Book Review - Long Way Down

Today is book review day! Just like I said in my last book post (errr...my last post...sorry it's been super busy over here) make sure to head on over to the Design Pages for Carol's review...I'll be adding mine to the comments section!

Back to the books - On Beauty {Blogger Book Club}

Just like September meant back to school shopping to me, it also means back to the books!

Blogger Book Club is back and we're reading On Beauty by Zadie Smith:

This is an older novel, so if you don't want to buy it you can likely find it at your local library (that's what I did!). 

We'll be reviewing this book after Thanksgiving, so although it's a bigger novel you have at least a month to read up. Hope to hear what you think about it in Ocotber! And just remember - you don't have to be a blogger to take part in the book club - everyone is welcome!

Featured: So Canadian, Eh?

I am SO excited to be featured over at Hodge Podge today!

I met Barbara when she attended Blog Podium back in May. It was so great to meet her in person (by the way, she's as nice as she seems on her blog. And, taller than I imagined!). I was excited to be able to put a real live face to the blog-name and get to know her a bit more.

If you don't already read her blog, you should. Among fantastic projects, and extraodinary pillow sewing talents, she also has a series called "So Canadian, Eh?". This series profiles fantsatic Canadian designers (like Tommy Smythe and Brian Gluckstein), and bloggers too. And today *I* am one of the lucky bloggers to be featured!!



Click over to see my post - and thank you to Barbara for featuring me!



BlogPodium2 - Recap

Can you believe the weekend is over already?? Sad, but it went by quickly for good reason - The second installment of Blog Podium took place this weekend and it was fantastic. As I mentioned in my Friday post, I was prettttyyyy excited for this little event. Well, not so little actually - there were about 200 very well-heeled, friendly, and inspirational bloggers there!

The keynote speaker, Nicole Balch from Making It Lovely was excellent. Do you read her blog? She was here as a keynote for good reason - her blog is pretty kick ass. Hearing her speak about how she turned her blog into a business, and be so open about her thoughts on advertising, sponsored posts, and in-kind sponsorships was excellent.

Photo via BlogPodium

Following Nicole's keynote we had a super-star panel, a mix of industry reps and bloggers. It was great to get insight from the industry reps regarding what they seek from blogger partnerships, and fantastic to hear the candid lessons learned and advice from bloggers Lindsay (Little House Blog) and Christine (Bijou and Boheme).

Photo via: Mango Studios

Here are a few photos of the gorgeous event space, the recently renovated Arcadian Loft in downtown Toronto:

photo via BlogPodium

centrepieces by We Create Hoopla; photo via BlogPodium

And of course, after all that "learning" we got to have some fun - mingling with the sponsors and of course the bloggers. 

Photo via BlogPodium

West Elm table, photo via BlogPodium

Indigo Table; photo via MangoStudios

GlucksteinHome table, via MangoStudios

Photo via MangoStudios: Barbara from HodgePodge, Lindsay from Little House Blog (and BlogPodium co-chair), Jen from Rambling Renovators (and BlogPodium co-chair) and Nancy from Marcus Design.

Barbara and Nancy won an AYA Kitchen contest and were flown here from Vancouver to attend Blog Podium! I can't wait to hear their take on the whirlwind trip to Toronto. They were both absolutely lovely, and their blogs are some of my regular reads. It was fantastic meeting them face to face and spending some time with them after the event!

I enjoyes meeting so many people this time around - impossible to name them all, but some that stand out are Emily-Jane from Not a House but a Home, who knows my neighbourhood like the back of her hand, and my fridge-twin Jeanette from This Dusty House - we learned we live only a few blocks away from each other! The things you learn when you meet people in person... Catching up with some of my favourite bloggers and some new-to-me bloggers was definitely a huge part of the fun. To top it all off, we got a BlogPodium book with mini bio's of all the attendees, so I have a number of new blogs to check out!

HomeSense sponsored a funny photo booth - this is one of my faves:

 via MangoStudios (click here for more hilarity) - this is Lindsey from Recreated, me, and Meaghan from Row House Nest

After mild what-to-wear stress, I put together an outfit from things I already owned (gasp! I know...)

