Kristen S

In Print

It’s Saturday? YIKES. Not sure where this week went. Its been a busy busy last couple of weeks! I have lots to share with you guys, it’s just the act of me spending a few hours to edit photos, type up posts and hit that publish button that is catching me up.

So while I don’t have big updates for you today, I did want to share a little milestone!

Yes, that is MY kitchen, and wait for it…. my byline in the spring issue of HOSS magazine! It’s my first appearance in a print magazine both as a writer, and my home! In this issue I delve into a small DIY kitchen project. So RUN out and buy the Real Estate issue! Look for a hunky Scott McGillivray on the cover!

You can find copies at your local Chapers Indigo, Loblaws or Shoppers Drug Mart. Let me know what you think!

New York Here I Come

New York is one of those places that I never get tired of visiting. Every time, I stay in a different neighbourhood, see, do, eat and drink different things, and take in a new aspect of the city. I’ve done all the touristy things, hit up every major gallery and museum, walked the high line, ventured into each borough, and even made it out to Coney Island. Still, I could never see it all.

A snap from my last trip to NYC. My hotel was located right beside Eatily and around the corner from the Flatiron building. Also, I really used waaaay too many Instagram filters back then! eeep

This weekend I am heading to New York for quick business trip. I will be staying at the ACE Hotel, and have scheduled myself an extra day in the city.

I ask you, my adventurous, all knowing readers! Anything I must eat, drink, see or buy?

Help a girl out! Bonus points if the food recommendations are gluten free.

How To – Waxed Cotton

In my DIY leather and waxed canvas apron post, I promised to come back and dedicate a whole post to waxing cotton and canvas. Consider the promise fulfilled!

Waxed canvas is big in the motorcycle and accessory scene. Pre-waxed canvas items can be pretty pricey. However….its pretty easy to DIY. You can take any cotton item, and with simple waxing make it water resistant. It also gives a pretty badass patina to dark colored clothing. So grab your denim jackets, canvas bags, heck even jeans, and wax on wax off.

In a double boiler, or a metal bowl over a pot of simmering water, mix equal parts beeswax and paraffin wax. I sourced my beeswax from a local bee shop (really! I love living in the city) and the paraffin is from the craft store.

The hardest part is cutting up the wax. I couldn’t manage it at all. So I called for my muscles and El Granto came to the rescue. He placed a knife in a pot of boiling water for a few minutes and set to chopping. The knife went through like a hot knife through ~~butter~~ wax.

I like to use a popsicle stick or extra wooden takeout chopstick to occasionally stir the wax until it is completely melted.

Once your wax is melted, lay your cotton item on some old towels on a surface that won’t mind a bit of heat (I used our concrete countertops). Using a dollar store or other inexpensive paint brush, dip it in the hot wax, then quickly brush a thin layer onto your canvas.

You don’t want a ton, just a light layer. It will start to harden almost instantly and dry white. Don’t worry, that is normal. You don’t need complete coverage. If there are some bare spots, that’s okay. It’s better to have less wax than more wax. It’s a whole heck of a lot easier to put more on than take some off.

After you have completely covered your item, get out the hair dryer. I read other tutorials suggesting using your clothes dryer instead of a hair dryer. I tried it, and my energy star dryer never got close to being hot enough. Skip the clothes dryer, and break out the hair dryer.

Holding the hair dryer a few inches from the waxed fabric, turn it on high and wave it over the fabric. In a few seconds, you will see the wax melt, and seep into the fabric. Going from white, back to the color of your fabric.

Apply hest to melt Wax into Cotton — Dark Blue: Wax has been heated and soaked into the fabric. White: Wax has not yet been heated, or absorbed into the fabric.

If you have applied too much wax it will not all soak in, and will puddle on the fabric. If this happens, use a popsicle stick to scrape off any excess wax. Continue heating up your wax until the whole item has absorbed all the wax. Let cool and dry.

If you want a more distressed look, after the waxed cotton has dried, scrunch it up with your hands.

Enjoy!

[See our post on how to make a DIY Waxed Canvas and Leather Apron here.]

