holy wow...i love this!!!

i stumbled on this amazing artist, celeste potter, while dilly dallying before work...the song is pretty groovy too. and then i....whoops, almost burned my oatmeal trying to post this.

as a milestone approaches...

Ms. Christensen you are so absolutely stunning at 40...thanks!
i think that it is so easy at times to slip into feeling a dread or a denial of age.
...for me that it is. i used to always say that i had a dorian grey complex.
and i wept on my 21st birthday for the passing of years.
time is swift and can often be cruel. and now 20 odd years later(yes, for real odd...in some ways and quiet and simple in others) i feel the number forty creeping up the path and i truly don't feel that much different. i mean i don't wander around in a macrame bikini top and a gypsy skirt so much anymore, but the converse are still there. i still loathe cottage cheese and i still love to ride a creaky old bike with a bell on it's handlebars. ok i need to wrap this up...blah blah blah. i could go on and on waxing poetic on the virtues of being forever young as a state of mind. all i will say is that i have something big planned in my year that will be forty...and that i have a slight girl crush on helena christensen because she IS forty and also i resurrected my love for john cusack after watching say anything for the gazillionth time the other night. the end.
photos of Helena Christensen for Odd Molly (via Haus Maus)

go ask alice...

treasures from wisconsin...

little treats from my trip to lush and green madison,wisconsin...
*a carousel ride with a very dear friend(i miss you Monica!!!)
*a tiny milk glass pitcher
*a pink pony holding down a mountain of lava
* an ode to dr. evermore
"can i come hide with you in your post apocalyptic garden?
i'll care for your creatures of iron and steel.
i'll sweep out the remains of life as we know it and
bake you a pie of cobweb and thistle
and together we shall be fed for all eternity..."
*my feet catching sun at devil's lake
* the little girl who has stolen my heart
i had a most excellent vacation!

lost in a forest...

today i woke up after a couple car-azy dreams. dream vignette number one was that i was turning into a vampire. well, i was in the pre-blood phase, so i just had the floating off bed syndrome and the shakes. i know that this dream came about because G and i watched a swedish vampire flick called "Let the Right One In" last night. it is well worth a watch as it is super original(hard to find these days) and heartbreaking...just don't make the mistake we did and accidently watch it in the dubbed mode. i don't know how two film buffs could be such doofusses and not think to check the set up features, but ahem cough cough. so i woke up just positive that it was saturday and so excited because i have a massage appointment. stupid thursday!
but enougha my freaky dreams and wakey uppy letdowns!
this is a papercut that i did for my dear friend and hostess with the mostest Monica's birthday. it's part of my "Lost in a Forest" series.
i really love it.

i forgot something...

i almost forgot that i have a blog. i've been up to all sorts of things and i have pictures and projects aplenty, i just haven't felt like sitting in front of a computer screen for longer than a minute or three. soon soon soon i will be ready for proper documentation methinks.

onward and forward...

photo by me...from the most wonderful vivienne westwood exhibit at the v&a several years ago
this has been the first week of my glorious two and a half week vacation and it has been spent in a haze of toothache vs. headache vs. grogginess. i had the second part of a grueling root canal excavation last friday. it started ok with minimal pain, but then by monday, i was really hurting and out of it. i'm really not a big fan of slipping into the "valley of the dolls" with the pain killers, but i haven't had much of a choice. greg gets to chauffer me everywhere and he is a great sport. hopefully, maybe only another day or so of ache...wait scratch that. i want to wake up tomorrow with a fairy tale smile. i have projects to work on, places to go and people to see!

sunday was where it was at

sunday was beautiful! so beautiful that i had to wear a sunshine-y dress. i was so happy to visit my friend heather and her brand new, just hatched most adorable baby boy in the hospital. i always forget how tiny newborns are...so seemingly fragile and just impossibly amazing. his name is dashiell a name that i love because it is french, it is unique and it is oldy timey.
after my visit, greg and i decided to take marshall up the hill for a hike. i don't normally wear a dress or jewelry when hiking(nor do i carry a vintage bag, but i needed it for the camera) but in my defense, i had just watched 'picnic at hanging rock' the night before and felt inspired by lasses hitting the foothills in their frocks and i was wearing converse.
i also managed to save a drowning bee from some hooligans who were too idiotic to just scoop it out of the rock fountain. there were cheers of "ohhhh she's brave" to which i replied"hmph my father raises bees." they found this impressive and really my dad only just started with bees and is still in the "learning" phase. mostly greg and i figured that the hooligans just wanted the old folks to move along so that they could smoke pot. oh to be young in the summertime...

saturday

saturday was chilled and misty and made for sitting on the couch and finishing a book. also i made a sort of french peasant stew(no pics, i have yet to figure out the fine art of food styling and my indoor lighting sucks when it isn't sunny) and snuggled with the dog.

