a spraying i will go...

i'm up way too early for a saturday because.........i'm off to work in an hour to airbrush a gynormous cloak to look like the the stony face of a mountain. 6 dancers and one singer fit under it. there will be fun to be had in the costume shop today for sure.
but, before i ventured out, i needed to post these little dolls as seen in the blog of sveta drescher.
very inspiring and beautiful. thanks to Lobster and Swan for posting the link to these lovelies today.

in honour of mister jones...

i thought that i would rustle up some pics in a salute to Stephen Jones. and then i was a little miffed(ha!) when i realized that my millinery photos are pretty limited. i made all of these several years ago. the first one was for "The Merry Widow" and it is a wire crown and buckram brim.the black bird is quite old and i think that i threw some vintage lace pieces on there somewhere too(there's a lot going on with this hat!!!). the other two are from "The Marriage of Figaro." i was hooked on Philip Treacy at the time. the black one is a black velvet covered wire frame with coque feathers, tulle, fabric flowers and wired rhinestones. the second number is a bridal piece. it is a wire "fontange" style frame with vintage velvet leaves and paper hydreanges(never use paper flowers for a long running opera...most unfortunate). you can't really see the veil, but is has an added scalloped edge with embroidered flowers and then i cut out more little flowers and stitched them throughout the tulle. note to self...take camera to work.take pictures with said camera...cuz these pics are ollllllllllld. thanks for indulging me! stephen jones, YOU ARE AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!

oh to be in london and to be a mad~hatter...or, another hero

i make hats on a fairly regular basis, but this first little film made me a little misty...it sums up very quickly, the hours of labour that go into making one simple top hat. i soooooooo wish that i was in London to see this exhibit.

welcome spring...

i wish that i could say that this is me, but it's a stolen photo from Graham and Green and Design Sponge's cherry blossom post.

mistress mary...

mary mary quite contrary
how does your garden grow?
with silver bells and cockle shells
and pretty maids all in a row...

mary is mary, queen of scots and the silver bells refer to thumbscrews. the cockle shells
could be a reference to her husband (and his roving eye) or possibly yet another instrument of torture that would be attached to the ahem(!) genitals. and the pretty maids? maybe her ladies in waiting or maybe the guillotine. ahhh such sweet allegory in a lovely little rhyme...

a gaggle of bracelets...

buttons buttons buttons
how i love buttons...
"sew buttons"
"button yer lip"
"button down the hatches(k, i know it's batten)"
these are my bracelets that i am offering up to the opera boutique. i'll also be putting together some earring sets. everything is old and the chains,clasps and jump rings are all sterling. i hope they likey!
*apologies for the corniness and the fuzzy pics(still trying to work out my new camera).

"when told that a certain woman would not hurt a fly, i retorted...well, not if it's buttoned up." -Dorothy Parker

"on fortune's cap, we are not the very button."
-William Shakespeare

“biographies are but the clothes and buttons of a man - the biography of the man himself cannot be written”

-Mark Twain

just another hero and a lovely lass...

50 million ideas and a grey sunday...

my weekends just don't seem to be long enough to do everything that i want to. it takes me at least a half day to just recover from the chaos of my previous weeks work. i am just counting the days until april when everything will simmer down a bit. i spent saturday evening finishing up bracelets for the boutique. i am pretty happy at how they are turning out, but as i am in such a creatively prolific period right now, i just want to crank out pieces like a machine. unfortunately, i am also easily distracted. this means that i also went thrifting(found a most excellent and huge mirror), poked around the library, played with the dog, broused at the nursery(picked up some mint and an heirloom tomato plant after much deliberation), and experimented with baking macarons(and failed miserably yet tastily!!!).
i also made a second visit to the "rat house." i was so in love with that apartment and i thought sure that it would be ours, but after less than five minutes in the place and hearing the movement in the walls i was running for the door. i had gone by myself this time just to listen and poke around and think about this maybe being the next place that g. and i would move to. scratch scccccrrrrraaaaattttcccchhh. it came from two different sides of the living room. one side being in the vicinity of the fireplace. it was such a creepy feeling...kind of like being watched and i was having flashbacks to watching salem's lot on tv as a kid and how the old scary house had vampires living their undead lives in the walls. spooooooky. vampires and/or rats are a real deal breaker, so greg and i will stay in our smaller apartment..stupid nosferatu...stupid fear of the plague.
i did manage to snap this pic in the mirror of the built-in in the dining room. this was literally seconds before the scratching and shuffling sounds in the walls started up.


took another trip to the huntington today with some friends. it was fun to act the part of bumbling docent and then to just sit on the lawn in a bed of clover and pass the afternoon.

a quiet morning...

this morning i am moving slowly after a brain numbing migraine yesterday. i have a short list of some things that i really would like to take care of today, but i can't quite move past drinking tea spiked with ginger slices and watering my outdoor potted plants that have hung on through the winter and the scourge of last summer. i was so thrilled to find chamomile and cilantro seedlings sprouting up from the soil last weekend. i figure, if i get an early enough start this year, then perhaps there will be hope of having some happy plants this summer. all i want is a simple little potted garden. sounds easy right? sighhhhhhhhhhh. i have limited space and intense sun. i have tried sunshades and different soils and peat and so on and so on...and so, this year the game plan is just to be an early bird. that's it.



also on today's docket in no particular:

