Hi Darlings! A couple of days ago I celebrated my 200th post and in celebration of that, I will be giving away two 8″ x 10″ Keep Calm and Carry On Posters! The Keep Calm Shop on Etsy makes these amazing posters in various colours and different sayings and I think they’re all amazing! Keep Calm & Sail On, Keep Calm & Drink Tea – the possibilities are endless!

There are four different ways to enter! Be sure to do any of the following and put it in separate comments below! Here are the ways to enter:

1. Leave a comment telling me which poster & which colour you would choose! Take a look here!

2. Tweet this contest “Win a *Keep Calm & Carry On* Poster @fabbrunette: http://www.fabbrunette.com/?p=1093″

3. Become a follower of this blog or let me know if you already are!

4. Mention this contest on your blog, give a link to the page you mentioned it!

This giveaway is open until Monday, March 15th, 2010 at Midnight PST. Good luck ladies!

xoxo

Fab Brunette

From http://mswoodenshoes.blogspot.com/

I hate the work collect.

col·lect (k-lkt): To accumulate as a hobby or for study.

The word collect coincides with ‘pack rat’ in my head. Someone who has curios. Someone who has shelves full of things. Clutter. It’s all seemingly dreadful to me, I shudder when I think of it. But there is something I sorta kinda collect. And it’s a relatively new obsession.

It started with our move, we brought almost nothing with us and subsequently stalked out Ikea and The Bay and Cookworks for cheap things to put in our home, especially our kitchen. I also stalk Williams-Sonoma on a regular basis to pet my Le Creuset cookware, like a puppy, it’s something I must wait for. In our shopping, we purchased some cheap white Ikea mugs, that have broken (3/6) and chipped (1/6), leaving only 2 mugs in tact.

What to do?

I scoured Etsy. Went online. Went local. And found nothing that was absolutely perfect. So, I headed to Starbucks. As I sipped my triple grande americano soy misto, I glanced at their little shop – mugs, mugs, coffee makers, tumblers, stuffed teddies, and more mugs. There’s all different kind: plain white on white, silly designed ones, some ‘reinvent’ ones that look boring as well, and then, there’s the city mugs.

I have often looked at these city mugs but have brushed them off as ‘too-touristy’, but lately, it’s got me thinking. J & I have traveled a lot. We have much more travelling to still accomplish. So why not start a mug collection – mugs from every place we’ve traveled to! I’ve come to love these mugs, oversized, pretty, and they make them all over the world.

Yay!

Only  now it’s driving me bonkers trying to find these mugs.

From http://mswoodenshoes.blogspot.com/

Places We Have Mugs From:

• Vancouver
• Whistler
• Amsterdam
• New York City
• Paris (I’m hoping I’ve figured out how to get one!)

Mugs Still To Get:

• Quebec (Montreal, Mont Tremblant, Quebec City)
• Dominican Republic (Punta Cana)
• Mexico (Playa Del Carmen, Cancun)
• Orlando, Florida
• Niagara Falls
• Toronto (I know, I know, I never got one, lol)
• Brussels, Belgium

I’ve been to more places than this, as has he, but we’re trying to get mugs we’ve been to together Cheesy. So I’m scouring Ebay but it sucks when one mug is going to cost you $60. SUCKS. So I’m begging my internet friends to help me out with my search. *begs*

xoxo

Fab Brunette

ps. The giveaway is coming soon! Check back on Monday!

Do you ever wake up with a feeling? You’re not quite sure what it is but you get some kind of intuitive feeling about that day? Well, today was that day. I couldn’t sleep all night, and then when I awoke I started reading blogs. And I looked at my blog – and I thought, how many posts do I have? Do you know how many? 199.

This is my 200th post! Can you believe it?

I first started blogging four or five years ago, and it was always  an unfocused mish-mash of fashion posts, sprinkled with random ramblings, diet advice, and shoes. Always shoes! I wanted to have a blog where I could write about myself, my life, and my thoughts and dreams, without feeling like I was boring my ‘fashion’ crowd. So I started this blog in May 2009, I didn’t know what I was really going to do or where it was going to go, but you’ve seen me through a lot.

