Songbird

 

I have had a thing for vintage knick knackery for as long as I can remember.

The number of things I collect is vast, but I try, try, to keep the actual collections in check.

And by in check, I mean finding a dual purpose for a pretty tchotchke wherever possible: flower festooned tea and biscuit tins hold batteries and spare buttons; a couple of the well-coiffed ladies from my head vase collection pull double duty as bookends.

I blame my grandmother for this particular obsession. She got the whole ball rolling on my first birthday when she gave me my very first Josef Originals Birthday Fairy, a tradition she continued for more than a decade. My little fairies are still proudly displayed to this day.

So it's no wonder that I fell head over heels for these kooky little lovelies from Amanda Smith.

 

 

 

 

Part girl, part bird, and completely awesome, Smith's Singing Bird Sculptures are made using out of production mid-century molds.

Her spot-on eye for color adds the perfect retro touch to these sweetly left of center figurines.

I want one. Or three.

Really, you can never collect too many things if they're completely wonderful...right?

 

{all images via Amanda Smith; available here}

xo

Out With the Old

 

 

......and in with a bright, shiny, New Year.

A fresh start, a clean slate.

365 brand-spanking new days, each of them a blank canvas waiting to be filled.

And fill them, I will.

I have big plans for you, 2013.

New projects, adventures, possibilities.

Trials and errors.

So much to do.

So much to share.

It's gonna be a great year.

xo

Merry and Bright

 

 

 

To quote the Peanuts Gang, "Christmas time is here".

The halls are decked, the tree is trimmed.

The stockings are hung by the stairs with care (it's what you do when you don't have a chimney).

The leftover trays of cookies from last night's parties serve as today's breakfast.

And lunch. And, quite possibly, dinner.

It's snowing.

 The tv is on, and Judy Garland is singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas".

So do that. Make it Merry. Make it Bright.

And may all your Christmases be white.

Happy happy to you, my Dear Readers.

xoxoxo

And So This Is Christmas

 

Over the weekend, I dragged the big bins of Christmas decorations down from the attic.

Nephew 1 was so excited. His eyes, how they twinkled, as he opened box after box of carefully wrapped vintage glass ornaments.

Mine were filled with panic: visions of the two little boys, already deep in the grips of Santa Fever, invading my tiny, glass and glitter-filled space multiple times weekly, danced through my head.

So, back up to the attic with two still half-filled bins of decorations I went.

But the glass balls stayed behind.

In bowls and in vases, and on roll-reducing crochet doilies. And on much, much higher shelves than in years past.

And it looks like they're there to stay, at least for the next couple of years.

For this summer, those two will become three, and a new little bundle of awesome will be invading this space this time next year.

What a lucky aunt I am.

xo

Shop 'Til You Drop

 

Hey friends...

Just wanted to let you know there's a little sale happening in my Etsy Shop.

Enter the code MANYTHANKS at checkout

to take 15% off your entire purchase through Monday.

Because all of you are at the top of the list of things I am grateful for this year.

xo

Fly Like A...Turkey

As a rule, I generally steer clear of parades.

Something to do with a crippling fear of clowns. And things on stilts.

That being said, I've kinda always wanted to go to the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade.

And, while I've spent many a Thanksgiving in New York, it's always been upstate, just a quick hop and a skip past the city.

But the giant, character-shaped balloons have me thinking that perhaps, one year, a detour, even the kind that makes you late for pie, might be an ok thing to do.

 

  

 

 

 

Wishing you all a wonderful Thanksgiving.

xo 

 

 

In Stitches

It is no secret that Jenny Hart knows her way around a needle and thread.

Her Sublime Stitching book (and those that have followed since) single-handedly brought the antiquated art of needlework solidly into the 21st Century, giving it a modern twist with stitch-by-stitch patterns for such kitschy goodness as margaritas, burlesque queens, and mom tattoos.

But her embroidered take on concert posters is just, well, sublime.

 

 

 

 

{images}

 

I can only wonder what my grandmas wou;d've made of that.

xo

 

 

 

You Are What You Eat

Thanksgiving happens this week.

At least, here in The States it happens.

This is a big one for us.

America, in general, is not really a big food culture.

You would be hard pressed to believe that this week, though.

Battles are being staged in supermarkets across the country for the last few picked-over brussel sprouts and dented cans of Redi-Whip.

Highly orchestrated schedules have been mapped out to fit everything into the oven at just the right time.

Tables are being extended, and chairs being pulled from every dusty corner of the house.

The fine china has been washed; the good wine glasses are drying in the drainboard.

The same meal, in some form or another, is being served in every single household across the country, for family and friends gathered from near and far.

It is the one day out of the year that we Americans really identify ourselves with the foods of our land.

For on Thanksgiving, we become like the rest of the world, and celebrate our heritage through food.

 

 



{Flags made from the food of the countries they represent.
(USA, United Kingdom, France, Italy)
Created by the WHYBIN/TBWA advertising agency for the 2011 Sydney International Food Festival}

Like a Record, Baby

 

A few weeks ago, on a particularly wet and ugly day, I pulled out my dusty old lo-fi turntable and a stack of B-52's records.

It was a desperate attempt to amuse two house-bound nephews.

It worked.

Nephew 1 seemed to have some idea what I was talking about when I suggested listening to records.

When he saw them, he stated that they were "just like really big cds!"

And as soon as he heard the first notes of Rock Lobster, Nephew 2 was on board, doing his funny little baby dance.

Big. Hit.

Nephew 1 kept dragging out more and more records, spending the entire afternoon sitting on the floor staring at the spinning discs, wondering how, exactly, all of his favorite songs were coming out of the black vinyl.

Nephew 2 was content to break into sporadic dancing whenever he saw fit.

Happiness all around.

It made me rediscover all of the albums I forgot I owned, enjoying the pop and hiss that can only be achieved through turntable magic.

It also got me to thinking about Sleeveface,

the genius project in which people submit photos of themselves "recreating" album covers,

often with absolute brilliance.

Behold:

 

 

 

{images}

 

Like the Weather

The weather here has been, in an overused word, extreme.

The summer was almost unbearably hot, and it was followed by an immediate and definite autumn.

No slow lull into the changing season. Just hot, then cold-ish.

Two weeks ago, we were hunkering down while Sandy blew her angry winds past the windows.

(We escaped any real damage; just lots of fallen leaves and branches, and a roof shingle or two. We were lucky. Really, really lucky.)

Hurricanes, by their very nature, are of a tropical ilk. Days after this one, temperatures were just barely making it above the freezing mark.

Last week, it snowed.

All of these extremes in temperature and conditions take a toll.

Not just on our wardrobes and immune systems, which are struggling to keep up from day to day, but on our streets.

And streets around these parts aren't exactly smooth and baby's butt-like to begin with.

The crazy temperatures have the blacktop contracting and expanding, buckling and pothole-ing.

And apparently, we aren't the only ones with a pothole problem.

In Paris, the problem is so bad that it caused a fed-up Juliana Santacruz Herrera to take to the streets and yarn-bomb the pesky pits.

 

 

 

{images}

 

Perhaps I should grab some yarn and needles and take a page from Herrers's book.

xo