From here.

Currently planning a trip to Europe in the fall.  Munich, Berlin… and deciding between Prague and Paris.  Peut-être Paris, non?

Have you been thinking to yourself : “If there is one thing I need, it’s a tee-pee, so that, instead of sitting in my living room, I could sit in my tee-pee in my living room, or instead of sitting on my deck, I could sit in a tee-pee on my deck, etc.”?

Well today is your lucky day, because all your teepee desires will be fulfilled.

Yes, I’m going to tell you how to build your own wicked-cool “3 person” tee-pee.  I put “3 person” in “quotations” because while getting blottzed last weekend we managed to fit 8 people in this tee-pee, but it was less than comfortable, and I’m pretty sure we almost destroyed the tee-pee.

But if you are looking for a semi-private location for three people to discuss politics and the socio-economic state of the world, say, while, doing shots of cinnamon whiskey, than this teepee is perfect.

I originally found my inspiration from Smile and Wave here, but made some modifications to make the tee-pee a big bigger and changed the design a little bittle.  Ok so go to the hardware store/craft store/dollarstore and buy these:

• 6 x 8 foot framing beams (1″ x 2″)
• Biggest canvas drop cloth you can find (I bought a 9′ x 12′ and it still wasn’t big enough… had to go back and buy another)
• A bunch of ribbons
• Twine or leather lace
• Paint and a paintbrush

Here is my fancy tee-pee pattern.  It’s pretty damn simple.  Figure it out.

Now that you’ve cut out all your shizz, time to sew.  Make sure that your sewing machine is not broken, because if it is broken, you’ll have to take it apart and put it back together after drinking two glasses of wine, and then the bobbin casing might get all fucked up due to your drunkenness, and the needle might get stuck and threaten breaking off into your skull or eyeball socket.

Remember that you are going to be sewing those ribbons to the INSIDE of the tee-pee (i.e. the seam-side) because you’ll want to tie them to the poles to keep them in place.  I basically folded by ribbon pieces in half, and stuck the folded end through the front about 1/2 an inch.  You can see it on the other side, but I think it looks all like cool and professional, like there are little tabs on the seams that I purposely put there.  I think about things like this way too much.

Now lay out the tee-pee on the floor and marvel at your ability to make unnecessary things.  Put your small dog on the tee-pee fabric shell to take a cute picture.

Then Instagram it.

Now it’s time to paint.  I was inspired by some tee-pee I saw on Pinterest with like, black and white Aztec stuff all up on it, and I put this triangle-sun thing on the top.  You know.  Just bein’ bad ass and all.

Ok, let that dry and make sure you don’t step on it while wearing socks and then put your shoe on then discover several hours later that you have “paint-glued” your sock to the inside of your shoe. 

Take your poles and drill a hole in the flat side about 6″ – 8″ inches from the end, then lace your leather or twine piece *loosely* through the holes and circle it around them to hold them in a triangle-ish type thing.  You’ll need to keep them loose because you’ll need to finagle them around while you put your fabric on.

Throw your fabric over and tie the inner ribbons to the poles to hold it in place.  I also tied twine between the poles at the very bottom of the structure to keep them equidistant and stable as drunken friends pile in.

NOW YOU SHOULD TOTALLY DECORATE IT MORE.  With, like, beads and feathers…

And maybe a suede blanket and a furry sheepskin…

Now take a picture of it and Instagram it.

FUCKING-BAD-ASS.

So P-Hops, my best friend in the world, had an “important” birthday on Friday, and her fantastic man and I cooked up a little party to celebrate.

My house is a pretty good party house, and people (hopefully) enjoyed themselves…

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Tami noticed the Fleetwood Mac hangy-balls, too:

I was trying to get a picture of Pam and she kept moving around. So I said “STOP MOVING AROUND” and she did her patented “tree blowing in the wind” dance.

Since I tend to over-plan and become obsessive about everything in my life, I decided to make this a fun little theme party and cook up some southwestern-native-what-have-you inspired items to add some pizzaz to the party. Basically, it gave me a wonderful excuse to get my deck all ready for the summer, and since I had done absolutely nothing with it so far, there was a lot to do…

About 30 yards of fabric bunting had to be made and mounted. OBVIOUSLY. I mean, like, what kind of plebian deck doesn’t have bunting cut from pinking shears?

I had to build some deck furniture so that there would be a place for people to sit and eat… I’ll tell you how to make some in a later post. Seriously – it’s so easy and cheap. TAKE THAT LEON’S!

Lots of cacti… daisies… reeds… you know, the things that you would imagine in some “Vintage-Southwestern-Canadian-Hybrid-Deck-Utopia”

And some bourbon-based lemonade with mason jars for glasses. It was steee-rong. About a liter of Jack Danny in there.

