Talking Painting by J. Richel
Vintage Paint by Number Postcard
Test Print Journal
Just a quick Hello as a take a short break from my packing and shipping duties over here at the Curiosity Shoppe- you holiday shoppers are keeping us busy!!
I have hedgehogs on the brain today! I was packing up some of the hedgehog point markers we have for sale in the shoppe and that got me thinking about all the adorable pictures I've seen online recently of peoples' pet hedgehogs. Don't even get Derek started on pet hedgehogs... he's been wanting one ever since he found out that they can be trained to use the litter box! Cute as they are, I just can't imagine our 2 kitties ever getting used to having a little hedgehog roaming around the apartment. He'll just have to settle with the yarn and felt hedgehog I made (pictured here enjoying a nice sunny day out on the lawn) and the magnetic hedgehog paper clip holder that sits on our desk. (Hedgehog photos courtesy of cuteoverload.com)
If you haven't heard it...Ha! what am I saying, of course you've heard it. Well, if you don't OWN it, please stop reading and get on over to iTunes and buy it. Every single song on it is fantastically good: O Tannenbaum, Christmas Time Is Here (both instrumental AND vocal!), My Little Drum, and of course everyone's favorite classic Linus & Lucy, oh, and Skating!! Can't forget Skating. Unbelievable!! If I was more tech savvy, or less lazy I would have clickable streaming mp3 jobbies here for all these songs. Sorry. Maybe L's mom can hook me up. She has mad blog skills.
Anyway, the good news/actual point of this post is that Vince Guaraldi was more than just the guy who most perfectly scored the television specials of one of the greatest comics in our nations history. He also put out a bunch of other really great albums that AREN'T icons of any particular holiday (that I'm aware of) and thus may be listened to any day of the year (except December 25th). So while you're out there picking up "A Charlie Brown Christmas" also check out some of his other albums which are also very excellent and deserving of our attention. Including "Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus" inspired by the 1959 French/Poruguese film Black Orpheus.
Round One of our outgoing orders from yesterday!
We were so excited when the new issue of ReadyMade arrived in our mailbox yesterday, with our gift guide contribution right there on the cover!! Derek came up with the great idea of making days of the week neckties, complete with an animal icon to represent each day of the week. (My favorite, after Monday's rooster tie, is the camel on Wednesday's "hump day" tie. Genius!)
Shepherd's Pie, Maple Cookies, and Happy Cats
Sorry to be repetitive, but I wanted to share our fun adventure last night and it just so happens to involve a bunch of great people and places that have already been mentioned here before. Oh well...lucky us.
One of the joys of running The Curiosity Shoppe is seeking out new handmade items to sell. Something else we'd like to start doing more of is making our own crafty items to put on the site.
Thanks so much to everyone who joined us Friday for the grand (oh, it certainly was grand!) opening of the Hardware Store gallery's new show, Get Together! And a huge special thanks to Susan O'Malley and all the fantastically talented artists whose amazing work is featured in the show: Keri Oldham, Sean McFarland, Lindsay White, Ashley Neese, Sarah Applebaum, Alex Clausen, and Jonn Herschend. If you're in the Bay Area, please swing by and check out the show. Here are a few shots from the opening, we'll post more (where you can actually see the work) at the Guild website soon.
Last weekend we were fortunate enough to make it over to the Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek for the last day of their most recent show, "Embroidered Stories, Knitted Tales". As I'm sure you've realized by now, we are big fans of the yarn arts, and this show featured 38 artists who are doing amazing knitted, crocheted and embroidered works on wood, fabric, paper, and just about anything you can imagine.
Embroidered pill bottle by Leah Markov-Lindsey
Thanks to everyone who came to our Dia de Los Muertos party last weekend! Here are some of the beautifully decorated sugar skulls. We were so impressed with everyone's handiwork with the icing and sequins! In addition to these sugary crafts, we also made tissue paper marigolds and ghosts, carved jack o' lanterns, and ate a ton of great food prepared by our good friends and co-party coordinators Doug & Carrie. (Special prize goes to Carrie for keeping her cool after cutting her finger on a can of pumpkin and making it back to the party on time after getting it all doctored up.)
