Spring has Sprung!

Courtney — Thu, 17 May 2012 21:10:30 +0000

Because I love Etsy so much, here is a screenshot of our recently ‘hearted’ items on Etsy!! <3

Slashpile Designs in Calgary’s Avenue Magazine!

Courtney — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:42:32 +0000

We just recently found out (and were super excited!) that we were featured in the December 2011 issue of Calgary’s Avenue Magazine.

Avenue is a monthly lifestyle magazine featuring Calgary Alberta’s best in food, fashion, real estate, shopping, homes and design, the outdoors, arts and culture as well as issues the city currently faces.

We are honoured to have our nicotine molecule necklace as the first featured item on the gift guide (page 65). To view the online version of the magazine, click here.

How much of a positive effect can personalized jewellery have?

Tara — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 20:19:29 +0000

- There was about a week in October when we got a number of exciting custom molecule requests. We made an epinephrine molecule (adrenaline), an alcohol molecule with a pink oxygen atom, and a red wine molecule. We also made a rush order Oxygen molecule necklace for a customer at Freedom Clothing Collective.
  
  The necklace was a gift for someone suffering from cystic fibrosis who was having trouble breathing. It was given to her by a friend, who wanted to give her some positive vibes and healing energy.
  
  Two weeks after she received the necklace, she was doing better with oxygen intake and also got accepted for a transplant of a new pair of lungs. Forty-eight hours after the transplant, she was able to get up and walk, and she’s doing really well now.
  
  Could it be that all the good will and positive energy (and wearing the oxygen molecule) really helped her get better? We are soo happy for them and so touched to be part of this story!
  
  Thanks to Freedom Clothing for connecting us! Is there someone you know who could use a little extra, positive and loving energy?

Race Medals

Tara — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 02:14:48 +0000

Our medals for the 5/10k to cure Parkinson’s were a great success! We attended the pancakes breakfast after the run, and it was so nice to see everyone wearing them!

Congrats to everyone who ran on such a cold, windy day to support this amazing cause! We were happy to be part of the event.

Here are some photos.

Fall Fun!

Tara — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 18:08:16 +0000

Wow, it’s been a long time since we have posted! We have been super busy getting ready for Fall and winter holiday festivities. We have decided to do a couple of shows this season (one being the Rosedale Fall Festival at a church in Rosedale on the weekend of Oct 21) and have been busy getting all our stock ready for the busy season in stores.

We have also been working on some cool projects. We now in a production crunch for race medals that we have been working on since the summer. The medals are for a 5/10km run to cure Parkinson’s that takes place in Port Credit on October 14 (signe up here: http://www.livelifeoutdoors.ca/Race.html). It’s exciting for us to be able to support a great cause and work with an organization that seems to fit very well with our philosophy and visual style. We aren’t unveiling the medals until after race day, but I will give some hints: the tagline “Live Life Outdoors” and Jack Pine Tree logo fit in very nicely with some of our other jewellery lines.

We are also starting to work a bit more with gold and try out some wax carving techniques for casting. We’ll be finishing up a custom white gold wedding band today, and I’m so excited to see the final product being worn and enjoyed! Here are some photos of the finished ring!

Back in the studio!

Courtney — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 15:22:41 +0000

Wow, has it ever been hot!

Since our trip we’ve been spending a lot of time in the studio, replenishing stock and sending more pieces to our new stockists from our big trip (yay!)

The lines we’ve been spending the most time working on would be our Plant a Tree series and our Lost and Found Rings. Here are some photos:

The first two photos are of our soon-to-be-released Plant a Tree pieces, featuring deciduous trees! The tree pieces are not yet finished…there is still some clean-up to be done. When finished, these will be necklaces and rings.

The last two photos feature our most recent collection of rings (to be sent off to Glitz Gallery in Winnipeg and to another store in Vancouver).

Day Twenty Four – The last leg!

Tara — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 18:41:13 +0000

We got home at 3:00am this morning, so I am just posting this now.

We got up at 7:00 am yesterday (impressive considering we went to bed after 2:00am), and started out on the last leg of our journey. We didn’t get as far as we had planned the day before, so we had about a 15 hour drive planned for yesterday.

Our first stop was at a huge waterfall (I can’t remember the name of it). We made smoothies at the lookout point and then continued on our way. We had lunch in White River, which is where the inspiration for Winnie the Pooh is from. The original was a female bear cub named Winnipeg (Winnie for short), and was bought and smuggled to the London Zoo (London, England), where the author A. A. Milne was inspired to write the story of Christopher Robin (his son) and Winnie the Pooh. We sat on a patio and enjoyed sandwiches in the beautiful, hot sun.