• the purchase and application of hair dye from whole foods market
• pick up jewelry bits from my supplier
• hot soak in the tub
• library
• bake some scones or maybe macarons...i'm feeling bake~e~licious right now
  
• pick up seed packets to send to my beautiful 2 year old god daughter Amelia
  

maybe that's it...i would like to see coraline or the wrestler, but i'm not sure how my eyes and head will feel later. it would be nice for greg and i to have a date though.

saturday morning goodness...

more lovely ladies...

some more bits in action...

here is another little somethin' somethin' that i had to throw together for the Ring. one shot of the "helmet" in the shop right after i had completed it and another shot of it in action on the singer's head. it is made of three millinery wires used as a basic support for the structure and the rest is ridgeline a very light weight plastic boning. the inner headpiece is a padded band with a fine wire halo that is wired to the outer structure. the whole thing only weighs about half a pound.

two things...

first we have a tableau in black and white with fuchsia that is composed of

• a truly amazing figurine created by katy and sarah (my two favorite frauleins) in honour of Das Rheingold's opening and of course portraying my gal Freia
• a mini canvas with a gaff tape eye that was done by Achim Freyer during a fitting with the singer who wears/lugs around the Freia costume case(he decided that the apples should have eyes)
• a milk glass puddin' cup that i got at salvation army this weekend...plus two mystery seed pods picked up at the garden
• a framed papercut that i did a month or so ago(more on that another time)
• a cheapo cut milk glass looking vase w/fading camellia
• a signed charcoal drawing that Achim Freyer gifted me with in thanks for my hard work(instinctually, i think that it is Freia, but i dunno...i love it!!!)
  

nextly, this was my delicious dinner of cheese risotto, roasted butternut squash and a poached egg...yolky goodness and don't forget the parmesan and freshly ground black pepper.

a teaser...

also...lucky me to have such a sweet friend no matter the miles or the years...

it was a sweet end to a crabby day last tuesday when i came home from work to find a box chock full o' sea shells and necklaces(also that most excellent news photo of coach bobby bowden used to stuff the box was hot) . thank you meagan, you made my week and i am so happy to have you back in my life. and...i really really wish i could come have some soup. earlier that evening at rehearsal, i was also given a super cute 5o's cardigan with an abstract print of flowes and leaves. this was totally unexpected and came from someone who barely knows me, but knows that i love vintage. thanks mary!!!! you are a doll!!!

a visit to my new "backyard"

i have become a member of the huntington library and gardens. this was a big decision for me as it is a little pricey to join(well just over a hundred dollars) and nowadays i am trying to crack down on errant money fumbles...but this is so worth it and just a bike ride away!
so today, even with the grey gloom, i wandered around for a bit and sat on a bench by the lily pond(pictured above) and tried to read my darwin biography. i couldn't concentrate though and it was a bit chilly so i walked around and found loads of cherry blossoms and beautiful dried up pomegranite bushes...and then, i remembered the "beautiful science" exhibit in the library. so instead of reading about darwin, i was able to examine some of his and other naturalists of that eras(and before) work. i love the self~portrait of me looking at hand blown glass bulbs that are AGES old and kept in a special box that allows them to be hooked up to electricity but will not drain them of their oldey timey juice. it looks like i am wearing a crown of stars...

valentine my valentine...

this morning i woke up at kind of a normalish 7 am(normal for work days) Greg was up and when he saw me he got kind of bothered and wanted to know why i was up and suggested that i go back to bed for an extended saturday sleep. i should mention that Greg had not been to sleep yet as he and i are on totally different schedules. anyway, forced back to bed for another hour or three i awoke to banging and clanking in the kitchen mixed with the faint aroma of sizzling pork fat. YUMMY...within minutes the bedroom door was opened and in walked my sweetheart with a tray full of breakfast goodness and one long stemmed beautiful red rose. i don't really put much emphasis on this day of hearts and flowers. i like it for the kitsch factor, but i don't demand(only demurely yearn) sweet cupid's excesses. but breakfast in bed!!!! yes please! pancakes, eggs over medium, sausage and orange juice(with a fizzy emergen-cee bomb). sweet sweet boy...

sweetest valentine...

gloomy beautiful sunday...

bless grey days in southern california. without them i think that i could well go off my head. they make me wax nostalgic on my time as a girl growing up in the rural countryside of pennsylvania. on grey spring days i would run through our back field pretending to be jane eyre traipsing across the moors. all i ever wanted to do was move to england. i tried to convince my mom that i should be enrolled in the study abroad/student exchange program. she refused on the basis that she just knew that i would be absolutely positively miserable. FIE on that...
today was also a day for retail thrift therapy. after hitting anthropologie yesterday and being in love/hate with everything(LOVE the aesthetic/HATE the price tag especially when i know what it costs to make these things...), i heard the soft psychic tug of st. vincent's beckoning.
i always have to heed the call. love ya st. vinny's.

sigh...

this looks dreamy!

le buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

i love bees. i mean really, i love them. i don't shoosh them away when they dip into my personal space. i want them to live and i want them to thrive. it is a dream of mine to someday become a bee charmer. it would be a cherished relationship founded on respect and a mutual love for flowers and honey. i should share that at around the age of 10 i was involved in an unfortunate mishap involving me, two friends and a swarm. we were playing superheros in the woods and had found an old dead tree to push and pummel. i still remember the way that dark cloud looked as it funneled out of the tree. but, those were yellow jackets and not bees.
save the honeybee. save the world.