SOURCE INFO:

Materials:
Navy Blue Cotton Canvas – Designer Fabrics
Bees Wax – The Bee Shop
Paraffin Wax – Michaels

Tools:
Double Boiler
Cheap Paint Brush
Blow Dryer
Scrap Towels

Difficulty Level (on a scale of 1-5):

two out of five

Total Time: 1 hour

Total Cost: $10

Waxed Cotton & Leather Mens Apron

This project is about six months in the making. I intended to make a mens canvas and leather apron, and have it ready to present to El Granto for our 3rd anniversary (the leather anniversary). That came and went, and I hadn’t moved beyond…well…thinking about making it. Fast forward to the beginning of February. Winter had officially set in in Canada, and it was so bloody miserable, one couldn’t fathom leaving the house. There is only so much Netflix and takeout a girl can handle before snapping and dragging out the sewing machine.

Only six months late, I was finally able to give El Granto his waxed canvas and leather apron. Perfect for wrenching on his motorcycle, or tinkering in the garage.

How To:

Cut a 36 1/2″ x 25 1/2″ piece of canvas. Fold it in half lengthwise. Measure 5 3/4″ from the fold on one short side. Mark with chalk. Measure in 15 3/4″ in on the long side, starting the measuring from the same short end you previously marked. Draw a concave curve between the mark on the short side and the mark on the large side. Cut through both layers of fabric along your curve.

Using an hot iron, roll and press a 3/8″ double hem (fold in 3/8, iron, then fold it over again and iron) on all the raw sides. Top stitch a 1/4″ hem all around the edges with a matching thread. That is now the base of your apron complete.

Using a mixture of melted beeswax and paraffin, wax the canvas. **I will be back with a whole post later in the week on how to wax canvas**

Cut your leather pieces to size (see cut list below). On the small pocket of leather, fold in one short side 1 1/4″. Stitch through both layers of leather on the folded side, 1″ in. This will make the pencil pocket.

Place the small pocket 4″ below the top of the apron, and centered. Topstitch with a 1/4″ hem along the pencil pocket stitch line, then the bottom and the other side. This pocket will hold a carpenters pencil or sharpie, as well as screws, nails or nuts and bolts.

Place the large bottom pocket 18″ from the top of the apron and centered. Topstitch (1/4″ again) around the sides and bottom of the large pocket. Measure in 1 1/2″ from the right side hem of the large pocket, and mark. Mark again 1 1/2″ from the first marked line. Continue this another two times.

Topstitch along the marked lines. This will make the smaller pockets to hold wrenches, screw drivers and other long skinny tools. The larger pocket will hold an assortment of miscellaneous stuff (i.e. a rag, a notebook, an Allen wrench etc.)

Fold the D ring pieces of leather (see measurements below) in half and punch two holes on the end of each piece. Punch two corresponding holes in one side of the apron as well as one side of the top of the apron. Place two D rings on each piece of leather. Line the holes in the pieces of leather with the holes in the apron. Place a rivet post through each set of holes, and using a rivet tool, hammer in place. [Rivets are easy! Just place the post of the rivet through your materials, then set in the concave rivet setting tool. Place a rivet cap on top of the post. Using the setting part of the rivet tool, hammer the rivet in place.] The D rings will allow you to thread a piece of leather between them, to easily secure the leather apron straps.

On one end of the neck and waist apron strings fold the ends over 1/2″ and punch two holes. Rivet to the neck strap to the top of the apron, on the opposite side of the D rings. Rivet the waist strap to the opposite side of the D rings.

Punch holes and rivet where the pockets meet the apron. This will ensure a long life to the apron, and take the abuse your man is sure to hand it.

Thats it! The waxed canvas and leather will weather and patina, growing nicer with age. The man in your life will thank you for making him such an awesome man apron, and for saving his clothes from motorcycle grease or saw dust. Not to mention having a place to stash a tape measure or screw driver.

Now…I want to make one for myself.

SOURCE INFO:

Materials:
Navy Blue Cotton Canvas – Designer Fabrics
Scrap leather – Designer Fabrics (all pieces were purchased from their scrap and trip leather bins, for a grand total of $1.50 spent!)
Bees Wax – The Bee Shop
Paraffin Wax – Michaels
Rivets – Michaels
1″ D Rings – Amazon

Cut List: (for a large mens apron)
36 1/2″ x 25 1/2″ piece of canvas (body of apron)
6 1/2″ x 13″ piece of leather (large pocket)
5″ x 7 1/4″ piece of leather (small pocket)
2 – 1″ x 2 1/2″ piece of leather (D Ring holds)
1″ x 25″ piece of leather (neck strap)
1″ x 30″ piece of leather (body strap)

Tools:
Fabric Scissors
Measuring Tape
Square
Leather Punch
Rivet Tool
Double Boiler
Blow Dryer

Difficulty Level (on a scale of 1-5):

three out of five

Total Time: 1 day

Total Cost: $27

DIY Felt & Leather Laptop Cord Pouch

Happy Friday! I’ve got a quick little project for you today. I promise to not take up much of your time, because WEEKEND.

