I am so happy to tell you about the new Trudy Chalmers earrings in stock at Sarah’s Place. Trudy hand-crafts beautiful vegan-positive sterling silver jewelry.
… Today Trudy dropped off 3x different earring designs. I only have a few of each earring in stock – so don’t snooze on grabbing a pair. Check out the earrings HERE.
Just got in a new amazing shipment of Zombie Socks!!
Zombie Sock are all about recycling and reusing as much as possible. The name Zombie Sock comes from the fact that all of the socks are recycled, scrapped and reused bringing dead socks back to life!
Each Zombie Sock is unusual and unique. No two are the same!! 🙂 Check out the full line of Zombie Socks HERE.
One of my lovely customers came in to Sarah’s Place a few months ago and she and her friends purchased this Bettie Page dress for bridesmaids dresses. Aren’t they adorable??
I have ONE of these dresses left in a size Large (36 bust/30 waist). If you grab it – I will ship for free. Use the coupon code:Â GIMMIETHATDRESS for free shipping (in N.American only).
Buy the dress HERE.
I have had so many requests for full boxes of Go Max Go Chocolate Bars that I’ve set up a pre-sale till Friday. Order a full box (at a discounted price).
Please note:
-Each box contains 24 chocolate bars.
-This is for FULL boxes of 24 bars. Boxes may NOT be mix-and-matched.
**PICK UP ORDERS ONLY** If you live in Victoria and want to pick-up your bars then please use the coupon code GOMAXGOFREE and you won’t be charged for shipping.
I will contact you when your order has arrived for pick-up. Boxes will arrive in about 3 weeks. Order your full box of Go Max Go chocolate bars HERE!
What a fun and busy week I’ve had. On the weekend Gerry and I got all dressed up and went to our friend Leah & Adrian’s wedding.
She rocked it. I mean … come on! Gold sequin dress? That’s how you should wear a wedding dress!! It makes me want to get married again! 🙂
The next day Gerry and I found some time to put together all the Ikea bookcases for the store and Gerry came in and helped me anchor them to the wall. What a team. 🙂
I’m really pleased with how it looks … I’m able to showcase all my products in a cool interesting way. I love it. 🙂
There’s still a few things left to do at the store. I have to wallpaper/paint the change rooms but there’s no urgency there. I think I’ll take this week off and tackle it next week.
The day after we fixed up the new wall in the store – my brother and his son Eli arrived for a visit! They stayed with us for a few nights and we had a mini-family reunion. 🙂
My nephew Eli is really into magic so there was a lot of abracadabra going on… it was fun. He’s really good at it. Fergus was very taken with Eli…
Watching Eli stump Gerry with is tricks was so fun to watch!!
While my brother was here – I hauled out the family slides and we went through about 15 carousel of photos. This photo in particular I think encapsulates my relationship with my brother. Ha ha.
Damn. I wish we had re-created this photo above … Oh well … next time.
We had a great visit with Ben & Eli and the day they left – my friend Melisser (the author of The Vegan Girl’s Guide to Life) arrived in Victoria to do her chat at Sarah’s Place about Cruelty Free Cosmetics.
I set up the store to be a classroom …
The event went really well. Melisser spoke for a little over an hour about cruelty free cosmetics, what companies are testing on animals and we should avoid etc etc. You should check out her website CrueltyFreeFace.com and see the list of vegan friendly cosmetics she’s compiled.
The best part about the event is that it was a fundraiser for Hearts on Noses Pig Sanctuary. We were able to raise $87 and then I kicked in a few bucks to round it up to $100. Yay! If you’d like to help Hearts on Noses with a donation you can do so HERE.
It’s been great to have so many visitors staying at our house this summer but Gerry and I are looking forward to having a quiet week this week. We haven’t even watched the final episodes of True Blood or Breaking Bad yet! Ack! Don’t tell me anything!!
In other news – last night I had a dream that my teeth fell out. 🙁 My two front teeth slid off and underneath them were new baby teeth. I thought “oh good. At least they’ll grow back…” and as I was talking I felt something rolling around in my mouth and one of my molars had also fallen out.
I woke up and ran to the bathroom to check my teeth … it was scary.
I looked up the dream online and most websites said the dream is about vanity and/or being embarrassed and/or a fear of getting old. I don’t have any of those things. Well … except maybe the vanity. ha ha. But whatever the dream meant – it was really disturbing and I woke up exhausted.
Have you had that dream before? What the hell is it about?? 🙁
I’ve been so busy setting up the new Sarah’s Place location that I haven’t had a chance to blog about the move!! As soon as the Vegan Festival was over – Gerry and our crew started working on the new location.
It was basically just an empty box with plywood floors but the space is so unique and I could see it’s potential – so we got to work!