A huge thank you to all of the people who put work into BlogPodium, the sponsors, and for all of the attendees I got to meet!

Friday Faves - Blog Podium

Tomorrow is the 2nd Blog Podium event!

I am looking forward to it for a number of reasons.  One of the biggest reasons is the topic itself - The Business of Blogging. I'm really interested to hear words of wisdom from other bloggers out there who have successfully grown their blogs into businesses.

Another reason I'm looking forward to it is to catch up with all the bloggers who will be in attendance! I can't wait to see familiar faces, and meet some new people and discover some new blogs as well. And finally, they have some sweet sponsors, and it will be fun to get up close and personal with them.

Oh yah, and PS it's the weekend. Woot! Have a great one.

Things you never knew about me!

Way back in February, I was "awarded" a few blog awards! I held off on writing about them because I had just done my Tag, You're it post where I answered 11 questions about myself. Now you're about to learn even more about me! I've also posted random facts here.

Tiffany over at Worth While Domicile tagged me in the game where you answer 11 of their questions. Here are my answers:

1. What is your favorite color in clothes and design?
If I had to pick ONE (and white and black don't count)...royal blue right now.

my DIY Kitchen Art

2. If you could look like anyone who would it be?
Hmmm...this is an intersting question...I have no idea....I can think of people's lives that I'd like to jump into for a day or so but not someone that I would want to look like.


3. Are you a morning person or a night owl?
Morning.

4. Chocolate or Vanilla?
If this is for cake I'd have to say chocolate. Yummm...chocolate...

via

5. City or country?
CITY! I do live in Toronto, after all.

6. Twilight or Trueblood( basically glitter or traditional can't go in the sunlight vampires)?
I haven't read either. Or watched the movies/show. Or read / watched Harry Potter. Just call me immune to tween litterary wonders (Except the Hunger Games, which I ate up with the rest of the world).

7. Do you prefer a home cooked meal or going out to a restaurant?
Oh, this is such a tough one. I love cooking and hosting people for home cooked meals...but I do it often and restaurants can be special. I have to say in every day life I prefer home cooked, but for special occaisions I love restaurants. Nota Bene in Toronto is one of my all time favourites.

8. High heels or flats?
Heels! I wear flats to walk around and to go to/from work, but generally wear heels every day and when I got out.

9. Have you ever received a really nasty comment and how did you respond?
Hmm...I don't think so...but I would likely just ignore it. Emails and comments can read very differently than they were intended by the writer

10. Summer, Fall, Winter, or Spring?
SUMMER! I love being able to pop outside without worrying about boots, a jacket, scarf, etc. It also seems like there is so much to do just waiting on your doorstep in the summer.

11. What's the most adventurous thing you've ever done?
Skydiving in Taupo, New Zealand. I made a quick decision to do it and had a great time! If you're going to do it, do it somewhere with an amazing view to make it that much more worthwhile.
The lovely Ava from Turning Hope Into Home awarded me a Liebster award, and part of that is sharing 5 random facts about myself to help you get to know me better.  Here they are!
1. I eat my cereal dry (yes, that's right, no milk).
2. I'm not much of a movie person - I might watch 6 or 7 a year (really), and at least 2 of those are usually on flights (and at that, I often fall asleep during them...)
3. Sniffles are one of my biggest pet peeves. Get a kleenex!
4. I love flyers. Yes, those annoying ones that come to your mailbox every week. Call me crazy, or call me cheap, but I look at them every week! You won't see a No flyers sign on my mailbox...
5. I read magazines cover to cover. I'll do a flip through but then I read every word on the pages to make sure I'm catching everything. This means magazines like InStyle take forever for me to read.

Thanks so much Ava and Tiffany for including me in your blog awards!

Book Club

Wasn't it a beautiful weekend (at least here in Toronto)!?! It was positively warm and sunny out there and is supposed to be nice all week! I threw my back out on Saturday which greatly curtailed any sort of fun outdoorsiness on Sunday, but I'm still happy that it's light out for so long and it was so warm.

Ok...onto the post...

I am so excited for this announcement...Carol from The Design Pages and I have been talking about this for some time, and we are starting a Book Club!