The Must Reads:

• My First Post: Reasons to Diet
• I Discover Less Makeup is More
• I Told You How I Made J A Father
• Life Lessons: Never Assume Anything
• Passion is Important to Life
• A Tale of Two Girls
• The Harshest Critic
• The Likability Factor
• Being Fabulously Grown Up
• No More Scales, No More Diets – a Fresh Start
• Discovering that It’s Okay to Be Unwed
• Some Days
• How I Changed to Be Normal
• I Reveal The Vomit Test
• On Failing, Careers, Life Dreams & Knowing It’s Gonna be OK

via weheartit.com

Honorable Mentions:

• If I Were…
• The Lazy Housewife’s Guide to Housekeeping
• Starbucks Ginger Molasses Cookies Recipe
• Oreo Cookie Cupcake Recipe
• How to Make a Chic Diaper Cake
• Chocolate Salted-Caramel Mini Cupcakes

Later on this week there will be a giveaway in celebration!

Thanks for continuing to read this blog as it unfolds into more passionate ramblings. Every time I see a new follower join my site it makes my heart flutter – no joke!

xoxo

Fab Brunette

You might be noticing some changes around my little corner of the blogosphere – you did notice, right? Well, I’m an impulsive little bitch so I put it up without finishing every last detail – which I promise I will finish within the week or so. I’m just lazy. Sorry.

I’m trying to get my lazy ass in gear by vowing to take one picture each day for a whole year, otherwise known as Project 365, and this is my first pictures – I promise I won’t bore you with posting each picture here! Oh goodness no, but this first one, although it may  not be the best quality, is already a favourite of mine.

Yesterday was a dreary day, rainy & cloudy, Vancouver in a nutshell. It was the day I purchased myself a Le Creuset grill/griddle pan to put on my stove and attempt to cook – and I did! I made some mean grilled chicken and baked potatoes, and just as Princess and I were sitting down to eat, I glanced up to the mountains and saw the most beautiful little rainbow.

The sun was setting and it decided to show itself and say hello. Okay, enough sappy crap, but I thought it was cute.

Today’s another gorgeous day but instead of enjoying it, I’m in here, “working”, fixing up my blog, and “studying”. Ugh. This real estate crap is just as ridiculous as I remembered – I hate legal jargon, I hate mumbo-jumbo confusing questions, and I hate school. But, one must venture through the crap to hit gold, right? Right?

Enough.

Is anyone else doing Project 365?

Let me know in the comments so I can find you on Flickr and add you!

xoxo

Fab Brunette

At 10:00 am on  Sunday morning my boyfriend, our daughter and I joined one of the many line-ups strewn all over Vancouver to get into a restaurant. While J joked around with the guys behind us in line, Princess made a request to go into the store we were outside of – Hello Kitty gets her every time. As I was buying her a Canada pinwheel on a stick, I noticed that the line had almost disappeared – Yes! – I thought to myself – We’re getting in!

At this time Princess took it upon herself to yell at me in the store – Mom! We need to get Dad! He’s going away! Mom! We’re going to be late! – I waited for the debit machine to print off its’ slip and grabbed her hand and ran up to the restaurant, hoping that J was getting inside or had already found us a seat. Instead, we find they had shifted the line from our side of the sidewalk to the other, and we were still near the end of the line. It barely moved. It was over 100 people long. We’re not getting in.

Suddenly, the guy from the line-up before comes to grab us, You wanna come in? And we went in. I was a little confused but commended him on good karma, it turned out they sneaked their way in, switching seats from the patio to inside, and then a few of their friends weren’t coming, so they gave us their spot. Because we wouldn’t have gotten in otherwise.

The place was packed. A restaurant that seats over 700 people was already packed at 10:30 am, two hours before the puck hit the ice. And these two guys, brothers from Calgary, found it in their heart to go pull us out of the huge crowd outside and allow us to watch the game, inside. They even bought us beer. Seriously.

