The Wine Offensive is the last person in Seattle to realize that barista is Project-Runway-Blayne, I say this with love! Love you The Wine Offensive!

It's nearly Park-ing Day (see the bottom of that post). I hope there is a space near us. More here at Rainier Valley Post.

Here's one for Dan Savage's files: Rottweiler fights pit bull to save boy

Neal Stephenson book tour dates for the release of Anathem


weekend trip planning:

Bike a trail, listen to chamber music in the Methow

Methow trails draw crowds, but solitude's near

Autumn in the Methow: Where road biking feels like hiking

Travel for Beer: The Methow Valley

The Bring & Brag event at The Lab at Velocity Art and Design here in Seattle last week was fantastic. The Lab's site will have a list of all the bragees soon but two that really stood out for me were Suspect and Fugitive, a year long project combining edible or temporary materials with fantastically bad puns, and Good Stock, custom books made from family photographs and writings. I suspect we'll be seeing Good Stock will be in Martha Stewart Weddings magazine before not too long.

Also! You can listen to the recordings of past Labs here. You can also sign up to receive the Lab podcasts on the main page.

Why did it take me so long to finally get myself into Zenith Supplies here in Seattle? It's only a half a block down from the Ravenna Whole Foods, I have missed out on so many opportunities to go and admire tiny lip balm containers.

In short, Zenith Supplies sells all the things you need to make candles, soap, lotions, balms, perfumes, things for your body, the bath and your home. I went in hoping to find some DPG for making my own reed diffuser scents and not only did they have it but they had a recipe, bottles, reeds, perfumers alcohol and a more than impressive selection of essential and fragrance oils. They have candle and soap molds, jars and bottles of all sizes, lotion bases and bulk oils, salts and dried herbs, more waxes and additives than I knew existed. But most thrillingly they had an excellent selection of small jars for lips balms and solid perfume including the elusive clear plastic compact. They had those old fashioned metal sliding tins, little rollerball containers for scents and teeny pipetts, small atomizers and all sorts of packaging supplies. You can buy just one of anything, which sounds awfully good to me, the girl who still has well over 100 pipettes from my lip balm making experiments. The store is large, clean and orderly and the staff was perfectly happy to answer all my inane questions. It is, as I had been warned by Yelp, a little hippy dippy, expect to find crystals and books on healing arts. I see a solid perfume in my future and maybe, maybe, some serious soapmaking.

The next Lab is this Wednesday, August 20th and it promises to be very interesting. It's a grown up version of show and tell so people who have creative endeavors will be given a few moments to tell us all about it. I'm looking forward to this one, and I have inside information that we'll get a closer look at the rings of Dave Sheely Designs. He's started to embed jewels inside of resin and the effect is that the ruby is floating over your finger. Though, I totally have a soft spot for this one that contains beach glass possibly from an old Rainier beer bottle.

Heidi Kennedy of My Paper Crane will have a show opening tonight at Schmancy. She's come all the way from Pennsylvania, I hope I can make it. Schmancy is at 1932 2nd Ave, Seattle, WA 98101, event starts at 6 p.m.

Crystalyn Kae will be selling her bags at a rooftop garden trunk show on Saturday. She'll have bags you cannot see anywhere else, all on a pretty roof in Wallingford. I think a some ice cream from Molly Moon's is the only proper thing to do afterwards. Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at 4032 Stone Way North, Seattle, WA 98103

Urban Craft Uprising is now accepting applications for the December show, the deadline is September 8th and you can find applications right here.

art, craft & design is the new (to me) blog of Andrea who owns Bluebottle Art Gallery here in Seattle. It's full of stuff I'm crushing on already.

Every Visit to the Seattle Central Library Reminds Me of the Cheese Shop Sketch a sentiment by The Stranger that I share

Seattlest declares Spencer Elden, whom you might know as the baby on the album cover of Nevermind, has eclipsed the woman on the cover of Whipped Cream and Other Delights as the northwest's most famous album cover model. I've always wanted to make a Halloween costume from the Whipped Cream cover, of course I would need to guys to carry a green canvas behind me at all times.

H&M is open in Southcenter! I cannot help it, I'm crushing on this store.

A street very near me is going to be closed to vehicle traffic in an effort to promote, something. Community? Bicycle riding? Walking? Anyhow, it'll be pretty cool to stand in the middle of the street and not fear for one's life. Not to mention get to walk to the pub in the straightest line and not be blasted by traffic noise.

Is there anything family friendly to do just slightly outside of the greater Seattle area? at Ask Metafilter. I had no idea there is a full time medieval village in Carnation.

Hiking Twin Falls at Seattlest, I like the series on local hikes they've been running lately.

Greenwater Lakes Trail at the Slog.

free tacos downtown, sounds good, at Properly Salted

Snapshots from the Inaugural Sunday Supper at the Corson Building, oh how nice, at Mid Beacon Hill Blog.

Beard Papa in Seattle? At Safeco and Uwajimaya, according to Da*xiang, thanks!