For a while now, I've listed the books that I am reading or have recently read on my sidebar...readers will comment here and there - mostly saying they loved the book I'm reading, or asking what I thought of some of my past reads. Carol in particular had some great book suggestions for me, and we seemed to have a lot of similar book loves!  Everyone spends so much time online, but it's still nice to sit down with an actual BOOK and read a story. So we sort of tossed around the idea of doing a book club...except she's in Vancouver, and I 'm in Toronto. Then we tossed idea of doing an online book club...and here we are...

Our first book:

The Paris Wife - Paula Mclain

Here are the details....

WHO - Everyone is invited to join.  As long as you love to read, you're invited - you do NOT have to have a blog to join (but we would love if you do join, to add yourself as a follower of course)


WHAT - We'll announce the books well in advance so you have time to get your own copy.  As we announce the books we'll also include the review date and let you know which one of us will review the book.  We really want to hear from every single one of you who is reading along with us so on review day please stop by and add your review in the comments section or to a linky party (depending on how technologically advanced we can get!) 

WHERE - Each review will take place at either my blog or Carol's The Design Pages (we'll let you know where it's going to be in advance).

WHEN - We're going to start right now!  The first review will take place on Monday, April 23 here at InteriorGroupie

WHY - Because we love to read!

Here's the lineup of our first 3 books:

Let us know if you're planning to read along with us and if you're a fellow blogger, grab the Blogger Book Club button announcing that you're one of the cool kids in the book club (it also appears on my side bar).

<center><a href="http://interiorgroupie.blogspot.com/p/book-club.html”><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi33HS0_gr5v2Kfd90gQ-34YRnkK2tY20BoLKLyb5yyWAwP70Mq2rZwtI-WOqQydUmvtFTbfgwOJpcScdfhRwV0kqO1d0eVpopVzm7bGgE5ZNBNkyzGX81J-uCgA2yWdEVac8ZygICkvQQ/s1600/BloggerBookClub125x125.jpg" /></a></center>

Paint feature - Style at Home

I hope you all are having a great weekend...this weekend is our first snowy one in Toronto all year! Yesterday I headed out early to take a friend shopping (so fun, and very successful!) and today will be the usually running around, laundry, and cooking some muffins for the week (I lead an exciting life I tell ya...).

I am catching up on my blog reading, and was happy to see the latest Style at Home online blogger feature published! I was featured in Style at Home's Bloggers Budget Decorating Ideas: How to Use Paint for my doormat:

You can see my step by step instructions in my original DIY Doormat post

I am featured with some other lovely bloggers who share an affinity for paint / spray paint and always have it at the ready. See the full feature here. I encourage you to check out the other bloggers that were included in this feature too: Crafty Bee, Decor Happy, Hodge:Podge, Cococozy, and Belle Maison.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

What's getting me through this week...IDS & Blogpodium!

It's been a busy little week over here, and I don't think it's going to slow down soon. Unfortunately it's not house-decor-reno-fun-busy, more crazy-real-life-busy. Part of the reason it's so busy is because I'm taking Friday off work to go to:

BlogPodium

BlogPodium is the genius brainchild of Lindsay from Little House Blog and Jen from Rambling Renovators. I am really looking forward to the discussion, panel, and opportunity to meet other bloggers. Every time I have met bloggers offline I have been so excited after spending time with others who share my passion. That, and all bloggers are super nice. And super stylish. But above all super nice. Can't wait to meet many of you this weekend!

Above and beyond all that glam goodness is another benefit of attending BlogPodium - a media pass to IDS2012 - the Interior Design Show.

I get to attend the kick off gala Thursday night (what to wear, what to wear! refer to super stylish comment above...Twitter is going nuts with wardrobe woes...), and then attend trade day on Friday. Don't worry, I'll be trying to snap photos while looking designer-chic at the events so I can report back in full!

There is even ANOTHER blogger event happening this weekend - the Canadian Design Blogger meet up on Saturday. I attended the one this summer and it was fantastic, however I have a wedding on Saturday so I will have to wait until the next blogger meet up to meet anyone who won't be at Blog Podium or IDS.

So with that I think I am signing off for the week...wish me luck with being uber stylish straight from work tomorrow night!