A Beautiful Hike in Pacifica

Just before it started raining again, we went on a beautiful hike in Pacifica. For anyone that lives in the SF Bay Area, I highly recommend it. It's the Hazelnut Trail accessible in the San Pedro Valley County Park.

We passed by gorgeous oak trees, manzanita, tons and tons of wildflowers, plus birds, critters, and banana slugs. The air smelled wonderful, too. Oh yeah, and there were mushrooms that looked like toasted marshmallows.
 

Bavarian Gnome Cup & Saucer Plate Set

So, yes, I was wasting time doing gnome searches on ebay when I came across this! The sweetest plate set of all time.

I know that maybe I'm just a small niche market, but seriously, why can't there be more dinnerware like these? I mean, how many floral patterns does the world need? And plain white is certainly nice, but compared to gnomes...riding snails...taking walks with frogs...?

They're from Germany, of course, and have the cutest scenes on them, all different, and are from the 1930's. Get it here ...before I change my mind and buy them myself!

Happy Easter!

Had a very nice Easter today at the Cliff House in San Francisco. It was storming, but we had a seat by the window and saw a pretty dramatic rugged ocean- lots of waves crashing on Seal Rocks.

Course we all forgot our cameras.

I did make an Easter Bunny Brooch to wear from a weird little vintage bunny head that I got at a cool mom & pop craft shop in Sedalia, MO.
Here's a pic!

Etsy and Craft Bar

Got the Etsy storefront up and running again after a super long hiatus, whew!

Also, this Thursday, technically today, April 1st, 6pm, I'll be teaching a tutorial on how to make a cute plushie bear from an old sweater.

Come join me for this installment of Craft Bar in conjunction with Etsy and held at the awesome Museum of Craft and Folk Art in downtown San Francisco.

Here's the info.

Hope to see you there!

Midcentury Hedgehog

Like tons of other people these days, I've been really interested in midcentury design. I love the clean simple lines and general aesthetic, and wow, what gorgeous furniture came out of this period!

So, today I did a search on Etsy for "midcentury" (unlike many of my other searches where I frequently type in "hedgehog"), and lo and behold, a midcentury hedgehog appears. And just like the midcentury design tenets of form + function dictate, this little hedgie is also a toothpick holder!

You've got to check him out here.

And an amazing tablecloth!

As I continued my "midcentury" Etsy search, I came across this amazing tablecloth with birds and flowers in a Miro or Calder-esque kind of style. If I could be sure I could use it without getting spaghetti sauce on it, it just might have been mine.

You're a wonder, Wonder Woman!

I want this Wonder Woman doll so bad I had to put this picture up! Where will I get $200? How can I justify the expense? These are all questions waiting to be answered...

Here's where I saw her.