SOS439: All About Family

This fortnight at Shopping Our Stash we're "All About Family"! Whether that's a card for a special family member's birthday, a jumpstart on Mother's or Father's Day, a memorykeeping project featuring family photos, or just a word like family, dad, mom, brother, niece, etc, appearing somewhere in your sentiment... there are lots of ways to go!  

I realize my project looks like a scrapbook layout, but it's actually a 6x6 card. As the sentiment implies, it's for my father-in-law's birthday; and the guy on the lawnmower is my husband, Jeff, circa 1962. I had been sorting through some older, duplicate pictures and thought my FIL would get a kick out of seeing this one again. And let's face it "guy cards" are hard, so whenever I come up with an idea I haven't done a hundred times, I just run with it! Apart from the photo I've got a Dymo Label sentiment and a mix of reallllllly old papers: the background with the houses is either Amy Tangerine or Maggie Holmes; the stars inside of circles I think might be Scenic Route; the rulers are so old they don't even have a tearstrip or a name!

Be sure to visit SOS and see the amazing design team creations, then start thinking about what you will make that's, "All About Family"! 

from norway (& nj!) with love

recently i had the very great pleasure of having my lovely friend linda brun come to stay for 10 entire days of art-making, treat-eating, shopping, cooking, journaling, crocheting... in other words, pretty much the best STAYCATION ever! :)

cool chicks onna train
(photo by linda brun)

during that time we made several excursions into new york city: we had dim sum at golden unicorn, took in the feast for the eye that is the rubin museum, and even cruised a couple of favorite thriftshops on 17th street... (angel street and housingworks chelsea) ...tho alas, we have no amazing finds to report from the latter.

sesame balls... my favorite!

on a different day we met up with massachussetts' sweetest and most talented freestyle crafter sandi taloumis, and together we all rode the subway a few short stops out of manhattan to visit the brooklyn art library, home of the massively inspirational sketchbook project*! obviously we had to do a bit of art shopping, as well, at blick and the ink pad. in the face of such overwhelming fun, i somehow managed to take NO PHOTOS AT ALL, so i'm posting (with permission) this one linda took of the three of us (plus 2 extraneous passers-by, lol!) that i really love:

in front of the ink pad
(this pic and lots more awesome ones by linda brun; go check out her instagram account!!!)

the main purpose and event of linda's visit, though, was what we came to call "art camp". we set up a big long folding table in the living room, loaded it with supplies-- paint, stencils, stamps, pens, pigments, vintage paper, magazines, modelling paste, and pretty much anything else that struck our fancy-- and spent the majority of our free time playing and experimenting in our journals. you can see linda's work on her blog-- my favorites are the series of "found faces" that she made over the course of several days; i posted some of my things on instagram at the time, but here are a couple more pages, both finished...

craft paint squirted right out of the bottle, tinted modeling paste thru circles stencil, lots of outlining, plus hand drawn and shadowed bricks. the latter were linda's idea, she thought the word looked like graffiti--this is why it's great to make art in the same room with other people, i would not have thought of bricks! :)

...and unfinished:

modeling paste through a fern stencil, shadowed with stabilo pencil on top of random ink spotches; i'm not in love with this one, but i wasn't really going for a finished product, just playin' with my stuff! 

finally, to cap the whole visit off in style, linda made fabulous new multi-media journals for herself, sandi and i:

we are going to all three work in each of them in turns, via the mail, so that at the end we will each have a book with work by all of us in it. i'm thinking we'll all need to meet up again next year to review the end result! well, ladies? who's in?

