vintage market place

Over the weekend we made our way to Hamilton’s very first Vintage Market Place at the Hamilton Convention Centre. It was really nice not to have to trek all the way to Toronto for a vintage market sale -finally! There were was just the right amount of vendors so as to not feel totally overwhelmed and to still have the energy to go off and do something else for the day (like say see Oprah, go to the Food and Drink Fest or just go home and have a nap).

White Elephant was there selling a beautiful selection of vintage dresses. I happily noted that they carried dresses of a variety sizes too; not just the typical teeny tinies. Bodega was there representing their 80′s rock vintage wares, and Chaises Musicales was also there showing off their vintage furniture.

It was great to see a lot of vendors that I’d never heard of before like High Flute Vintage, Vintage Soul Geek and Girl on the Wing, who by the way is soon to open up her shop here in Hamilton at 181 King St. East -can’t wait!

Rekindle Home Upcycled Furniture

I was happy to score two tops perfect for the summer and the ever (still -ugh) transitioning shape of my post-baby body.

I’m really looking forward to watching this Vintage Market really grow in the following years.

sugar bush

The last weekend of March we were in Kingston visiting some old friends. While there we decided to make the most of the early spring weather by heading out to a nearby conservation area for a maple syrup festival.

To the sugar bush!

The trees were tapped with the sap flowing. We noted that they had several different methods of tapping, some with metal pails, other trees with blue plastic buckets, and some were tapped atop a hill with a series of connecting tubes that ran towards the sugar shack down the hill below (definitely the most efficient).

maple syrup evaporator

There wasn’t any snow of the ground so we weren’t able to do the classic maple syrup on snow or ice. Of course there were pancakes and although we’d already had a delicious breakfast we could not forgo sampling at least one (or two)!

This pancake was so delictable and the maple syrup was so fresh!

I hadn’t been to the sugar bush since I was a little kid. I’m sure in the upcoming years we’ll be doing an annual maple syrup pilgrimage to Mountsberg (and the like) with the little one.

sleep over

Among the many things that people will tell you when having kids is that your life will never be the same and that you’ll never be able to live like you used to. Honestly this idea kinda petrified me -to think that I’d be sequestered to an isolated parental island void of all “normal” social contact and/or limited only to baby/parent talk.

However, I’ve suprisingly found that besides the obvious life changes invovled in having a child, life with some effort can be quite as it were pre-baby.

The beauty is to come up with novel ideas on how to continue to socialize and maintain social equilibrium.

Thus far we have found that life can take on many of the same ceremonious social rituals (however, I’m sure this too will change). We’ve managed to finagle going out for dinners, visiting friends, and more often than not these days having friends over. We must of course give thanks to our friends, who have continued to request our social presence.

There are challenges that do arise in trying to socialize. Especially when we want to meet up with friends who live out of town that also have kids. Between naps, dinner, baths and bed time, this all  leaves little room to get in a satisfactory visit.

So in honour of living life the way we used to like let’s say having dinner with some old friends from out of town, we pulled off our first ever parent sleep over and it was a success. Once the kids had their dinner and bath time, and it was all quiet on the western front. We parents camped out in the mainfloor of the house with wine, escargot, bubbly Italian beers and fondue -how so appropriately over the top adult like of us.

tempura oil fondue -a Japanese twist on a French meal

the next morning -starting the day off right with some colouring

so long

Old buddy old pal… You’ve seen better days.

Found you on a street corner in Toronto.

It’s time we let you go.

So long.

secret heart

I’m not someone who does a crazy amount of planning for special occasions. But I do often have little mini ideas mapped out in my head for treats that can easily be cooked up at any given time.

For this year’s Valentine’s Day I picked up a few gifts locally for some little surprises for my Valentine.

We love coffee at our house and since being home full-time I’ve seen my coffee consumption double! Steve, as of late, has been branching off from our traditionally consumed French-pressed coffee to espressos. So I thought I would indulge in his new coffee interest and get him a cute one-shot stove-top espresso maker. I picked one up from Faema on James North. They’ve got a pretty good selection of espresso machines, with a not-bad retro looking used one that we might actually be able to afford -eeek! If we end up getting it, it’ll soon be lattes and espressos all day long chez nous!

