Condé Nast Traveler asked their favourite lifestyle bloggers for their top choices in stylish, travel-related gift ideas, and the The Made & Found’s drawstring travel bags were selected by Erin Boyle of Reading My Tea Leaves. “When I’m packing a travel bag, I always store socks and underwear in one cotton drawstring bag and pack another empty one to stash my dirties during my trip. Everything in its place, even on the road.”

Available at The Made & Found Shop.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Toronto Young Designers Holiday Sale at Brassaii this past Saturday! Met a lot of great people, discovered some great new shops, and also picked up a couple of small gifts. Yes, they may have been for myself . . .

Just a quick pic of my set-up, which I was really happy with. I wanted something that was multi-functional that could be used to transport everything I needed, be a versatile display, could be used afterwards, and of course, could be dismantled quickly. Set-up and take-down probably took less than 10 minutes, so this was awesome. All the crates also slide under the rack or sit on the shelf. Maybe this will be the first step to my dream of being super minimal, and having a minimal wardrobe.

For gifts under $100 check out the Fodor’s Travel 2013 Holiday Gift Guide. The Made & Found’s very own powder pink drawstring travel bag set also happens to be on the list. Here’s what Fodor’s Travel had to say: “Prim and organized travelers will relish these powder-pink drawstring cotton bags that protect and separate travel clothes. They’re perfect for longer trips and keep lingerie, swimsuits, and dirty laundry tidily tucked away.”

Find them at The Made & Found shop. Also available in singles.

So you’re walking down the street carrying a nicely wrapped package, something like the one you see above. Passers-by are possibly thinking “Oh, how nice! That person is bringing their friend a gift, or bringing their sick grandmother something to make her feel better.” Little do they know, you’re going to your friend’s house to get wasted. However, just because you’re going to get trashed doesn’t mean you have to look trashy. Wrap it up nice and keep ’em guessing.

And here’s how. Furoshiki instructions are actually posted on Japan’s Ministry of the Environment website. Isn’t that kind of amazing? This one is called Bin Tsutsumi 2. All you need is a large square piece of fabric, or a square scarf would be nice too. And two big bottles of your favourite something.

My favourite winter beer (Winter Beard) is back, so I’m ready! Let’s do this!

Super excited to be part of the Drake General Store x Etsy Pop-up shop! A selection of handpicked items are available at the Drake General Store’s Queen Street location as well as their Yonge & Eglinton location from October 17th to November 3rd.

Finally had a chance to drop by the BRIKA/Hudson’s Bay pop-up shop over the weekend to check everything out in person and it looked great! BRIKA did a beautiful job setting up the shop with a great selection of products from more than 30 Canadian designers. Check it out on the lower level of the flagship Hudson’s Bay at Queen & Yonge in Toronto.

Excited to be a part of the BRIKA Pop-up Shop that launches tomorrow at the flagship Hudson’s Bay! Check it out if you’re in Toronto!

A few new items will be available in the shop soon! Here’s a little preview of two of the semi-circle totes in the new colour palette. They should be up and ready next week. I’ve also been getting ready for a couple of projects that will be launching next week. Yay!

It was really nice to meet everyone who came by yesterday at Evergreen Brick Works.  The Junction Flea just started having shows there this summer. It was the first market I’ve ever done and I survived. Yay! Crashed out as soon as I got home. Here are a few pics. From the show, not of me crashing out.

1. A super cute furry buddy came by for a visit.
2. I was stationed across the way from the Indie Ale House. Cold beer! Yum!
3. Some new fall colours.
4. Sets of travel/shoe bags.

The Made & Found will be at the Junction Flea at the Brick Works tomorrow! Come on down if you’re around. There will be lots of new stuff I haven’t had the chance to update online yet. Hope to see you there!

La Merceria is a super sweet Argentinean cafe and boutique on Adelaide Street that I used to go to everyday when I worked in the neighbourhood. They have amazing empanadas that they serve with the best chimichurri, and those triangular pie things which I forget the name of right now but are sooooo good! And they have homemade alfajores and mate lemonade! The boutique side of the store carries a great selection of housewares and accessories, all of which I really wouldn’t mind having at my house. Earlier in the summer they started carrying some of The Made & Found travel accessories and tote bags, so go check them out if you’re in the area. Have a coffee and stay awhile. It’s the most relaxing place in the neighbourhood.

Don’t be messy! Get yourself organized for your next trip this summer! Select travel accessories from the Natural Dye Collection are 25% off in the shop, from now until August 15th! Items include travel kits, travel cases, and make-up brush rolls.

I stalked some animals at a farm last week. I wonder what it would be like to be a wildlife photographer. Probably pretty dangerous if I was trying to be a wildlife photographer shooting with an iPhone. To get a decent shot I practically had the phone pressed up against these guys. Might be safer to just build some scaled down sets, like a mini jungle. That cat could totally be a black panther. Not sure about anything else though. Doesn’t that fluffy white baby bunny look just like one of those Lindt chocolate bunnies?