AND OH YEAH. I built a Teepee.

I’m not going to lie – I’m pretty proud of myself for building this unnecessary teepee. At first, everyone was sober, so, like, no one went in the teepee. But then everyone drank the lemonade and we starting teepee stuffin’ and trying to get as many people in the teepee as possible.

For the record, it’s eight.

Don’t worry, I’ll post a DIY about it this week!

PAMMY! I hope you had a good birthday! You are the best.

You all know about my passionate and undying love for Paul Newman, who I personally believe was an example of the perfect man.

I just want to note that Paul Newman will always, always win the perfect man contest because of his political views and activism, his amazing philanthropic efforts, and the fact that, despite being one of the most lusted-after men in history, remained married to Joanne Woodward for 50 years.  Plus.  I mean.  Hey.

HOWEVER, on occasion, Mr. Steve McQueen gets right up in there and muddles around.   Recently some pictures from Time magazine were released from a weekend-long photo shoot of McQueen in 1963.

Not too shabby.

Oh hi.  These are my new friends.  That’s Kenny on the left.  Lenore’s hanging out in the middle.  Stu’s keepin’ it real on the right side.

Remember when I had this random idea to find mugshots and put them up in my kitchen?  Of course you do.  Mostly because of the picture of nude boys.  I know.

But the mugshots.  What?  You thought I just FORGOT about that?  Have we MET? 

I basically spent the next month searching for mugshot images all around vintage stores, craigslist, internets, and what not, and finally stumbled upon these beauties from etsy shop LarkenDesign.  Being just as wonderfully creative as me, they had the same idea, found some mugshot negatives from Cincinnati in the 50′s, and sell them in poster-size.

It took a little while for my new friends to arrive in the mail… and then I went to Argentina… and then I spent about two weeks getting drunk in my underwear on the couch.

Then, last week I finally got my shit together and bought some frames to introduce my new friends to their new home, my kitchen wall.

I just want to say that it does feel slightly creepy putting up mugshots of strangers in your old Victorian house.  And, since I’m irrationally superstitious, I kept thinking that there were demons or something who were trying to sabotage my long-seeded desire to have weird art on my wall.

This is the SECOND time one of the frames shattered.  How many frames have I put up in my lifetime?  Hundreds.  How many have shattered?  Two.  Both with my mugshot pics.  DAMN YOU, KENNY AND LENORE!

Then, a couple of days after I put them up, Stu’s picture nearly crashed off the wall because the screw came out, but I saved it in time. 

Here they are,  chillin’ out maxin’ relaxin’ all cool, watching me secretly eat cheese in the middle of the night.

…all of these ink pieces by George Boorujy.

One of the big things you are supposed to do when you are in Buenos Aires is see a Tango show.  BA is apparently the “birthplace” of tango (based on information I read on tango show pamphlets), and there are lots of show in the city to go see.

Being overwhelmed with the choices (lazy), I went to my hotel concierge to ask her recommendations.  She recommended two – one that was “more conservative”, and one that was “more intimate and controversial”.  I think we all know which one I picked.

Even though the “controversial” one was more expensive, it was totally worth it, for several reasons:

1. I got to sit inches away from the band, who were all smoking hot;
2. there was nudity; and
3. the venue was this small room at a super edgy, Gothic hotel, that I LOVED.

More about the show (and the nudity) later.  First, I was told that the hotel was really cool, so we headed over early to look around and have a drink at the bar.  It’s called the Faema.

Ok, first – all of the girls who worked there were wearing sexy, intricate black dresses, BUT, they were all also wearing short black velvet cloaks over top.  WHAT?  Coolest ever.  Their main bar was called ‘The Library’, and it was designed like a Gothic old man’s library.   Not in an obnoxious circa 2005 ”purple damask on the wallpaper” kind of way, but in a really gritty, vintage way that looked amazing.

The pool outside had this spillover design and there was a big-ass red crown in the center with water shooting out.  A little to precious-looking for me, but it was still cool.

AND CHECK OUT THEIR DINING ROOM.

It’s all fucking white with red accents.  BAAAAH?  I loved it.  I also loved the unicorn heads.  Who doesn’t want to eat steak with a big-ass unicorn with red eyes over your head?  NO ONE DOESN’T WANT THAT.

Anyways, the tango was called “Tango Rojo”, and was appropriately set in a small red room.  I was so close to the band, that when I turned my shoulder, I could blow lovingly into the accordionist’s ear. 

Those accordion things are apparently unique to Argentina – they sounded a lot like the song that plays in 12 Monkeys.

