blog for many months now. Crazy! What a small world! She does a wonderful job of tip toeing around any details about her location so I guess I'm not a complete fool for not putting two and two together - but when I told some work mates about the funny coincidence they wanted to know how it is that I didn't recognize her. Well...I'm not sure. I do read a lot (I'm talking 350+ blogs) so I can't be expected to remember every last detail right? Ah well, regardless, kate is a wonderful new addition to my day job and a wonderful addition to the world of fashion blogs! Take a moment and check out the awesomeness that is kate m's postcards from. Here's a little montage for you if you're short on time:


I love reading (well...more like looking...) at fashion blogs and kate's is no exception. She has a wonderful sense of humor and style and inserts little snippets of her lovely witty personality in every post. Her images are dreamy with lovely colour schemes that romanticize the usually blah looking semi arid desert that is kamloops! She inspires me to toss out all my ill fitting pants and stick to skirts/dresses with tights year round and totally makes me want to grow out my hair (which, for the record, is probably not going to happen since my red tresses are way too thick for me to deal with). Wonderful! Maybe one day I'll throw some fashion posts into my usually strictly crafty blog...but for now I'll just stick to reading about outfits...

getting to know all about me

The other day jess tagged me to write a blog post relieving seven random facts about me. I've been reading lots of posts like these around the blogosphere and am thrilled to finally be invited to participate in one! Let's go and learn about me (list time!):

1) Even though I imagine myself as a brunette I am most definitely a red head. I spend a ton of time straitening my naturally wavy, crazy thick hair and it has become like a trademark. There have been numerous occasions where friends have told me that they recognized me from miles away because of my hair. I've never dyed it and it grows so quickly that I get it chopped off quite often. It's a love/hate relationship but there are certainly worse things to be known for than a perfectly styled hairdo:


2) I'm a firm believer in retail therapy. Buying stuff fixes all problems (well almost) and online shopping is particularly exciting because it allows me to get cool stuff I couldn't find in town and means I get mail! Double win!

3) I am a motion sickness disaster. I can get nauseated after being in a moving vehicle for five minutes and often suffer from spouts of vertigo. Even though I've experimented with all sorts of motion sickness remedies nothing seems to do the trick and it strongly inhibits my ability to travel. Luckily, british columbia is the most awesome place to live and vacation in so all my trips are short lasted. Once I arrive at my destination (be it by bus, car, boat, or plane) it takes me a while for the sick feeling to pass - and leaves me somewhat unpleasant:


4) I have an ongoing love affair with music. Its complicated and involved. I absolutely love going to live shows even though I often miss out on actually seeing the bands because my eyes are closed as I sing/dance/clap along. It took me three tries to actually see the wooden sky and the great bloomers. About a boy should have taught me to avoid the eyes closed singing bit but I still feel compelled to turn up tracks (esp. mumford & sons) and eyes closed sing along to loads of songs during road trips.

5) I struggle with numerous health problems which have set back my plans for career advancement. I actually started etsy selling after I had thoracic surgery to remove a soft ball sized tumor from my chest and had loads of time on modified bed-rest (perfect for crafting!). I try to maintain a super positive outlook on life (since dwelling on bad things really doesn't get you anywhere) and have a wicked awesome scar down my side:


6) I'm all about making a fool of myself and acting exactly how I feel. I've come to the conclusion that if someone isn't going to like me for the way I am then they really aren't worth knowing or keeping in my life. Bring on the kitchen dance parties and bold accessories!

7) Sometimes I wish I was photosynthetic.


On second thought...maybe the green skin deal would be less than ideal...

This is the part where I'm supposed to pass on the 7 random facts challenge and I thought I'd suggest three lovely ladies from austin to join in on the fun since (bonus random fact) when I was little my dad and I would order texas tourism books to learn more about such an awesome state! So if you're up for it - I'd love to read more about:

marci - from it's always something
velma - from geek inspired and
aj - from aj the purple!

I hope you enjoyed my little random details - any thoughts?

If only I had too much time on my hands...

