clean up. let it go. breathe. exhale. refresh.live life.

The new year is upon us in a few short hours. I've been puttering around all day tidying up the place, doing laundry, setting dishwasher (t.g.f.dishwasher!) and wiping old ugly thoughts and developing new ideas for 2009. I'm quite looking forward to this year ahead. I have heaps of really cool stuff planned for this blog and a bunch of amazing people helping my dreams come true. I don't lie when I say " Move over Martha, there is a new Stewart in town". My name is Casie Stewart, I am proud of the unique person I am and I want to encourage others to create, share thoughts and ideas and inspire others to be individuals.

One thing I hold close to my heart is knowing that thoughts become things, you are a product of your thoughts. You are who you think you are. If you think you are awesome, adorable and funny, then live that way, be that person and be your true self. After my year in Australia away from friends and family I learned who I am as a person and how to embrace that, foster it, and make something of it. I learned how to be myself. I encourage you to inspire and embrace those around you. This year, give thanks for being able to breath clean air, see the sunrise and sunset, to share a laugh with a trusted friend and ball your eyes out with your BFF. Be thankful for each day.

My wish and challenge for you in 2009

Next time someone asks you 'what's new?" don't say "nothing, same as usual", say "everything is new, today is a new day". Think to yourself, think about yourself, each day you have new thoughts, new experiences and new things to be thankful for.

I wish you all the best for the New Year and I believe that 2009 is the buildup to some magical changes in the world we live in, global consciousness and universal issues that affect us all. I am here for you as a channel to reach others. If you have a bright idea and want to develop it and turn your thought into a real live thing, ask me, tell me and share with me. Giving is the worlds greatest gift and my biggest driver for success. I love this blog and sharing. I have a resolution to gather my writing and be ready to publish my second book by the end of 2009. I hope you will all be there with me.

Love and light,
Casie

be inspired and start creating

I am constantly inspired to keep on writing and putting my stuff out there. As more and more people come into the Wonderful World of Casie I find that a positive light shines on us all!

I was tagged in the following note on Facebook today and very touched.
It says:

"Inspired by this great lady tagged in this note I decided to create a blog. I've been wanting to do for quite a while, but never realized how easy this was. well I am quite happy with this decision. mucho gracias"

Stay tuned for Inna's blog. I've been reading her notes on FB for some time and am truly excited for her new writing space! Congrats girl!!

take off that dress and trade with me

My Auntie Edna was a lovely lady. She was frugal in the way you would stereotype most old school Jews to be. She made sure to make the most of what she had and use all the resources around. She used to have parties in her beautiful house often Sunday afternoons where she would invite all the ladies over to swap clothes. Today the BBC did a story about a trend sweeping the UK market that has been coined Swishing. This is exactly what Auntie Edna used to do. You can either buy, sell or swap. This is a great way to recycle, save money and have fun with friends or meet new ones.

The rules are simple.

1. Come over and one gently used item (or more) from your collection.
2. Grab yourself a drink and shop around.
   
3. Determine what item you want and where it is on the racks.
   
4. Leave the racks as the Part Host counts down....3,2,1!
5. Let the Swish begin! Grab the item you want before someone else and call it yours (depending on the predetermined buy-sell-swap arrangements).
   
6. You successfully leave with a new item for the old item you arrived with.

Check it out for yourself: VIDEO ON BBC NEWS UK

I'll be having a Frock Swap in the new year!
Rummage through your closet ladies,
its time to trade in your old jazz for new jazz!! ♥

save them. save yourself. you wild thing.

One of my favorite books as a kid was Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. I loved this story. I just found out that mum complained at the library one time about how the book was horrible. Max was punished and sent to bed without dinner for bring mischievous. She had never heard such a story in New Zealand! This thought is quite funny, mum took another read of the story and saw it in a different light from then on. The book is regarded as an American classic in children's lit and is only ten lines long. How inspiring!!

My sister got me this great shirt for Chrissy this year.

I'm feeling a bit wild today!!

OMG UPDATE: the movie comes out october 16, 2009

sliimy not shady

Sliimy is from France.
He did a cover of BritBrit's Womanizer.
I like his style. His vibe is rad.

so mature

This ecard is for me today.

This year for NYE I will be attending an intimate dinner part with friends in Queen West. Contrary to popular belief, I am NOT going out for a raging good time as I have been known to do. I have no desire to attend a crazy, busy, mishmash party OR after party.

I reckon it's one of two things:
1. I'm so mature that I am content spending a night surrounded by awesome people I call my friends.
2. I've partied so hard over the past 10 years that there is nothing happening that I haven't already done before.

I like to wake up on the first day of the new year feeling positive about where I hope the year is going to take me rather than wanting to kill myself from all the substance abuse the previous night.

vintage stuff: smoking cartons

These drawings are from 2006 the year I started by blog. I looked at this one today, it's one of my favorites. Roxy and I used to draw cartoons all the time at work. Thank god we have both moved onto things we like much more than our old jobs.

Smoking:

Roxy says: 'lets kill another smoke' with a deadly mean laugh




Casie says: smoking is 'so fucking cool'

it's chalottage time again!!

