Balance.

Well, this weekend is officially over and I am heading to bed. I still have a mountain of projects to sift through this week, but I'm beginning to find a way to balance everything which is fantastic. Some helpful tips I've learned include lots of coffee, time outs with Snassafras Jax, and a little bit of scheduling to keep the ball rolling. (Side note, Jax is sitting impatiently beside me occasionally clawing at my hand, which is Jax Code for WHY AREN'T YOU IN BED YET? DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?)

The new site is semi-launched ... to be honest I did something crazy to my index file while I was messing around with site building, so throwing the new layout I've been keeping in the wings up seemed like the easiest alternative. Thus, there are many little bugs, things to add, things to take away and changes that will implement themselves gradually. For now the majority of galleries aren't viewable, but the three listed under "Featured Galleries" are. A note for those that have really huge screens -- my site may look a little messy in your browser. It'll sort itself out eventually!

I'm still working on the Carnival shoot images from this summer -- the gallery is up and running, but there will be a few more images added as time goes on. I promise this is the most boring and technical post I will make this week.

The Balloon Lady

I love the massive amount of images files on my hard drive impatiently waiting to be rediscovered. I messed around with the Winter / Spring 2009 images of Jenn as the Balloon Lady recently. This was the first shoot in which I worked with Crystal, wherein I realized that not only is she an amazing and nice person, she is extra invaluable and just general awesomesauce when it comes to helping photo shoots run smooth like butter. I am also a super huge fan of the way Jenn worked her weird black crinoline with surprisingly expensive balloons against the back drop of Cultus Lake. Good times.

Portraits Revisited

Spirit of the Circus, 2010. Model: Chelsea. MUA: Elizabeth Toney.

The Magician, 2010. Model: Emily. MUA: Elizabeth Toney. 

The Romance Between A Girl And Her Book, 2009. Model & Make Up: Sheri. 

Jenn, 2009. Model: Jenn.

Ch-ch-ch-changes.

Just a heads up that the site is going to be a little wacky for the next month as some web design fiddling occurs. If you see some things appear and disappear, just assume it's magic and immediately freak out. Or you know, grab a coffee and high five me when this beast is bigger and better than ever.

A Little Short

Fiddling around with some quick stop motion whilst putting together the Book Man commercial.

Why Don't You Spend the Day With Ernest Hemingway?

I used to read on my giant king sized bed in Masset, with my windows wide open and the sunshine streaming right on in. In the summertime, this was also accompanied with a BED FULL OF KITTENS!!1 which was pretty great. I accomplished the majority of my goal to read every book sitting on my book shelf by autumn of 2007, and that included one of my favourite books ever: Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. I picked up a copy of A Farewell to Arms at the Book Man the other day and intend to settle in to read it soon. I have ever so much many more books than the hundred or so I set my sights on waaay back in Haida Gwaii, but I'm slowly making my way through that list. (Note: Good Reads & Book Club are pretty awesome helpers.)

Loving CocoRosie, amongst other things...

1. I really, really, really, really, really want to make a bunch of my dear friends don Marie Antoinette wigs and just rock out around town ... or maybe just my living room, because it's cold out there. And because I'm the kind of girl who does stuff like this, I'm planning that RIGHT NOW. If you want to get in on the action, email sarah@sarahsovereign.com, and then don't be shocked if I accidentally email you back from my gmail address because it honestly happens all the time. If spots fill up for this shoot, don't despair! I have another one in the works with more details as soon as they are hammered out.

2. I am working on a whole new set of bookmarks for the Book Man and am thus far IN LOVE. Look for them in the upcoming months at a friendly neighbourhood bookstore near you.  I also shot a commercial after hours with them last week, and it was SO MUCH FUN. I climbed a ladder, and my gal Friday, Crystal, held the ladder, which meant I didn't fall, which meant I have survived to shakily climb a ladder with false bravado  another day. The editing on the commercial has begun, and it's going to be just great. 

3. Some music I've been listening to a lot of lately : CocoRosie "Lemonade", the new Amos Lee album is all kinds of awesome, Ben Harper and William Fitzsimmons as always (Mr. Fitzsimmons has a new album out soon and I'm clapping my hands with excitement) and I've just recently started listening to Lia Ices.

4. One of the best resources for fonts on the Internet, in my humble opinion, Font Squirrel.

5. Jamie and I went to Ikea on Saturday night before I was attacked and eaten by the worst flu ever. We got this awesome giant (it looks so much bigger sitting on the floor of our apartment than it did in the store) text poster, a silver frame for one of my prints and a whole pile of their super handy clips. I have no idea where those clips disappear to and how we go through them so fast. I suspect Jax eats them. 

