Curb Alert Toronto #1

I've wanted to do Curb Alerts for a while now, and this is my first one! My Curb Alerts are of interesting pieces that I see lining the streets of Toronto, which are up for grabs. I post the location and a picture within a couple hours of sighting, and it's first come first serve!

Here we have a small table or nightstand, about 24" x 8" and 24" tall. Made of real wood, it has some water damage but would be wonderfully restored with a quick sanding and application of stain and tung oil. It's located at 149 Euclid Ave. Good luck!

I want to ride my bicycle, bicycle, bicycle

$45 bought me one beat-up beautiful bike off the end of the driveway of an old italian guy. After two full days of work on it at Bike Pirates, it was finally rideable. Yesterday, it got a makeover of new bar tape and a new seat! In Belgium this summer I saw people using deflated tubes as bungee cords for the back rack and tried to remember how they did it. Very excited to continue riding this beauty. Thanks, Bike Pirates!

Souvenirs from Spain and Sweden

I took it upon myself to find some really unique souvenirs during my trip in Europe. Among them were a sign saying "WC," the ubiquitous indication of a bathroom (asking for a bathroom likely brought visions of a Roman bath house to the local people, judging from their facial expressions). I also learned that Tove Jansson was not only Finnish, but half Swedish! It brought to mind the charming stories I read as a kid which my mom found in a garage sale or used book store, and also a Finnish store I went into once in Toronto which had a whole mural painted of the characters.

So when we discovered a new fruit (nisperos!) in Barcelona,

I saved the large seeds, and I'm going to use them as beads.

In Stockholm, I found a set of brass buttons which will be perfect to replace the (plastic!) ones on my thrifted black leather jacket. For 30 Swedish Kronor!

Two pieces of wall candy

I worked on these projects during the winter, accompanied by some red wine. Outdoors was ugly, slushy, and grey, contrasting these colourful fun pieces. The stencilled damask one, done with acrylic and gloss medium, was an experimental foray into stencil work and the craquelure effect. I need to find a way to prevent the stencil from sticking to the painting as I'm workign on it. Perhaps make it out of something other than paper? The craquelure effect should have been done with a matte medium on top rather than gloss. Definitely will be doing this again. The other piece was a mixed-media collage incorporated surreal sort of space invaders thing, and I am quite happy with it.

Garbage Room Finds

I make a habit of visiting the recycling room of my apartment building as often as I can, and it has paid off. In addition to electronics, which I can turn into e-art, I have found umbrellas, some very interesting jewelry, and shoes.  

Camera Trouble

Immediately before my trip to Europe, my >8 year-old Sony Cybershot died. It displayed only a white screen and would not take snaps! Up until then nearly all my pictures were done with that camera, as poor as its low-light performance and stability were. When I got back from Europe I decided to see if I could fix it at all. There had been a previous problem a couple years ago when I got a lens error which I fixed by smacking the camera on my knee (thank you, internet). This time it suggested resetting the screen by pressing all the buttons at once. I was sceptical, but it worked! The lens however started making the most horrible buzzing noise. Hitting it against my knee didn't work this time, and the internet suggested there could sand or hair stuck in the lens casing. I found a camera mod that allowed remote shutter control, which also happened to have instructions on taking the camera apart. I am always for taking apart electronics! 

 
Here is the result, which unfortunately doesn't involve the lens behaving afterwards. I think it is time for a new camera. Meanwhile I will have to rely on my Milestone camera (I used it for this picture), which has flash and zoom but only takes decent pictures in high sunlight situations.