Nine Lives Fashions Grand Opening and Family Night in the park

Five days till the big day!

After one month of mad and incredibly hectic planning the Nine Lives Fashions Grand Opening is only five days away. 

Come shop the amazing selection of affordable, previously-loved, woman's and children's clothing and for Family Night in the park, featuring a free LuLu and the TomCat concert, prizes and face painting.

See you there!

The good, the apps and the ugly.

From the moment my hands parted the sleek white packaging and touched it, I knew.

I knew I was going to have to try really hard not to break this expensive and very beautiful piece of technology know as the iPad. It's only been one week, but so far my baby has remained unblemished and unharmed despite my general clumsiness and I have to admit, I am completely addicted.

Apps, apps, apps, apps, apps, apps, apps. Great apps and tacky apps and apps that cost more than I generally spend a day on food. Muddling through this jungle of apps has allowed me to discover more than a few of everyones favourite kind of apps, free ones.


1. Flipboard

An app built like a customized magazine, specially formatted to be filled with your interests and passions. This app takes your Facebook, Twitter and your choice of seven other contributing sources and mish-mashes your friends status updates and latest TEDTalks videos into the coolest magazine, online or print that I have ever seen.  Did I mention that it's visually stunning and sleekly designed with great photography from across the net? Seriously people, go get this one.

1. AppShopper

On the prowl for free and on sale apps? Then this free app is for you. It does all the searching for you, automatically updating itself with the newest and cheapest apps the iPad has to offer. Very useful and a great way to save a little cash while shopping for Apps.

3. Aurora Feint 3

The best free game I've found for the iPad by far is Aurora Feint 3. It takes full advantage of the iPads beautiful screen with some of the most gorgeous and well-done graphics I've seen in a free or bought iPad app. Along with beautiful graphics the game is addictive, fun and challenging with a format that could be the love child of Bejewelled and World of Warcraft. Very fun, very free and very addictive, be prepared to spend some time on this one if you get it.

4. NET-A-PORTER Magazine.

By far the best free fashion publication I have found online or in the apps, this magazine acts as free entertainment for the fashion obsessed and 47 pages of advertising for online luxury retailer, net-a-porter. The magazine is filled with gorgeous editorials and photo spreads, video content on almost every page and the fun ability to shop the issue. Every item featured in the magazine can be bought at net-a-porter.com by simply touching the provided link. It's fun, free,  and as high quality (if not higher) than the best paid for fashion magazine apps available.

If you're interested in more information on the best free apps as I find them, let me know in the feedback below.

Vampire Weekend just blew my mind.


I am about to have an epileptic seizure from repeatedly watching Vampire Weekends music video for "Cousins".
Montage inspiration anyone?

Mom in the media

Julie Hesketh, nurse practitioner and my mother, is telling her story in today's Winnipeg Free Press. Check it out here.


She was also featured on CJOB this week, resulting in several excited texts from my fellow Cre-Comms asking 'Is your mom on the radio?'. I was proud to text back, 'Damn right she is!'


I love you mom.

Twit-book

For many of my friends, Facebook and Twitter are simply a part of the daily routine. Check your friends latest pictures on Facebook, receive news about Marc Jacobs Spring, 2010 line via Twitter, all before breakfast. The two sites offer similar alerts and services for the busy, young, thing on the go, and its rare for anyone under 30 not to have an account at one or both of these sites.


This huge audience of receptive and easily accessible young people is a tempting demographic for the PR professional. The challenge that PR professinals face is that they don't want to be sold anything. The users of Facebook in particular are much more likely to use the site for entertainment and recreational purposes. Unless you're offering them something, they would rather not listen.


Twitter is a slightly more receptive audience, with a format that is better suited for promotions and reaching a specific target audience. Twitter users readily sign themselves up to receive a streaming feed of profile updates, news and semi-disguised advertisements from the people they follow. 

Facebook is most useful to PR professionals for its fan pages and events. Many companies and organizations now have Facebook profiles with a huge audience of 'friends' from all around the world. Facebook offers a slightly more personal and friendly promotional approach to PR that while tricky to navigate can lead to impressive results.

New media has given us a unique opportunity to forge relationships and dialogue directly with our customers. By creating strategies that take advantage of both Twitter and Facebook, PR professionals have the chance to reach a young, ready to listen audience and get great results for their clients.

DIY studded dress

Materials

A large pyramid studded belt. You can usually find them in the back of your tween sister/brothers closet or at your local Value Village. I found mine at a Salvation Army on Pembina highway for two bucks, and it even has different tones of studs for my other DIY projects!

A little black dress/shirt/jacket/etc. Make sure its made of a strong but piercable material such as a rayon knit. The fabric can not be too delicate or else the studs will have no support and fall off but there is nothing fun about trying to force blunt studs through impenetrable leather either.

A pair of needle nose pliers. I don't have a picture of the ones I used but if in doubt ask your local handy man/woman. 



Directions

Flip over the studded belt, exposing the uncovered backs of the studs. Use the needle nose pliers and your fingernails to lift up the steel backing and pull out the studs one by one. For the project I did I used twenty studs, but according to what look you're going for you can go for more ore less studding.


Once you have lifted out your studs lay out your dress on a flat surface and plan out your pattern. I wanted a tribal/bib inspired neck line which I achieved by laying the studs out in a symmetrical pyramid based pattern.


Next use the needle nose pliers to peel up the stud backs so that they stand up straight and easily pierce the fabric. The final step is simply pushing the studs through the fabric of your dress, lining up the stud and using the pliers to fasten the studs in place.

The end result will be something like this handsome dress:

 Dance time!

My internet habit.

I've noticed a certain repetitiveness to the time I spend on the big, bad internet.
According to my computer history I need to stop looking at...

1.  facebook.com

2. roiworld.com

3. jakandjil.com/blog

4. watch-movies-online.tv

5. audrey.buzznet.com

6. lookbook.nu

7. tavi-thenewgirlintown.blogspot.com

8. thecoolhunter.net

9. streetpeeper.com

10. icanhascheezburger.com

What are you doing online?