My sister linked me to this video a few weeks ago and I just had to share it with you:

It mostly makes me really want to live in a house with fun wallpaper and a hot pink tiger head framed on the wall...maybe one day. In the meantime - enjoy your wednesday!

animal beat box

Just in case you haven't had a chance to check out the wonderful viral video of the moment - take the next 2 minutes and 42 seconds to enjoy:

Hehe. I've seen this on a few blogs now and even though I've prescheduled a whole 12 days after after initially seeing it (the risk of writing posts in advance) I'm going to hope some of you (like mom and leslie at least) haven't come across it. If you have - sorry for the repetition but it is pretty fun! Happy saturday everyone!

time for tea

I love tea - black, green, herbal - you name it. It is warm, delicious, and thirst quenching without a hefty price tag or calorie count. In fact, I think tea drinking has very quickly become my second most popular pass time (next to my frantic crafting for my kelowna show on the 25th/26th)! The other day I was enjoying my fourth pot when I got to thinking - I wonder how many people out there drink as much tea as I do. Loads of different cultures have long histories of tea drinking so the worlds consumption of tea has to be up there right? After some light research I found out that Turkey is the world's leader on tea drinking (who knew?) followed by the UK and Ireland. Canada is all the way down at number 23 on the list of top tea consumption countries per capita which is sort of interesting. Okay - perhaps I am of a select few that is so enthralled by tea data but you never know when your knowledge of tea might be tested! Heck it all else it is a good conversation topic/ice breaker right? Maybe? Plus tea gives me the wonderful excuse to continue on with my collection of mugs and coasters! Just look at how nice my newest cup/coaster combo is doing:


Mmm! Tea also gives me the opportunity to use the most wonderful tea cozy my sister knit for me:


Isn't it darling? If leslie substituted the white, green, and teal for orange and brown and put a pom pom on top of it then it would be a perfect replica of the one angela landsabury uses in bedknobs and broomsticks too! (If you don't believe me you'll have to watch the movie yourself - I can't find an image of it online). *Sigh* I might be stretching it a bit for that comparison but I do really like tea...and old disney movies. Plus tea cozies do a great job of keeping warmth in for your second cup. So what about you? What is your relationship with tea like?

Best Cake Ever!

At my housewarming last sunday my wonderful friend lindsay brought the most amazing cake. Take a look:


Mmmm! Giant white cake with pretty sprinkles! Seems harmless right? Just wait...


EEEeeee!!!! RAINBOW CAKE! Lindsay you are amazing and that is, by far, the most impressive cake I've ever had! It pretty much took everyone's breath away when I went to cut it and it was super delish too! What an awesome idea! I'm pretty sure all housewarmings need rainbow layer cakes now...heck...all parties do! Lindsay! What did you start? And how in the world is anyone ever going to top that!?!?

cute video for you!

Jim showed me this video he came across after watching a ton of Micheal Bernard Fitzgerald clips on you tube. Not sure how that linked him to M. Ward's "Chinese Translation", but it has been stuck in my head ever since! Enjoy:

So cute! I want to learn how to do animation so I can make music videos. I'm particularly inspired to make a video for The Burning Hell's "Last Winter" involving thumbs up yeti....but that does seem like an awful lot of work...maybe someday...

More cat storage

Back in the beginning of the year I shared a picture with you on "how to store and organize cats." It was adorable, memorable (for me anyways), and makes me wonder how much fur the photographer got on his clothes:


Well the cat storage continues! This time in wire form:


Hahah! So cute! Although I think these kitties look much more evil than the first batch - look at those glaring eyes! OoO! Or that poor squished black one! *Aww!* I wonder if I could get percy to stack...

November!

Hello November! A month full of my big craft show (so excited), crazy preparation for xmas, a trip back to vancouver to see Dan Mangan, another trip to vancouver with fraser & his mom, a new blog playlist, and (of course) a much anticipated new kittens inspired by kittens calendar page:


I think this might be my favourite of the whole calender - and is really making me sad that the year is almost over! Quinn - not sure how you'll top that one. I am really looking forward to a busy month and I'm even hoping to finally get around to taking you on a blogging tour of my new(ish) residence! At last! Oh! And throw a belated house warming in there and we'll be set! Busy times! Oh! And stay tuned - double blog posts today (this one and another at 7am)! Happy November!

An ode to Serena

I am an exceptionally cold person. Once our lovely canadian fall/winter hits you'll find me ridiculously bundled up trying to keep warm! In fact I often sport double socks *gasp! Yup knee socks and cushy regular white socks are the only way to keep my little piggies warm! So I'm sure you can imagine how much I enjoyed "my girl thursday"s lovely knee sock print:


I'm especially fond of the argyle and slight serena ryder lyric quote you might catch if you attended the 2009 salmon arm roots and blues festival (or if you're just a serena fan). But hey - if you aren't in for the tartan style she's got vintage floral too! And hey! They are both free for you to download, print, and enjoy! Hooray for knee socks and hooray for free art! Heck - hooray for monday! Hope your week is starting off wonderfully!

Thrifty finds!

