5 buck pick-me-up with G-Q reader pal

Happy Grunge Queen story: I met Doreen, a reader who found this blog and contacted me after the Toronto Star article Rita Zekas wrote on me and my pad came out in November.

Doreen and I have become friends, and recently we took a stroll along Mount Pleasant Rd., where there's a bunch of antique and decor shops.

At one shop specializing in refurbished lighting, we found bins of chandelier pieces selling for $3 to $6.

This big red piece, about 2 inches long, called out to me. The owner let me have it for $5 - luckily exactly what I had in my purse! It'll make a striking pendant necklace with a velvet or silky ribbon.

Doreen says all I have to do is buy a clasp at a bead shop to go through the hole on top. If I'm feeling really lazy and grunge-queenish, I can just string a ribbon through it.

Anyway I love it. It satisfies my constant need for bling, and will turn out to be a nifty statement piece necklace once I'm done with it.

The gent at the shop tells me red chandeliers were quite rare so these pieces aren't easy to come by. I thought the shape was really different too.

If you're ever on the Mount Pleasant strip in T.O. check it out; the shop has unique chandeliers and some very cool Art Deco wall sconces with icicle-like chandelier pieces dripping from them:



Akladios Antiques
558 Mount Pleasant Rd.,
416-544-1960 www.akladiosantiques.com

How do you get your bling bang on? Any creative ways you've found or put together inexpensive jewellery?

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One Year Anniversary: decor then & now

My blog turns a year tomorrow, and I'd like to thank all you lovely readers for reading along, commenting or emailing me privately, or linking back to me - you make my day when I do!

Here's a pic of my living room Jan 18 last year. It's wide and open, and now that I look at it it does look cluttered, with all the stuff on the wall.

This is my NEW living room, the result of an agonizingly creative day-long apartment re-do after the holidays.

True, I essentially chopped the room in half by positioning the two love seats facing eachother, but I'm really liking the cozy vibe of the smaller space I created.

I also pared down some of the accessories to keep the look more streamlined.

I think style constantly evolves, and I'd like to think my design and decorating sense has refined itself this past year. It's been fun fun fun to play with my space!

Thanks for reading. Have a fab day!

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Sun on desk

If I were a true blue photographer, I wouldn't be a storm chaser: I'd be a sun chaser.

After a media photo shoot in my pad (SO excited - will link to article when it comes out this weekend!), I caught the sun sliding across my desk, as you see here.

I had to catch it quickly, though, as it was moving fast.

I love my desk area now, by the way.

I took a dining room table from the trash and covered it with dollar store wall paper by Ralph Lauren.

The lamps are thrift, and the spanky new phone is my recent thrift score. The desk chair was found in the trash, as was the chair to the left of the desk.

The green Toronto Harbour prints were found at Value Village for a few bucks each.




The blue head vase by the white lamp was one of my very first trades - I saw it in a junk store window when I was a starving student and traded a bunch of my jewellery with the owners - they were happy as they gave the bling to their daughter, and I was thrilled to have my first head vase.

See the finial on the top of the blue lamp? It's actually a tortoise shell drawer pull from an old vanity.

And before I knew it, the sun was gone ....

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Hanging magic lamps

Sorry for spotty posts this week; I'm working with some killer deadlines.

But I have to show you these inexpensive lights my beau was sweet enough to install for me recently (Grunge Queen is not handy in the least).

I picked this one up at Consumer's Lighting at 2482 Dufferin St. in Toronto - for $15!

It had a hole in the bottom that presumably some hardware was supposed to fit into, but it was missing. So I whipped out some glue and stuck a sparkly blue drawer pull to the bottom - doesn't it look great?

I'm not big on overhead lamps but this one is ambient - I put a lower wattage bulb in, and the cracked glass feature creates a softer look - don't you love the patterns it throws on the ceiling? So magical ....

My best friend gave me this one. It's a 1960s light fixture that her Dad had in the house he designed and built. When she bought the house she renovated and gave the lamp to me as she knew I loved it.

This one also casts neat patterns on the ceiling.

I have thank my man for putting this one up too; it was tricky and took a while.

Like the other one this one isn't in-your-face like a lot of other hanging lamps and chandeliers - I like the understated bling of both of them.

By the way I am working on my list of Top Ten Thrift Shops in Toronto for you, by reader request - will post next week!

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Primary colours & rejigs

I haven't been blogging much about decor lately, but I have been tweaking my place constantly in preparation for a possible photo shoot (more to share later on that hopefully).


Here's a corner nook in my dining room, which I've turned into a comfy sitting and TV room. I like layering paintings on top of eachother, and the upturned lampshade adds a bit of spunk.






Here's a longer shot.

I like the unexpected combination of the orange rug with the red velvet pillow.

