Boaboca Gourmet

Boa Boca Gourmet is Portugal’s answer to food meets design.  What began as a project back in 2004 in Evora, Portugal has landed the original team of five international design awards and recognition for the company’s design focused packaging and high quality products.  Boa Boca Gourmet makes chocolate, cookies, dried fruits, coffee, tea and liquor and are currently sold at the Boa Boca store in Portugal, as well as in Scotland, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Barcelona and Buchareste.    What is notable about Boa Boca’s products is that a lot of care and time are put into the selection of ingredients and baking.  For example, the cookies, made by hand in Alentejo (south Portugal) come from an old recipe and all the ingredients are natural and baked in a firewood oven.

Crafty Gift Bags

I wanted to blog about this craft project last week but I was so busy baking and working that I don’t know what happened.  Better late than never I suppose.

So I wrote about stationery store, Stamping Bella this past year, recap- Owners, Emily + Ryan have a  fabulous paper, stamp and everything else you could want to scrapbook your heart out store in Thornhill, Toronto.  Stamping Bella also offers workshops and I decided to try out their holiday gift bag workshop.

It was a three hour workshop led by an instructor, but after the instructions were done it was a holiday gift bag and decorating free-for-all.  I would totally go to another one of their workshops.  Aside from walking out with fun gifts for friends and family you get to meet other people who are really into crafts and creative things and are great conversationalist and teachers if you happen to be a beginner such as myself.

Here is what I put together at the workshop:

Babble Candy Tower

Happy Holidays + Christmas Eve Day.

I have made two of these hostess gifts with more on the way and received rave reviews so I wanted to share my hostess idea with you incase you have more gifts to assemble/buy in the weeks to come.  My inspiration for the babble candy tower started this week when I went to buy my family friend a house-warming gift at my favourite home accessories/gift store in Toronto, Dana Jordan at Bayview Village.  I would provide you with a website for Dana Jordan but sadly the store has not embraced technology and is a traditional brick and mortar store sans website/ecommerce (nudge nudge hint hint, Dana we would love to buy more from you if you made our life easier and offered an ecommerce site). 

Back to my story, I am a fan of the Koziol Babble fruit stand (see pic).  Koziol is a German home accessories design brand and another company called, Seven Hints worked with Koziol to design the popular Babble.   

koziol fruit tray

 So I went and bought five Bablbes (they come in small/large) and dressed them up holiday style.  Please don’t mind my amateur pictures.  I think I have to go take a photography course in the new year!

First you take your Bable

Then You Choose Your Favourite Candy

Assemble

Wrap in Cellophane and Ribbons

You can find Koziol products at gift and home stores that tend to carry modern, contemporary products or when in doubt, just google it.  What is great about this present is that after all the candy has been eaten, the host/hostess is left over with a great, stylish, home accessory that can be reused for entertaining in the future.

Pink Tree

I love this pink tree that I saw on Making it Lovely.  It is non-traditional, pink goodness!  There is something quite peaceful about the way the pink branches and ornaments work together. 

via making it lovely

Sweet Flour Bake Shop

My friend and I ventured out to explore the Bloor West Village area in Toronto yesterday morning.  For someone living on the opposite side of the city, Bloor West Village is a bit of a hike but well worth the drive.  What prompted our sporadic trip, was a visit to Sweet Flour Bake Shop, a store in Toronto that “pays tribute to the cookie.”  The concept is simple.  People like the taste of fresh baked cookies.  People like to customize things.  So  Kim Gans, entrepreneur/MBA/ex-General Mills, put some innovation, imagination and fresh all natural ingredients together, the end result is a fun hot-out-of-the-oven fresh baked cookie concept. 

The option to customize both delights and entertains adults adn children alike.  On our expedition,we choose an oatmeal cookie base (three bases to choose from) with dark chocolate bits and walnuts.  After choosing our personalized combination, we watched in awe as the mixing and molding of our cookie began to bring our snack into shape.  2 minutes in a hot oven, we devoured a the cookie in our take away bag.   Upon paying I got a kick out of being asked “would you like a glass of milk with that?”  Of course they would ask that (the milk is organic) they are serving cookies afterall.  They also offer muffin tops (think Seinfeld) and granola that can be customized to your wildest imagination.  It is definitely worth the trip for a fresh baked cookie.  Sweet Flour Bake Shop also does gifts and catering options if you are thinking of edible gifts for this holiday season or an upcoming event.

via blogto.com

Sash and Bustle

There is a new bridal boutique in Toronto called Sash and Bustle and I had the priviledge of attending the opening party for the store this past week.   Cynthia Martin, veteran Toronto event planner of Cynthia Martin Events, is behind this sweet little spot in the city and in my opinion, a bridal boutique of this caliber is much-needed. 

Her years of experience and her own great taste, has resulted in a store filled with bridal gowns, bridesmaid dresses, and all the accessories – read- purses, head pieces, jewelry…. a girl would ever need to adorn her and her girls.  Sash and Bustle is located in Leslieville in on Carlaw just north of Queen and really adds some light to the rather industrial looking strip. 

I took some pictures while I was at the event to give you a peak at what you can expect when you go down to visit Cynthia’s store.  I will add a couple more pictures this week.