December 2010

Christmas Calamari

Submitted by Saskia on December 22, 2010 - 12:13am

This weekend I hauled the artificial tree out of storage and dug the Christmas bins out from under the summer camping gear and began the yearly trip through Christmas-ornament history. My Christmas tree looks nothing like those spectacular trees in home decor magazines where everything is colour co-ordinated and themed accordingly. No, my tree is a hodge-podge of ornaments made by family and friends over the years. Many have decayed, having been made out of perishable items, and had to be discarded but most have survived and each ornamnet gets a chuckle before it is lovingly strung onto a branch.

266Mom's clothes pin angelClothes Pin Angel

The tradition of home-made ornaments started with my mother. As a child every ornament on our tree was made by my mom. I have one of her angels made from material wrapped around an old-fashioned,

A Terrific Union

Submitted by Saskia on December 14, 2010 - 9:48pm

260Union Restaurantimage of Barbara Klunder mural, from www.union72.ca

Why does the holiday season mean that we jam one month with parties, get-togethers and catching up with long lost friends? Why is this not something that we spread out–unite with friends in a more relaxed month? I complain but I do love this season for the very reason that for one month my social calendar is not  an embarrassment. In December I am a social butterfly!

Jammed into a weekend with a Christmas party, a visit from my mother, Christmas shopping, a blind date and preparing some Christmas goodies I met up with an old friend from my childhood. We met at the very trendy Foxley for dinner. We got there early to avoid the line and when we were finished dinner the night was still young. We wandered down Ossington until we saw a cozy little restaurant with a terrific bar up front. A perfect spot to order a bottle of wine and settle in for some catching-up.

The first thing that caught my eye when we walked through the front door was

KraftKaravan Gets Blogged!

Submitted by Saskia on December 9, 2010 - 11:37am

A guests at one of our KraftKaravan evenings was a woman named Heather Camlot. She is a freelance writer who does a weekly blog on sweetspot.ca. She wrote a fantastic blog about her evening at our KraftKaravan entitled The Crafts Around the Corner. Very Exciting!


Read more: 

http://www.sweetspot.ca/MySweetBaby/blog_heather_camlot/27810/the_crafts...

http://www.kraftkaravan.com

 

'tis the Season

Submitted by Saskia on December 7, 2010 - 9:30pm

 

255basket of monkeys
That's right... 'Tis the Season of the craft shows.

3 months of sewing, tagging, printing, painting, sewing, sewing, sewing and the week has finally arrived. 2 Craft shows back-to-back – the Speakeasy Holiday Craft Sale on Thursday evening and the 918 Bathurst Holiday Art Market on Saturday and Sunday. As luck would have it I started feeling sick on Monday and by the morning of my first craft show I was in the throws of a full blown sinus cold: head-achy, body-achy, crawl into bed and die-achy.

I dragged my bins of monkeys, my table and my boxes out to the car on Thursday morning. I picked up Michelle and all her handmade goodies and we drove to the office for a day of nervous anticipation for the

 

 

 

 

© SASKIA VAN KAMPEN
LEGAL

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This blog is where I reflect on creative processes, creative happenings, creative experiences and creative artefacts.