The game was amazing. I have to say I really didn’t pay attention to it, other than when people were scoring of course, but we were almost devastated when it was a tie game and going into overtime. I have little faith in our home team, I know, kill me, but as I say, I am a ‘citizen’ here, I wasn’t born here, but if Poland or  Austria were playing I’d tell you they’d win no problem. Also, the whole ‘Loooouuuuu’ chanting really freaked me and my boyfriend out at first, even after everyone explained they were cheering for Luongo, the goalie, it still sounded like Boo-ing.

When Crosby got the winning goal, the whole restaurant erupted into a frenzy of craziness, everyone was hugging strangers, people were screaming and shouting and jeering, Princess was up on J’s shoulders, taking everything in and rooting for the home team. It was amazing.

And all I kept thinking that it was thanks to these two brothers that we even got to experience this. Amazing how two complete strangers can make your day, isn’t it?

March is here, which is even more amazing, the weather’s feeling a bit warmer, flowers are blooming and trees are full of buds – oh I love it! It feels like there’s a change in the air, new beginnings, a time for nesting and cleaning, and maybe brightening someone else’s day.

I know I’ll never forget the Olympics, the parties and craziness that occurred – and the drinking! – but I will never forget the strangers that made our day, strangers that had turned into friends within hours and completely and absolutely made our day as special as it could be.

Thanks to them.

Now I call out to all of you – do something special for someone today – smile at someone, hold the door open, offer your seat, give something to someone – someone you know or someone you don’t – it doesn’t matter. Just put a smile on someone’s face today. I know that’s what I’ll be doing!

xoxo

Fab Brunette

It’s very hard to admit defeat. As a self-proclaimed perfectionista even the thought of failing throws me into fits and you’ll find me in the closet clutching my  knees to my chest and pretending my bubble didn’t just burst. And that’s exactly where I thought I’d be right now, but somehow it has eluded me – the closet, not the failure.

Many of you are aware of how last year I started my own cupcake catering company, Le Petit Cupcakery. It’s cute and adorable and I had found passion! I had found something I loved doing and could make money off of it! The company started as a small at-home web-based company, my only advertising was my website and networking with wedding planners and their clients. Business started getting good.

I was in Toronto, it was summer and I was doing large cupcake orders almost weekly, smaller ones every week. My friends even started paying for my services, which was a huge deal to me since I was always bringing samples to their parties for free. I started looking at cupcake blogs and baking blogs and found that other people started off selling their goods at home too! I was inspired!

And this cupcake baking was fun! I experimented with flavours, fillings, frostings – I tested, tested, tested! I ate, I fed, I donated – and everyone around me loved it. For once I felt like I could actually do something right, MYSELF. No one else was the boss of me, I was my own boss and I had the loving support of my boyfriend and my family.

Upon our impending move to Vancouver, I almost begged a friend to take over the cupcakery in Toronto, so I could have two locations – but people have their own lives, and really, it was an at-home business. It wasn’t a shop that someone can come in and run perfectly, it was tried and tested and re-tested to perfection, but it was all in my head. I didn’t have the time to train anyone else, even the eager ones, so I just settled with closing up shop in Toronto.

I know in the back of my head that I could’ve made it happen somehow, remaining open in Toronto, having two locations country-wide – but I just didn’t want to. Too much work and effort – and I was going to use all of that up in Vancouver attempting to re-open and find a new clientele in a place I’ve never been before.

A little history on the cupcake scene in Toronto – it is pretty huge and awesome. There are about 10 or so big bakeries, all independently owned. Every shop is different, every cupcake is different and every person you know might prefer a different cupcake shop than you. Competition-wise it was pretty great because everyone offered something different.

In Vancouver, it’s not like this at all. There are two main cupcake offerings you’ll find in Vancouver – one simply called Cupcakes, the other Big City Cupcakes. Cupcakes has 5 locations citywide, BCC has 9, scattered throughout the Greater Vancouver Area. This was big time. Now that’s a little daunting.

I had always dreamed of opening up my own shop, but realised that without proper money backing up and proper contracts to back me up, I wasn’t going to make a lot of money.