With Day of the Dead coming up and all, I thought I'd take a brief moment to honor a woman I never met, and hadn't even heard of until I saw her obit in the Times this weekend. First of all, Petra Cabot lived 99 years. Good for her. That's hard-core living. Secondly, she was an artist, and I respect that. Thirdly (and most famously) she was the proud inventor of the Skotch Kooler, "the best-looking bucket anybody ever saw," as she put it. And she's right. It's a beautiful piece of work. And handy too, capable of toting around 4 gallons of your favorite liquid, and so well insulated it could keep ice cream frozen for 2 to 3 hours without ice! Petra's design first hit the market in 1952 and though there have been some technological advances in the last half-century no one has even come close to imagining a cooler kooler. You can still find these beauties at flea markets and on ebay, but make sure it's got her signature on it, otherwise it's just some shoddy knockoff. And (surprise, surprise) it just so happens that Petra worked with another personal hero of mine, Russel Wright, one of the key players in bringing modernism to the American masses back in the day. Our friends John & Conn recently visited Wright's house in upstate New York, check out their awesome blog Cuckoo for Coconuts for some dazzling pictures of the house and surrounding woods.
Treasure Chest Tuna Sandwiches! How can I resist? (Though I may leave out the "pineapple tidbits" that are in the recipe.) I found this ad while flipping through an old Sunset Magazine we picked up at the flea market a couple weeks ago, circa 1955.
I posted this photo especially for John, who requested "more kid pictures!" Here I am at age 3, obviously quite proud of my trick-or-treating bonanza and about to devour this entire mountain of candy.
Here are some images from the November issue of National Geographic, which just arrived in our mailbox yesterday. As always, it is full of the most beautiful nature photography around. These two photos are of some white mushrooms from Ecuador and a leafy seadragon (cousin of the seahorse) found in Australia.
We're planning a Day of the Dead/Halloween party with our friends Doug & Carrie for this weekend, and of course there are going to be crafts galore, including sugar skull decorating! So far we've made 13 of them, and look how cool they are! I'm excited to see how they look once everyone has decorated them with sequins and icing, but I have to say I kind of like the way they look pre-decoration too. Spooky and sweet, our favorite combo. We hope to see all of you Bay Area Guild members there on Sunday!
A few months ago, we introduced Lauren's mom to the wacky world of blogs. It seems that in doing so, we've created a monster. Luckily, it's a super-creative, interesting, fun, artsy-craftsy kind of monster. So the other day I was checking out her blog, and she had a great link to a site where you can customize your own seal (see above). I've always been curious about all sorts of heraldry, crests, and official-type ornamentation. And I'm still a sucker for patches and badges. Perhaps part of me wishes I had stuck it out in the Boy Scouts. Can you imagine what an awesome collection I'd have now...
Phew! What a weekend!
Crafts: Then we headed over to the Craft Gym for a party celebrating the launch of Craft magazine. It was perfect for us since we've been looking forward to checking out both the Gym and the magazine. The Gym looks like a ton of fun, they've got a great space and they offer lots of cool classes for all sorts of DIY-ing. The magazine looks fantastic too. It's beautifully produced, nice and thick, and since it's from the folks who brought us MAKE, we weren't surprised to find it filled with lots of crafty, smart projects. Some of the more ambitious ones remind me of the early days of the DIY movement when "Doing It Yourself" was less about making a wallet out of duct tape, and more about laying the foundation for your house. Luckily they've got a range of projects for all interests and skill levels. We were excited to see stories about some of the fun stuffed we've obsessed over here like crocheting chaos, loco gocco-ing, and the beaded wonderlands of Liza Lou.
