One Crafty Weekend in Toronto

Remember when I told you Melissa bought me a Letterpress Workshop for my 30th birthday?

Well, it was this weekend.

And it was amazing.

I drove to Toronto on Friday (Thanks to my husband's remarkable ability to be a fabulous single parent. I'm becoming obsolete and I love it.) and arrived at Melissa's pad in Kensington Market at about 6:30pm.

Melissa, incidentally, lives in the Kensington Market Lofts.

The same building Brad and I lived in when we were in Toronto.

It's such a great place.

As if I wasn't heartsick enough driving into the bright lights of the city, being in this building, right in the heart of Chinatown, makes part of me wish we had never moved home.

There is just SO much to do in Toronto.

I could spend entire afternoons just drifting through the market, finding all the weird, great ingredients needed to make practically any ethnic dish, poking through shops that peddle everything from beautiful dining ware to synthetic wigs, waving around my vendors permit and snatching up steals on gorgeous imported stuff to resell in the shop. (We're talking 3 Pashminas for $9 people. We are paying WAY too much for Pashminas here.)

Or, I could spend that same amount of time sampling cheeses (some good, some not so much. Brad and I once tried a cheese that tasted like a combination of brie cheese and bad fruit cake, and fruit cake is pretty brutal to begin with) at Global Cheese.

This time I had the good sense to bring back some of their divine Herb & Garlic Cream Cheese to my afore mentioned deserving husband. As well as two soggy Doubles from the Patty King. His favourite food item on earth. Or at least in Chinatown.

Friday night Melissa and I kept it pretty low key and went to see a movie. Precious.

The acting was incredible (I know because I genuinely hated a few people, and that's how I gauge.) and the film was something I would recommend seeing, but it wasn't exactly the most heart warming story.

I need to look into it to see if it was a true story. I think it must have been. You'd have to be pretty sick to think up something that tragic.

Saturday our Letterpress course began at 10am.

Oh my god I have a new LOVE. I've always been really drawn to paper crafts. Stationary design, beautiful book covers, that kind of thing. But letterpress takes it to a whole new level.

Our instructor was a girl names Tanya Roberts of Snap & Tumble.

Her studio was in her apartment and it was the fastest four hours I've spent in a while.

Normally it's my instinct to make things for the shop and mass produce a bunch of items and just suck all the joy out of the experience, but this time I decided I would do something for myself.

So I made recipe cards.

I have been trying out a bunch of new recipes lately and since I find most of them online I keep losing them. Solution!

I figure it'd be pretty Martha of me to give other people recipes on these cards too.

You know, when they say things like "Oh Emily! That was delish! You must give me the recipe."

Before now, that was always an awkward scenario.

As I'm sure you can imagine.

Melissa chose to make note book covers.

In a nutshell, the letterpress is what newspapers used before we had typewriters or computers. You physically have to set all your letters by hand, reversed and backwards. (In more than a few instances "b's" were discovered in the place "d's" in the proof).

We'd then lock the letters into place and fit them into the press, ink the wheel and lower the lever.

It's very much like stamping, but because of the weight behind the lever, and the density of the paper, it leaves an ink filled impression on the paper.

Photos don't do the result justice whatsoever.

Of course, since I'm always thinking about Blackbird, I did make a few adorable little tags which I think I will save for Valentine's Day. Or maybe for when we give gifts to charitable causes.

I just couldn't resist.

When I came home on Sunday, Mr. Wonderful was already putting Clemmie to bed.

I didn't interrupt, but I did peer into the room to watch as he gave her a bottle and she slurped it down and played with his beard.

Those kind of images are things I need to store in my memory bank next time he makes me want to murder him in his sleep.

They melt my heart.

She loves her daddy so much, and he's so great with her.

She slept through the night that night. All the way until 6:30am.

He normally would go get her in the morning, change her diaper and deliver her back to me for her "breakfast" while he had a shower, but mommy needed a baby fix.

I leapt out of bed at her first cry and went into her room.

When she saw me she lit up and started to giggle.

Oh, but it gets better.

I picked her up out of her crib, she pushed herself back from my chest (I think to see if it was really me), looked me straight in the eye and, clear as a bell, said "Hi!".

This is the stuff to live for don't you think?

Great friends, great husband, great kid.

I'm one lucky duck.

Err. Bird.

xo Em