Have you checked out the felt and leather laptop sleeve I made earlier in the week? After finishing the sleeve, I still had a ton of extra felt and leather, and opted to make a quick little pouch for my laptop cords and cables.

For the amount of cordless devices in my life, I certainly have a hell of a lot of cords. All of which seem to be tangled into a heap. Why are cords like that? They go in all organized, and then you pull them out and they have gotten themselves all tied up it knots, like some weird cord orgy.

Not anymore cords! You will stay all neat and tidy in your little cord house. The pouch holds my MacBook Air charger and an extra iPhone charger. Huzzah!

Here is how I made it:

The pouch is simply constructed out of one long felt rectangle (6″x11″). The rectangle is folded in half, sewn on each side, and then closed with a scrap piece of leather.

The leather has a snap on one end, and the other end is sewn to the back of the pouch.

Snaps are a lot easier than you would think. All that is required is a snap starter kit which comes with a punch, a setting tool and a little round piece of metal to hold your snap while you’re setting it. Follow the directions on the kit, and you are off to the races.

After the snaps were installed, and the leather strap sewn on, I topstitched the sides of the pouch with grey upholstery thread, and 1/4″ seam. (TIP: use binder clips to hold the felt in place.)

It’s a perfect accompaniment to my felt laptop sleeve.

What do you think?

Happy Weekend!

SOURCE INFO:

Materials:
Industrial felt – 3/8″ thick – The Felt Store www.thefeltstore.com
Scrap leather – Designer Fabrics
Snaps – Designer Fabrics

Cut List:
6″ x 11″ piece of 3/8″ thick felt
2″ x 6″ piece of leather

Tools:
Scissors
Measuring Tape
Square
Marker
Round objects (thread spool, cup etc.)
Thread

Difficulty Level (on a scale of 1-5):

one out of five

Total Cost: $5

Disclosure: The Felt Store sent me a sample of their felt, with no obligation or compensation to post about it. As always, all opinions, typos and overuses of the word “awesome” are my own.

DIY Felt & Leather Laptop Sleeve

I recently started commuting to the office with a laptop. While having a laptop is fantastic for working remote, the actual commuting with the laptop was a bit of a pain. I was hauling it in a thin nylon sleeve, in a laptop backpack. If you have ever tried to ride a crowded subway with a backpack, you will know that it sucks. You have to remove your backpack (otherwise you hit poor strangers with it). This leaves you holding onto it. If you are a girl like me, you will also be holding onto a purse…and a coffee. This leaves me with one hand carrying a backpack, with my purse tucked under that same arm, and my coffee in the other hand. That leaves me exactly no hands to hold onto the subway pole. A week of this, and I almost tossed hot coffee onto innocent strangers and/or almost fell on my ass at least twice.

Sick of arriving at the office with coffee on myself, I took matters into my own hands and created a simple felt laptop sleeve.

This felt sleeve offers a ton of protection to my MacBook, and allows me to toss it into a large purse for commuting to the office and client meetings. No more laptop bag or backpack!

Here is how I did it:

I have the 13″ MacBook Air. I took a few measurements, and decided a 14″ one piece tri-fold sleeve, with 1/4″ hems on either side. This would allow for easy laptop removal, but still keep my laptop nice and snug. I got some some 3/8″ industrial felt online from The Felt Store. I have never seen thick felt like this in fabric stores, so your best bet is to buy it online and have it shipped. I took a large framing square from my workshop (this may be a woodworking tool, but it is super helpful for sewing, leather crafting etc.) and squared up my piece of felt on two sides. (if you don’t start with a nice square straight piece, you will have a heck of a time marking out your pattern.)

I marked out a 14″ x 25″ rectangle on the felt using my square and a fine tipped felt marker. Using my big sharp sewing sheers, I used long smooth cuts, and cut out my piece of felt.

