She rocks with paper and scissors

I love stop-motion animation. I love it even more when it is about this sweet book by my friend Julie. This -- or her first Ninja book -- would be a great treat in a young reader's Easter basket (that is your hint to go on Amazon right now and buy one. Or two).

Julie made the stop-motion video herself. She is super-talented. She also paints and makes jewelry, has a kick-ass sense of humor and excellent taste in movies. Check out her Etsy store for more.

New Bird On The Block No. 28 chirps farewell to 2010

Seven Thirty. Collage on paper, 4″ x 4″, 06.10.10, by Randel Plowman

I have long coveted many pieces by Randel Plowman of A Collage A Day. Sadly they are usually scooped up by the time I click over to his site from an email or Google Reader. So I made haste when he announced his sale on orphaned collages (sale priced? with matting? and free shipping? sign me up!). I was shocked to see a few bird ones among the orphans. Of course my favorite was already sold by the time I clicked on it, but after a little digging I found the beauty above and made him mine. He arrived on Wednesday and is sitting in a place of honor on the curio cabinet, awaiting a frame.

With so many blogs and sites to read on the interwebz I am constantly thrilled and humbled that you are here. As we bid adieu to 2010 I wish you a New Year filled with all good things, and when you count your blessings and your friends, may you find you are “the richest man in town”.

A book worth a thousand pictures

Four of my favorite things: books +the art of paper cutting + stop-motion + man with foreign accent = great video about the joy of reading, via the New Zealand Book Council:

Recipe for a Perfect Summer Weekend in NYC

{The Flatiron Building, Askew. It was the only way I could frame the whole thing with my little camera}

Pre-heat the calendar to the last weekend before school starts. Take one hard-working marketing director (me) and one high school music teacher (The BF) with a pending birthday, and add:

 

A cheap bus from Hartford to Midtown, a camera shop that is the mecca of photographers and technophiles everywhere, a French bistro that serves late lunches of moules frites and wine with Lillet. ABC Carpet & Home on Lower Broadway, an ice cream truck that you heard about on NPR, a shady bench in Union Square Park.

{The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck parked at Union Square}

A wonderful hotel in Murray Hill, a subway map, an iPhone app for Zagat that tells you where the locals go for Italian in Greenwich Village. Pasta made in a cellar, wine made in Piedmont, panna cotta made in heaven.

 

 

{Porca Miseria Chandelier by Ingo Maurer}

Picasso, Magritte and Ingo Maurer's "Porca Miseria! Chandelier" at MoMA, a street fair on Sixth Avenue, fantastic sandwiches crafted by a Top Chef, a wedding in St. Patrick's Cathedral. Used books at The Strand, an unbelievable birthday dinner at the Union Square Cafe, sitting next to a movie star, hoping to flag down the Cash Cab, drinks at a swanky nightclub.

{The Round Table, at the Algonquin Hotel, Where Mrs. Parker and The Vicious Circle dined and dished}

Another street fair on the Ave where the Men are Mad, finding Dorothy Parker's seat at the Algonquin Round Table, breakfast (and another wedding!) in Bryant Park, trying to figure out where they used to put the Fashion Week tents, dashing through Midtown to catch the bus back from Penn Station. Home.

 

All photos by me. More on my Flickr page.

Today I'm also participating in Hooked on Houses "Hooked on Fridays" link party, so scoot on over there and see what everyone else is hooked on.

A mouse for my house

I am in love with this mouse print, by Berkley Illustration and available on Etsy:

I imagine their names are Beatrice and Bertram. The artist says they live “in a yellow cottage full of cozy nooks and secret passages. You may find it a bit peculiar, but their best friend is a grey cat from France.” I totally believe her.

Found via MA Belle. More fun prints from Berkley Illustration here. Reacquaint yourself with Beatrix Potter’s mischievous Hunca Munca and posh Johnny Town Mouse here.

Now that my computer is back up and running I will be posting more and stopping by more of your blogs. I have some great pics from a recent NYC weekend for The BFs birthday. Eating and shopping and celebrity-sighting, oh my!

These aren't the droids you are looking for...

Star Wars creator George Lucas is an architecture buff (who knew?). The Architects' Journal, a British mag, recently chose the top ten buildings from the Star Wars series, and lists the real-life buildings that inspired or were inspired by them.

{from Episode V, aka The Empire Strikes Back, arguably the best of the bunch, Cloud City. Part 1 of the AJ article claims it is mirrored in John Lautner’s Chemosphere House.}

{This is not the home of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars (Episode IV, my favorite) or The Phantom Menace (Episode I), but the Ksar Ouled Soltane, one of the Berber granaries of Tunisia. According to Part 2 of the AJ article, they were the inspiration for the artisanal houses of Tattoine}.

The headline for this post is a line from Episode IV. Yes, I am a geek. But only for the "real Star Wars", the ones from '77, '80 and '83. "Help me Obi-Wan, you're my only hope"

Ooh you crafty thing (and a local giveaway!)

Oh, we should all be so fortunate as to make a living off of our own creations.

{I want this hat! Hand Blocked Hat, Velvet Jacket by Ossi Rioux}

{14k Pearl Earrings by Paul Dannecker}

Pictured above and below are a few of the many items featured at the Sugarloaf Craft Festival, traveling the East Coast and coming to Hartford this weekend, March 27-29. If you are local and would like to attend, leave a comment and you could win some of the free tickets the organizers were kind enough to send to me specifically to share with you.

Please leave your comment (or email me) by midnight Tuesday so I can mail you your tickets in time for you to use them this weekend.

{"Window Sill" by David Maynard}
{Signature Ring by Robert and Martin Taber}

These ain't no kindergarten scissors

{Impenetrable Castle (detail), 2005, by Peter Callesen}

I am so envious of artists who work in a medium like this, their skill, their patience. It's not like an oil painting, where if you make a mistake you can paint over it, or a dress, where you can rip out the seam. One slip of the knife and kaput! hours of work, ruined.

Peter Callesen, the Danish artist behind these creations, magically turns two-dimensional paper into three-dimensional images. He calls it "obvious magic, because the process is obvious and the figures still stick to their origin, without the possibility of escaping. In that sense there is also an aspect of something tragic in most of the cuts."

{Cut To The Bone, 2007}

"Some of the small paper cuts relate to a universe of fairy tales and romanticism, as for instance "Impenetrable Castle" inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", in which a tin soldier falls in love with a paper ballerina, living in a paper castle. Other paper cuts are small dramas in which small figures are lost within and threatened by the huge powerful nature. Others again are turning the inside out, or letting the front and the back of the paper meet."

{Erected Ruin, 2007}