Mushroom Tea Set

I love this!!! If I could justify spending the money on a child's tea set for myself, I would absolutely buy this!


...could my cat use this? or my box turtles?

It's available at Mahar Drygoods for $140.

Super Plush at Ghetto Gloss L.A.

I'll be coming to L.A. for the opening of a group show I'll be participating in called Super Plush!!!
Hope to see you there!

"Art by 22 amazing plush doll and soft sculpture artists"

September 25 to October 2

OPENING RECEPTION, SEPTEMBER 25, 7PM - MIDNIGHT
DJ LANCE ROCK
COCKTAILS
MORE

2380 Glendale Blvd.
Silverlake, CA 90039
323.912.0008

Yayyy!! A Unicorn Deer!

What's better than either a deer or a unicorn? A unicorn deer!

He lives in Italy, I wish I could visit him.

Capsule Design Festival, San Francisco

Hey, Everybody,

Well, it's been a super, mega, busy last month or so for me. I crammed a lot of stuff into a short period of time. But more about that later...

This Sunday I'll be participating in Capsule Design Festival in the Hayes Valley neighborhood in San Francisco. I will be sharing space with the fabulous fashion designer, Mignonette. We are booth 88. If any of you all are around town, please come check it out!

Here's the official word on the street:

Twice a year Capsule hosts over 150 designers for an all day,
outdoor, Sunday extravaganza in sunny, fantastic Hayes Valley.

This first show of 2008 will have 160 independent clothing,
accessory, jewelry, and lifestyle designers. As well as some select
artist, print makers, and producers of some random well conceived
curiosities.

As always the show is free and open to the public. (it is outside) So
come and check it out.

You'll hear a group of DJs, courtesy of Nature Boy, and the Pacific Art Collective returns to adorn an art wall.

DATE: Sunday, May 25th

TIME: 11am-6pm

PLACE: Hayes Valley, (Hayes at Octavia, will put you in the center of it.)

Map link

More Shelter-Kit Houses

Build My Own House?

Lately I've been obsessed with the idea of building my own house, mostly because I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and housing is way too expensive. Not that building your own house is necessarily more affordable, but...
In a very roundabout way, I came across this company called Shelter-Kit that offers all kinds of kits for building your own home. Some are kinda modernist cool, others are more old-timey cosy, and all seemed to be pretty customizable.
Basically, you design what you want based on different modular units and materials offered, the company makes everything needed (including a super comprehensive instruction booklet), everything is shipped to your site, and you build the house on a foundation you have prepared beforehand. You have to do the interior finishing, plumbing, and electrical, etc. yourself, though.
Anyway, I'm just into the idea of having a lot of control over what's going into my house (as in "no toxic weird stuff") and being able to partially design it myself. Like I could add alpine chalet details, windowboxes, porch, whatever to make it look cool.
So, can I find affordable buildable land lots in the Bay Area? That would be the ultimate challenge to making this little idea a reality.

My Pippi Figures Arrived!

I won the cool Pippi figures off of the Swedish ebay-type site Tradera! The seller was really, really nice and made my purchase very easy for me as he spoke, er wrote, fantastic English.

Here's a picture of my Barbapapa figure welcoming my Pippi figure, hee hee.

Someday I hope to visit Sweden and see all the cool Pippi places, etc. in person. There's Astrid Lindgren's World Playpark in Vimmerby. Apparently there's a recreation of Pippi's house as well as a whole bunch of other people and places in Lindgren's many books.

One of my favorite artists, Carl Larson (and his wife, Karin, too) is from Sweden and you can tour the house that he and his family lived in and built. So I definitely want to go there and also to the places where his murals and paintings are exhibited. I was really lucky to see some of his original paintings at a museum show about the Arts and Crafts Movement at the L.A. County Museum of Art.

And, of course, you can't forget Ikea. Gotta see where Ikea all started.

Barbapapa Hedgehog

Does anyone remember a cartoon called Barbapapa? It was on probably in rerun in the late 70's, maybe early 80's, and I think it was originally European. I found this video on YouTube of a Barbapapa artist turning into a hedgehog. I know, I know, WHAT am I talking about? You'll just have to watch and see:

Pippi Longstocking things

It goes without saying (although I have said it many times) that Pippi has been a longtime hero of mine. Generally, I go through obsessive periods where I focus on one topic for a while and just voraciously search for things, read things, buy things, etc. that have to do with that topic. I remember one Christmas, I only asked for pirate Legoes. So, you guessed it, right now it's Pippi again.
The one bummer though is that it's really hard to find places to get Pippi items in the States, or at least places online that are in English. So far the coolest Pippi stuff has been on this Swedish ebay site, called Tradera. In order to figure it out, I've been translating everything word by word with an online Swedish to English dictionary. Kind of a long process, but that is the extent of my obsession. So I figured out finally how to register for the site and search for things, etc. but I can't seem to ask the sellers any questions- super crucial since I need to know if they can ship to the U.S. and how much it would cost.
So what am I wanting so much to go through all this trouble?
Well, those are some of the highlights.
I still haven't bought the hedgehog mobile or the foresty deer plates because I'm stuck on these Pippi things. "Geez, Katy, you're such a consumer!" That's what you're thinkin', right? Well, probably the answer is "yes". But I'm not that bad. It's just that I have some Christmas money saved up, and I really want to buy something fun with it before I use it to buy something boring like toilet paper!

Hedgehog Mobile

This company has amazing mobiles. I wish I had more rooms and more space so I could hang a bunch of them, but I might have to find a home for this one.

Really awesome dinner plates!

I just had to share this. I was looking online to replace a bowl that had broken from my dinnerware set (I know, how domestic of me) when I came across these plates. I'm thinking I might have to get them!
I saw them online here.