I went to the drive-in the other week. I had never been to one before and had heard drive-ins in Canada would soon be obsolete, so it was imperative I went to one as soon as possible. The experience wasn’t quite what I expected though. In my mind I pictured watching a movie outside, under the stars, in the comfort of your own car with the windows down, and a cool breeze rolling through while  eating buttery popcorn and drinking icy Cokes . . .

In reality we were 5 steamy sardine friends packed in a Subaru Outback, with the windshield all fogged up because the mosquitos were so bad we could only bare to open the windows a crack. We sat there sweating and squinting, being eaten alive, determined to have a great experience, for 4 hours. First we watched This is the End, which was super funny and will have to be watched again. Then it was Man of Steel . . . We should have driven away after the first one . . .

Some things to keep in mind when going to a drive-in:

1. Don’t go with more than 2 people, unless you want to be the jerks (like we were) inching your car forward and backwards, weaving between cars across the entire lot, trying to find the perfect spot where everyone can see, while all the other people sneer or laugh at you.

2. Don’t go on a hot night when there are a million mosquitos out, for obvious reasons. Wouldn’t it be great if cars had bug screens you could pop onto the windows?

That’s all. Maybe I’ll try again in the Fall. I just found out drive-ins will not be disappearing anytime soon. There’s one just outside Toronto that’s going digital. Should’ve done my research . . .

New totes! New totes! New totes!

Continuing with the rounded shape of the drawstring travel bags, three new tote bags have just been added to the shop – Ocean, Rocket Pop, and Taffy. Inspired by eating orange creamsicles by the sea, rocket pops, and salt water taffy wrapped in waxy translucent paper.

A few pics I forgot to post of Marco Cibola‘s opening reception back in April at the Gladstone. I took great pains to get shots with no people in them, but I realize now it kind of looks like there was no one there. Oopsies! There was actually a great turnout.

I liked how all information was written directly on the wall with pencil, and that you could see the texture of the wall in the writing. And look – some people!

While in Prince Edward County we had the chance to visit Waupoos Island and “help out” on a sheep farm for a couple days during lambing season. “Helping” consisted mostly of pointing and squealing “Ohhh! Sooooo cuuuuuute!!!”. The whole experience was like seeing all the realities of life contained on one island, within a herd of sheep. There was birth, there was death, there were irresponsible teen sheep moms, orphan lambs, adoptions, and lots of happy families too.

Our day consisted of riding around on ATVs and a 4×4 looking out for sheep who needed help birthing, lambs who had lost their moms, or ones whose moms had rejected them, or the saddest of all, lambs who didn’t make it. Really it was only about half a day of this, but I was exhausted for the rest of the week! I can’t imagine doing that every day for an entire season. I wonder if the cuteness of lambs ever wears off . . .

Spent last week in Prince Edward County out in the perfect weather. On the way up we stopped to check out an Airstream trailer our friends decided to buy. We laid around for a day on Sandbanks beach, watched a few sunsets, took hammock naps, and ate and ate.

While digging around in my closet looking for things to get rid of I found these funny little shoes. They’re shoes from Japan, I bought probably 10 years ago while traveling in Asia. I love them! Yellow gingham, pale denim and tomato red! Subtle, but still fun. Doesn’t sound very subtle, but somehow I find them to be. I have a few things like these shoes that remind me of a feeling I love. That feeling I get when I encounter something that makes me stop and really pause, and wonder whether it’s the most hideous thing I’ve ever seen or the most amazing. It’s not always so dramatic. These shoes I loved right away, but I have a strange brooch I found on Ebay that had me stumped for a week or so. There’s got to be a name for that feeling, that fine line between hideous and amazing, and just not knowing.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the physical act of writing. I remember doing a lot of handwriting in pencil in grade school, and one day my teacher decided my cursive writing had improved enough to “graduate” to erasable pen. It was a pen called Erasermate I believe. It had blue ink and an eraser on the end. It didn’t write very smoothly, but it was erasable for the most part, and I remember being excited to no longer have to use a pencil. Either tiny things made kids happy back then, or I was a big nerd.

This memory came up while I was flipping through Andy Warhol’s Time Capsule 21. Andy Warhol used to keep everything and anything and toss it into a cardboard box, which was taped shut and put into storage when full. And then he’d start another. At the time of his death he had 612 of them. This book documented everything that was in Time Capsule 21. The items that really stood out to me were the letters, notes and stationery, which were all handwritten or typed with a typewriter, and slightly wonky. Personal touches and charming imperfections. I miss these things, and sometimes I forget I miss these things, and then I miss them again.