I wanted to add in a little hand hold for easy laptop removal. I marked a 3″ wide and 1″ deep notch into one end of the felt (on one of the short sides). I offset it to one side. Rather than having square corners for the notch, I used a small circle object (a pod from my Nespresso machine!) to trace a rounded corner. Using the sharp scissors again, I cut out the notch.

Using a larger round object (this time a drinking glass) I rounded the corners on the other short side of the felt, which will be the top flap.

I top stitched around the short side with the notch. Using my sewing foot as a guide, I top stitched 1/4″ in with grey upholstery thread, making sure to lift my foot at the 90 degree corners, and going slowly around the curves. I then continued to top stitch around the entire piece.

Next, I folded the notched end up 9″, and using binder clips, holding the folded end to the rest of the felt so it makes a pocket. I topstitched with the same 1/4″ seam down the side of the folded pocket, moving the binder clips as needed.

I did the same for the other side, and the felt sleeve is now complete!

For closure, you could install a few buttons, snaps or buckles. I oped for a simple strip of leather tied in a knot. I purchased some scrap leather, and cut a strip roughly 1/2″ wide by 26″ long.

I cut the ends to a point on one end, and an inverse point at the other, and tied it around the sleeve.

Not too shabby for a half hours work. What do you think?

SOURCE INFO:

Materials:
Industrial felt – 3/8″ thick – The Felt Store www.thefeltstore.com
Scrap leather – Designer Fabrics

Cut List: (for 13″ Apple MacBook Air)
14″ x 25″ piece of 3/8″ thick felt1/2″ x 26″ piece of leather

Tools:
Scissors
Measuring Tape
Square
Marker
Round objects (thread spool, cup etc.)
Thread

Difficulty Level (on a scale of 1-5):

one out of five

Total Cost: $25

Disclosure: The Felt Store sent me a sample of their felt, with no obligation or compensation to post about it. As always, all opinions, typos and overuses of the word “awesome” are my own.

Coffee: The Flat White

The other day on my Twitter feed I stumbled across a retweet from a friend.

The retweet was from Starbucks Canada proclaiming how they are now making a flat white.

Continue reading “Coffee: The Flat White”

IDS 2015 – What to See

IDS 2015 (Interior Design Show) is probably my favorite show of the year. It is full of inspiration, the latest and greatest home products, and some of the best up and coming designers. This year it hits Toronto from January 22-25, 2015. We will be heading there for trade day on the 23rd and will be sharing some of our favourite things over on Instagram (make sure to follow along with #ids15). However, I already have a few things on my must see list!

CUBITAT, a special feature by Urban Capital, focusing on transformable design and architecture as object.

Jonathan Adler – On the main Stage Saturday 12pm-1pm

Studio North, an always favourite curated collection of emerging practitioners on the Canadian design scene. Studio North itself is a reason to head to IDS. It is my favourite part of IDS and one that usually takes up most of my time. Seeing the incredible up and coming Canadian design talent, speaking to the artists, and buying their work. Its a huge source of inspiration, a great way to work with local artists, and has some of the BEST designs I have ever seen.

Here are a few of my faves from Studio North IDS 2014:

Great speakers on the main stage on Sunday the 25th. Lynda Reeves starts things out from 12-1pm, Suzanne Dimma with Mark Challen 1:30-2:30pm and the House & Home editing team including the awesome Margot Austin will be knocking it out of the park from 3-4pm.

Designboom Mart, a pop-up shop and Designboom’s only Canadian location for buying jewellery, accessories, textiles and furniture from their sources, created by Toronto’s Arc & Co. Design Collective.

designjunction lounge, designed by London-based Michael Sodeau of Michael Sodeau Studio, featuring La Marzocco and Muuto. YES Muuto, the Scandinavian design line I fell in love with in during my trip to Denmark and Sweden. Remember that awesome stone salt dish I brought back? YEP! Muuto. Cant wait to see the lounge!

The IDS Opening Night party goes down on January 22nd, and the show opens to the public Saturday January 24th, 2015 to Sunday January 25th. Get your tickets here. See you there!

New Adventures

Every blog in the blogging universe seems to be hitting publish on a big 2015 goals, recaps, hopes & dreams post etc. I’m not really a resolution kinda person, so that sort of a post was out of the question, but I have taken a good hard look at blogging, and I intend to make some changes around here in the coming year.

But the biggest change of all, is coming career wise.

Continue reading “New Adventures”

Light it up!

