Came across these photos from the Samsung Galerie Alpha launch last week. It was a cool event with art stations scattered around the Neubacher Shor Contemporary art gallery, Queen West. Thanks Best of Toronto for the snaps! Almost the entire circle of Toronto Internet was there. Fun night!
Last night I got an email from my friends at Clearly Contacts about World Sight Day tomorrow. I’ve worked with Clearly Contacts to share new products and contests for a while (see posts here) and I’m happy to share their latest charity initiative.
In exchange for this post, Clearly Contacts is donating a pair of prescription glasses to someone via Change the View on my behalf. The global #WHOBLINKEDFIRST campaign that kicks off tomorrow.
Over the last few years documenting my life, I’ve really taken time to smell the flowers, literally and figuratively. I take heaps of photos each day and really value my eyesight and ability to see beauty in the little things. I can only imagine how my life would change if I lost my eyesight.
For every video shared with #WHOBLINKEDFIRST, ClearlyContacts.ca will donate a pair of prescription eyeglasses, Vitamin A tablets, or UV protective sunglasses to someone in need through Change the View. Challenge your bff to a staring contest and upload to the WSD Gallery here to win new glasses and other prizes for yourself.
To learn more at clearlycontacts.ca/worldsightday
This morning in my Timehop notifications I was reminded that four years ago today, I was riding the streetcar when I got a phone call from San Francisco saying I’d won Richard Branson’s Virgin America Contest. I was so excited that I left my phone on the streetcar! Luckily, the stars were aligned and it was returned to me within the hour.
The contest went for about three months and there were about 10K entries. We had to make a YouTube video saying why we’d be the perfect ambassador to represent the world’s loudest and sexiest airline. As the Virgin America Provocateur, I travelled North America with Virgin and gave away heaps of flights. It was a great experience and the campaign got heaps of attention.
VIRGIN AMERICA TORONTO PROVOCATEUR CASIE STEWART. from Victors & Spoils on Vimeo.
Casie Stewart was chosen as the Toronto Provocateur for Virgin America.
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The crazy folks at Virgin America contacted us with an opportunity. They were about to launch service to Toronto, the first destination outside the U.S. for Virgin America. And they wanted a way to garner excitement for the launch of this service among local Torontonians. Together with Jesse McMillin – Creative Director at Virgin America – we devised a plan. Let’s create a web platform and initiative whereby we search to find one Toronto local to be our brand ambassador in Canada. The perfect person who embodies the sexy and cheeky brand attributes of Virgin America and can work to be a firebrand for the brand itself. So we decided to create a competition where the best video entry would win this coveted position. We decided we would call it “The Search for Virgin America’s Toronto Provocateur.” And we were off. We designed the site, wrote the site and produced the site with the help of Google moderator. And we launched it. The competition worked great. And Virgin America found their Toronto Provocateur.
This violet hair is awesome but it really fades fast. Checked out the bf’s new office space before heading to The Are of Entrepreneurship conference this morning. The day started with rain but before I knew it the sun was shining bright.
Shared a few tweets with the one and only Gary Vaynerchuk before getting to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Looking forward to his talk this afternoon. I love listening to other speakers, it really helps me pick out things that make them great to remember for me own talks.
The tents are being put up for World MasterCard Fashion Week already. It’s hard to believe it’s already that time of year again! I’ll be attending a few shows this season but don’t have anything mayor planned..yet.
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Had a Kiwi @eatkanga pie for lunch and discovered @Charge_Spot. Awesome & innovative Canadian product. #meatpie #mobile #vscocam #tech *on the spot charging! SO AWESOME.
Alrighty, time to head into the first after lunch session for The Art Of Entrepreneurship. Gary Vee is closing the day after Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.
My fav class in high school was entrepreneurship and one of my highest marks. I took the Gr. 11 course in Gr. 10 and still had the highest mark in the class. I started a business called OUT THERE, Creative Advertising & Marketing. It makes me smile that all these years later, creative advertising and marketing is still what I’m doing. 🙂
Earlier this year I became a Brand Ambassador for Dermalogica Canada and was invited to experience some of Toronto’s best spas as part of their Little Grey Pass program. In my most recent spa experience I visited Ritual Spa on King Street for a facial.
