Halifax classic and funky

Squeezing in my last post for January, I have our trip to Halifax to share with you- somewhat- as we covered a LOT of ground.

 

The snow flurries forecast were gone by the time we hit the road.

This incredible refraction of light made for some exciting eye candy.

There's usually a remarkable display of steam coming off this wood mill.

It's woodlot is thinning out this time of year.

Coming into downtown Halifax, one can see a bit of Halifax Harbour and Halifax's sister city, Dartmouth, across the bay.

I've rarely seen someone actually wearing the famous Hudson's Bay blanket coat,

and now that I do, it looks fabulous.

Here a Navy woman appears to be waiting for her ride.

Because we were driving, I cannot always tell you the name of these marvelous historical buildings that Halifax is known for, but, boy, are they substantial.

Aren't sliced off building remains fascinating...

A view down Granville St. towards the Halifax Wharf

that hosts all kinds of events and festivities in the summer.

And looking back up Granville St.

EY (Ernst & Young LLP, tax advisory) and RBC (Royal Bank of Canada)

This must be the financial district (duh)

Down by the sea as we are, a down coat we see

Omg it was cold and windy.

a statue of Joseph Howe

Here is Wally as we organize ourselves for our walk down Hollis Street

The wonderful façade of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia

How it is dwarfed by the modern buildings,

yet it was the huge one its day.

the wonderful bas relief and mouldings

our destination: the art supply store for NSCAD (Nova Scotia College for Art and Design)

The dizzying height of the BMO building (Bank of Montreal)

and Halifax's tallest building 1801, which houses many businesses, right beside the former

I was happy with these angles caught quite by accident from the car

A wonderful rendition of the Lion and the Unicorn

I didn't know that these creatures represent Great Britain,

the lion, England, and the unicorn, Scotland

The magical entrance to the historic Bank of Nova Scotia building that I've shown you in past posts.

Outside that same entrance.

I must have been on the move not to get better shots of this wonderful place.

Wrapped like an art installation, but I would venture it's more like a non-art insulation.

Rock Candy. Wouldn't you think this was a rock bar? I was surprised to find out it was clothing.

I would have checked it out if I had known enjoying kitsch as I do.

Crossing Sackville and more construction

After our visit to yet another fabulous art supply store it was now almost dark just after 6pm.

Not bad for a longer span of daylight. (I'm always a sucker for Christmas lights.)

Wally the strongman

We didn't realize the strongman was outside Freak Lunchbox

a fantastic candy store with lots of oddball kitsch

We went in to marvel at the array of colour and wild graphics

"Cats Love It"

(yah, right)

the hand painted counter like old circus signs

and finally, the last of my pictures as we headed back to the car

this amazing painting on the side of the building. You must understand that I took this from across an empty lot, painted on a building that was about 3 stories high. Quite a feat!

I hope you enjoyed this small slice of our trip to Halifax. Wally thought he might like to live in this town again as he once did when he was a young man. It certainly has a great energy with its art college being right downtown and so much vibrancy and youth culture, but I have to say that I prefer my quiet country life, happy to visit the city and happy to come home again.

And that's January. As usual, it is trying to snow without much sticking.

Let's have a lovely February. Doesn't the word just glow with red hearts?

peace

ice storm and handmade book

January. It's been a month of re-setting.
It's always like that after the holidays

Muji watches Wally take down the Christmas lights.

(Yes, our books are over-flowing.)

The ice storm  on Tuesday was so beautiful, making this end cap on our deck post bedazzled.

I carefully wended my way onto the icy lawn that was so slippery I was sliding on the grass!

Here is the sage plant done up like popsicles.

the sparkling hydrangea

a crystaline mantle

I regretted not video taping the sound of tinkling branches

but I was getting covered in icy rain and had to make my way back in.

The next morning was mild, almost 10C, but foggy

which made my little boys schleepy.

With Muji's paw on Babu's throat, I don't know how Babu can sleep like that.

Last night, Wally couldn't see the eyebrow hair hanging over his eye so I took a picture to prove

what I have to look at. We laughed at the preposterousness of him letting me do this to him.

He is so good humoured about himself,

bless his heart.

This morning the sun shone so bright it woke me, but now it is another dreary day.

A lone seagull wends its way south.

Babu keeps me company, curious about what I might see.

I debated with myself about showing you my handmade book started over Christmas.

It's not my practice to share reproduced images as I like to share my own work here.

But who doesn't love to play with stamps and collage? It's what hooked Wally as he saw the possibilities.

This book measures 5 1/4 in. x 8 1/2  in.

Coffee stained and distress inked papers and sewn pockets.

The page on the right is rough cardboard stripped of its plastic coating from a coffee can, distress ink stained to match the coffee stained envelope that I handstitched into pockets. A little folded paper book sits in the lower pocket, a piece of beautiful folded cardstock in the upper.

coffee stained baking paper that I tried to emboss

with some stamping, "Near to my Heart"

The centre of the book with handstitched coffee stained pockets. The tags are an assortment of bought and punched tags. We went nuts for tags pre-Christmas, scouting office supply and craft stores,  distressing them and adding stamping and collaged book and scrapbook papers and cardstock.

Such fun.

Post Christmas we found a lovely paper punch, drastically reduced, which Wally showed me how to line up to get a repeat pattern. I stamped this coffee stained paper and...

tipped it in, an expression for adding a page after the book is sewn.

I used some washi tape, a kind of printed masking tape, on each side to attach this paper to the last page of the book and then to the back cover.

The back cover of the book. This is the first time I saw the black ink splotches on it and I love the serendipity of the distressing, done without intention, adding to the "found" look I was going for.

and so we find ourselves wrapping up January, another day above freezing,

but it ain't over yet!

I think I can squeeze one more post in before it's over.

holding this moment in our breath,

present for all it's magic