Shop With Alda Pereira, Designer Of The Year
Frugalbits goes shopping with Alda Pereira, western Canada’s 2010 interior designer of the year.
Already considered one of Canada’s top interior designers with many awards and plenty of ink in glossy publications to her credit, Alda Pereira added another feather to her cap last month when a jury of her peers recognized her as Western Living magazine’s 2010 interior designer of the year.
While her private residential projects and multi-unit development interiors are always a delight to the eye, Pereira is no “shrinking wallflower looking to please multitudes,” commented Western Living editor Anicka Quin, who appreciates Pereira’s “knack for pairing the unusual with the well tailored.”
We love Pereira’s talent too—and her personality, which despite her early and prolonged success, is refreshingly unaffected. Pereira admits she loves to shop “Unabashedly. Period,” she says, “especially window-shopping. Did I mention that it’s free?” Here she shares a few of her favourite haunts. Read more
Use Your Fingers To Wake Up Your Tired Toes
Here’s how to wake up your feet by interlacing your fingers and toes.
FIVE-MINUTE-YOGA | Perhaps we lose touch with our feet because they’re so far from our heads. How else could we shove them into narrow shoes and ignore them until they hurt?
Good yoga feet with active, mobile toes bring life to every pose. They help you connect with the ground in standing poses and pull your energy upward in inversions.
In fact, if there were just one practice you were to take on for five minutes a day, this one would give you the biggest and fastest rewards.
How To Wake Up Your Feet Read more
Nutrient-Rich Compost Is Free & Simple To Make
Nutrient-rich compost is easy to make at home, plus it’s absolutely free.
In the fall, I envy people who have red, gold and brown leaves carpeting their yards. Seeing them bagged at the curb makes me even more frustrated. With mainly conifers in my garden, I would love a convenient source of leaves to use as weed-suppressing mulch. Dried leaves are also wonderful for composting.
The best deal on earth, literally, may be compost. You throw in garbage and get back rich, black humus to use in the garden. And it’s not just for country folk and gardening fanatics anymore. A friend of mine just bought a compost bin for the roof deck of her downtown penthouse. Read more
Lip Stains: The Best Ones At Every Price Point
Glamorous berry-stained lips are the fashion this fall. Allison Emery picks the top products that deliver the look.
This fall the trend is smoky, metallic eyes and velvety smooth berry-stained lips. The look is very retro, yet classically cool. One of the great things about this look is that you don’t even need the dramatic eyes to pull off the sexy, colourful lips. In fact, with a very glamorous lip colour, it’s better to keep the eyes soft and simple—neutral shadow, lightly smudged liner and mascara are perfect complements. Smoky eyes can be challenging, but trying a new lip colour is easy—all you need is the right product in a suitable shade. The easiest (and surprisingly affordable) option is lip stain. Read more
Heike and Coreen Do YVR On The Green Side
Top casting directors Heike Brandstatter and Coreen Mayrs explore Vancouver (and Bowen Island) on the green side.
Emmy Award-winning casting directors Coreen Mayrs and Heike Brandstatter spend most of their days casting feature film and television shows, having worked on such past projects as Juno, Battlestar Galactica, Capote and Diary of A Wimpy Kid. Their current projects include This Means War (starring Reese Witherspoon), Hellcats, Smallville and the soon-to-be-released Tron: Legacy. In their spare time they can be found exploring sustainable design, green building and cooking with organic ingredients.
Heike and Coreen’s 5 free, cheap or worth it things to see, do or buy in Vancouver (or beyond) Read more
Why You Need A Clothesline In Your Life
Save your clothes, cash and the environment with an indoor or outdoor clothesline.
What is it with us? We can’t wait to air our dirty laundry in public but scorn hanging clean laundry outdoors to dry. Years ago I lived in the heart of Montreal’s Latin Quarter yet had a clothesline running from my back balcony to a post on the lane—and so did everyone else. Here in Vancouver, I can’t remember the last time I saw laundry flapping in the wind. A 2007 StatsCan Environment Survey shows the percentage of B.C. residents drying clothes on a line or rack at just 54 percent; in P.E.I. it was 75 percent. Read more
One Of These Mustards Is Not Like The Others
Which of these Dijons cuts the mustard with chef Glenys Morgan: French’s, President’s Choice or Western Family?
Chef Robert Belcham Dines, Shops, Splashes
Dine out, walk, shop and splash with uber chef Robert Belcham of the illustrious Campagnolo and refuel restaurants.
Spending the frigid Saturday afternoons of his childhood in Edmonton and Peace River eating fresh-from-the-oven cookies and watching PBS cooking programs, chef Robert Belcham was interested in cooking from a young age.
Starting out as a line cook at Rebar, an innovative vegetarian restaurant in Victoria, followed by as stint at The Aerie Resort on Vancouver Island, Robert eventually received a call from star chef Thomas Keller, offering him a chef de partie position at his famous Yountville restaurant, The French Laundry. He then became a private chef in the Silicon Valley, where, he says, “I became much more aware of what the guests feel, what they want and what they need. I know I’m a better chef because of it.” Read more
Truck & Moo With MOV’s Culture Crew
Where to bike, truck, cheep and moo—from the Museum of Vancouver’s innovative culture crew.
The most vibrant and exciting cultural institution in our city right now is one that’s old as the hills: the Museum of Vancouver, a.k.a. MOV, which has been around since 1894. Over the past few years, the team pictured here has transformed MOV into a local light by celebrating what is original about our town, with exhibitions covering everything from our very own rock stars of footwear to barbecue duels fought local Iron Chef style. This year, MOV’s innovation led to a Canadian Museums Association award for “Re-Envisioning.”
Nancy Noble, CEO (pictured right), is a longtime museum professional and the driving force behind the recent changes at MOV. Joan Seidl, Director of Collections and Exhibitions (pictured left), has worked in museums since she was 14 years old and has curated dozens of exhibits. Amanda Gibbs, Director of Audience Engagement (pictured in the middle), is a specialist in branding, community engagement and new forms of storytelling.