The colours pick up the shades from my glass collection on top of the bureau.


I picked up this huge framed print behind glass for $4.99 at my local thrift shop. Alas, the glass broke on the way home so I just took it out (ok, the man did).

It's a print of a work by John Lander, and I just love it.

I hung it low - quite low - behind the loveseat but I'm not sure if I'm going to leave it that low. Most of my art is hung on the lowish end so having such a long piece extend all the way up the wall may look funny.

What do you think?

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Magic window

My Moroccan hanging lamp (see yesterday's post) has me thinking of this pretty hanging ball I received as a gift recently.

I finally strung it up in my window the other day, substituting ugly fish wire for a bright bow another gift came wrapped in.
Looks pretty magical doesn't it?

I've tried to make this little nook cozy and magical looking at the same time.

I've tied back the Value Village curtains with a ribbon, and put the flower boxes from the balcony (dug out of the trash by my ex) on the window sill. So far the lavender is doing ok but it's so hot in this apartment I have to water diligently to ensure the other herbs don't dry up.

I hung up a blue glass ball I bought for myself on sale years ago beside the other ball.




And if you look closely you can see the tiny yellow crystal I bought a year or so ago (then stuffed in my closet and forgot about it until I unearthed it with joy the other day during a closet clean put).

You're supposed to put it in the south-western most corner of your living space to promote harmony. So that's where it is.

Hope it'll help those plants survive.

Meanwhile I've got my trusty purple water bottle - which just happens to match the sheers, go figure! - on the ready to spritz that lavender away.

I just love plants in the window like this. Not sure what I'll do when the winter comes and the windows get cold - will the plants be ok, do you think?

As you may have guessed I'm new to the plant thing.

My Hibiscus, also hauled in recently from the balcony, is turning yellow. Think it could be experiencing culture shock in this warm and non-humid space.

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Disco belt & Halloween inspiration

When I was in grade 2 in the late 1970s, my Mom made me the most kick butt Halloween costume: and I became Wonder Woman.

She sewed silver tinfoil stars on my shorts, made me a crown of cardboard and tinfoil, and glued a red construction paper star on the front of the head piece. Red rubber boots, a red halter top, and a Christmas tree garland for a lasso completed the look.

Wish I had a pic of that.

Though this belt, which I picked up at a vintage-second hand store in the Junction in Toronto while doing a shopping column there, has a disco-crossed-with-an-Alexis-Carrington-from-Dynasty look to it, it reminded me of that Wonder Woman costume....

I love vintage and retro elasticized belts and am developing a little collection of them. They showcase my small waist and are just a fun way to zoot up an outfit.

Going to a Halloween party next week. Mmm. May be Wonder Woman if I can figure out a way to do it without donning shorts!

Thrift, second-hand and vintage stores are fab places to get ideas and pick up the fixings for Halloween costumes. Has anything you've found in these shops, or even in the back of your closet, inspired you to make and wear a costume this Halloween??

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Feathered fascination at TIFF

Fellow grungers, forgive me, I did not wear the poly maxi dress everyone loved so below.

But when I was invited to the Hats On For Awareness party Friday night benefiting the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, I knew two things: I had to wear a hat, and the hat offered me was never going to go with a 1960s poly maxi dress, alas.

Pal and artisan Victoria Feistner has recently launched her custom handmade hat design biz, The Emporium Esoterica, and these gorgeous "fascinator" hats are only part of the heady pieces she has in the offering.


Emcee Ambrose Price Ambrose Price of
HGTV singled out my hat as one of the TOP THREE, but alas I didn't get my chance to parade on the stage as the live auction was taking a long time and they needed to move things along.

But that doesn't change the fact that Victoria's hats rock and this one truly was one of the best toppers in a party where over 500 people attended, and $40,000 was raised for CAMH!

Alas I have some pics from the fete but I need to find out how to get them off my internal memory ... will post Twitter link soon to my media follow up on event.

And my maxi dress may have its day in the sun - or spotlight? - as I'm considering going to another bash next week ... stay tuned!

P.S. The dress IS thrifted - a black empire waist cocktail dress by MEXX found for $6.99 at Goodwill!

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Purple queen: dress bought by subway

Retro purple shades for $3; mauve curtain sheers thrifted at Value Village years ago for a song ... and my new (and not used) purple dress bought on the subway for $9.99!

I'm really into purple these days - makes sense as the Grunge Queen as purple was the colour for royalty - but I'm finding this lighter mauve-y hue looks totally fab with my tan.

I didn't actually buy it ON the subway, but it was close enough, dug up at a no-name store just outside the Bay subway station in Toronto in the hall leading to the underground concourse there.

I've actually found some good booty in those semi-skany shops located in the actual subway stations - one at Eglinton and another at one of the northern subways, Sheppard I think.