The Storefront has potlights in a few areas on the main floor, most notably the entryway and the kitchen. They’re great for keeping the place generally looking nice and bright, what’s not so great about them is that they are perpetually burning out, and are a pain to change. The type of socket in our lights is a tiny screw in one, which we could only find bulbs for at Rona. A two pack of bulbs cost around $14, and on average would last less than three months. When one light would burn out, the next were sure to follow within days. If we didn’t have spares on hand (which I’m terrible with!) We would often find ourselves in the dark. UGH. We are carless, so a trip to the hardware store for new bulbs would always be left to the following weekend. The kitchen at least had under counter lighting to aid with the whole seeing the food I am cooking business, but the entryway did not have any backup lighting. If you came home after the sun had set you were essentially left in the dark to take your shoes off.

The day before Halloween the entryway light burnt out (of course!) Not wanting to freak trick or treaters out, or have the neighborhood think we were shirking away from candy duty, El Granto attempted to take one of the working light bulbs from the kitchen and put it in the entryway. I say attempted, as the moment he tried to take that bulb out of the death grip of a pot light, the thing shattered into a million pieces. This luck continued until El Granto had exhausted ALL WORKING LIGHTBULBS, and our house was essentially in the dark. Needless to say Halloween was embarrassing. I over compensated by lighting EVERY CANDLE WE OWN and placing them in the entryway and front window. Hopefully our house appeared spooky, not like we forgot to pay the power bill.

That weekend, we promptly headed to the hardware store to pickup bulbs. El Granto had been suggesting LED bulbs for ages, but gosh darnit, they are expensive, and we had not seen any in person that fit our strange potlights. We were convinced we would not be able to find new, better bulbs for our lights, and we would resort to replacing ALL the pot lights.

I left El Granto alone in the lighting isle at Home Depot (dangerous), and went in search of supplies for another project. When I returned, expecting the worst, I found El Granto with childish grin on his face. He had managed to find not only bulbs for our lights, but LED bulbs. Philips MR16 LED bulbs. Ones that promised to last for longer than three months, and avoid us looking like the neighborhood weirdos without lights. I was skeptical. We hadn’t been able to find iridescent or florescent bulbs in this socket size, how could he really have found well priced LED ones? But after taking apart packing in the store (yes, we were THOSE people.) The light bulbs looked almost exactly the same. Except the new ones were a tiny bit longer. We took a chance, and bought enough bulbs for the main floor. They weren’t cheap, but definitely not as expensive as I thought. We have 5 pot lights, four in the kitchen and one in the entryway.

We purchased two 2 packs, and one single, and our total came in at just over $75 before taxes.

Back at home, El Granto set to installing them. After reading the package, it says they cannot be installed in closed light fixtures. Our pot lights had a glass cover at the bottom, which we decided to remove. It would look exactly the same (the glass was completely clear) and hopefully that would let out the heat better (perhaps that’s why our bulbs went so fast!?) as well as give us a bit more space in case the new slightly longer bulbs were a really tight fit. The new bulbs installed quickly and easily (no problems with the length).

The color is a nice bright white. The kitchen receives a lot of light from the front storefront window, and the bright white works perfectly with that natural light, without being too blue, or industrial feeling.

After living with our new potlight LED’s for a couple months, we received a sample of the Philips SlimStyle LED bulb in the mail. This one has a regular light bulb connection, and we decided to try it in a lamp in our bedroom.

El Granto has a desk lamp for a beside lamp. It is nice and manly, but the current bulb is a CFL that is a gazillion watts, and laying in bed it shines directly in my eyes. It’s like a fog lamp. It was unattractive, way too bright, and not a very nice color. That lamp was the obvious choice to try out the the SlimStyle bulb.

The SlimStyle knocked it out of the park. It has a nice soft light, great colour, and looks nice in the lamp (as opposed to the CFL that stuck out past the end of the shade with its weird looking tubes). It also dims in a neat way when you turn it off.

After several months using the Philips LED bulbs (both the potlight & the SlimStyle) we are very happy. No burnt out lights! Apparently the Philips LED bulbs are also dimmable, which is pretty cool.

Disclosure: The SlimStyle bulb was a sample that we received for free. We paid out of pocket for the potlight bulbs, and we did not receive any compensation for this post. As always, all opinions, words, typos, poor grammar and overuses of the word awesome are our own.