Travel | Savour the Taste of Montreal w/ MTL à TABLE

I recently had the opportunity to travel to Montreal with their tourism board to learn about their upcoming food festival, MTL à TABLE. I had an awesome time discovering their culinary scene, meeting other bloggers/media, and being back in my second fav Canadian city. This is part one of my experience. Scroll down to see what I got up to and get details on how YOU can win a round trip, including airfare to Montreal to experience MTL à TABLE for yourself! MY MTL à TABLE EXPERIENCE – Part One I arrived at Renard Artisan Bistro at 9am to greet Chef Jason Nelson and my blogger partner in crime Jason from shutupandeat.ca. After visiting the smallest coffee shop in all of Montreal and we decided to venture 45min outside the city to get local meat, wine, and cheese, a trip Chef often takes on Sunday afternoons. It was about 10am when we did a wine tasting at Vignoble Vertefeuille. I loved being at the farm. The air was fresh and the wine was good. Not a bad start to the day! Chef gets chicken, rabbit and wine from the farm on a regular basis. Our next stop was Fromagerie Au Gré des Champs where we sampled cheese and said hello to the animals. It was my first time at a fromagerie and I have never tasted cheese so delicious! This award winning fromagerie is one of very few in Quebec that uses raw unpasturized milk to make the cheese. It was DELICIOUS! Loading Love this beautiful lady. We had heaps of laughs on the way back to the city where blogger Jason from shutupandeat.ca and I met up with the other bloggers for lunch. Later in the day I really got my hands dirty prepping dinner. And by dirty I mean I got blood on my hands! This is the…

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Events | Give the Gift of Sight w/ ClearlyContacts on Oct. 9th

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   Here’s lookin’ at you loves! Share this post to spread the good. <3 CASIE

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Events | The Art of Entrepreneurship + The Art of Maintaining Violet Hair

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. Loading 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. View on Instagram 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. 🙂 Hope you’re having a great day! <3 CASIE

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Fashion | Rudsak Canada’s New Yorkdale Store + Capsule Collection + Contest

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. Win the ‘Jimi’ Hat from the Rudsak 20 Capsule Collection a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Tech | My DNA: 23andMe Launches in Canada

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.…

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