Warm wishes to everyone this holiday season...

For those of you that are celebrating today, Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones (near, far and in your hearts). xo

Q: What do you call a cow with no legs?

A: Ground beef.

This is dedicated to all of the favorite aunts out there from your respective fan club, cohort and cult following.

Thank you so much for all that you do!!! xo

[Joke courtesy of tonight's dinner guest]

A community for people who have a passion for the postal system

Sweet.

I keep hearing about Postal Pop. Time to investigate.

OCAD Book Arts Fair

Every year in December, book artists, printmakers, papermakers, and private press printers gather at OCAD to show their work and demonstrate their skills in OCAD's Central Hall and Printmaking studios. The university community and general public are welcome to come and watch artists at work making paper, printing from litho stones, screen printing, hand typesetting, book binding, wood engraving, etching and much more. Many items are available for sale, providing unique ideas for holiday gift giving. Admission is pay-what-you-can.

I took the little person with me and we had a wonderful time. We visited each and every table to admire the beautiful craftmanship and even purchased a few little items. We were fortunate enough to be treated to our own private little demo of a lithograph being printed in the Printmaking studio. It was a great experience for us both!

[I think in another life, I was meant to be a printmaker]

The talented and lovely Akemi of Kozo Studio was there peddling her wares - pins, magnets, gorgeous prints & handmade books, Christmas cards and printing blocks. Also on display was a copy of, "The Anthology of Printmakers Coloring Book" which is a fundraising project she organized in support of OCAD's printmaking dept., as well as a health cooperative for artists which I mentioned in a previous post. Very nice...

City of Craft

I went to City of Craft yesterday. WOW! What a great event! It was so much more than a regular craft fair as it featured craft-based installations, demos, and free workshops, alongside a curated craft fair filled with contemporary, stylish, and offbeat handmade goodies. It was an excellent opportunity to learn about great local classes, studios, resources, and craft based projects and at the same time, provide inspiration.

Everyone was incredibly friendly and dare I say, stylish. It was a great venue for people-watching and meeting the people behind all of those lovely Etsy stores I'd been admiring! The Toronto Zine Library was there with a little tent set up where you could peruse all of the zine goodness they house. They also had little zine mystery packages for sale which had a number of zines enclosed. There was a screen printing demo set up in one corner of the event and an amazing house made entirely of donated hand-knit items was on display courtesy of StreetKnit (an inventive endeavor to bring awareness to issues of homelessness in the city).

This was City of Craft's first event and what a success! I can't wait until they host another venue...