The dancing was amazing.  They started with the more traditional tango stuff, then moved onto more modern (AND NUDE) versions of the tango.  It’s a pretty sexy dance, so I guess it makes sense that when people “freestyle” tango in the streets, they usually end up taking off their clothes and doing a tango-bang.

Good night nude tango dancers…

So, I’m deviating from my “day-by-day-play” format to amalgamate all of my shopping experiences together into one post, because I think it will be more literarily cohesive. Am I a huge, losery nerd for saying that? Maybe. Are you a bitch for judging my painful nerditude? Definitely.

Just kidding. You’re not a bitch.

Anyways, first, let’s talk about that first picture. Up there. At the top of the post. Every time I go away, I try to find one quintessentially “that place” picture. And it has to be like, super-arty. That picture on top wins – I’m going to frame it in a RIBBA frame and everyone will be all like “YOU ARE SO ARTY”. And I’ll just sit there, all smug in my artiness.

Truth is, I was so enamoured by my shopping experience, that I barely took any pictures, so I had to post that one. Blog blaspheme, I know.

Here is one of the pictures I took that is not interesting at all.

Let’s start with this: the style in Buenos Aires is fantastic.

Really. It takes a lot for me to say that, too, because I like to think Toronto is pretty stylish. And it is, in a “I’m-trying-really-hard-to-be-Alexa-Chung” kind of way. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

But BA just takes that “rumpled laid back grunge meets off-duty model” look that everyone is bonering hard for, and elevates it. Juuuuuuust enough.

Quick rant – I have some problems with current North American street fasion. Lots of chick are walking around just looking like lumpy-ass hookers with ugly tights and gross overshirts wearing fucking john lennon sunglasses. It looks like shit. Sorry. Ok, so take that, and just tweeeeeeeeak it enough so that you look like you respect yourself as a person and actually bathe, and then you have Buenos Aires fashion.

There is a term for a native Buenos Aires woman – a porteña. Basically, if you are a porteña, you are:

• Rail-thin;
• Tall;
• Tanned;
• Have long straight hair hair down to your ass-crack;
• Smoke;
• Super-Fashionable; and
• Gorgeous

Here is an artist’s rendering:|

Just as a comparison, here is an artist’s rendering of what Natalie looked like in BA:

I found a picture I took when I was at lunch one day… you can see some porteñas sitting on a stoop smoking… looking all fashionable. So basically, everyone looked awesome all the time.

There were SO MANY STORES that were AWESOME and that don’t exist in North America. SO FRIGGING MANY.

My favourite was Maria Cher. I also liked Ayres. And Rhapsodia. And Prüne. And Complot. Les sigh grosses.

I also wanted to take a look at some authentic Argentinian antiques and souvenirs. The best place for this was definitely the antiques market, which I’ll tell you about later. It deserves an entire post. However, I also stumbled upon a great store that was literally down the street from my hotel called Claraz.

I think they sponsor a Polo team, or they’re affiliated with polo, because in addition to antique and vintage gaucho stuff, they also had used stirrups and bridles and saddles and other fun stuff. I convinced myself that I needed to buy a 30-foot vintage braided lasso, then I realized that I’m a stupid idiot. So I didn’t buy it.

Recognize this???

Awwww yeah. It looks like my vintage La Martina bag. Ironically, I have taken my La Martina bag on EVERY trip except for this one, because some guy I was travelling with thought we should bring a big ugly duffel bag instead. FUCK. I visited the actual La Martina store (no pictures. I forgot.), which was AMAZING. If I had my bag with me, I’d be all like “I’M SO RICH AND IMPORTANT”. But I didn’t.

Despite the fact that there was a smorgasbord of fantastic clothing stores and options, I didn’t buy thaaaat much. And most of what I bought was extremely reasonably priced (like everything in Argentina). See below for my super design-y catalogue of purchases:

1. Vintage gaucho belt purchased at huge antique fair (more about that in another post)
2. Studded black leather sandals that I needed because I forgot to pack flip flops. From Sybil Vane.
3. Huge linen scarf from Complot. It has the best colour palette EVER. Mostly poo-ish.
4. Antique native pendant with leather back from antique market.
5. Antique skeleton key from antique market.
6. Two T-Shirts from Complot – one with a bunch of handwritten crosses on it, and one with like eagles and native stuff on it. I’m so predictable.
7. Picture of antique ponchos from Northern Argentina at Claraz.
8. Silver graphic cross pendant from Claraz.
9. Kick-ass eagle necklace from Maria Cher.

There was one thing I didn’t buy and now totally regret. These boots from a store in Palermo that I totally forget now. They are like a mash-up of cowboy boots and combat boots. I love them. But I tried them on, and with my pale marshmallow legs, I looked like I was stuffing pork sausages into a leather hoof.

Sigh. Maybe they have an online store.