Winter Adventure + Exciting Things!

I am currently cozy and warm inside of my little apartment. Jamie is watching Farscape (FARSCAPE!) on Netflix and outside the snow fell and our apartment building is plastered on the outside with snow people of all shapes and sizes and very slippable ice (I came thisclose to once more unintentionally doing the splits a la circa 1992 during an icy patch in the road. Luckily I didn't because I'm pretty sure I would've hurt something. But I'm sure it would have looked amazing, albeit not as amazing as it did in 1992 when I coupled it with spandex stirrup pants, yellow ruffles, and glitter.) It's the first week back at school and today classes were canceled. This is fine by me because I have a small mountain of homework to tackle, including a creative writing paper referencing a personal epiphany in my life. I think life is kind of made up of a series of little epiphanies, but the one that stands out the most for me is one I had when my cousin Erin died. So I'm gathering together all of my memories, all the hard ones and the lovely ones, and I'm going to write about her. For instance about how her hands were so beautiful and delicate, and the way her laugh sounded, and how great and talented and missed she was, and is.

I'm also working on some non-school projects -- bookmarks, websites, and plans for a commercial shoot this Sunday. Not to mention the state of my desk at the moment. It's covered in VHS tapes and little bits of decorative paper. I tried to convert some of my old VHS movies to my computer last night but our converter machine appears to HORRIBLE AND AWFUL AND I HATE IT. So so so frustrating. It's the reason that now everyone on Call of Duty Black Ops knows that I hate it, because as Jamie played with his microphone on I had a mini-fit at it and threatened to toss it out the window. It won't actually take in our VHS tapes -- everything is set up and ready to go, but every time I try to actually put a tape into it, the tape gets stuck and then I have a panic that my old taped episodes of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air may be lost forever. Well. Just kidding. What I really want to back up are things like the crazy awesome soap opera my friends and I made in high school, or the footage of my Nan and her best friend drinking rum and coke while my Nan gets irritated and tells my dad to "Turn off the fil-m, John." When I was a kid there was footage of me and my best friend being all ridiculous on orange pop and doing a ton of things I found embarrassing when seen on tape later. Somehow that footage was taped over with an unfortunate episode of LA Law.

Today Jamie and I took a walk around the neighbourhood and stopped at the coffee shop down the way for the best thing ever : caramel macchiatos and banana chocolate bread. SO AWESOME. I slipped five times on the walk home alone.  Good times.

I HEART SNOW!!

Music Video Monday!

Elephants - Warpaint

Little Red Riding Hood Revisited!

Tonight I took a bit of time to fiddle around with some of my older photographs -- the Little Red Riding Hood set from Autumn of '09 has been refreshed, and is now viewable on Flickr!

The Continuing Adventures of My Apartment Wishlist...

On the weekend I made turkey soup from scratch and this week I did the same with pasta sauce. The pasta sauce needs a little bit of work as it still tastes absolutely nothing like Mel's grandma's sauce, aka, the sauce that had me skipping dinner at my own house 4 out of 5 times a week as a kid.

Jamie and I, believe it or not, are still in the process of properly moving into our apartment. We've got a few prints hanging on the walls (including a "vintage" X-Men poster hanging in our kitchen... sweet.)  and we recently redesigned our living room ... we've got this crazy huge chaise lounge that I love, but it's just one extra piece of furniture too much for our poor little apartment so we're constantly looking for the best way to implement it. We shifted around our bookcases a bit and now have a little reading area... which means I'm yearning after some fantastic floor pillows. But we still have a lot of empty wall spaces and our office needs a ton of work. Bookshelves like these Smart Shelves, or, how awesome is this Blu Dot Chicago 8 Box shelf?

I'm trying super hard to not get overindulgent with some of the super awesome holiday sales rampaging through my inbox these days, but it's a challenge. As a result, I just couldn't resist this beautiful Rosa the Owl from Urban Outfitters, or the discounted Fox Confessor print (which will soon be hanging in our bedroom). 

I'm also a huge fan of these pillows, which would look amazing on our couches. I quite like the fawn print, as well as the elephant print.

Not to mention these beautiful pillows from Urban Outfitters!

Our bed currently sports a light blue Ikea print duvet, but I really, really love this quilt from Anthropologie. (Side note, as I write this out, our upstairs neighbours seem to be possibly babysitting an entire city of children whose only activity appears to be jumping up and down as loudly as possible. My bookshelves are shaking!)

And this might make me a huge (yet so awesome!) dork, but what about pairing everything up with this lovely Star Wars movie poster? Awww yeah.