Speaking about Blogging at IIDEX

This past week, I had the great pleasure of speaking about blogging with Romana Mirza at IIDEX/NeoCon, "Canada's largest exposition and conference for the design, construction and management of the built environment."

Presenting "Blogging in Design Cyberspace" was a great opportunity to share our experience in areas that both Romana and I feel passionately about - blogging, passion and authenticity. It was really fun to participate. We received great feedback and are looking forward to sharing this presentation in other venues.

The conference was in the beautiful Direct Energy Centre.

As well as speaking, it was a joy to walk around and experience forward-thinking design and great beauty. One of the things I loved was attention to detail, like in this display by Erth Coverings. When you walk in this direction, you are met with this gorgeous cool colour palette.

And in the other direction...

Fabulous! And for some reason, I was absolutely entranced by space dividers. With beautiful examples like the ones below, how could you not be? (The first one is so Jamie Ridler Studios. This helped me envision what my space will be like when that day comes)

And there was also a materials display by Material Connexion that blew me away. Not only were there 52 samples of amazing new materials but you could touch them all! This was my favourite:

It was awesome to see that there was also a space for design students to participate. While we were there, there were many students building and planning. It was exciting to watch their process.

Everywhere you turned, there was something interesting to look at. I thoroughly enjoyed this poster contest geared towards saving Toronto's architectural heritage, something which I would truly love to see.

And there was a really cool display called Unbuilt Toronto which highlighted plans that had been created through the years that never saw fruition. This photo is of a series of models that were proposed for Toronto's City Hall in the '50s.

IIDEX NeoCon was an amazing, energizing, inspiring experience. I hope for many more opportunities to share in environments like this!

The Isabel Project

One of the things I absolutely love about blogging is the plethora of cool things that you can participate in (not to mention any opportunity to use the word 'plethora' is cool too). Mary Ann at Follow Your Bliss has a niece in grade 5 who got the neatest school project - to get a journal and have it travel around the world. So Mary Ann reached out to the blogging community and people from all over volunteered to receive the journal, write a bit about themselves and their city and then send it to the next person.

Above you can see the quintessential Canadian map. It looks like it could have been straight out of my public school textbook! And of course, you can't talk about Toronto without talking about the CN Tower. Actually, it was really interesting to think about my city from this perspective. What did I want to share with a young girl about Toronto and about Canada?

I shared what a big city this is and how there's always something going on - plays and concerts and parades and festivals - and how people from all over the world decide to make Toronto their home. Of course I had to say that even though we're north of the US we don't have snow all the time, all live in igloos or travel to work/school on skiis. However I did send a picture of me going down by the lake in the dead of winter on a snowy day, so I guess we are a little crazy.

It was just a cool opportunity to share and remember why I like where I live.

Getting Creative in Cape Cod

Shannon and I have returned from our great Cape Cod adventure to participate in the Creative Bazaar organized by the wonderful Melba. We had so much fun exploring Hyannis and meeting blog friends - new and old! We enjoyed great company, great food and great creations and all in all had a wonderful time. I'm going to post about the experience in 2 parts: the bazaar and the Hyannis experience because I want to share so much. Today I'll write about participating in the bazaar.

These wonderful gift bags greeted people as the entered the Creative Bazaar. Shannon and I were stationed right across from them. I was all set to do some Tarot Coaching and thoroughly enjoyed doing readings at the event. It was great to share some time and hopefully insight with such wonderful people. Where we were set up we were lucky enough to be right beside the wonderful Melba and her exuberantly colourful creations.

It was such a treat to meet Melba in person and to be able to give her a big hug! Yes, folks, she is as warm, open and wonderful in person as she is on her blog. She's easy to talk to, has a big heart and is a woman of vision! It was a treat to get to know her in a whole new way, plus to be able to buy some original Melba creations! I can't wait to use my journal. Thanks for everything, Melba. You are a star!

We also had the real pleasure of meeting Jana of Jana's Journeys. Here she is with her creations, including 2 wonderful boxes that Shannon and I took home with us. I got wishes and Shannon got joy - good deal! Jana was a joy to meet, full of life and more than a hint of mischief. We hope you got home safe and sound, Jana, and that the journey was shorter than expected!

We also had the pleasure of meeting Mary Ann. What a lovely woman she is. And check out her creations! I am so inspired by the buttons that I bought from her. You can see more of her creations at her Etsy shop.

And in our blog corner of the bazaar universe we also got to meet Artsy Mama. She had a fabulous Halloween theme going on. We couldn't resist the treat bags.

It was also so cool to meet Anne Marie of KaleidoSoul. I had so wanted to take a Soul Collage workshop with her! But at least I did get to see the beautiful cards that she has created, which was a real treat. And we met Pink Sky from The Wish Studio, and she is so lovely. What a wonderful energy that woman exudes! And what's funny is that we also met Heidi of Birds of a Feather, but I totally didn't realize that she was a blog person until later. Lovely to meet you Heidi! And on top of all the blog people, we were able to get to know the women of Melba's family - all wonderful, fantastic women!

So as you can see, we were just spoiled rotten with getting to meet creative, interesting women! So thanks once again to Melba for making it happen. And I have to also say thank you to Shannon

Shannon came to help me out and was an absolutely wonderful travel companion. We had so much fun together, sharing all of these experiences. I'll share more about our adventures in Cape Cod later, but for now, maybe this will give you an idea...