Market Collective's 7th Anniversary August 28-30 2015

Do you have any plans for this weekend yet?

Why not come down to the East Village and celebrate Market Collective's 7th Anniversary.

What's Market Collective you say? Well you could just watch the video below. Or if you feel like reading, in short, it's an independent market intended to support local artisans and community building through the arts.

Market Collective from reuben bullock on Vimeo.

I stumbled across the market on Instagram a few months back, and have been volunteering at it since then. Because volunteering lets me go there and take in all of the artsy goodness, without shopping myself broke.

And I will be volunteering there again this Friday and Saturday, serving up local craft beer at one of 4 bars at this weekend's market.

That's right, I said beer, and bar.

This weekend is the 7th Anniversary market, so they are stepping out of their usual Chinese Cultural Center and heading down to the East Village River Walk. They'll have a main tent, featuring over 100 local artisans, pretty much all of Calgary's food trucks will be there. There will be two stages, one featuring DJs and one featuring bands, and 4 bar areas, although the whole market is liquor licensed, so you can grab a beer and enjoy it while you shop. There's also a photoboth, and a bicycle scavenger hunt.

Pretty flipping awesome sounding isn't it? And admission to the market is only $5 (and is good for the whole weekend in case you need to come back and shop some more).

At the last  market in July, I brought my camera to my volunteer shift, and did a walk around.

And if you think that video is jam pack full of pinterest worthy goods, just wait for the much larger market this weekend.

So if you're not convinced, here's 5 great reasons to attend Market Collective.

1) How often do you get to order craft beer, riverside, and then fill up on some of Calgary's best food trucks food?

2) When else does $5 dollars get you live music, all weekend long.

3) As much as I hate to say it, my friend Lisa pointed out we are 4 months away from Xmas today, so why not get a head start on gift shopping, while supporting local artisans?

4) Men, I cannot stress this enough, visiting Market Collective is absolutely the best date idea ever, so call that girl you've been texting back and forth all week and invite her to the market this weekend. You can thank me later.

5) Even if you are on a budget, go there and shop with your eyes, chat with the artists, Instagram your favourite vendors, and maybe find a little extra creativity in your own life, and then go home and spray paint something gold and neon!

John Oliver Just Ruined My Favourite Ten Dollar Dress

Yesterday was Monday, which means I did what I do every Monday. Clicked over to YouTube, scrolled down my subscriptions and watched Sunday's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

The full length show airs Sundays at 11PM on HBO, but each Monday morning you can find 15-25 minute John Oliver rants on the YouTube Channel.

Typically Oliver highlights something that's wrong with America, wraps it up in sarcasm and humour, and drives home a call to action for viewers  to be responsible citizens and consumers.

Every week I watch, and I'm shocked at the state of the world and the USA (pronounced 'Murica), and am left gratefully that generally Canada has it's sh!t more together than that. But this week John struck close to home.

This week John drew attentions to the real cost of discount fashion, shining the light on some of my favourite brands including H&M (and their $4.95 dress). (video's 17minutes but totally worth it!)

I have to admit, I happen to love finding a cute top or dress or jeans for less than $20. And have certainly bought things just to wear once, leave them in my closet for a year and then get rid of them. (at least I donate or consign everything). And if you piled up my entire wardrobe, not only would you find I have more than enough clothing to wear something different every day for months at a time, but I would probably still complain the next morning that I have nothing nice to wear.

And that's before you go anywhere near my lululemon collection.

So while John calls out the executives of many of the brands making irresponsible supply chain management choices to support their low costs while still turning massive profits, I felt a second call out to me, as the consumer.

Because let's be honest, every time we buy a $10 disposable dress, we are sending a collective message that this is OK.

I can't make any promises that I will radically change my shopping habits all at once. But I think I need to spend some time seriously thinking about them. And maybe set some goals regarding how I shop.

So that's what's on my mind this Tuesday. What do you have to say about the disposable fashion industry? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Happy Bathday

I love soaking in the bathtub. With tones of bubbles, a bath bomb, candles and a book. I can't wait to have a gorgeous tub like this one, one day.

And sure it's right in the bedroom, but I can't think of a cozier place for it. (Image Source).

Since it'll probably be a while before I get a tub like that one day, in the mean time, I thought I'd go by Lush and treat myself to a Happy Bathday.

This gift box/tin was perfect for me, especially because I was all out of bubble bath and gone none for Christmas (tears). I did have a Lush gift card to cover half of the nearly $50 dollar price tag. (worth every penny....side note, do you think this common phrase will disappear now that Canada dropped the penny?)

Inside the tin, along side a totally adorable duck bathday garland, is a Dragon's Egg Bath Bomb (the white one, which 'hatches open in the tuble revealing a golden and glittery center-I used this one right away). A Fizzbanger Bomb (the yellow one, which smells like citrus). There are two bubble bars, the swirled Brightside one and the floral Pop In the Bath one. These bars each are good for 4-5 baths (maybe even more if you don't go nuts like I did). And finally a stick of Red Fun.... I've never used this product before, apparently is good to go as soap, shampoo or bubble bath, FUN! Plus now I have this great tin to store all of my bath time goodies in.