Little cupcake & cake shops make the majority of their money on corporate contracts and weddings. Walk-in clientele obviously accounts for some of the money, but when you add up how many $3 cupcakes you have to sell to pay the lease, it gets scary. I always knew I’d have to network myself to huge companies and try to get all the weddings to go through my little company, but sometimes I’d look at it and not know where to begin.

So I settled with being an at-home cupcake baker, at least for the time being.

After arriving in Vancouver, I received an email to join a bakers market – a place where all different kinds of independent & at-home bakers and food creators came to sell their goods. Amazing! I was so excited and I baked up over 200 cupcakes for my first market! I had planned on selling my cupcakes for $2.75 & $3.25, but when I got there I realised there was another person who sold cupcakes. For the cheap price of $2.00. I dropped my price to $2.25 but it still felt so sucky.

It sucks when you know you’re not making money. You’re barely breaking even. But you tell yourself it’s to get your name out there, it’s to talk to people, let them have a taste and all that. Week after week I went to the market, but because of poor advertising and bad location, less and less people showed up every week, meaning less profit and more feelings of wasting my Saturdays doing almost nothing.

I met a lot of great people there though, and it was definitely fun, if not very productive. I saw all the amazing things people were baking and making – truffles and specialty chocolates, bundt cakes, marshmallows – everything homemade and special with cute packaging and branding. And then I started looking at my cupcakes, and, you guessed it, I stopped believing in my product.

You see, to sell something you really need to believe in it, if there’s even a flicker of doubt in your eyes or your voice people will know that you don’t believe in  your cupcake wholeheartedly. When you drop your price by over a dollar, that’s your first sign. I was selling a product that didn’t wrap up well, wasn’t in cute packaging, didn’t last for more than a few days, and I started to feel defeated.

I ended up not going back to the market after a few more weekends. I started feeling like it was the wrong place for me, I mean, how many sweets can people buy on a Saturday morning? I started looking for other markets to go to, other places to sell my cupcakes, but my search didn’t go very far, my heart wasn’t in it. And then I discovered another cupcake baker, an amazing one, who works from home and has a huge following and does like really outstanding designs – and then I start to feel more defeated.

I still had hope for my business though, but no real plan, no written down goals – just that I wanted to make it. I started getting orders again, and it was great – more weddings and birthdays and cakes to make – but it started to feel like a chore.

I think the general consensus when choosing to do something you love as a carrer is that it won’t feel like a real job. And that’s really why you choose to ‘do something you love’ – you think it will be easy and fun and profitable. When it started to feel like a job, I felt backed up into a corner, I felt like I had lied to myself – I didn’t want a real job, I wanted to have fun and make money and make people happy – not this!

I started reading about jobs and self-fulfillment and bad career choices. And then I thought a lot. A whole lot.

When I think I internalize everything. I kind of shut down and stop listening to people’s advice and just am silent for a while – and this is mainly because my head won’t stop talking, it just talks, talks, talks, pointing out what could happen if I do this, and where this will go, and what I’d have to do for this… and I don’t really feel too crazy but I can’t get my words out properly.

So I made the decision to shut down Le Petit Cupcakery.

I called my remaining clients.

I cancelled contracts.

I wrote emails and made phone calls.

And a huge wave of relief washed over me.

I finally figured it out, after twenty-six years of living, of trying to run from responsibilities and maturity and just trying to have fun all the time without really knowing what I was doing.

Instead of doing something I love, I should find something I love doing.

Find something you’re good at and love that.

I’m starting to feel grown-up, and I always feared being old, being an adult, actually feeling like a grown-up. But I don’t, not at all. Instead, I feel more balanced and happy and just realising that there actually is more to life than just wanting to go out and party and waste money and accomplish nothing.

I want to accomplish something.

Through failure I’ve discovered a lot about myself. Things you fear are actually good for you – all of it. Afraid of having kids, afraid of quitting jobs, afraid of shutting down something you built up – it’s all for something.

I even feared writing this post.

But I’m definitely glad I did it.

xoxo

Fab Brunette

When I was young my grandmother visited from Poland.  Knowing her fully explains why I am the way I am.

She is a strong woman. Someone who changes her mind without whim, voices her opinion and gets her hair done every week like clockwork. She dresses well, she likes sweets and she enjoyed spoiling me, a lot.