Zenith Supplies, Yelp says this is the place to get soapmaking supplies, and I hope they have reeds for oil diffusers so I can try to undo the memory of how horrible the premixed kind I bought was.

Recently we took a short trip to Victoria, BC. We used a Clipper vacation package -- you hop on a boat in Seattle which drops you off in Victoria two and a half hours later with, hopefully, your hotel van waiting just on the other side of customs. Most hotels are mere blocks away.



Victoria BC is a small town with a ton of stuff to do, with Butchart Gardens being the one everybody asks about. We did not visit Butchart Gardens because for this short trip the interest level/entrance fee/travel time (it's about half an hour north of Victoria) didn't weigh out with my goal of doing nothing much at all. If you are car-less you can get there via a tour bus or the regular public transportation bus.

Victoria is a very walkable/wanderable town, and the Victorian architecture and Canadian-ness of it all make it charming. I was a little worried about the size while looking at the map, but ten blocks in any direction from the hotel had us where we wanted to go so there was never any desire to rent a car or scooter to get around. (more...)

Can anyone recommend a couple of wineries in the Wilamette Valley region by Portland? at Ask Metafilter

ISO suggestions for Columbia River Gorge trip at Ask Metafilter

Newest state park: beach, cabins, conflict, about the Cama Beach State Park.

You won't miss the meat at Lola's -- it's vegetarian but not snooty about it. Yay! My local bakery gets a good review!

Little Coney, I had no idea this was there.

Filling a day in fairly bustling Fairhaven.

Bike a trail, listen to chamber music in the Methow

A Soup-er Stay at Alderbrook Resort & Spa at Seattlest.

Please share your favorite lodgings in/near Olympic National Park. at Ask Metafilter.

The next Lab is this Wednesday, June 25th from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Velocity showroom in South Lake Union here in Seattle. This month the guests are PNW crafty ladies Kristen from Schmancy and Plush You, Moxie of Made By Moxie and Hansi of Hansigurumi. Kristen mentioned that the people at Craft have donated a box set of their first year of CRAFT along with their latest issue to give away. I'm looking forward to finding out more about how all of these ladies do their work.

The Dray, in Ballard, mere blocks from where we used to live, further proof that when we move away from some place things improve quite drastically.

Searching for Jewish Sustenance in the Goytastic Northwest, at The Stranger.

Quick and Dirty Guide to the Olympic Peninsula at Mental Wanderings

Apartment Therapy on Jim Denevan, the name of an artist I was trying to remember last week. Check out his site and tell you won't hope to stumble across his work someday.

olympic peninsula weekend, part one: lake crescent lodge at Shelterrific

restaurant i love: silence-heart-nest, it's vegetarian, at Straight From the Container

Circus Contraption at Seattlest

parks we love at Seattlest

Seattle Public Library Ask A Librarian on IM, yay

The talk about blogging at The Lab last night was a lot of fun. I didn't feel nearly as deer in the headlights as I thought I would, though I'm afraid my style of blogging meant I didn't have very helpful answers. (Example: What is your most popular post? My answer: I don't actually know. (It's the bacon cups, duh, Megan.)) Also, I got to buy my blog anniversary present, the Gro Bal Baby.

John was a fabulous host for the evening, and I want to thank him for being so generous as to have the events in his store and allowing people to mill around with food and drinks. Thank you John. Velocity is a fantastic store, online and in real life, and I always find myself trying out lots of furniture while I'm there.

Thanks to Paola (MirrorMirror), Elaine (Decorno), and Mary (Shelterrific and Straight from the Container) for being such wonderful girls. I do hope our different styles and goals for blogging gave a varied perspective. An extra huge thank you to Paola for getting this event started and inviting me to be part of this night.

I got to meet Jessie of Cakespy and Tula of Whorange and a bunch of other people. Thanks so much to everybody for coming last night. I ran into Eliza Truitt, who ran a small photography workshop I gratefully attended last month. If she starts starts having regular classes I'll be sure to let you know, a class focusing on "So, you just bought a DSLR..." would be helpful to so many people I know.

A thanks goes to Dry Soda for providing food and beverages. I've begun associating the flavor of Kumquat soda with an evening of learning new things from intersting people.

The next Lab (June) will feature Kristen Rask, owner of Schmancy and creator of the Plush You event and book, Moxie of Made By Moxie and Hansi of hansigurumi. They'll be talking about the Plush You! show and crafting in general.

The Lab for July will feature Emira Mears and Lauren Bacon talking about their book The Boss of You. If you have or want to run your own business these two have a lot of wisdom to share as they have owned Raised Eyebrow Web Studio for a very long time. I've mentioned this before, but I used to read their site The Soapbox Girls way back in 1999, so I'm very excited they'll be coming through town. (I missed them when they were here on the book tour.)

You can join Velocity's mailing list to hear about future events.



See Mary's notes over at Shelterrific.

Here are my notes on what I can recall from what we talked about last night:

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