who needs twill?

i have 20 yards of fine chocolate brown cotton twill i'd like to swap or sell for $3/yard. i bought it last year thinking i'd redo my sofa with it, but have since decided i want off-white linen and more importantly a new sofa altogether with. any takers? email me at erinjoynicholson at gmail dot com.

also, i have 3 moroccan poufs and 4 hand woven berber cactus silk carpets i need to photograph and add to my shop. i'll post photos here first to see if anyone wants to call dibs. my mum brought them back from her trip last month and the last thing she needs is more rugs!

spring things

those of you who are from vancouver and/or who went to the university of british columbia (i'm 2 for 2) know all about the 1 day music festival piss up that is (or rather was) arts county fair. on the last day of classes for the past 16 years thousands of students attended the on-campus concert where they got drunk and behaved very, very badly. so badly in fact that it's amazing the festival went on for as long as it did. this year some changes have been made. the new slightly better mannered answer to arts county fair is this years first ever ams block party. i was asked to brand the event and had a lot of fun with watercolours and ink, and was clearly inspired by steven harrington and ashley g's bearded men. the best thing about rebranding this event was getting to say goodbye to the ACF yellow and purple. check out the site i built here: amsblockparty.com



in other news, i've decided to help usher in spring by putting all the bunnies in my shop on sale for the next couple of weeks. doesn't someone you know need a bunny?

i have to just randomly bring up the christmas tree again... i know, it's been months and i have to get over it but one more reason to not ever get a potted tree again... bugs. specifically weevils. enough said.

my boyfriend is magic

it was our 7 year anniversary on saturday and over a nice dinner at a very nice restaurant hans pulled out a ring box and said "i have a gift for you." i opened it and my jaw hit the floor. i honestly thought going to the very nice restaurant was the gift, and it blew me away that he got me exactly the ring i'd been coveting for an undisclosed, unhealthy length of time.

the best part of the night (other than the shiny, shiny ring) was that everyone in the restaurant thought he'd proposed and people were congratulating us and giving him high fives and his face could not have been redder. it was SO FUNNY. poor hans.

and then on sunday morning we got the news that we are the aunt and uncle of a beautiful little niece who i plan to spoil completely rotten.

best. weekend. ever.

écoutez-vous

scott accusingly points at rob

for the past few years i've worked with 2 good friends, scott and rob. the gospel of paula speaketh the truth; like a rapping cat and a short, crazy cheerleader, scott and rob are as opposite as they come. but they're both stubborn band geeks and so it works. they started up the record label i've worked with because in the months surrounding the release of their last album their labels imploded, or simply disappeared as was the case with their japanese imprint. so they turned doing it themselves into a business, but the ironic consequence was that they found no time to make music themselves. they finally figured that one out and got their priorities sorted and have started making music again.

every month for the next year the salteens will make 2 songs available through their web site, salteens.com. it's like a 7" with an a-side and a b-side, and you get cover art (courtesy of my friend sasha) to boot. and it's free! you should go download yourself some power pop right now. or you can listen to the "a-side" here:

the new cat power site is live!

we just launched the cat power site this morning! yay! how lucky am i to get work like this? the cool thing about this site is that matador has teamed up with the hype machine to create a streaming audio player that will feature exclusive, unreleased songs with comments from chan about each one. that will come in the next week or so, but for now you can stream the whole album.

and now back to work with me.

busy busy busy

what a busy month it's been... so, so busy! but busy good and busy exciting. the most exciting thing is that i'm almost finished the new cat power site. that's right, i'm designing the new cat power site! i also got to do the banner ads. fancy! the best thing about the new cat power site is the over-the-top use of animated gifs. that's right, the new cat power site is covered in animated gifs. i'll bet you can't wait to see it now!

over the holidays i made some little springtime bunnies and i just added them to my etsy shop. i'm getting ready to get packed up for another trip to my family's place on vancouver island and i figured i'd better get these bunnies up in the shop before i leave. my mum says there are sea otters all over the place lately and that one even dragged a flounder or sole onto the lawn where it tore the thing apart and hissed at onlookers. i really, really hope i see an otter!

what else... it was my birthday yesterday! i had some really great dinners out with friends and family over the weekend. i got the most unbelievably beautiful, over the top decadent french copper mixing bowl from hans' family. i love, love it and would never have splurged on one for myself. my sort of sister in law remembered me saying exactly that when we were at the gourmet warehouse together over the summer. she's the best, right? this bowl is begging for meringue.