She came and visited for two weeks when I was about four or five years old, my younger sister was just born so it was nice to finally have someone to spoil me. She would walk me to school and back and buy me sweets and ice creams on the way home.

I remember there was a thunderstorm and the lightning turned the sky a frightening red, my grandma told me it was because God was angry.

She always looked nice. She was distinguished.

She did not come from a rich home, she was not a rich lady, but she always lived well and had a happy life.

Since the time she has visited I have not seen her again. Twenty years have passed and these memories still stay with me. I want to visit her soon, and she how she’s changed, show her my family and maybe get our hair done together.

Do you have memories of someone that you haven’t seen in a long time?

xoxo

Fab Brunette

I stared at the rain, patiently, willing for it to stop. I glanced over at my Manolo Blahniks, waiting in the corner like a good little puppy, but I knew if the rain didn’t stop I couldn’t wear them. I couldn’t risk ruining them or getting my feet wet and being uncomfortable all night. No, I couldn’t do that…

If the rain didn’t let up I knew I’d have to wear the back-up shoes still sitting in my closet. Black patent Cole Haan peep-toe heels. The same ones Angelina wore on the red carpet when she was pregnant. But they just weren’t the same.

There’s a crow on my balcony, also waiting for the rain the stop. I tried shooing him away, to no avail, he simply moved over but was permanently attached to our balcony. I just hoped he wouldn’t shit. Bird shit sucks.

My boyfriend told me again, hurry, let’s go, we’d be late, I suppose. But the rain. I just wanted to wear my shoes.

I knew it really didn’t matter what shoes I wore, only, to me, it somehow made the world of a difference. The difference between a sassy pair of golden leopard print sandals and a pair of boring black shiny ones that a freaking pregnant lady wore.

I sighed.

The rain has won. The Manolos put back in their cloth bag awaiting a sunny day. The Cole Haan’s come out for another night of debauchery – as much as one can have with a four year old in their care, that is.

The night was fun as always, there was more food than you can eat and more alcohol than my liver allows – and I forgot all about my shoes that night.

Later, I wondered why it mattered so much to me, to wear the Manolos – the night would likely be no different with the other pair, but I make such a big deal of it all.

At the end of the day, it’s not the shoes I wear, it’s the moments I remember – the times I laughed, the food I tasted, the kisses I shared. The shoes are just the icing on the cake.

xoxo

Fab Brunette

*Shoes pictured above are not my shoes. Image from weheartit.com

I opened a Formspring account.

Yes, me. And I thought that while I was out busy and wandering around Vancouver and living life and neglecting this blog (oops!), that maybe you wanted to ask some questions? And then maybe I’ll answer them?

ASK AWAY!

xoxo

Fab Brunette

Hello Darlings!

How was your weekend? I hope it was fabulous for you – pour moi?

Amazing. But your days are what you make them – remember that.

We spent Friday walking around Vancouver, finally eating, surviving the crowds, and therefore on Saturday we attempted to stay inside. But it was gorgeous out. I haven’t seen weather this nice since I’ve been here! The sun is always shining, there’s never a cloud in the sky – so we ventured out for a bit of a walk with the kidlet.

Sunday we had planned on chilling and doing nothing – but the hockey game was on! We sent J’s brother out to save us a spot at the restaurant at 1:00 pm, the game was playing at 4:40 pm but he was hungry – when he got there it was packed. He got us a table and we waited from 2:00 pm for the game and then watched the epic fail that was the Canada vs USA game. Ah well. There was one American in our restaurant and I can tell you she was gloating. Gloating, people.

Afterwards we finally got out to see the Olympic Cauldron, and it’s gorgeous. I brought the camera but didn’t have an SD card in it. Perfect, lol. I’ll just have to go again to take some pictures of it.

Since I enjoy long weekends, we decide to take random Mondays and make our own long weekend and took a long drive down to see a Mount Baker, which is down in the states and is absolutely huge and awesome and full of snow. Beautiful.

What did you do this weekend?

xoxo

Fab Brunette

ps. To all my book swappers – I’ve sent you all emails!!