After a refreshing closet cleanse and a break away from my mini hoarding issues, I feel so relieved that bags of hot messes have been donated. Gone are the baby doll tunics that I once questionably lusted over and left are the v-neck t-shirts, dress shirts, and blazers, that have become my ultimate staples. Maybe it’s the high dose of Project Runway or the return of my humble grade 9 “GQ” self or maybe, quite possibly, it’s Ryan Gosling’s darling character Jacob from Crazy, Stupid, Love. Whatever the reason, I just know this: The tom boy in me is back.

Most of my saved pictures from last week’s LG Fashion Week are from menswear collections but Pink Tartan, among other fashion designers, have tailored pieces that I would love – no, need- to have. The modern day professional has hints of colours, fitted clothing, and awesome tailoring. Walking through the financial district, I know you’ve seen pants that were hemmed too short, ill-fitted blazers that would have Jacob (played by Ryan Gosling) feel obligated to offer help, and women’s pant suits that flatter no one.

I’m hoping to take a beginners sewing course soon so I can tailor all my clothes as if they were body suits and do a little pick-me-up on vintage picks that are loose in all the wrong places. I mean, I could be the next Ryan here and judge you based on your two-sizes-too-large blazer. Seriously.

I want to wish Chris Unagi a very happy birthday! When I first met Chris, I swear his last name was Unagi. And I know I wasn’t the only one! Have a great day.

Last week two of my amazing friends celebrated their birthdays over the long weekend and I decided to make a bunch of birthday cards with all my printing coupons.

This is the card I gave to Catherine, who’s always telling me to join Hallmark. It’s one of three square flat cards I made with Mixbook.com. I went for the thinner paper option (Smooth Matte: 100 lb, 10 pt) and the design quality turned out fine. But to anyone who plans on using Mixbook for their greeting cards, I recommend going with the 110 lb stock; the 100 lb is a bit too thin for a card, in my opinion. Also, shipping to Canada costs around $25 so keep that in mind.

I’ll be giving away one of these “Catherine” cupcake flat cards with every folded card purchase at my etsy shop.

The next set of cards are folded cards by Post Net print shop.

My favourite design has to be this balloon birthday card:

It’s colourful yet so simple. I love it. It’s a blank card and can be purchased here.

I call this the best friend card. There are so many people who let me walk around with smudged eye liner and that’s not something a good friend would allow! (*ahem* Catherine.) Best friends have the wackiest stories and when we’re sharing our moments with other people, they don’t think it’s funny. But in reality, it’s hilarious. I made this card with every special moment in mind that weeds the amazing friends out from the regulars.

Some times we don’t say THANK YOU enough to the ones we love most. So THANK YOU to my lovely friends on their special day. You make my life better.

And naturally, I gave this to Cindy.

The “Best Friend” card can be purchased here.

The trio used a number of patterns to describe their food, which I thought was pretty interesting. Would you ever think to imagine colour blocking, swirls, or even lilies while you eat your food? This gang did:

And the overall impression of their $10 lunch dishes were:

Twin Fish
550 Courtney Park Dr
(in the AMC Courtney Park 16 plaza)
Missisauga, ON

Taking a break from all my photo travel posts, I would like to reveal Cindy’s new blog Chubbie Cakes. She’ll be posting her baking and food journeys and is the latest addition to my circle of food blogger friends, who I must say, save me (and my money) from terrible restaurants and instead direct me to hidden gems around the GTA.

Cindy’s alias has been mi5schubbie growing up and she decided to stick with “Chubbie” (even though she’s not chubby) and added “Cakes” to the name because, well, she’ll be baking a lot of cakes and even introduced the blog with the recipe and instructions to make a Superkid Ice cream Cake as her first post. Plus, I think Chubbie Cakes is a super cute name.

Since the blog is about Cindy’s journeys, I wanted to turn Cindy into a cartoon to use as a logo. I would say Cindy’s hair is one of her more important features because it’s full and luscious with a bit of waviness to it so all my focus went into her hair.

Cindy wanted to use turquoise, yellow, and white as her brand colours. And since “cakes” is in her name, I had to add a cake somewhere! Red velvet and chocolate are Cindy’s favourite types of cake. I went with red velvet to add that extra pop of colour and since I had to take her hair and skin tone into consideration, a chocolate cake would add too much brown to the logo.

I kind of fell in love with Cindy’s hair; I had a hard time chopping off the ends but I had to do what I had to do. After adding in the words, the logo was way too long.

For the type, I used Pacifico (love this font) for Chubbie Cakes and one of my boyfriend’s favourite fonts, Oceania for Food & Baking Journeys. Since the blog is going to be bursting with vibrant colours, using clean playful fonts was the way to go.

And voila! The complete logo: