My summer vacay officially started on Monday!! Yeah that’s right—unlike you lucky bastards, I actually had summer school to contend with. Point is, I am now free! Free to rot in bed all day, free stop showering and free to deactivate my brain ‘til September comes ‘round. Yep, life’s goooooood!

Except no. That’s not what I want. This summer will be different [she assured herself]. I will spend it well, doing creative and productive things like learning to paint (I am going to die in my senior art class—my painting ability is…laughable and…nonexistent), biking or jogging everyday, doing more web designing, improving my drawings, catching up on some reading, and hopefully getting a summer job.

I started what I hope will be a creative and productive summer by getting rid of my old magazines! But not before I made themed collages out of them first:

And here’s little Audrey pasted on the back of my sketchbook:

I ♥ FRED FLARE

I'm happy to say that my Fred Flare shopping experience was much better this time around! It only took a week for the package to be delivered—a vast improvement from the last time when it took a whole four weeks to arrive. For those wanting the links to the specific items I ordered, check out my older post.

I'll let the photos do the talking:

“Let them eat cake!”

That cute, yellow confection in my hand was my first ever macaron!!! (not to be mistaken by coconut macaroons...) A good friend of mine kindly purchased it for me from this patisserie called La Bamboche. This pasty shop has Japanese influences, which explains why my macaron was yuzu-flavoured—not a typical macaron flavour from what I've heard.

Oh and look, it matches my nails!

I would have never imagined that I'd get my hands on some macarons just a month after my first (it's really difficult to find local pasty shops that sell macarons around here ). This time around, I was prom-shopping with my sister and a friend when we stopped by Nadège for a refresher.
This patisserie looked like it belonged more in New York than here in Toronto! The interior was white-washed and ultra modern and there was a glass partition facing the kitchen which allowed customers to see the chefs working.

[...]

First, some words that pretty much sum up my one-week break: AGO, bicycles, air, Warhol, floral, sunlight, rest, nail-polish, Elvis, family, Nestlé drumsticks, Picasso, downtown, train route, exploring, Dad’s stories, walking walking walking, Häagen-Dazs, Interview Magazine, art, bubble tea, and most definitely: UNPRODUCTIVE.

Oddly enough, I’m quite fine with that.

I’ve decided to increase the size of my blog photos, which means—quite obviously—bigger pictures! And a slower computer on your end! And lots of scrolling!

The AGO

Photos I took at one of the few areas we were actually allowed to hold our cameras, let alone use them:

Believe it or not, that block of wood my sister is standing in front of is actually a piece of artwork, and that scary gallery guard supervisor lady kept snapping at people who mistook it for a bench and children who climbed on it.

The whole building itself is just a wonderful mishmash of modern and classic architecture

[...]