I also stopped by Ola Bakery for some Portuguese sweets. Ola has some lovely fluffy, flaky baked goods (and I’ve heard they do a great sandwich too).

As a Valentine’s mid-morning surprise I managed to put this spread together with a quickly crafted homemade Valentine’s Day card. Steve’s been really busy at work so it was nice to be able to share a quick coffee break midday in his at-home office while Omi napped.

I executed this next surprise Valentine’s treat that Steve has still yet to discover.

I recently saw a cute DIY post on Design Sponge about patching little moth eaten holes in sweaters with felted hearts. I really need to invest in some lavender sachets or a cedar something or another but I haven’t and so Steve and I both have a couple of sweaters with a few sad moth munched holes in them.

So besides needing a sweater with a hole, you’ll also need some felting wool and felting needles. I picked mine up from Needlework on James North.

You’ll also need 2 sponges to stack under the sweater for when your jabbing your wool with the needle. That way you won’t give yourself multiple stab wounds.

Next make a little stencil for the shape and size of the felted patch that you want. Flip your sweater so that you start felting your patch on the reverse side. Take a nice size bit of wool and start to felt away!

Once the shape is pretty solid from the reverse side, turn your sweater right side out. You should see the shape of the heart clearly. Take smaller and thinner pieces of wool to shape the heart and felt it until the heart looks nice and full.

I practiced first on my sweater with this red heart and did Steve’s hearts with grey wool. I thought the grey hearts on his grey sweater would be more subtle as I wasn’t so sure how he’d feel having bright red hearts felted everywhere.

Can’t wait for the day when he pulls the sweater out of the closet to wear and sees a few cute little grey hearts on his sleeve. Until then, shhh -don’t say a word.

not a pancake

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again my favourite meal of the day is…. brunch!

I know it’s Pancake Tuesday and everything, however, this post isn’t about pancakes but about my latest brunch discovery the croque madame.

To make this decadent brunch treat you need a fresh loaf of French bread. Slice it up and get it ready for some classic pan-fried French toast.

For every 5 slices of bread I use 2 eggs and about 1 cup of milk. I usually mix into the eggs a pinch of cinnamon and an even tinier pinch of clove powder. Slide a small pad of butter onto the pan and start French toasting away. If you want your French toast to be a little sweet sprinkle a bit of sugar on the side that’s up and hasn’t been flipped yet. Voila! Fluffy golden brown French toast.

Once you have your French toasts toasted you’re going to sandwich it up. First, spread a thin layer of dijon mustard  (I used a lovely maple dijon mustard & that little bit of sweetness was just right), then a slice or two of black forest ham and a generous amount of grated Swiss, gruyere or Emmantal cheese. Close up your sandwich with another piece of French toast. Heat up your oven to 400.

Next prepare your béchamel sauce. Which consists of butter, flour, milk and cheese with a pinch of salt, pepper, and nutmeg. I used a béchamel sauce recipe from here.

Top your sandwich with the béchamel sauce and add a generous sprinkle of cheese on top. Then bake in the oven until the top is golden brown (about 10 minutes).

What’s in the oven is a complete croque monsieur. You can leave it at just that OR you can take it one notch up and add a poached or fried egg atop of the sandwich to make it a croque madame, which is what I did.

croque monsieur -a baked french toast sandwich with ham, swiss cheese and béchamel cream sauce.

So, while these beauties are browning and melting in the oven, get your eggs poaching or frying. I did my eggs fried sunny-side up, and garnished with some market fresh thick bacon.

Served this madame up with a nice light salad, oven roasted tomatoes and pan-fried crisp potato medallions.

the needle emporium

So I’m not really a knitter. Which is precisely why I signed up for a toque knitting class at Needlework.

To prepare for the class I had to brush up a little on my knits and pearls and I also had to pick up some yarn.

