This story category covers movies, live performances, sporting events, museums, galleries, toys, games, hobbies, books, courses and general workshops.

Stack of Old Letters

Why A Christmas Letter Is The Perfect Gift

All I want for Christmas is one simple thing no amount of money can buy.

Stack of Old Letters

 

HOLIDAY 2012 | Somewhere around the first of December every year my kids ask me what I want for Christmas. This year I threw them a curve ball. I don’t need a lot of new stuff, and the few new things I might want (a Vitamix down the road, maybe) are insanely out of their price range anyway. Read more

By Nature Design

Studio Sessions At The Eastside Culture Crawl

Doing the Eastside Culture Crawl, Vancouver’s longest-standing open studio event, calls for getting strategic.

By Nature Design

 

SHOPPING AROUND | With 427 artists showing their artworks and wares at 82 different locations, it’s hard to know how to attack Vancouver’s 15th annual Eastside Culture Crawl, which starts November 16 at 5 p.m. and continues through Sunday.

If you’re like me, there’s no way you have more than an afternoon to spare gallivanting around these studios so you’ll need to get strategic. Read more

The-Walking-Dead

Where The Ghouls Are: The Secret Souls Walk

In Vancouver, The Secret Souls Walk is our favourite spooktacular interactive Halloween adventure.

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MAKE ME SCREAM | There are plenty of public opportunities to get your BOO! on this week, including houses so haunted they’ll scare the bejesus out of you (Dunbar Haunted House and Fright Nights At Playland are among our favourite scariest). But I’m happy to report that my all-time personal favourite eerie Halloween activity is the torch-lit Parade of Lost Souls Secret Souls Walk, which takes place on Saturday, October 27th, at a mysterious locale somewhere among the back alleys, streets and open spaces around the Commercial Drive area. Read more

Elephant Dust - Nick Brandt

Big Life Canada Wants To Save Elephant Lives

Elephants’ existence in the wild is threatened as never before. Here’s what Big Life Canada is doing about it.

Rangers with Tusks of Killed Elephants - Nick Brandt

 

DO GOOD | “A world without elephants—how could that be?” my friend Jean asked when I mentioned the subject recently. “I thought they had poaching under control in Africa.”

Not really. Read more

Aomori Nebuta House - molo

Products We Love From Local Molo Design

The latest architectural offering from molo, Canada’s magicians of light (both natural and manufactured)—plus four of our favourite molo products.

Aomori Nebuta House - molo

 

PRICELESS | This little story has nothing to do with our ongoing conversation about saving money, time or energy, but it is about celebrating hometown design heroes—molo’s Stephanie Forsythe and Todd MacAllen—and visually devouring their latest creation, an activity that’s absolutely free. Read more

Where To Have Your Own Silhouette Cut

Renowned silhouette artist Karl “Scissorhands” Johnson will be in West Vancouver this Sunday to preserve your profile for posterity.

Silhouette art by Karl Johnson

 

MONEY WELL SPENT | Do you think that the up-tick of interest in scissor-cut silhouette portraits is a reaction to the fact that camera phone mug shots are ubiquitous and—Instagram aside—so ordinary? Probably not, but handmade silhouette portraits do feel like a fresh and charming alternative to digital. They also feel nostalgic in the way print film photographs and handwritten letters do—only cooler. Read more

Kinfolk Dinner

Entertain “Kinfolk” Style This Summer

Instead of booking a last-minute summer trip, take a page from Kinfolk magazine —and make the most of staying home.

Kinfolk Dinner

 

SUMMER FARE | If you use the school calendar—June through August—as a way to measure summer days and have yet to find the time to get away or relax absolutely, you have six weeks remaining to do something fun and seasonal. But these six weeks will slip away on you like the last six did if you don’t make kicking back a priority. Read more

Embossed Cards by Brendan Power - Martin Tessler

Fast Relief: How To Make Embossed Cards Quick

The perfect alternative to E-cards, these beautifully embossed greeting cards are super simple to make.

Embossed Cards by Brendan Power - Martin Tessler

 

CREATIVE SOLUTION | Embossing your own stationery is super easy. You will need 90-pound watercolor paper (although you can emboss on lighter papers), a burnishing tool and some sort of template to outline the image. Almost anything with relief will work; I used a metal drain tile from a plumbing store, a simple bracket from a hardware store and a leaf template I found at a graphic arts supply store. Read more

Prometheus Movie aboard-ship

Go {Really} Big Or Go Home At The Cineplex

Cineplex cheap movie Tuesday just got cheaper. Here’s how you can see jumbo-screen movies at a lovely, discounted price.

Prometheus Movie aboard-ship

 

SUPER VALUE | With Apple TV, a local video store (yes, we still have one in our neighbourhood) and Netflix to choose from, my dh and I rarely leave home for a movie anymore—why would we want to deal with crowds and potentially bad seats when we can watch most of what we care to see on our large flat-screen TV with (admittedly dated) in-wall surround sound.

But all that has changed after last week, when friends asked us to join them in downtown Vancouver on “cheap movie Tuesday” to see Snow White and the Huntsman at the Scotiabank Theatre’s UltraAVX. Read more

Beautiful Stack Of Letters - Louloubelle5

The Write Thing: Send A Handwritten Note

This perfect Mother’s Day gift costs nothing more than thought and time—plus proves the pen is mightier than the charge card.

Beautiful Stack Of Letters - Louloubelle5

 

KEEPING IT REAL | Wherever you look on the internet today you’re going to be clobbered with last-minute gift ideas. Since when did Mother’s Day (this coming Sunday), an occasion honoring maternal bonds and the influence of mothers on society, become so hyper-commercialized that we now feel compelled to prove our mother love by purchasing the sorts of presents typically reserved for birthdays or Christmas.

Flowers and corner-store cards are one thing, says my friend Tansy Palmer, “but gadgets and gift certificates for Mother’s Day? No way. Mother’s Day is about gratitude and emotional connection not buying stuff.” Read more