i still hate you 3-notes

i haven't written for weeks and it's really only because i'm very very busy. this post is really just an outlet for me to vent about my least favourite neighbour, 3-notes. back in november when i first wrote about 3-notes some of you responded with tales of far worse neighbours than mine, but i went to the building manager (for the umpteenth time) anyway and asked him to speak with the aspiring synth-play. miraculously 3-notes actualy stopped this time, or maybe just started wearing headphones. regardless, he really stopped playing his repetitive bassy music that i might like if only i were a glow-stick waving tooth-nasher (but alas, and alack i am not) and it was GLORIOUS! yay! it was like his christmas gift to me and it was perfect and i loved it. and then 2 hours ago he took my gift back and i was first sad, and then an hour later i was just angry. those are the first 2 steps in the bad neighbour grieving process which doesn't include denial because there's no denying how annoying bad neighbours can be. so i emailed the building manager again and will let you know what comes of it. maybe someday if you're lucky i'll tell you all about my other neighbour, juicebox.

more homemade for the holidays

a butterfly for my sister, originally uploaded by squirrel_of_snooze.
the past two days have been spent frantically baking, wrapping, organizing, cleaning, running errands... it's been busy! i'm sure it's like that for everyone, and i'm sure everyone is wondering when the holiday part of this season will actually begin!

this is a little watercolour mounted butterfly i made for my little sister for christmas. i'm going to wrap it right now, but thought i'd take a photo first! she's 13 so she generally hates everything, so keep your fingers crossed that she hates this less than most things. and keep your fingers crossed that she doesn't know i have a blog, too okay?!

i got the most beautiful painting in the mail today from hadley hutton and i will take a photo of it when i get home and have decided where to hang it. now i'm off to do laundry, wrap some more, and pull my hair out. in that order.

here's what i baked yesterday:

clockwise from top left: les punitions / pine nut rosemary shortbread / chocolate shortbread with cocoa nibs and sea salt / buckwheat butter cookies with cocoa nibs / true spice cookies / world peace cookies

the spice cookies and the world peace cookies are my absolute favourites and i'll definitely make them again next year. and those little puniments, the punitions sablé, are the perfect simple cookie. i baked apricot-pistachio bars over the weekend too, and just pulled them out of the freezer.

i can haz new hooman?

now i know this post is a little mean, and i don't like to be mean, but didn't someone once say "if we don't speak for those who cannot speak for themselves, who will?" it was probably bob barker. now that i've justified mocking someone, here goes... there's someone out there who's taken crazy cat lady to a whole new level. she likes to dress her cat up in wigs and hopes you do too. and all for the low price of $50? what a steal! for a cat wig... why should you pay $50 for a wig for your cat? here's why!

"Pink makes your kitty feel elegant, modern and quintessentially feline."
no, i'm pretty sure it doesn't.

"Blonde sets off your kitty’s eyes and makes your kitty look tan."
this begs the question, how a cat look tanned?

"Silver makes your kitty feel sexy and smart, like a cougar on the prowl."
oh, well that makes sense. that's how silver makes me feel anyway... how about you?

"Blue gives your kitty a sharp look -- jazzy and totally copacetic."
okay, this coupled with the use of the word "biznazz" on the home page makes me concerned that a certain someone might be eaten alive by a certain wig-wearing cat.

and now more lolcatz for your enjoyment:

handmade for the holidays

1. porcelain dishes and trays by kg+ab
2. pattern gift tags by elfrida
3. matchbook jotters by freshly blended

the weather outside is frightful. grey, dark and nothing but sleet, it's days like today that make me awfully grateful to have a home office! so i got myself a cup of tea and started going through my bloglines, hard worker that i am.

it seems like every blog i read has been doing holiday gift guides the past couple of weeks, and i've been pretty pleased to see that many of the things i've bought have made those lists. i like to think that means i have good taste and made wise choices, rather than that i'm just unoriginal.

nicole from freshly blended was kind enough to feature my softies in her list today, along with some other beautiful gift ideas. yay! i completely fell in love with the work of another artist nicole profiled: kg+ab, maker of hand painted, handmade glazed porcelain pieces. i have added some of her work to my wishlist, and even if it's too late for christmas maybe i'll get one of her trays for my birthday next month. or maybe i'll just get one for myself!

nicole also featured some spirograph-patterned gift tags from elfrida, and if they can make it here in time i'm getting the multicoloured ones. they'll beat the neon post-it notes pictured in my post below!

now back to work!