My friend Morgan painted the walls/windows inside as well as the outside hallway to my store – which made it look so fresh and inviting.
Next Gerry and I got to work stenciling the floor. Rather then spend the $$ on a commercial floor – we decided to go with the existing plywood in the space and stencil it. I found this fantastic Stencil by Kim Myles and we got to work.
First we put down a thick coat of vegan-butter yellow paint. 🙂
Then we got to work on the stencil. The first square is the most important. It’s gotta be perfectly in the middle and straight as it sets the tone for the rest of the floor.
Once we got into the rhythm of it our stencil started to come along nicely …
It a couple of very physically exhausting days. Gerry and I worked during the day at our respective stores and then at night we’d go to the new location and put down the stencil.
My arms, knees and neck were killing me. We were on a tight schedule and we had to get the floors done in time for our construction guy Sean to come in and build me some change rooms.
All in all the entire floor took us about 6 hours (but that doesn’t count prep-time) and I’m so so happy with how it looks! 🙂
Then Sean started construction. 2 change-rooms and a big storeroom.
While Sean was using his nailgun – my friend Jeff was doing the electrical and helping me set up the lights. There is NO WAY I would have been able to go to the top of that ladder and wire up the lamp. Thank goodness for Jeff.
The second Sean was done we (Eckle, Corey, Gerry and I) started working on the drywall…
My change-room looks like a clown-car! 🙂
Drywall is exhausting work … Fergus helped me take a fiver.
We managed to get everything done in time (barely) and then suddenly it was my last day at the old location.
It was an incredibly busy day that last day – and that’s when I started to feel less stressed about the big move. The big move was necessary… I’ve grown out of this space. 🙂
With the retail day over – I started to pack up shop.
It was really weird to see the old location empty … bittersweet but mostly sweet. 🙂 I had a really great year in that location and it was a great way for me to get my feet wet and see if this concept I had for my store would work.
With the help of Gerry, Jordan and Dave – we moved all the boxes over in a few hours …
First thing I did was mark my territory. 🙂
Fergus was no help at all…Â 🙂
He spent most of his time keeping an eye on the other dog looking at him in the mirror…
24 hours after moving in – we opened the doors to the new Sarah’s Place.
It’s still a work in progress …
I have some painting, wallpapering and organization left to do but I’ve been so busy during the day (nice problem to have) 🙂 that I haven’t had a chance to put on the all the finishing touches the way I like – but I’ve learned over the last year that the store is an ever evolving work-in-progress.
You know what’s funny? When I first moved to Victoria at the ripe old age of 18 – I used to sit in Market Square courtyard and hang out with my friends.
I also spent a lot of contemplative time here. The courtyard is a magical space in the middle of hectic downtown Victoria. I would sit on a bench in the shade and daydream about what I wanted my life to become.
At that age I didn’t have a life plan (I still don’t – ha ha) but I knew that I wanted to do something with my life that was interesting, exciting and most importantly fueled me creatively.
I think it’s crazy how life works … cause here I am 25 years later and Sarah’s Place is a part of the Market Square family. Life is wonderful and I’m so thankful.
Big thanks to EVERYONE who helped move boxes, build, paint, nail, screw and move me over to the new location. Thanks to the Market Square crew who loaned me ladders, helped lug giant fans (to dry the paint) and a BIG thanks to all my customers who have come in to check out the new space (both in person and online).
I wouldn’t be here living my daydream without all of your loving support – so thank you.
I’m a big fan of Kenn TwoFour’s art work and when he started making these Skullface paddle-balls I knew I had to have them for my store!! 🙂
Paddle is wood and is 12 x 6 inches. Be the coolest kid on the block and order yours HERE.
I’m so thrilled to announce Sarah’s Place first “Spend an evening with…”
The amazing Melisser Elliott of Cruetly Free Face.com and author of The Vegan Girl’s Guide to Life will be coming to Sarah’s Place on Saturday Aug 25th to talk about cruelty free cosmetics!
This will be a fundraiser for Hearts on Noses Pig Sanctuary – so come buy a ticket (you decide the price) from Sarah’s Place – 560 Johnson Street.
More info HERE.
This will be the first of many events like this. My hope is to bring in a speaker once a month. Let me know who you’d like to see come do a talk at Sarah’s Place.
Horse-Drawn Carriage update!!
Dave from FOA and Carriage Free Victoria is organizing a protest for Tuesday.
Please meet at Sarah’s Place (560 Johnson Street) at 12 noon. We will be walking over en-masse to “Carriage Corner” (corner of Belleville/Menzies) to protest the carriages starting at about 12:30 (until 2pm) – directly across the street from “Carriage Corner”.
Please come out if you can. The more bodies we can have the better. It’s time we show the city of Victoria how serious it’s constituents are about banning the Horse-Drawn Carriages!
See you at noon on Tuesday!!