Get creative with your shopping and look in places you'd never set foot in typically - you'll never know what you'll find!

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70s shawl over my head

Often decor choices come to me on the fly and are inspired by moments from my past.

Growing up in the 1970s my sis and I had twin beds, side by side, with these puffed white headboards that we absolutely adored (and still talk about tho this day!).

Sometimes early early on Saturday mornings when we were wee things (so wee this is just a flash of a memory), we would stay in our beds, tuck our pillows on the top of our headboard so they would hang over our heads like little canopies, then hang our dress-up scarves over the pillow so the scarves would fall down on either side, like a waterfall.

We'd pretend we were princesses living in our own magical enclaves.

Yesterday I was washing this 1970s shawl I picked up at the Value Village years ago. I use it for decor more than dressing up (though I bet it would look fab with that black MEXX dress I thrifted the other day), and I didn't want to stuff it back in my newly cleaned linen closet.

So I threw it over my brass bed. It instantly reminded me of playing the canopy game with my sis.

Nice to know the creativity of youth can still inspire you today ....

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More mirrors, no smoke

I'm still on my mirror theme today. They add glitz and glam and light to any space and, well, they're shiny and I'm attracted to them like a kid to a lollipop.

This uber heavy gilt mirror suits my rough-and-tumble chic look. It has an old flaky gold leaf look to it that speaks of age and a certain amount of decrepitude.

It was sitting in the basement of a dingy second-hand store in the west end of Toronto (that didn't stay open for long, alas) for $3.99. Natch I snapped it up.

I love the way it pops against the deep blue.

I've already shown you my little beauty nook in a tiny hallway, where a heavy second-hand mirror (about $30, pricey for the Grunge Queen) hangs over a gilt shelf ($2 at a garage sale in Ottawa when I went on vacation last year!).

I recently jazzed up the hallway by hanging a print under the gilt shelf. It extends the space and makes the ensemble look like an entire unit.

If you look behind it to the left you'll see a smaller version of the lacquer mirror I showed you yesterday, hanging over an empty frame I found at a garage sale (3 of them for $2).

This is the smallest decor mirror I've ever bought. It was about $6.99 at my local east-end Toronto thrift store, Stretch Thrift.

I use it to check my butt out in my oblong mirror when I'm getting dressed in the morning.

I love the rustic, semi scraggy look. It provides an interesting contrast to all my pretty shiny perfume bottles.

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Decor & innocence

Kids love my apartment!

This is important to the Grunge Queen. One, I'm single and sans kids and always worry the little tykes will either destroy my apartment or swallow something tiny.


But more important, the fact that my tiny nieces and nephew visited my apartment yesterday and loved it - I believe my six-year old nephew called it "beautiful" - makes me rejoice in my design style and ethic.

See, Grunge Queen philosophy goes something like this: that you're happiest in your space when it's a reflection of you, your history and your tastes, and that injecting a bit of magic here and there is good for the soul.

Play is important here as a fun and self-affirming way of exploring your style is to tinker and toy around with items in your space until you come up with an arrangement that you love ... until you start playing again.

The elements of my apartment the kids were really jazzed about - the crystal ball, the swishy gold and satin pillows, the glittery purses hanging from my bureau ... basically anything shiny and shimmery - are exactly the decorative bits and bobs that attract me the most and that I seek out in thrift shops.

So what does that mean? My take? I'm a kid! The Romantic poets, particularly Wordsworth, wrote about capturing the innocence of youth that is invariably lost as one ages.



I suppose Wordsworth believed he could connect with his inner child through poetry. Just as I believe I can connect with my inner child through the creative endeavor of decorating and "playing" in my apartment.

Decor and innocence: what an amazing concept!

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Grunge Queen gets crafty

Dear reader, if you know me well enough you'll know I'm an "as is" kinda gal, not crafty in the least.

Well at the opening of the new Yorkville Anthropologie store in Toronto last Friday night, let's just say I got a little crafty dafty.

Here's me with a hot glue gun to prove it.

To celebrate its launch Anthro held a "statement piece" necklace making workshop using used bits and baubles from vintage jewellery and such.

My gal pal Andrea and I were pretty useless, I'll admit. While droves of 20-somethings put together beautiful statement piece necklaces in 10 minutes to half an hour, we slaved away at that table for 2 hours!

Andrea, lucky gal, ended up finding her necklace mostly done. She strung it up and voila, she had a gorgeous piece!


Here's me with my final creation: a swirl of pearls and smokey grey beads glued to a royal blue felt bib. The silver floral pieces are really special.

It actually turned out ok, kind of elegant, n'est pas? The string part is a mess and I'm not sure about the velvet, so I may recreate the piece on a different fabric.