I was left in the room to get all cozy on the massage table after having a consultation about my skin.
Since my first Dermalogica facial at Hammam Spa in March I have seen a big improvement in my skin. I wasn’t taking the best care of it or using a good moisturizer. Since bringing Dermalogica into my life my skin is more radiant. Yahooo!
A few of my fav products include the Pre-Cleanse wipes, Sheer Tint mousturizer, Ultrasmoothing Eye Serum, and Skinperfect Primer. The eye serum is my most recent addition, I’m in my 30’s now and I want to make sure I preserve my youth the best I can.
To learn more about Dermalogica’s Little Grey pass visit greypass.dermalogica.ca (open to Toronto + Vancouver). I’ve written about my previous Dermalogica Spa facials here, here, and here.
Oh hey there! This week I hosted the opening of Rudsak Canada’s new Yorkdale store with fellow fashion bloggers Julio (fashionights.com) and Nicole (daintygirl.ca). This year celebrates 20 years of the brand and Rudsak launched a Capsule Collection with 20 unique pieces, 20 of each, inspired of cool rebels in rock n’ roll history.
Here I’m wearing the ‘Jimi’ hat named after Jimi Hendrix. Scroll down for your chance to win one of the 20 limited hats valued at $250!
In between styling Julio and I had a few laughs.
I pretended to be a rockstar. My mannequin is wearing the jet black ‘Polly‘ goat fur vest named after PH Harvey from the Capsule Collection. I’m wearing is my own Rudsak jacket I picked up last year.
These are a few of my favs from the Capsule Collection: Joni (Mitchell) shirt, Cyndi (Lauper) ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ pants, and the Janis (Joplin) jacket. Thanks Andrew Williamson for the photos. See more of his work here.
This week I went to the Canadian launch of 23andMe. The privately held company is located in Mountain View, California and they specialize in genomics and biotechnology. I love this stuff. I don’t know heaps about it but I want to learn so I was reading the blog made by Dan Miller that’s all about these types of kits!
Using a saliva-based DNA sample, they provide genetic reports on ancestry, family history and connect you with your DNA relatives. They have over 650,000 paying genotyped customers and 20K are Canadian. CEO + cofounder Anna gave us some insight on how 23and me works. Informative article on FactCompany here -> Inside 23andMe founder Anne Wojcicki’s $99 DNA Revolution.
I saw Anne on CTV this morning in Montreal. All Canada’s top media was there for the Canadian launch. CBC in my face right here!
One of the neat things knowing about your genetic makeup is disease prevention. For example, people who have the BRCA gene are more likely to get certain types of Cancer. Angelina Jolie had a double mastectomy after testing positive for a likely lethal BRCA1 mutation.
After learning about the company we were given a 23andme kit with expedited shipping so we could learn about our own genetic makeup. Mine was in the mail by the end of the day!
You have to spit into this small container and put on the lid to mix in a chemical liquid with your sample.
Once complete it goes into a bio bag and back in the box for shipping.
I registered my sample and now I wait. It should take about three weeks to get an email that my results are in. When I get a notification, I’ll be able to login and see reports, ethnicity, ancestry, DNA relatives and more.
I’ll keep you posted, you’ll know when it arrives. For more info about the company or how it works check out 23andme.com. Thanks Edelman TO for putting 23andme on my radar! If you are thinking about getting your DNA tested you may want to check out a Lewisburg PA DNA testing kit from health-street.net if you are based in that area.
Back to the grind today after an absolutely wonderful weekend up at the cottage.
Sean and I went for a nice long canoe jaunt yesterday in the sunshine. How lucky are we to have this weather!? You can like this photo on Instagram right here.
We attempted to go through this tunnel to another lake where our friends cottage is. It was like being inside a beautiful painting. The colours of the leaves are so vibrant and the sky was incredibly blue.
