Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Merry Quinzmas!

ALOT more Quinzmas photos can be viewed here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/heatherbaysphotography/



Quinzmas 2008!!
The Park Theatre in Winnipeg Manitoba
December 13.
www.quinzy.ca/

If you couldn't be there, you can still listen to it on CBC radio.
Quinzmas will be broadcast on

Dec. 25 as a Christmas Special at 7 pm on CBC Radio 1
Dec. 25 on Sirius Satellite 137 at 3 pm ET (2 pm central)

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

The Dandelion Eatery.

A sad day is upon us.


I have recently been informed of some VERY terrible news. The greatest restaurant (in the world based on my opinion) is closing it's doors FOREVER on December 20th. The Dandelion Eatery is located in Winnipeg next to the Organza at confusion corner on Osborne. Go there and EAT!! The food is amazingly delicious...organic and free range. I would recommend the free range elk for dinner with the goat cheese cheese cake for dessert, (seriously the BEST cheesecake I have ever had, and I have had ALOT of bloody cheesecake in my 26 years on this earth). If you don't want to go for dinner, they have an incredible brunch on the weekends, mmmmmmmmmmmmm!!

Just go there and EAT!!!
http://dandelioneatery.com/

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Christmas Tree-2, Oggy-0



So, the tree was put up 2 days ago and Oggy has proven to LOVE the decorations. If you look closely, you can see him under the tree in both photos (he is blurry in the top one because the shutter was open for quite a long time.) The tree hasn't fallen over yet, which is shocking considering the amount of times Oggy has jumped from the couch into the middle of the tree. Not to mention he plays with the decorations close to the bottom and gets his claw caught in the "branches".

I have a fake tree. Real trees are a nice idea. That smell. Mmmmmmmm. Realistically, if everyone who puts up a Christmas tree or Holiday tree got a real tree...that's a lot of bloody trees. It's also a lot of plastic, pollution and garbage to create the fake tree. What to do?!

Sunday, November 30, 2008

My Little Felted Animals.

I have hand felted all these little animals, and there's many more too.


Alligator



Duckling



Panther



Pig



Polar Bear

Friday, November 14, 2008

I Heart Film.

There's nothing more magical then photographing with old film cameras.




These photographs were all taken with 120 film using my 1950's Hawkeye Brownie camera.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Felting Beads!

Right now I am working on making beads for necklaces which I will be selling at the art sale at the Cre8ery on November 22! If you want to come out to the sale, it's located at 125 Adelaide St in the Exchange District and you will be able to view and buy the work of many many artists! If you have facebook, there is an events page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=32714503026



Now, if you want to make felt beads, here's how you do it...
Get yourself some yarn that is 100% wool. You can also by loose wool.


I took the wool and measured it to my arm length. For beads to be the same size you have to be consistent with the amount of wool you use, so I measured my arms length for this specific size that we're making today.


Take the long piece of measured wool and fold it in half, then cut. Fold it in half again, and cut again, and then do that one more time. Now you should have 8 strips all about the same length.


Take a piece of thread and tie the strips together as shown above.


Now twist the yarn and separate each piece.


Now you should have something that looks like curly doll hair. Start pulling apart the strings and meshing them together. You want to make the wool light and fluffy.


After the wool is fluffy (the fluffier and softer it is, the better the bead) cup it in your hands to form a ball shape, like a bunny tail.


Place the ball of fluff is warm soapy water. It's best to do it in a sink because it gets messy. Also, try NOT to use an anti-bacterial soap because they are bad for the environment.


Now take the wet blob-ball in your hands and start rolling it as if you are making a snowman with play-dough. Keep rolling and rolling until you have a bead.
TIP: If it came out lumpy, try to frizz and mesh the wool more before putting it in water, or, don't roll so hard when forming the bead.


And that's how you make beads. They will take up to 2 days to dry, so put them somewhere safe away from kittens who will likely steal them cuz they think the beads are toys.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Goggles.

With the help of 2 great friends, the kitten finally has a name. We agreed on Goggles, though, he'll probably take on the name Oggy. Catface is doing well,but he does have his moments. Right now he is angry. He seems mostly angry with me, lol. I have seen Catface clean the kitten once, they played a few times and snuggled for a moment until Oggy saw Catface's tail move. Catface was very mad after that. I think they will be just fine...but Catface will probably always be a grump.






Sunday, November 2, 2008

The New Kitten.


I have wanted another cat, specifically a kitten, for ages. After our dinner with Scott and Andrea, where we met there new kitten, Julian was finally sold on the idea. So, thanks guys for getting a kitten, because if you didn't get one, I wouldn't have gotten one.

We are having trouble picking a name for him, so if you are reading this, I would like to know your opinion or any other suggestions for that matter. So far, we have four:

Draco - in reference to Dracorex Hogwartsia, a dinosaur recently discovered in South Dakota in 2006.

Elroy - just because it's cute.

Scooter - because it's cute, and Julian and I used to joke about naming our kid that back in the day.

Troodon - there's supposed to be 2 dots above the second 'o', and it's pronounced TRUE-don. It's also the name of the first described Dinosaur from N.America which was in 1856. It was also the smartest dinosaur ever discovered (so far) and it had stereoscopic vision!

Catface is a little unsure about him, but I can slowly see that the kitten is growing on him.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Food can be Art.



Friends of ours had us over for dinner last night in honour of our engagement. They are such wonderful friends. They made pad thai, the best pad thai I have ever had. Andrea is quite a chef and she told us all about Chef Grant Achatz. He is seriously amazing. He has opened a restaurant in Chicago, named Alinea. Apparently it's a 4 hour rollercoaster ride in your mouth! A 28 course meal! Check out the links below. The first site is one persons review including photos of the meals which I would call art. The second site is an interview with Chef Grant Achatz himself and you can see some footage of the chefs making the beautiful and delicious artwork. Food is amazing!

http://hungryhedonist.blogspot.com/2007/10/alinea.html

http://www.asterpix.com/console/?avi=9942271

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Feist = Love.

Who knew that my boyfriend of 5 years carried a ring around in his pocket waiting for the perfect opportunity. We were at Feist, we had floor seats. I was totally impressed with the projector she had up. Very cute, creative and perfect for the mood. He waits for 'Secret Heart'. She doesn't play it. She goes off stage...(I don't know why they bother going off stage when we all know they are coming back on to sing the "encore" songs, and we cheer with excitement when they come back on, as if we didn't expect it.) Luckily, her second encore song was 'Secret Heart'. He says some very sweet words following them with, "will you marry me?" And I respond with, "for real?!" and then, "OF COURSE!!!!" The ring is like something I have never seen before. I have done research:



It's from the turn of the 19th century and was named in Paris, "Toi et Moi". It's a mine cut diamond with a green dementoid, which is a very rare gem mined only in the Ural mountains of Russia.



A day and half after this event, my fiancee's (that sounds weird) Dad's girlfriend comes round to congratulate us and she looks at the ring and says, "it's very beautiful, but you are wearing it on the wrong hand." Turns out, you're supposed to wear it on your left hand! Oh boy, I bet every women and her dog knew that, lol. Time to plan a wedding...this should be interesting.



Click on the Photos to make them BIGGER.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Bald Eagles!!

The other day when I was driving with some friends in the country, we were lucky enough to see 3 Bald Eagles throughout the day. One of them saw us stalking him and as I was looking though my camera lens at him, he turned and looked right at me (the photo is below) and it gave me chills. These birds are like terradactyls.

Click the photo to make BIGGER!