When I moved into my new place in september I was inspired and ready to get unpacked, get settled, and get decorating! Once all the chaos of moving slowed down a bit I quickly realized that decorating on a practically nonexistent budget is much more difficult than I'd hoped and my motivation for having the sweetest rental in history faded a bit. I did however keep my eyes peeled for inexpensive crafty art ideas and when I came across perl bee's swatch portrait tutorial I was convinced I could successfully execute that craft! (I blogged about it here.) My new mission was to search kamloops for wooden embroidery hoops - which seemed near to impossible after a good month of searching...until today! Thanks to the wonderful thrifty eye of wendy I had my first successful trip to the thrift store! Check out all these killer deal hoops:


Yay! Now to figure out what fabrics I want to put in there, stretch them in, and stick them on the wall! So good! I've also realized a few things about thrift shopping in kamloops (that's right - list time!):

1) Shop often. Thrift stores are always getting new stock in and the more often you go the better chance you'll be able to get a wicked deal!

2) Pick the right area. I've discovered that trying to find amazing deals at the crazy popular thrift stores is pretty pointless. Not only are some ridiculously overpriced but they are usually picked over. Try supporting your local community and pick the little shops in the lower income area of town and you're more likely to get deals!

3) Go with a friend! Two sets of eyes are better than one - but make sure you aren't looking for the same items or you might run into conflict.

and
4) Be patient. I always seem to find things when I'm not really looking for them. If you set high expectations for a thrifting trip you're destined to be disappointed. Don't expect much out of the shopping and have fun with the experience!

Yay! I definitely want to work more thrift store searching into my spare time because you never know what you'll stumble across! I am super excited for the other two items I picked up with those wooden embroidery hoops:


Best $1.75 I've spent in a while! And a girl can never have too many doilies and owl prints right? Now I've just got to spray paint that beat up gold frame a nice matte black and get it on the wall! Hooray! Anyone else have any amazing thrift store tips to share? I'm all ears! Well....eyes really...

The absolute ultimate!

Whenever I see something I'm particularly fond of on the internet I usually save the link as a draft post for the blog. That way when I'm in need of a few more blog posts (blogging every day can be quite taxing on the creativity) I can flip back through my drafts for inspiration! Well today's post is inspired from a link I saw back in july! Perhaps a little dated (as this pertains to summer much more than fall/winter) but let's be realistic here - there is always room for gidget:


If you're unfamiliar with gidget, not to worry. It is a teen movie staring sandra dee (whom you probably recognize from the grease song) from 1959 so chances are either (1) you weren't born yet (and since you are successfully navigating the internet there is a high chance of this) or (2) your parents didn't have an opportunity to expose to to such a masterpiece of pop teen surfing movie culture! Well I certainly love the movie and apparently this one little film and its resultant legacy is credited to have been the single main influence in bringing surfing and surfing culture into the american mainstream! Way to go gidge'!

Being such a loyal fan I'm sure you can understand how ridiculously excited I was to see etsy's blog (the storque) do an article on getting the look of gidget! That's right - after all this time sandra dee is back - in the form of preppy 60's fashion. Forget cleavage and skin - give us the allure of coyness and sweetheart style. Take a look on some of the article's picks:


Looks fun to me! Especially since I am all about keeping it covered up! And if you aren't aiming to go all vintage you can always work a few sandra dee type pieces into your wardrobe for a hint of gidget! Perfect! Oh - and if this post has left you craving a gidget movie night - come on over! I'll get the VHS warmed up...

Owl Smores!

As I've already talked about once this month, I am a huge fan of candy corn. Each year around halloween I rush to the stores to get all the candy corn I can handle! This year has been a particularly ample candy corn year since I'm living with fraser now and he loves to support my candy obsession (yay me - boo my waistline)! Candy corn certainly seems to be an acquired taste since most people I talk to hate it (with a fewer amount thinking it is pretty okay). My mom dislikes it so much that when we saw this candy corn wreath on the cover of woman's day magazine last week she thought it was the perfect use for such a foul treat:


I thought it was pretty cool looking...but what a waste! I'd much rather skip this project and make one with black feathers and a crow or something...

Anyways - wreath aside, my owl barn has done it again and shown me yet another owl related tutorial I am dying to try out! And best of all? It includes candy corn! Check out this super awesome owl smore:


Nummers! Looks pretty simple too! Now I just need to take a trip to the grocery store for marshmallows, yellow chocolate melting bits, chocolate chips, graham crackers, and candy corn! Or maybe I'll skip the smore part and just get the candy corn...it is pretty cute though! What do you think?