We were ill prepared to portage the canoe over this little blunder. Next time I’ll wear better shoes and put my phone in something more secure than a ziplock bag. Did you know you can still use your phone while it’s in a ziplock? The more you know. Learned that trick in Thailand last year.
I finally got to float in my donut. The water was pretty cold but I really didn’t care!
Went on a crazy fast seadoo. Heaps of fun!
MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, MY FAV.
This week is gonna be a busy! Tonight my sister and I have a date for the premiere of Gone Girl starring Ben Affleck. I’m hosting a Twitter chat with Hotels.com X Nine West tomorrow then speaking to fashion students at Seneca College. Thursday I fly to Montreal for a couple days exploring culinary awesomeness with Tourism Montreal.
It will be the weekend again before we know it! Happy Monday, make sure you soak up some of that sunshine!
<3 CASIE
Just over a week ago I attended my first Creative Mornings event in Toronto. It was one of the first chilly mornings and trench coat weather. Arrived to have my photo taken by a friendly blog babe instantly made friends with another girl outside too. The day was off to a great start!
The theme for September was COLOR and they cold not have picked a better person to light up the room.
There was a pink card on each of our seats with Tiffany’s face and contact info, along with a beaded wooden rainbow mandala bracelet, which had been made by volunteers with Tiffany earlier in the week. There were streamers on the door, the floor, hanging from the ceiling. It was a colour explosion! If you check @thetiffanypratt on Instagram you day will be brighter the second her profile pops up.
She started her talk with a morning meditation and then threw streamers into the crowd, over our heads. I loved it. Here’s a little Instagram video I made. Creative Mornings just posted about the event and I will update this post with the full video as soon as it’s live.
Here are some notes I scribbled down on my iPhone while she was talking. Mostly I took in what she was saying and thought about life. There was so much positive energy floating in the room with smiles all around.
- You need to happen to your life
- Buy all the streamers
- Make all the bracelets
- Gigantic love circus
- Plant all the seeds
- Do all the things
- Velocity
- Be consistent
- Putting your brain on paper
- Beauty happens on budgets
- And this quote from my #1 fav author growing up Roald Dahl…
From Wikipedia on Velocity:
If there is a change in speed, direction, or both, then the object has a changing velocity and is said to be undergoing an acceleration.
I’ve feel inspired every single time I about that day. She’s one of those super awesome bright people that make you smile the second you see them. I hope you have some of those people in your life. If you need some of that glitter and sunshine, follow her on IG at @thetiffanypratt and me @casiestewart.
Throughout September I was featured by Bench Canada in their Love My Hood campaign. You might have seen a couple of these photos on their Instagram or Facebook. We snapped these shot at the Wallace Ave. bridge that was built in 1907. Their contest ends this week so scroll down for details on how you can enter.
The bridge covers the train tracks that are currently being expanded to service the new GoTrain Express to Person Airport. Alongside the bridge, is the West Toronto Railpath that I like to run on and where I took heaps of GoPro photos at last winter.
Dug up these old photos fro the depths of the Internet. I love seeing how the city has changed. I think about how the Internet has changed my life in the last 10 years, imagine how this bridge feels?! 🙂
Wearing: Bench hoodie, dress from Brandy Melville, boots from NastyGal
It’s your last chance, our #LoveMyHood contests ends in a week! Have your shown us your city yet? pic.twitter.com/tcLCocIG10
— BENCH Canada (@BenchCanada) September 23, 2014
This is the last week to enter their #LoveMyHood contest. You can win $500 and 2 round trip flights anywhere in Canada. Tag your photos #LoveMyHood and make sure you’re following@BenchCanada. Good luck! You can bring a friend so like, if your BFF is away, you can always invite me.
Thanks Bench Canada for this new monogrammed hoodie. I love things with my face and or name on them! See all posts tagged Bench from over the years here.
Have an awesome day. Remember, you’ll never be younger than you are today, so make the most of it!