♥♥♥♥♥

*the sketchbook project-- both as an idea and an exhibition--is AWESOME; however one thing you might not realize until you get there (at least, we didn't!) is that you won't be allowed to just randomly pull books off the shelves and flick through them, each item must be requested electronically and will be brought to you by one of the librarians. for maximum enjoyment, it's a great idea beforehand to cruise the digital library, create a free account, and make yourself a little queue of examples you'd like to see in person! meanwhile, the brooklyn art library is a short, safe walk from the L train at bedford ave, through a neighborhood with plenty of shops, restaurants and other fun places to visit! well worth the trip! ♥

merry christmas!

whether or not you are celebrating today, i hope you are having a wonderful, calm, happy day... and maybe even have a few treats to look forward to! in case your preferences run to eye candy, here are a few photos from our trip to longwood gardens on sunday:

longwood gardens, in kennett square, pennsylvania, close to the delaware state line, is glorious in EVERY season, but secretly, christmas time might be my favorite, as you can see, they go ALL OUT in terms of decor!

most of these pics were taken with my iphone; jeff shot using our "real" digital camera, and we made a little flickr album of those to share with members of the family who couldn't come with us that day.

if you go to longwood, it's a really good idea to pre-book tickets online because they get quite a few bus tours in addition to individuals and families, so it's possible a drop-in visitor could be turned away if they are full. (this has never happened to anyone we know, but especially at xmas we do tend to book ahead.)

in addition to bringing your camera and some comfy shoes, you'll want to save a bit of time and a few extra calories to have a cup of longwood's justifiably famous, uber-rich, creamy mushroom soup in the cafe. there is also a more formal restaurant on site, but we like the quickness of the cafeteria-style one, and the menus (including availability of beer and wine for the over-21 crowd) are similar in both places.

all of the indoor and outdoor facilities at longwood-- including the enormous 20-room conservatory which houses most of the christmas display during the holiday season-- are wheelchair-friendly and very accessible. there are wheelchairs and motorized scooters available to rent on a first-come, first-served basis. we've gotten a scooter for my mother-in-law several times, and it makes it possible for her to enjoy the very same experience as the rest of the family.

we've been to longwood... gosh, i'm not even sure how many times! it's quite near jeff's parents' house, so it's a semi-regular stop for our family. but no matter how many times we visit, the experience is always different, and always wonderful! ♥

all i did was buy some pumpkins!

to decorate for halloween, i mean. seeing as it's our first holiday in the new house, i bought a few real pumpkins, as well as some of those little plastic candy-pail ones, that i'm going to light up with flameless candles this evening to direct our trick-or-treaters to the side door from which we plan to dispense our candy. i was feeling pretty excited about this, until the other day, when i happened to have a little extra time between appointments in lambertville, new jersey, and my friend and hairdresser phyllis suggested i stroll down union street to see some of the decorations.

lambertville has always gone all-out for halloween. in addition to the typical trick-or-treat festivities, there's a big parade the weekend before, and on halloween night most of union street is closed to cars, so the houses there go all out in decor!

and wow, is it ever impressive! the creativity of ideas really blew me away, and i just could not stop snapping away... as you can see, lol.

this particular stretch of union street is mostly residential, and there are a lot of grand victorian homes, which particularly lend themselves to this sort of thing.

a few businesses get in on it too, though.

by far my favorite is the dragan house, which is pretty famous, locally. mrs. dragan was the art teacher at the town's elementary school, and it's not uncommon to hear local teens and twenty-somethings speak with great excitement about a project they loved making, or a play for which they helped make scenery, or some special thing they did in second grade, which has not stopped feeling special ten or fifteen years down the road!

every single one of these figures... (of which i've captured only a pretty small fraction; maybe a tenth?) ...was hand made by mrs. dragan, from the ground up! she builds wire armatures and then covers them with the kind of plaster-n-bandage type of material from which casts for broken arms used to be made, in the olden days.

 
not only have i failed to capture the scale of this amazing display, i didn't even attempt to show the way the house's windows were painted to look as if there were dozens more characters inside.

even just that i was there during the day means you cannot tell that at night the whole thing is black-lit and luminous!

it's not surprising that this house was featured on a special episode of "four houses" but something that really does shock me is, apparently, it only took second place?! seriously??! i demand a recount!!! :) :) :)

top ten* reasons last week ♥ROCKED♥ in a big, big way!

the amazing stephanie

met me in new york for a few days of serious revelry. which is already hard to beat on the fun scale!!!