A while back I posted about a knit store called Fire Ball Knits that was in Westdale, which has since closed up shop. So let it be known that downtown Hamilton does not have a knit shop (yet).  I’m sure it’ll be no time until someone gets in on this minor gap in the market of downtown knit shops. But until then the closest knit shop for me is in Ancaster at the Needle Emporium.

It was my first visit to the Emporium, and although I wasn’t able to explore in the shop for too long I did love that it was in old Ancaster. I got to take a nice winter scenic drive up the mountain and sneak some peaks at some of the old surrounding buildings on Wilson St. I loved the old stone building exteriors of many of the neighbouring shops.

old stone building -Masonic Lodge, Wilson St. East

Inside, The Needle Emporium is ram packed with a variety of wool in all different shapes, shades, textures and colours. It was a tight squeeze with Omi in a stroller walking amidst walls of yarn so I took just a quick look around, bought my required wool and headed back home.

I would like to come back another time to get a better look at their yarn selection. Once I get this whole ‘how to knit’ thing figured out I’m sure I”ll make a trip back up the mountain to pour over all my knit purchase options.

In the end I narrowed down my yarn selection for my toque to Madeline Tosh‘s hand-died yarn (in charcoal) or something a little brighter. In the past most of my toques have mostly been black so I thought I’d forgo the charcoal and opt for a super colourful ball of Drops Big Delight.

In hindsight I wished I’d gone for the Madeline Tosh. Once I successfully finish knitting my first ever toque I’ll be gunning back for the hand-died charcoal.

*The Needle Emporium, 420 Wilson St. East, Ancaster, 905.648.1994

two hundred

My two hundredth blog post in two hundred characters.

I took this photo one January afternoon earlier this month. The sun and shadows moved across the wall and flickered with the clouds and wind. Sigh.

a cameron cut

A while ago I was fortunate enough to win an amazing prize from the ladies from Sweet Ice Snow Cones. My prize included some super fab items like… a fabric pack from Needlework, a hot dog from Weenies, a Sweet Ice Snow Cone tote PLUS a snow cone AND a haircut from none other than Cameron Elder of Mckinnon Hair Design! It was such a stellar prize.

I’ve posted before about how I’m super lazy when it comes to “doing” my hair. I’ll grow it out long and then do nothing with it. I thought that if the only thing that I was going to do all winter was toss my hair in a pony and wear it in a hat then I might as well just chop off my unruly mop and have something a little more sassy and fun to sport around -right? Plus with the addition of little tiny baby Omi hands starting to reach and pull at my locks I figured it was time to cash in on that free Cameron Elder haircut.

I’d seen Cameron do some pretty sleek and arty haircuts during multiple art crawls in various James Street North storefront windows. I had even gotten a quickie $20 street cut from Cameron out front of O’s Clothes during Supercrawl, which I loved!  So I was pretty confident that although I am a mom and getting a short haircut I’d be guaranteed not to end up with a total mom cut.

Before the cut I showed Cameron a picture of a short hairstyle I’d been eyeing on Pinterest. He did a little consult with me asking me what were the particular features of the cut that I really liked.

I loved how Cameron did this because it made me reflect a little more about why I liked the cut and what I could potentially expect to get with a cut like this on my own head. It made me feel confident that we were on the same page.

I really liked how Cameron incorporated the shape and texture of the cut from the picture. It’s been super easy to take care of and it’s warmed me up to having short hair again. Perhaps the next cut I get I’ll go even shorter! Eeeek!

Thanks Cameron! I adore my new haircut!

You can follow Cameron on twitter @cameronelder but also be sure to check out his video -very cool.

*Mckinnon Hair Design, 111 Balsam Avenue South, 905.544.6601

3 months

Three months have come and gone and this little guy just keeps on growing -who knew.

Despite the winter I still manage to get out and about for walks and errands downtown and I am still absolutely loving spending my days with Omi and watching him grow and change so quickly.

He’s already starting to cut his first few little teeth and is drooling like a faucet (hence the bibs).

We’ve been fortunate to inherit most if not all of Omi’s clothes from various friends and have honestly not had to purchase a single piece of clothing yet. Lisa, Max and Dave thanks so much for providing this super cute outfit that Omi is sporting in this picture.