I'll post the full story soon on my Twitter feed, where you can read all about my local shopping exploits in Toronto!

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Make your own bed - then lie in it!

Grunge-Queen couldn't get out of bed this morning. Not just 'cos she was up late reading her fave Agatha Christie novel, but also because she was feeling so good ensconced in bed in her new 100 percent cotton sateen sheets....

I'm picky about sheets - no polyester - but I can't afford to buy them new very often as they can run upwards of $100 for a double set.

But lately I've been hankering for some ALL WHITE cotton sateen sheets, and once I get an idea in my head, watch out.


Then I went into a mom and pop bed and bath place a 5-minute walk from my place and found some lovely Lynda Reeves' cotton sateen sheets.

Only problem: there were flat sheets only, no fitted sheets.

My solution? I bought a flat top sheet in size double for $9.99 and a Queen flat sheet for $14.99, then simply used the Queen set as a bottom sheet. I used to chambermaid in high school so I know how to tuck in sheets tightly!

Then I found some plain white and champagne-hued pillow cases for $2.99 a set.

And voila: I have a crisp new summer bed for about $30.

I also found this gorgeous cotton sateen duvet cover for $29.99 at the same place. Burnt orange typically isn't in my colour palette, but I have slowly been leaning toward oranges the past six months (remember the $5 wool area rug?).

If you really love or want something, as I did with a pair of white sheets, don't be scared to make your own rules. In this case it didn't bother me a whit that I didn't have an official "set" - since my solution was pretty much the same.

I'm going back for a second pair. Then to sleep, perchance to dream ....

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Decorating identity questioned

I junk; therefore I am ... a good decorator?

There's nothing like seeing someone else's beautifully decorated apartment. It can cause tremendous joy, seeing art and Persian rugs and books so artfully arranged - but it can also inspire neuroses.

A few weeks ago I visited the apartment of a pal in the building, and let me just say it threw into question my very grunger's existence:

One look at my pad after and I could see what I never saw before: the clutter, the papers, the mis-matched furniture, the junky look.

It wasn't a good feeling.

Since then I've been cleaning out the papers and rearranging and editing furniture, objects and art in an effort to streamline my space.

Some furniture has been tossed. Other bric-a-brac has been shoved in the closet and may make its way to a sale of some sort, or even a thrift shop.

I'm not sure if my new look is going to work out - I think when we question and compare ourselves in negative ways that creativity can be stifled. And after all, once a junker, always a junker, no?


Still I like what I did above with the big white (new) lampshade found at the Salvation Army Thrift Store for $7.99. It had a funny base that wouldn't allow me to attach it to the lamp the correct way, so I flipped it over and voila: I have a funky Art Deco-inspired look with an upside-down lampshade!

Maybe the Grunge Queen has a tad of spunk left in her.

Stay tuned. The overhaul - and identity crises - is still in progress.

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Sparkly drawer pulls inspire

I've been obsessed with sparkly glass drawer pulls for a long time now - what better way to jazz up a beat up curbside find? - but haven't been willing to pay the $18 EACH I've been seeing them for in stores.

A troll in the Beaches the other day unearthed a new shop with a whole counter of pulls - for way less coin than I've ever seen them!

In Nesters (2207 Queen St. East, 416-698-2207) I found these blue acrylic pulls for less than $3 each! There are also glass and ceramic ones for good prices.

Needless to say I bought a wack to add a bit of bling to this dark dresser - you can see the difference here.

The old faux tortoise shell pulls are lovely, but don't really do much for this dresser, you'll agree.

I ended up buying two too many just for the heck of it - I have a lot of dressers - and just before beddie-bye last night discovered a cool alternative use for these drawer pulls.

Can you guess? Check out some of my older posts, where I switch up lampshades and lampshade hardware to create entirely new looks!










You guessed it: a lamp finial! Doesn't it look like a little jewel on the top of my lamp? I love the way it's all illuminated.

The purple shade helps - I tried the drawer pull on a lamp with an off-white shade and it doesn't look as special.

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Empty frames

Here are some effortless decor ideas, totally in keeping with la grunge queen philosophy of inspired yet easy-peasy decorating, gleaned from my garage sale booty last month ...where I picked up three wood frames for $2 total.

Actually the oval one is a frame for a table. It's been sitting on my floor propped up against the wall with the other frames until today, when I felt the urge (in the face of looking deadlines) to do a little refresh to my living space.

My first thought: hang it on the wall, as is.

And doesn't it look nifty? I think it really completes the corner in an interesting way.


My second attempt is still a work in progress.



















I like the contrast of the heavy dark mirror frame and the shell of an empty frame below it.


















And I really love the dried up roses on the silver platter that match the pillow so nicely. I put my black velvet scarf from the thrift shop on the chair of the seat to provide some contrast.

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