So I hung my garland, started the hot water flowing, grabbed a book and enjoyed a very long soak, with tonnes of bubbles and fizz!

Do you love a soak in the bath tub? Or are you a showers only type?


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This post wasn't sponsored by Lush... although I wish they would give me some free stuff, because I love all of their products. Lush, if you're reading this, send me presents!! Please?

Black Friday Shopping Spectacular

Well really it wasn't that spectacular, but I did get a couple good deals (and paid full price for something too).

First off, can we take a second to reflect on how ridiculous Black Friday has become here in Canada. I mean we all know its bat sh!t crazy in the States, and pretty much has been since the dawn of time right? I mean isn't the tradition that the Native Americans brought corn to the hungry pilgrims and then everyone camped out in front of Walmart with their pepper spray, and little Billy got trampled in the rush for a play station the next day. And that boys and girls is the history of thanksgiving.

But in Canada we celebrated our turkey day ages and ages ago! We don't have a last Thursday in November holiday. But we do apparently have Black Friday now.

And it didn't always used to be this way.

I grew up in a boarder town (shout out to the Soo), and ever since I was a little kid, Canadians by the bus load (literally, they arrange buses for these shopping trips) would cross the boarder on Black Friday morning, and go shop the sales at the outlets in Birch Run and West Branch (oooh Michigan). My mom and her friends go down every year, although often a week before or after, when there are still good sales to be had, but significantly less risk of bodily harm.

But in the last 3 years I watched Black Friday in Canada go from "Yeah some stores are going to have sales, especially places the sell electronics." to "malls are all opening early, even the teashop has a sale going on, and hold on to Billy's hand because things are about to get crazy."

Maybe I'm exaggerating, but I mean this year we had a pretty gross bit of snow storm and rough road conditions and the mall was at least twice as packed as it was last year.

But there you have it, I was definitely at the mall (despite my should have known better instincts) and made some purchases and observations.

Shopping list this year included:

-New Laptop
-New winter boots
-New winter coat
-Lululemon .....well just because

The new laptop.

My hunking 3 year old Toshiba, originally purchased regular price $300, so you know it was a quality computer, crapped out this summer. We tried to revive it, and got it working again, but it's been running in a 'I might just die completely at any second' way since. So I decided I'd go out on the Monday before Black Friday to shop around, so if there seemed like there was going to be an awesome deal, I'd be ready.

And that's how I found out about VIP at Future Shop. The sales rep in the computer department took down a list of the computer's I was interested in, along with my price range and phone number. He told me that if any of them went on sale for Friday, he'd call me when he saw the flyer on Wednesday, and we could make a VIP appointment on Thursday so I could buy it without the crush of the crowds or waits in line.

Long story short, I got the Lenovo Yoga I'd been coveting for the last year, for a $180 off, and I love it already. (It's still on sale through December 4th online).

Isn't it fun? it runs Windows 8.1, has a touch screen, and hinges all the way around. Plus it fits in my bag, and doesn't weigh a tonne.


New Winter Boots and Coat

My old boots and coat combo were a Christmas gift from my mom in 2009, right before moving to Calgary for the first time in January 2010. The Sorrel boots and Roots jacket have gotten me through some pretty cold winter days since then, but it was finally time for replacements.

 

 

For the boots of course I went back with Sorrels, the beautiful Joan of the Artic's in slate grey.

 

For the coat, well this was a tough one, you see I have a theory about winter coats. I think that because people have gone nuts and started spending 600-700 bucks on Canada Goose Jackets on mass last winter, this year all good winter coats are suddenly crazy expensive. I picked up four or five that I liked that were at least $400. Yeesh.

 

Finally I settled on this one by Columbia, which was marked down $100 bucks off to a comfortable $200 price range.

 

 

 

I even tested it this weekend (with the boots) when I walked to Tim's for breakfast in the feel's like -30 weather. Nice and toasty warm without sweating under your layers.

 

Lululemon.....Just Because

 

Lulu does a respectable amount of marking down on Black Friday (in store only I think?) It's like the hoard a months worth of regular mark downs and then put them all out on one day. This year however, it was pretty clear they produced merchandise specifically to be marked down on Black Friday. And most of it looked a little sad, like it was not quite up to Lulu standards. This included a pair of all black (waste band included) astro pants marked down to $49. Half of what they usually cost. So even tho I didn't need them I tried on a pair. But I'm going to be honest, the fabric didn't feel quite right. It was heavier than usual, and felt stiff. Maybe this is just status quo since all those issues with see through black pants, but I suspect this was just an example of lower quality merch produced to be put on sale. There were also some ugly sweater jacket things, and these flimsy wrap shirts that I had no desire to try on.

 

But do not doubt the might of the Lululemon marketing machine, because the night before Black Friday, this went up on their instagram

 

 



And I was all like, Lululemon and sparkles!!!!! Yep, I want that. And so I bought something at full price, on Black Friday, and that's what I have to be thankful for.