Share the Love with Me to We Artisans

Today’s video features one of my fav pieces from a company I love & support, Me to We. I’ve been following the path of Craig Kielberger, founder of Free The Children since I was 14 years old. See the entire Me to We artisans collection here  or visit Free the Children for info about how they are changing the world. See my previous posts about the company here, metowe_casie. “Love is the mother who spends her day tending her land to support her children. Love is the daughter who walks for hours every day to collect water for her family. Love comes in all forms—friends, mothers, families, sweethearts. On February 14th, share the love not only with your loved ones, but the world.” * BTW I have successfully added a video to my YouTube channel EVERY DAY this month. Check it out & subscribe here. Give me 20 more days and I will have the hang of this iPhone iMovie thing!!

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ADVANCED STYLE

These ladies are style inspiration for ANY AGE. Someone shared this video with me yesterday when I mentioned that 73 year old fox, Haddie. They’re all from New York and somewhere between “50 and death” as one of them says. I’m not scared of getting old at all.  Life is a journey. This year I turn thirty and I’m so ready for it! I know, you thought I was younger my my youthful charm, hold the compliments 😉 In other style news, Lauren, Julio and I are in the Globe & Mail Fashion & Beauty photos of the week (from Friday’s Motion Ball Gala). Check us out!  I love the pink in my hair more every day. Photos were taken by Steve Blackburn from YYZ events. Here’s one he put on Facebook. First time I’ve really seen my new tattoos photographed. I can’t WAIT to add to my arm/sleeve and fill it all in.

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LOVE WHAT YOU LOVE

Here’s a little sneak peek into the dresse we’ll be wearing at Love a Heart on February 9th. The event is a date auction so if you have ever wanted to go on a date with me (or any of the other boys & girls) this is your chance! All proceeds go to the Heart & Stroke Foundation. Last year’s event was a HUGE success! Rent Frock Repeat is a Canadian owned and operated business, based in Toronto. The concept is fairly simple – rent a designer dress, wear it, send it back. Erin Bury has talked about it before so I was super keen to give it a go. The babes behind RfR, Lisa & Kristy set up a pop up shop for us with dressing tents complete with wine, treats & cupcakes.   I picked a gorgeous red silk number by Adam. So fitting for Valentines Day <3 There were so many really beautiful dresses to pick from. I love the concept of renting a dress, it’ll be so handy come Film Fest! Raymbo & I have the devil angel thing happening here mooohahah. Who is which?                 Love this dress for another time. Love the back and how it shows tattoo. Raymi is going to be a beautiful blonde baby Björk. For more info on Love a Heart see FB. Thanks Shannon for setting this up and the lovely ladies at Rent Frock Repeat for offering  a 10% discount on rentals with code LOVEAHEART. Go rent a dress for your Valentines date or something special and 10% will go to the Heart & Stroke Foundation. Love ya xo CASIE

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Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

Friday Kate & I attended the Women for Women’s luncheon in support of Women’s College Hospital. It was hosted by Jeanie Beker and there were over 800 women there. My sister was in Women’s College Hospital a couple years ago. WCH is a world leader in women’s health and they do research to improve women’s lives (some male patients too). Thank you kindly for the invte and I look forward to the next lunch Spring 2012. For info about the brand new Women’s College Hospital building and the great things they have going on go here. This is from the wall at CTS and is a quote by George Bernard Shaw 🙂

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Make Time to Give Back & You’ll Have More Time

We are all busy people and it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day routine. I like to be busy, are you kidding? I’d be bored otherwise! Only boring people get bored. I live by my calendar and find the better I get at scheduling, the more I can fit into a day, week, year. Last week I helped launch microvolunteering in Canada with Koodonation. We had a blast playing on all the bouncy things and the winning team from Durham College was awarded $15,000 to a charity of their choice. It’s really easy to volunteer your time ONLINE with Koodonation. Once you sign up it goes a little something like this… It’s simple and you will feel great helping people. Volunteering has been a huge part of my life growing up and allowed me to connect with people I can learn from and also teach others. If you have any questions about getting involved as a charity or a volunteer visit the site here or ask me in the comments. Have an awesome day 🙂

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Koodonation

View “Microvolunteering Launches in Canada” on Storify

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Social Change Through the Social Web: The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind

Today I’m biking over to Yonge Dundas Square (where I won a car last week!) to launch koodonation.com, an online hub that connects volunteers with non-profits through micro-volunteering. There’s gonna be a fun ‘Wipeout’ style game for uni kids and I’m a judge with Jeremy Taggart of Our Lady Peace and Daniel Johnson from Stereos. The whole fun event is hosted by Sheena from MTV Live. We’re volunteering our time and Koodonation.com is making a $20,000 contribution to a charity of our choice. My charity is the Moving Windmills Project which supports Malawian-run rural economic development and education projects in Malawi. Mum introduced me to William’s story and I wanted to get involved. Here’s his TED Talk so you can be inspired too. For more info on micro-volunteering in Canada see Koodonation on Newswire here or check out the site at koodonation.com. If you’re around today come to YD Square & say HELLOOOOOO!

