A Perfect Mix

Happy Wednesday! 

I wanted to share a few vignettes from a story I shot with Suzanne Dimma, editor-in-chief, for House and Home magazine - it's in the April issue, out now.  This is the home of actress Kristin Lehman, star of the series Motive on CTV, her husband, filmmaker,  Adam Reid and son Sammy. It's such a pretty blend of new, vintage, and personal treasures. Designer, Nancy Riesco, helped Kristin pull it all together to create a warm and inviting space, with lots of personal touches. I could live here.  

Kristin, Adam and Sammy were so lovely to work with.  

There's so much more to see so, to get the entire story, check out the digital or print April issue of House and Home magazine. 

Have a great day! 

janis

Weekend Observations

I can't tell you how happy I am that the sun is shining today. Ahh, I love it. Hope you all had a good weekend.

This post is a little about "baby steps", it seems. Baby steps with the weather inching towards being summery, getting organized, working on my sewing "skills" (ha!), and eating frozen yogurt pops instead of ice cream.....

My husband helped with finding a rod and hooks that would work with this cabinet. Merci, Rob. 

That was a bit of my weekend. What did you get up to? 

Back soon!

janis

Friday D.I.Y.

How are you all? Hope you've all had a great week!

I've had another bonkers busy shoot week, so lots of post production work as well. To take a bit of a breather from the computer, I decided to recover a lamp I've had for ages.

I started off by rolling the lampshade across a large piece of paper, tracing along as I rolled. I then pinned the paper template to the fabric, and cut out. I left about 1/2" on either end, then wrapped the fabric around the shade (wrong side out) and pinned. I then sewed the ends together, and slipped it over the shade. I've done this before with an even larger shade and it works really well. This is a lot less messy and toxic than using spray glue to attach fabric.
Thanks to Lili at The Spool of Thread, for suggesting I make my own binding and showing me how. I used white glue to attach the binding to the top and bottom rims of the shade. The whole process took about an hour.

I love these tiny air plants. I picked them up at The Hach, here in Vancouver. All they need is bright light, and a spritz of water.

Have a great weekend! Back soon.
janis
x

Sunday Observations

In my early morning travels, it was a symphony of pink. The blousiest blossoms are out in full force.

 

I also did a little shopping at Olive and Joy. Julie is a talented woman!

That's what I observed in my world. Oh and I also received many last ditch desperate calls from all three major parties, here in Canada. Speaking of 3 major parties, don't forget to vote!

Spool of Thread

I hope you're all having a good week!  Thought I'd share my sewing experience from last night, with you.

Spool of Thread is a cute fabric and sewing store and they also offer a variety of workshops. Actually, it's more of a sewing lounge. Lord, if they served cocktails I'd never leave.
Owners, Lili and Henry, are so helpful and encouraging. Last night, I took a 3 hour pillow case session with Lili, and I actually came away with two pillow cases that I'm not embarrassed to show. I'm not a sewer, at all, so this fast and to-the-point workshop was perfect for me. Thank you Lili.

My pretty decent pillow cases.

If you're in the Vancouver area, check them out. I plan on taking the duvet workshop next, so maybe I'll see you there.

Have a great day! Back soon.
Janis

It's a Good Friday for a little DIY

Hi Everyone! I'm a guest contributor at Poppytalk today. If you're looking for a fun and easy project for the weekend, check out my my DIY over there. Here's a little sample.

I'll be back soon! Happy Friday!
Janis

My new hobby almost killed me

Well maybe not killed, but if I had fallen down the stairs, after I got tangled in a ball of yarn, I would have probably broken a bone. I didn't know knitting could be so dangerous. See reenactment above.

It's been a very busy couple of weeks. I'm working on a new project, trying to get my etsy shop set up again, and our garage is being turned into a screen printing workshop for my husband. I can't believe it's been 10 days since my last post!

Back to my hazardous hobby. After my near death experience, because of a ball of yarn, I decided to get a fraction more organized. I picked up a very cute 50's suitcase at Stepback - they have heaps. Now I've got all my yarn, needles, scissors, crochet hooks, etc., in one spot. I feel very grown up. Any other ideas, knitters, as to how to store knitting accessories?

 Bad storage of yarn.

Better storage of yarn. Cuter too.

Now I'd like to get all my dvds of images all sorted out. I have hundreds of them.  I would love to have these drawers that I saw at Stepback as well, in my office. So much better than how I currently store them.

 These dvds (left), would be better off stored in these drawers....and they'd look great in my office.

Finally had my old chair reupholstered. It's in a very happy blue fabric from Maharam . It looks perfect in our living/dining room area, sitting beside the china cabinet and a painting by my husband, Rob.

Before, ratty gold. After, happy blue.

On the knitting theme, I spotted this festooned stop sign near my gym (which I hardly ever visit). I've heard about "urban knitting" before, but I've never seen it in person. I love how someone decided that the stop sign should have a little scarf, went home, made one, came back and wrapped it around the stop sign.

What happened to Christmas?

Every year I say the same thing. The frantic build up to the big day then poof! it's gone. For the last few days I've been sure not to waste any of the cookies that were happily baked by friends and family, as well as my own sugar cookies. I'm starting to get pimples. All I've done since Christmas (other than eat cookies), is knit scarves, watch It's A Wonderful Life and clean up the house. I haven't even picked up my camera. Poor Canon. Canon and I have a shoot to do tomorrow, so we'll catch up then.

My husband and I are not fans of Boxing Day/Week/Month - it's kind of depressing to me. The picture above kind of sums it all up. I've never been able to wrap my head around shopping the day after Christmas. I would love to hear from those of you that do. Am I missing something, like free shoes and purses somewhere? 

FYI - There are a number of theories as to what Boxing Day is all about. One theory is that boxes were placed in churches, and people placed money and food in them for the poor. The boxes were opened on December 26th, the Feast of St. Stephen, and distributed to the needy. I quite like this theory.  Anyone have any other theories to share?

One last thing to share before 2010. We were mooching off my brother at his restaurant last week and after mooching, we walked by the upholstery shop that is reupholstering my chair. I took in some beautiful blue fabric from Maharam, along with my sad little chair, a few weeks ago. They told me it probably wouldn't be done before Christmas (it wasn't), but I didn't expect to see it sitting high up on a shelf looking so lost. Cheer up chair, it won't be long now!

On that note, Happy New Year everyone! I'm so looking forward to 2010!

There is no such thing as an upholstery fairy

I've been thinking of painting the living/kitchen area of our home. I say this, but I probably won't get around to it until the new year, at the earliest.  This is the frustrating part of my job as a lifestyle and interiors photographer.  Too many options and sensory overload, so it's difficult (for a person like me) to make that final decision. Yikes.

This problem has really been driven home by a few items languishing in our garage. One of the many items is a chair (above) that I've been wanting to reupholster for over a year. Unfortunately, I've learned that there is no upholstery fairy that will take care of this for me. Dreams shattered. Same goes for the shadeless vintage lamp (below), and the piles of fabric that I've collected. You never know when you might want to make a cushion or a sweet bistro curtain. I have never made either. 

I almost forgot all the wallpaper (see some of the "collection" below). Speaking of wallpaper. Is it too hideous to paper a wall that is dangerously close to a toilet? When boys pee.... well, you know. I would love to cover one tiny wall, in our powder room, with vintage Japanese wallpaper. Hmmm.

To wrap up, I'm hoping that now that I've put it out there, I will have to tackle these little projects. Fingers crossed.  

Shadeless lamp.

Dust covered, new and vintage wallpaper.