knick knacks & ric rac

i know i’ve said it before, and this won’t be the last time…i love etsy! my newest favorite shop is doll disaster designs. i couldn’t be more thrilled with these two new cuties…

i was fortunate enough to ‘discover’ these goodies from reading liana kabel’s blog and immediately fell in love. tessa rickard makes molds from old toys and other fun and strange things, then makes casts out of plastic and assembles them into extraordinary pieces. they really fit right in with my knick knack obsession. yay! now i can wear knick knacks too!

i just put some new things up on my website…go take a peek!

did you know little house on the prairie is my favorite tv show ever? and that i watch it every weekday morning as i drink my tea? the funny thing is i had never seen it until i moved to california about 10 years ago. it’s what inspired me grow my hair out so i could braid it. i cut it all off in jr. high (and made my mother cry, but she ended up liking it after the shock wore off) and i always wore it super short. today laura and mary were wearing the cutest knitted or crocheted bonnet-with-attached-scarf combos i’ve ever seen…

a close up of laura’s…i love the little rosette thingy on the scarf part. this one makes me think of monica burnett’s lovely kooky cute hats and headbands, and how i want to get one.

when disney decided to make the little house miniseries a couple of years ago, i was a little worried that it would be, well, disney-fied, but it totally wasn’t. in fact i thought it was great, way better than i ever would have expected, i was not disappointed. too bad it didn’t make it into a regular program.

special thanks to the ever-cute adorn magazine and to knitting magazine from the UK for featuring my goodies in their latest issues! how exciting!

you’ve probably noticed there’s no shortage of espadrilles this summer…especially now that most of them are on clearance. i never really got into them, i don’t really care for that rope sole. the kicker is that they’re available in so many cute fabrics and styles this season, what’s a gal to do? spraypaint! i picked up these cute polka-dot ones for cheap…

this is what they end up like with a little help from a can of spraypaint.

so much cuter and perkier, i think!

incidentally, this is the same paint i used for my mushroom necklaces, and what with the polka-dots, they look really cute together. (it didn’t occur to me when i bought them, now i know why i needed them! they match quite a few things i make) if you want to try it yourself, spray on a few coats of primer first…that rope stuff really sucks up the paint. also, the rope is kind of hairy, and it seems even hairier after you paint it. i just smoothed the hairy stuff down while the paint was still a little tacky.

epsadrilles always remind me of my kindergarten teacher, mrs. ryan. i liked her. i also had her for 1st grade. i always remember her wearing espadrille wedges and wrap around skirts with big appliques on them. this is my kindergarten class picture…that’s me holding up the sign in the front row.

here’s some pictures of lovely ladies sassin’ it up on the runway during a mini fashion show i did a couple of weeks ago…fun!

here’s some of my favorite art hangin’ around the house…

these two are by a girl named amy moi who was an art student in boston. she had a little show up at the middle east around 1994 and i fell in love with her stuff. these are screen prints featuring knick knacks and stuffed things she had. you know i love knick knack art and screen printing! the deer one is called ‘my little pal’ and the other one is called ‘space monkeys’. every once in a while i try to look her up on the internet to see if she’s still making stuff. i haven’t found any info.

 

fruit and veggie people by alycia m. in ’65. i bought these at the melrose high flea market right after i moved to LA. each one has a recipe underneath featuring the fruit and veggies the people are made out of. fittingly, these are in the kitchen.

this is a painting on wood by eric ernest johnson, 1993. it’s called ‘underwater love affair’. it’s in the bathroom. where else would a sea hag and sea monster fall in love? my friend mari ran a little art gallery out of her house a few years ago, i saw it there and it really tickled my fancy.

mushrooms by rodriguez. these are in the bathroom too, and inspired my toadstool skirt. this is what you look at when you sit on the can. i found this at a thrift store i used to love, then some lady started working there who tried to accuse me of stealing! as if! that so offended my sensibilities i haven’t been back since, despite the temptation…it was a pretty good thrift store, and i used to find alot of great vintage fabric there. (that was about 6 years ago, i’m sure she’s gone by now, maybe i should go back?)  but really! just thinking about it gets me steamed.

 this lovely piece is also from a thrift store. all embroidered with yarn, and simply signed ‘mom’ in the lower right hand heart. aww. this one is hanging in my workroom. that’s it for now! i’ll show you some more later.

summertime makes me want to go on road trips. i don’t have plans for any this summer (which is probably good or else you’d never see those dresses i’ve been promising!) i shouldn’t say i don’t have ANY planned. i want to go to solvang and eat a giant pancake, but i guess that’s really just considered day trippin’. here’s a couple of my favorite road trip pictures…

going through the drive thru tree! i think this one is the chandelier tree. i’ve driven through a few drive thru trees in my day.

somewhere near dollywood…this mini golf course boasted 99 live rabbits running around on it. strategically parked so it looked like this giant bunny was on my car. tricky!

eerie picture near devil’s tower…

999999–>000000 road trip to las vegas to commemorate the occasion! (click the picture to enlarge…feel the excitement!!)

i’ve been tooling around in this rig for 19 years and counting, ever since i learned to drive. i was interviewed about my car and road trippin’ in this book around 1994 or 95.

this here is my ‘new’ ride, and part of the reason new goodies are such a long time comin’…i know, i should be sewing!

i’m still a little obsessed with the Cutest Handbag in the World. i really want a cuckoo clock purse. i was thinking i could make one out of an old wooden house purse, and i started looking at the endless array of house purse options on ebay…

i think i’m going to get one and paint it up real cute like one of the little cuckoo clocks from my collection, and maybe even put a working clock in it!

also, i’ve been hard at work on some dresses which i am very excited about (and should be available soon), along with a few new skirts coming up in the next few weeks…stay tuned!

you know i like knick knacks, and i like to make knick knack art with them. i started a bunch of these shadowboxes a while ago and i work on them here and there when i need to take a break from printing and sewing. i finished these two up last night…

the mermaid one is part of my “hook, line and sinker” print mod-podged onto the back and sides of the box. i embellished it with a pair of slightly chipped seahorse knick knacks, some iridescent glass globs (they’re bubbles!) and some underwatery looking translucent plastic flowers. maybe i should adda little seaweed!

the woodland one has a woodgrain background and the bird is perched on part of a broken mini cuckoo clock. there’s a little plastic fawn staring angrily at a couple of toadstools. i also stuck in a few plastic pine trees for that woodsy ambiance.

the shadowboxes are 5″x7″ with a glass front.