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Toronto Tweed Ride: A dashing metropolitan ride in style!

I recently had a photoshoot early one morning in Kensington with some lovely bike enthusiast and former Mayor, Mr. Miller. We were decked out in tweed and vintage digs gearing up for the Toronto Tweed Ride October 16th in Toronto. (My brain is programmed to type Tweet not Tweed. Stop it CASIE!) The leisure ride starts at Trinity Bellwoods and raises money for Bikes without Borders‘ work in Africa. It’s also chance to ride in style. You know I love a good dress up! What is a Tweed Ride? Tweed Rides are a worldwide phenomenon, started in London in the fall of 2009 as “The Tweed Run London.”  Promoted as a slower-paced “metropolitan ride with a bit style” they dressed up in tweeds, rode their bikes through London streets celebrating the bike and raising money for a good cause. Where do we meet?  We will leave Trinity Bellwoods Park at 3pm, through the gates on Queen St. at the traffic light travelling east. There will be a loud bell (or something obvious like a trumpet/trombone) signalling the start of the ride. How do I join? To register for the 2011 Tweed Ride Toronto, visit the registration page.  All funds raised will support Bikes Without Borders‘ work in Malawi, Africa. If you have any questions see the info site here or leave a comment. I’m better with questions like “What are you gonna wear? What am I going to wear?!”.  I hope you will join us. Cheeriooooooo!

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getting a new tattoo, this one’s for you <3

I’m getting it Thursday night at Tattoo Rock parlour & my money is being donated to Red Cross for Japan. I love getting tattooed.  Piercing not as much, remember when I did this for fun? Where is that vest BTW. I think I lost it in Montreal w/ Raymbo & friends. I’ve wanted this tattoo for a while. I always start out with markers and draw them on  my skin first. Make sure I like it as permanent fixture in my life.  I’v drawn on a zillion times now. BTW have you read the news about Japan the last couple days? ‎Come to Tattoo on Thursday night for JapanquakeTO and donate some time/money to a good cause. Door 9pm at Tattoo  Rock Parlour on Queen Street. Get a ticket here. The night is going to be fun. We have three DJs lined up – Justin Barkie, HopScottch and Carson from LE DJ. They’ll be hosting a shuffle party all night long. There’s HEAPS of AWESOME sponsors check’ em out at japanquaketo.ca.  These goodies are all up for raffle tickets too: Rogers Palm Pre 2 donated from the Cell Guru 2 Flip Cameras donated from Cisco Canada Dinner for two at Oliver Bonacini with Chef Jason Bangerter Toronto Maple Leafs Dion Phenuef jersey Deluxe one night stay at the Fairmont Royal York Festival passes to the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival Four-week BootyCamp Fitness pass Caplansky’s gift certificates Crepe Delicious prize pack Frida Restaurant gift certificates $300 worth of product and services from Arbonne Me to We Apparel Prize Pack from Free the Children $100 Gift Certificate to Home Sav Ufile and Norton AntiVirus prize packs AND MUCH MORE

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#twestivalTO 2011 – tweet. meet. give.

This photo means something really special to me. It reminds me how much I, we have grown and changed over the past couple years. Erin, Satish & I (below)  were on an aweosme team that came together in Jan. 2009 to create the first big Twitter event Toronto ever had. Twitter was slowly catching on at the time and the event was part of a global thing called Twestival. Last night, Twestival 2011 took place and it was awesome. It was a totally new team of people who took the initiative to create the event and I was proud and happy to be there. Twestival OG organizer group hug, my happy moment of the night. The first Twestival was at CiRCA and we donated to charity:water. Remember that place? My sis was there, she was a Raptors girl back then. She’s the blonde if you don’t already know/can’t tell. Once we had Twestival on a boat cruise. Renee you were missed last night, I had a shot for you. I need to get to SF to you v.soon. Another time we had Twestival at Tryst in the club district. See all the great pix Erin Leydon took last night here on flickr. My Olympus pix were not as great. I’m not familiar with the camera yet and had some issues. I’m used to having a point & shoot. This is me frustrated, haha. Don’t judge me, ok, judge me. I don’t care! Lady Blogga raaaaaaaaaa! #pawsup Lauren! #blondetourage #ftw Ava. Ally. Love you Erin. Allisaaaaaaaaan Bathroom party. I make the girls giggle. Marie your dress was GORGEOUS, designer was Cat Shanahan right? Sheldon. We met at the very first Twestival. Both had shirts w/ our @name on them. Word. Jon Crowley. Michael. Jeremy. Kevin. Andrew. Jonathan. Sean Ward, lookin’ good…

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