Flamboro Antique Show

As the warm weather begins to fade at this time of year, it means the end of the summer outdoor antique shows in Ontario. For some strange reason, people aren't so keen to wander around a field looking at antiques when there's snow on the ground - hmm, go figure! Tomorrow is the last one of the season and my friend Barb and I are headed out to look for treasures. We try to go at least once a year and usually twice, in the spring and fall. It's usually too hot in the actual summer months to spend hours walking about, but the spring and fall sessions have their drawbacks too, usually as it relates to rain and/or cold. But we've learned to dress warmly so we can stay as long as we want. We're hoping the kettle corn vendor will be there to provide us with a tasty snack to fuel us for our expedition. Since it's the last market of the year, we're also hoping to find some end-of-the-year bargains. I'm focused on finding some vintage beads that I might be able to fashion into something new. But you just never know what is going to catch your eye. You might go with an idea to look for a certain something and come home with something completely different that you didn't know you needed or wanted until you laid eyes on it. That's part of the fun of a flea market treasure hunt. :)

Hello, October!

My friend Sharon had this wonderful quote in The Psychic Cottage blog yesterday:

"There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir,
We must rise and follow her,
When from every hill of flame,
she calls and calls each vagabond by name.” (William) Bliss Carman

Yes, it's that time of the year again. The night of the Great Pumpkin's visit approaches...

There's Lots to Learn!

One of the great things about living in a city the size of Toronto is that there are lots of opportunities to take classes about any number of things related to jewellery making and/or beading. Whether it's at weekly course at one of the local colleges (George Brown, Sheridan, OCA), a weekend class at one of the bead stores, a session at the Toronto Bead Society's techniques nights (which take place in December and April) - http://www.torontobeadsociety.org/web/index.php - or a couple of hours here and there at a trade show (such as Bead Oasis, which comes to town twice a year, or the CreativFestival - http://www.csnf.com/, which is coming up just after Thanksgiving), there is lots to learn about a variety of methods and materials and a lot of great teachers willing to show you how to do whatever it is you are interested in. The hard part is picking which class to take, there are only so many hours in a day!!

At the moment, I am taking two courses. One is a 3 week course in wire working and wrapping being offered by Beadfx and being taught by a man named Robert Burton. Here's a picture of what we did in the first class:

We put a cage around a stone and we made a pendant. Now it may not look like much judging by the finished product, but I wouldn't have been able to do it before the class and it was a lot of fun and not very hard, once you got the hang of it. Robert was very patient with all of us and happy to show us what to do as many times as we needed.

The second class I'm taking is a night school course offered by the Toronto District School Board called "Bead Crazy". My sister and I did the beginner course in the spring, so now we've graduated to the intermediate level. Our teacher's name is Katherine and she's just as excited to be teaching as we all are to be taking the class, so it's a lot of fun. Last night was the first of 10 weeks and we made a sweet little necklace out of double wrapped loops and bicone crystals:

I'm looking forward to the coming weeks, to see what we create in upcoming classes. The possibilities are endless!

Play ball!

What an exciting finish to the regular baseball season for Chicago fans!! The nailbiting anticipation of the single tie-breaker game tonight against Minnesota must have had the city's collective stomachs in knots all day. But now it's official, Chicago has two teams in the playoffs for the first time since 1906 - how thrilling is that??

Sigh. I'm having a nostalgic moment for those magical 1992 and 1993 seasons, when the Toronto Blue Jays won their back to back World Season titles. Those were the days!!

If only Toronto had finished that well in the standings this year. As nice as it was to have Cito Gaston back at the helm for the latter part of the season, we're just not there yet. But hey, there's always next year!!

In the meantime, I'm cheering for the Sox this post season, in honour of my new friend Adrianne from Chicago, whom I met this summer in France while taking the precious metal clay course taught by Kate McKinnon (more about that in a later post). Maybe she'll invite me down over the next few days or weeks to catch a game?! Yo, Adrianne! ;-)

Thanks for the memories, Paul

I was sorry to hear Paul Newman died. What a sweetheart of a guy he seemed to be. A great actor, a devoted husband (bonus points for staying married to the same woman for 50 years!) and father, an extremely generous philanthropist (millions of dollars donated to the "Hole in the Wall Gang" charity by way of sales of Newman's Own food products).

My 3 favourite movies of his are "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid", "The Sting" and "Message in a Bottle" (where he proved that even septegenarian curmudgeons can be sexy!). He will be greatly missed by all of those who loved and admired him. I am grateful his legendary films will be available for us to watch for years to come.

Sunday TV

The guest speaker at our Ottawa conference this past week was none other than the CBC's own Evan Solomon. He co-hosts a news show that comes on right after Coronation Street on Sunday mornings, called "CBC News: Sunday"as well as the Sunday night version, called (you guessed it) "CBC News: Sunday Night".

He gave a great talk focused on our conference theme of "Innovation" and spoke about the trend toward forming deeper relationships with your clients as a means of differentiating your company in the marketplace in these days of rapid technological change and economic uncertainty. I think the same theory is a good one for social relationships as well.

Here's his picture - isn't he cute? I got my nerve up and spoke to him after his talk and he was very friendly, shook my hand and called me by name (thanks to the name badge I was wearing). We discussed the Wall Street bailout talks and I tried to sound intelligent but all I could think about was "Wow, he's really tall" and "Gosh, he's cute"!! :)

Tall, dark and handsome, really nice, incredibly smart and well spoken - yes, of course he's married!! C'est la vie, oui?

Speaking of shopping...

I'm off to Beadfx this morning. They're having a surprise sale (shh! don't tell anyone) - it started at midnight last night and runs until midnight on Oct 5th. That's 9 whole days! I thought I'd go by, just in case I see anything I need.

Oh, who am I kidding? I've got a list and I'm not afraid to use it!