If you are unaware of what a Chalottage is, you can find it in the Urban Dictionary defined by yours truly. I'm looking forward to a few trips out of the city in the new year to relax at the chalottage. Last winter we had a total blast heading up north and we had even more fun once we got there!

Chalottage

A place you go in the winter because it's near a ski resort, ski hill or some type of winter activity AND a place you go in the summer because it is near water or for summer relaxing. part Chalet part Cottage, Chalottage.

Winter: Lets go to the Chalottage for skiing this weekend!
Summer: Lets go to the Chalottage and go to the beach this weekend!

Ex. Collingwood, ON: Ski at Blue Mountain & sun, sand, surf at Wasaga Beach.

Source: Casie Stewart, Toronto, ON

not afraid to belt it

• BELT OUT (verb)
The verb BELT OUT has 1 sense:

1. sing loudly and forcefully

Familiarity information: BELT OUT used as a verb is very rare.Well, I'm not afraid to have a good time.

My office party was a smash hit.

borderline borderline borderline artistic

I was pondering about something to draw the other day when my artsy BF said 'how about unnecessary wheels?'. I found that to be a lovely idea and began the following series. There are four so far. I'm going for about 20. If you have an idea of something that does not NEED wheels, let me know. I'm always down for a challenge!!

another thing for spring

is coming

from me

sketch pad

I got a new sketch pad about a week before holiday's started and just about filled the whole thing. I've been drawing & painting with mixed materials: acrylic & water colour paint, pastel, charcoal, lead, pencil crayon, & wax crayon. It's pretty exciting. I've always been an artsy one but NOW, the time has come. I'm going all borderline artistic and looking forward to some exciting stuff in 2009. My professional gallery, Borderline Contemporary will be opening in Spring 2009. I've got several artists lined up. I'm super excited. I've always wanted to have my own gallery and this year, my dreams shall come true!!

i did it for africa

Yesterday I got a coffee from Starbucks and decided to take my pic for the RED Campaign. There was no stool for me to stand on. I was reminded of the horrors of school picture day when I was too damn short and the photog had to go and get a pillow, textbook, or phone book for me to sit on. Oh, how I'm glad to be out of primary school, yet, I still face the same issues. How sad.

didn't over do it

I was successful. I feel good about it.

Didn't eat too much or spend money that I didn't have (as people often do!). I had a great time over the holidays. I managed to make it home to see my parents and spend a meal with each one. I got to hang with a bunch of the hometown crew. I miss them quite dearly.

Found this in the basement which I wore for half the day:

Did some artsy stuff on Christmas Day waiting for dinner:

I ran into an old friend...

Made a shirt for friend who spent a

little too much time at the Drake recently:

I made all my cards for family and friends this year as I have before. It's so much better to do it that way. I also hunted around for some gorgeous vintage scarves that were carefully packaged up for my friends. It's lovely when they open the present knowing that I made the card and a special effort to give them something I know they will love.

I went shopping on boxing day and we had a total riot. Shopping with mum and sister is the best. We seem to have this way about us that we laugh and laugh and laugh and forget that there is even anyone else around. We all found this great mod dress and all tried it on. The other people in the store were having a good chuckle and after seeing the photo, I reckon you will too.

I found a real jem, these vintage boots that fit me perfect. It's great having small feet for vintage shoes. It's rare to find big sizes in amazing boots. Well, that's my experience. Check out these babies. Oooh yeah.

cold? snug.

I was feeling quite cold on Sunday as I was lazing around. A friend suggested something called the Snuggie. Have you heard of it? Snuggie seems like a really weird word to me, look at it, 'SNUGGIE'.

I think this unit is following me around. Later that day I saw it on TV and today I got an email offering me a buy one get one free special. I think it's silly, however, I'd have to try it to find out just how useful it could be. I'm thinking it may be practical for an outdoor sporting event. Especially if you had a few sewn together so you could keep the whole family warm. Family size snuggie. Feel free to take advantage of this offer that was in my junk mail. I don't need it. I have heating, blankets and many lovely sweaters from New Zealand that my Nana knit.

holiday shopping sucks.

Always wanted to join the symphony? Now you can.

You can play your part in music history and join the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. It is quite a magical thing. All these talented musicians uniting to play music that is heard around the world, from around the world. You download the sheet music, practice, practice, practivce and upload two samples.

Makes me kinda wish I played some type of instrument. I know have a friend that right now is laughing while reading this going "how about you play the skin flute?'". I used to play flute in grade 7 & 8, so there. I'd like to try my hand at the jazz Flute, like Ron Burgundy.

total hotness. totally NYC. totally Kelz.

FYI, this is Kelz.
The lovely Kelly Sadja in NYC.

I know Kelly through a friend and I today noticed a link on her FB to her myspace and was like, shit damn Kell, you really know how to rock it. Her sound is beautiful and the beats are soulful yet modern. I'm listening to her right now. 'Can't Change Me' me is my favorite one.

Ridiculously Happy.