friday

friday was nice with a walk to the cafe for some apple juice, some goofing in a phone booth and the videostore...

bambino

this is my first little baby from the garden. sweet little lemon cucumber, how lovely you will taste sliced with some feta and sardines...

standin' in the shadow of the stinkiest flower ever

yeah, i know the shadow picture is kind of played and not so artful, yet i kinda like it. except that i look a little hippy. not hippie as in patchouli wearing, but wide, but i was carrying a big ol' purse and wearing a cardigan and it is an exagerated shadow and...anyhoo, sorry for the hip rant, greg and i went to see the very rare corpse flower. actually, we smelled it waaaaay before we saw it.
it did smell gross. but not like two day old cantelope rind in the garbage can gross or like my cousin russell's week old feet migraine inducing gross. it was a damp and musty and sickly sweet odor that permeated the air and zapped our nostrils. it was most incredible to take in(rare too) the last time one flowered at the huntington was in 2001. i should add that it was difficult to get a clear picture, because old folks were literally jumping in the way of the camera to get a closer look.

check your head

this is a little summer straw cloche that i am working on. the vintage straw has been repurposed from a crap 80's sort of bridal hat that i found at the thrift store. i just reblocked it with a little steam love and separated and reshaped the brim. i sized the crown with my handy dandy gelatin sizing and voila! i'm leaving the brim unwired to give it a softer shape. it is still kinda mid process and the velvet ribbon will actually go around the exterior of the crown(not just the front, i was feeling lazy for pics). i heart it so. but i may want to list it in my shop. my goal(dare i talk about goals???) errrrr my dream is to do more projects like this ie. repurposing sad and unloved vintage millinery and breathing new life into them. i have another smooshed up old beater that i am just starting to play with. is beater a word? did i make that up??? i think it actually means junky car, but whatevah. k, i'm off to pollinate my squash plants. oh don't mind the self-portrait, that was thrown in for good measure.

sunshine

photo by me
ha! the "sun" in sunny southern california is finally returning. i knew it couldn't be much longer. i love the grey and all, but it has been pretty chilly. mostly i know that my garden needs some helio motivation. supah shout out to Ben in bucolic Lutterworth(UK) for sending me a zip file full of photos from my first european journey. I should have known that you would have them...my hero for the week! Cheers!!!

a little swap...

i participated in a secret friend summer swap this week. the idea was masterminded by the talented and inspirational nadia. i think that there were about forty of us participating from parts near and far across the globe. the plan was to put together a mix cd, a couple of postcards(one with a favorite quote written on the back), and a little something extra of our own choosing for good measure. she would randomly give names to people and it is all rather anonymous. nadia gave us links to that person's blog and their mailing address and that is it! the rest was up to us and the postal service. the odd thing was that i put together from my giftee's blog that we had a mutual friend. in fact, someone who is very dear to my heart (of years past when i lived in the south). so what a lovely small yet absolutely freaking crazy ass large world we live in...so very random. i hope that my person likes her things. one card i made and the other is from a trip to paris several years back. i made the earrings which are vintage beads and sterling findings...the music is...well, one never knows how one's musical taste will be received. cheers!!!

the day the pictures stopped

this is a subject that i am not fond of...the day that all photographic records of my european travels were lost. there were hundreds of them. parisian doorways, an english country church, a glaswegian cemetary, self portraits of swinging high above the grounds at the carnival outside the louvre. i cried once i realized that my little ibook had deleted them at the hands of my own folly. anyway this was about three years ago and it has been hard for me to pick a camera back up with the same vigor and vim. that is one of the reasons that i wanted to start a blog...to wake up my dormant photographic eye. i'm trying!
the three pictures above are all that is left from the deleted photos. i had stuffed them into photobucket back in the friendster days. it makes me a little crazy that i can't enlarge them any more than they are because they are but copies of the originals.
p.s. one of the lipstick kisses on oscar wilde's grave stone is my own...

circus~y

all pictures were taken in the shop today...
i was bored and needed a break from bingeing on atomic fireball candy. i've had circus on the brain for the past few days. it started last friday when i caught sight of a big red and white striped tent going up in a field. the wind was blowing and the clouds tumbled a bruised grey over the foothills.

dream...

i want to live here. period. it is southern gothic at it's best.
i look at my own small apartment in sunny california and sigh...
images are from the blog beauty everyday located here.

weekend

my weekend was filled with thrift stores, shop updates, music, strong coffee, and the pasadena flea market with a friend. i fell in love with the mirror in the top picture. i have been telling people that i stole it from the palace at versailles(re-watched Marie Antoinette last week....guilty pleasure).
greg and i are now hooked into True Blood. we don't have cable so we are patiently waiting for the dvds to trickle into the video store. i want the books now too.i hate to admit it, but i am a sucker(ba-dump-bump) for vampires and sultry southern towns with sketchy inhabitants.

little baby smershalls...