I had to show Sarah and Dustin Katherine’s Cove (where I stopped with Court on the way out). Sarah and I took a little dip in Lake Superior, but Dustin opted to stay on the beach where it was warm. We had bought a big pickle to snack on in Wawa, but it was not very tasty so we played catch with it instead.

We weren’t planning to make any more stops, but when we passed a sign for ancient pictographs, we couldn’t resist. I’m so glad we checked it out! There was a beautiful but short trail down through a rocky gorge towards Lake Superior. Along the water is a giant wall of rock where the ancient Ojibway people had painted mythical creatures using ink made from crushed hematite mixed with either fish oil or animal fat. The paintings are thought to be between 150 – 400 years old, and their meaning is not known for sure. The view of the lake and shoreline was pretty spectacular. The trail was more challenging than it looks in photos, and we were lucky that the water was so calm– there were signs all along the water warning of the risk of serious injury/death in rougher weather.

We pretty much drove straight on through the night after that, enjoying our last 6 hours or so of car sing-alongs.

Distance today: 1437 km

Total distance: 12441 km

Day Twenty Three – Epic Achievements

Tara — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 06:57:51 +0000

We had a bit of a late start this morning. We slept in, then cooked all the food left in the car (pasta), and headed towards Thunder Bay.

Our most important stop was when our car reached 100 000 km. We took a video and had a celebratory picnic in a planted clearcut just off the Trans-Canada Highway.

Knowing that tonight was our last night of the trip, we wanted to make the most of it. We decided to stop early to experience Canadiana in Thunder Bay. We watched the sun set over Lake Superior from a local bar “On Deck”, while drinking Molson Canadian. We also got to pick 21 songs on the jukebox. As we listened to the heavenly sounds of Meatloaf and Billy Joel, we were all grateful for what we’ve learned about about our beautiful country and the people and places in it. We look forward to our comfortable beds and clean laundry, but wouldn’t trade a second of this adventure.

Distance today: 523 km

Total distance: 11004 km

Day Twenty Two – Two time zones

Tara — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 07:26:23 +0000

It is currently 3:00am in Kenora, Ontario, where we’re staying in a cabin just outside the city.

We had a great breakfast with Lisa’s family in Regina and then headed to the RCMP Heritage museum, where we got a free tour of the training grounds. It wasn’t a very exciting tour, but it was kind of cool to see the training centre for all the mounties in Canada.

We got some groceries and started driving towards Winnipeg. It was so beautiful and hot out today, and we had a very smooth drive. We stopped in at the Forks in Winnipeg for dinner and ended up hanging around for over an hour because there was live salsa music, drummers, and people doing tricks with fire. About an hour out of the city, we started seeing some crazy lightning (so naturally, we put on some classical music that matched the timing of the flashing clouds), and the it started to get pretty foggy and rainy so we started to look for accommodations. It took a while, but we made it to Kenora by about 2:00 am (or 12:00 prairie time, so not as late as it sounds). We have a kitchenette, so we will take advantage of that for breakfast.

Distance today: 831 km

Total distance: 10471 km

Day Twenty and Twenty One – Calgary and Regina

Tara — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 16:20:15 +0000

Yesterday morning we had breakfast at the lodge, and then went into a store in jasper that we visited on our previous visit. They now carry our lost and found stacking rings! There were lots of festivities in town for canada day so that was exciting.

We were going to take the tram up to Whistler’s to see the beautiful view, but when we found out that it was $30 per person, we decided instead to take our time Driving through park on our way to Calgary. We stopped at lots of scenic spots along the way (it was hard to find a spot that wasn’t scenic) and we climbed a small trail next to a big waterfall. It was pretty cold out, but we had a great time.

We got to Calgary around 7:00, just in time for a barbeque at the house we were staying at. We stayed with Steve (a friend from Toronto) and his cousin’s family. We went downtown for a drink to celebrate Canada Day, but we probably left a little too late, and didn’t have much time before the last lrt train left to take us back home. We ended up missing the last train and taking a cab.

Today we had breakfast in Calgary, then headed out on the road through the prairies! We stopped for a snack/drink on a patio in Medicine Hat, Alberta, and then drove straight to The Keg in regina, where my friend, Lisa was serving. After dinner, we walked around downtown and then headed back to Lisa’s to go to bed at a decent hour.

Distance July 1: 537 km

Distance July 2: 839 km

Total Distance: 9640 km