Jesus, how lovely. Looks like I make people happy. Mission accomplished: be a happy person and it will be contagious. You all know that I'm a very positive young lady, thanks to The Twitter Happiness score for myself I now have confirmation.

The current Happyscore for casiestewart is: 563

"Generally, people who have followed this person on Twitter
lately will perceive this person as Ridiculously Happy."

casie stewart: this is my life

This holiday season, reward yourself. Give something to the person who really IS always there for you, the person who knows you best and sees you at your wost and yet still knows how fabulous you really are. Give yourself a gift that lasts 365.25 days per year. This is a value not to be missed. Be informed, be entertained, be educated, and all just by signing up.

Go on, do something
for yourself this year,
its easy.

enter your email address:

something for your burger king

Burger King has something hot for you burger lovers this holiday season. Body spray that will make you smell like a whopper!! Despite eliciting "universal disgust," the new Burger King FLAME™ body spray has sold out at all Ricky's locations AND on the website! Grub Street comforts frustrated FLAME™ consumers with news that it's being sold on eBay for $76 (and rising).[more]

trouble paying rent?

Watched this. Laughed. Now sharing.

"I work too hard."
"I want my money, bitch."

tap that.

Some new tapes around, I like. I like. I like.

This is especially cool.
Door goes here.....

Tap that. Check it out.

More POTent than ever?

...now put this in your pipe and smoke it!

Here's some interesting news from the WIRED Blog:

Modern agriculture hasn't just made beef cows beefier and corn cornier, it's also made pot more potty.

The potency of marijuana, measured by the presence of its (psycho)active ingredient, THC, has tripled since 1987, according to the latest figures from the Department of Justice's National Drug Intelligence Center.

The new data from the University of Mississippi Potency Monitoring Project — which is not just a group of your college buddies talking about the differences between now and the old days — was released in the 2009 National Drug Threat Assessment.

The Department of Justice attributed the steadily rising numbers to "increased demand for higher-potency marijuana and improvements in cultivation techniques." [more]

making artsy stuff

On the weekend I was making artsy stuff.
I painted my arm and made some drawings.

totally wired

Today I got the new issue of Wired Magazine. Yahoo!! The cover article is titles 'The Truth About Cancer: Don't try to cure it. Just find it.". Looks interesting! There's also an article about Obama & a smarter plan for tech and science. Looking forward to sitting down to read it over the holidays!

snow. wind. snow. wind. snow. wind. sunshine.

It was totally insane Friday when the snow was coming down like mad. I could barely see out of my windows. The building across the street was showing very restricted visibility despite being so close! We've had crazy noise from the wind! Scary when you're out on that balconia!!

getting crafty for the holidays

I made a whole bunch of holiday cards this year. I've made several for people in the past including my mum's whole set last year! I did it a little different this year using oil paints, paper and markers. They turned out pretty cool! I take custom orders. Cut and paste is one of my favorite activities overall.

bloody hangnail!!!!

Last night my sister and I were thinking how annoying it is to have a hangnail. Especially when you accidentally cut your own self with your own hang nail. The worst case scenario would be if you cut your own face. Thus, the following sketch was inspired...

nice...um, chest.

I like it very much so.

More and More on the Redness

The Red String protects us from the influences of the Evil Eye. Evil eye is a very powerful negative force. It refers to the unfriendly stare and unkind glances we sometimes get from people around us. Envious eyes and looks of ill will affect us, stopping us from realizing our full potential in every area of our life.[more]

HOW TO: Have someone you love to tie the Red String to your left wrist. First, have them tie the string closely around your wrist with a simple knot. Repeat by knotting the string six more times for a total of seven knots. Now make a promise to yourself that you will refrain from negative thoughts or talk about others. This harmful behavior will interfere with your effort to gain personal fulfillment and protection. Then have the person finish by saying the Ben Porat Prayer (read from right to left) which prevents others from giving us the evil eye.[more]

holiday spirit?

Mine seems to have slipped out of my soul this year for the first time in my life. I'm heading home to see my family on the Eve and back on Boxing day. I'll be at DeeJayScootz party downtown on the West side on Boxing Day. Not too much planned otherwise. This weather makes me want to stay inside where is is warm in my condo with my nice big TV, lots of movies, my man, friends and just a few other things. I bought a box of turtles last night and they are almost gone, I only shared a few. I've been sketching lots of stuff the past week that will soon be on borderline artistic so keep ya eyes peeled!!

eight crazy nights

its that time of year again...

The cards for the holidays on someecards.com are a total riot. This one is not so funny but touches on an important point. Many people spell is differently, however, its really the same.

This one on postsecret is more heart warming.

she looking better for sure

If you haven't seen it yet, here's a link to Amy's topless dance that seems to be all over the place. Not really that exciting however it is great for her cracked out ass to be putting on some pounds this holiday season. Hopefully she sticks to weed cause crack is whack.

full vintage girl

I found something cool as I was looking for inspiration in photos of vintage girls. I came across this cool babe from Fullerton Vintage, a motorscooter shop in the OC. I have always wanted a scooter. I'd like if Dad could build something rad for me! My Dad builds hot rods and cool stuff.