Favourite Canadian Bloggers

You can take me out of Canada, but you can’t take away my proper Canadian spelling, or the love of reading my favourite bloggers North of the boarder.

Today I’m bringing you a handful of my favourite reads. If you liked this blog post you may also want to check out my favourite Bay Area Blog Buddies.

Meg NancyMegan | MeganJoy: If you’ve been reading my blog since the Spring, you know darn well who Megan is. We’ve done YouTube makeup collaborations together and I mention her in just about every second blog post I put up here on spiffykerms. Megan & her hubby moved to San Francisco around the same time my husband and I did, but we didn’t realize either of us were Canadian, and only met up about a month or so before re-locating back to Canada (Toronto area specifically). If you like my blog, I feel like you’ll really enjoy Megan’s, too. She’s like the blonde version of me, who can also pull off a really wicked looking lavender hair colour. Luckily with today’s technology we can voice-chat for free on our cell phones and catch up with each other’s daily activities. If you are ever lucky enough to meet Megan in person, I know you will hit it off so easily with her. She’s just so friendly, chatty, funny and so easy to speak to. None of that “I’m too cool for you” vibe with Megan, and that’s why I heart her so much. :)

Teach Me StyleHolly | Teach Me Style: I found Holly on Instagram one day, browsing through the #JoeFresh hashtags, lusting after the Canadian inexpensive Canadian clothes, and her wearing them like designer and pulling it off magically. Her blog is new, and I say she’s one step ahead of the game being one of the only prairie bloggers out in Western Canada that I know of. She’s basically my fashion and style icon – can I be jealous of everything she pulls off so well? And those hair styles? Like, holy genes, man.

Brittany | My Daily Randomness: Design blog. Food blog. Fashion blog. It’s all awesome. All of the pretties with Brittnay’s blog. Her photography has blossomed and is basically something straight out of a magazine these days.

Amanda | A.Co est. 1984: I still cannot get over the fact that I haven’t met Amanda in person. Although she did live 6+ hours away from me when I was living in Ontario, Canada. Amanda also has a really awesome and addicting YouTube channel that I love. After showing a friend of mine Amanda’s website + YouTube channel, she mentioned that she was just like me. Maybe that’s why I like her.

Leanne | Lipsticks and Lattes: Leanne is also from Newfoundland, like me — but living away. She hasn’t blogged much this year, but I am constantly refreshing her blog on a weekly basis to see if she’s updated. Leanne is one of my favourite Canadian bloggers for many reasons, but if you’re looking for an old school lifestyle blog that isn’t all about sponsored posts, reviews and ad-worthy favourite products, you should check her out. Please update soon, Leanne!

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Exploring Coffee Shops: Roy’s Station Coffee

Roys-Station-JapantownI don’t mean to go all hipster on you, but I prefer checking out the small local coffee shops around rather than going to regular chains for my hot cuppa. I enjoy scoping out my new city, and places I wouldn’t have known existed if I didn’t explore. I have been trying to go to a new-to-me coffee shop once every two weeks — but sometimes I tend to go back to the places I’ve found because I enjoy the ambiance, the drinks and food, and warm welcomes.

Roy Murotsune is now 89 and owned Roy’s Gas Station since 1946, his family re-purposed it and turned it into a coffee shop.  It had the coolest concept for a coffee shop, and saw it on Instagram and knew I had to pop in for a visit.

White-pupAlthough I do have a particular drink I like to order at coffee shops, I still like to head over to Yelp to see what people recommend or dislike from a place before I visit. What I didn’t realize was that Roy’s Station Coffee & Tea is DOG FRIENDLY! I tweeted to them, making sure they were so Alfie could come on a mid-morning adventure with me, and sure enough their patio was perfect for your pooches. Although I’d normally bring Alfie with me to a place like this, I didn’t like the idea of tying him up outside while I took photographs and ordered. He would panic, and bark like a maniac, so I left him at home for an hour or so while I checked this spot out with Megan before she moved back to Toronto.

Nancy-iced-mocha

Roys-Station-Japantown-San-My drink is on the right, it was a barista’s PFox’s special which was called Mocha Joy (kinda like Megan Joy, ha!) and it had mocha, almond syrup and coconut syrup. So good.

Roys-Station

Roys-station-coffee-makingThe barista who created the PFox special and mixed our drinks!

Old-gas-station

Megan-Nancy-Roys-Station

Megan-snapping-picsSpy Megan out in the corner snapping pictures for her blog and Instagram :)

Roys-Station-Coffee-and-Tea

Roy’s Station Coffee & Teas

197 Jackson Street, San Jose, CA 95112
Hours: Weekdays: 7am – 8pm, Saturday: 8am – 8pm, Sunday: 8am – 5pm

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Dior Cosmopolite | Nail polish for Fall 2015

Dior-Darling-Blush-polish791 Daring Blue

Dior-Cosmopolite-polish785 Cosmopolite

Dior-Miroire-polish001 Mirror

Dior-Metropolish-polish701 Metropolis

These are the four new nail polishes Dior will be releasing on August 1, for their Dior Cosmopolite Fall 2015 collection. Got a favourite? That green one was the first one I took a photo of this morning, and it has been on my nails for 4 days without a hitch. Looks like it holds up pretty good while making a pretty bold statement. Who knew I’d be sporting the forest green colour I had painted on my walls back in Grade 8. My hubby seems to like this shade on me too.

After taking a few swatches of these this afternoon I now have on the maroon colour, called after the collection itself, Cosmopolite. Definitely a second favourite. The entire collection will be a hybrid of metallics, and fun colours to wear in the cooler months creeping up on us. Except, it definitely was not cool outside today. 38*C out there today, smokin’! I ended up driving to the mall to save me some air-con costs, only to have it announced over the entire PA-system at the mall that between the hours of 2 and 5pm they will be dimming lights and not putting the A/C cranked so high. Fail there on my part. So I drove back and cranked my own AC in the comfort of my own home and took some nail swatches for ya guys.

Dior Nail Vernis will retail for $31.00CDN.

 

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