new york's architecture

never, ever, fails to amaze me; a fact of which anyone who's seen my instagram feed is surely already aware, lol. grand central was only a few blocks from our hotel... (the affinia shelburne) ...as was the chrysler building, and the empire state. i've seen most of these iconic landmarks on a regular basis quite frequently for the past few years, yet i still never tire of 'em. i kind of hope i never do. :)

street art

this life-sized wall painting was on ludlow street, just below delancey. it's not a banksy, though there was one quite nearby. thematically, this sums up the week, but we saw so many amazing examples all over the city, it was almost overwhelming. in a GOOD way!

dim sum... and other extreme yumminess

this particular day featured lunch at the golden unicorn on east broadway, in chinatown, but basically every single meal we ate was glorious! from burgers and frozen custard at shake shack, to upscale indian fusion at devi, to the killer view and awesome goodies at the museum of art and design's restaurant, robert, we ate like queens the entire time!

front row

the museum of the chinese in america is a little gem, generally, and this exhibit was one of our faves. this luscious anna sui dress would even make ME consider giving up jeans. 

all the submarines of the united states of america

chris burden has all five floors of the new museum to himself at the moment, and has really made good use of the space, with large-scale, thought-provoking, conceptual installations like this. 

photo ops EVERYWHERE you look

about the only thing better than stopping 1,000 times to take pictures en route to any new york city venue, is traveling with someone who never thinks that's weird or inconvenient. just one of the MANY things to love about stephanie!!! ♥

xenobia bailey

the artist-in-residence at the museum of art and design on the day we visited was the amazingly talented, inspiring and friendly xenobia; i suspect she makes most of the people she meets to want to crochet colorful, whimsical creations... or just watch while she does!

shopportunities galore!

two big favorites: the strand bookstore for funky used books and periodicals; kinokuniya for washi tape, maps, tiny neko cats, and other fabulous japanese goodies

the subway 

yeah, it can be confusing, not to mention crowded; but you can pretty much get to anywhere in the city from anywhere in the city, for $2.50. and there's some rather awesome art to see on the trip, such as this gorgeous lichtenstein mural near the 42nd street shuttle.

crochet, crochet, crochet!

being on vacation means extra time to play with yarn; and being in new york city means you're only a short journey to union square's awesome lion brand yarn studio. so let's go!!!

daniel craig

although we did not encounter him-- not even cinematically-- being in the same city at the same time totally counts. totally.

the art of the brick

nathan sawaya's amazing LEGO art, at discovery times square. one of the best art events i've ever attended. and yes, i'm completely serious. if you're going to be in new york before january 5th, you MUST go... with or without children! you can thank me later.

*or, strictly speaking, as it turns out, top thirteen reasons. what can i say, it was a REALLY good week; i probably could have done a "top 50", so just be glad i'm this restrained, darlings! :)

house tour, anyone?

i realize it's taken me an age to post these, but basically, just we had justgotten the entire downstairs unpacked, set up and decorated, when we made the sudden and unexpected* decision to refinish the floors! so of course we had to pack... up... everything; have all the work done; and wait (and wait... and wait...) for it to dry and cure completely. then unpack and arrange everything all over again. this time we're prettttttttttttttty dang sure it's staying this way for the foreseeable future!

ok, so starting with the entryway, as you come into the house:

in the midst of the floor saga, we were given the hand-me-down pink couch. which, on paper, seemed like it would fit really well in the entryway, where i wanted some "stopgap" seating. as it turns out, it's waaaaaaay too big for where i planned to put it. so we've done a re-shuffle, and swapped the seating for these two rooms. i'm still not in love with the result, but i can totally live with it until i find my dream couch. or possibly my dream chaise longue? this one is a serious contender at the moment.

moving through the next arch... (which, can i just pause here and say,"ARCHES!!!!!!!" definitely a big style point for me in this house, i love them!) ...you get to the dining room:

this floor was in pretty good condition, but it was very pale, and when we decided to re-do everything, we went with the darker color throughout. jeff insists i also show you the following photo, which was taken standing in the next arch, but looking back. so you can see back to how the dining room connects up. luckily there's a BIG PINK COUCH to orient you, eh?! :)

off to the side is the kitchen, which is a bit dated. in a few years, we'd like to renovate, but yet another selling point was that it is perfectly use-able until then! my favorite part is the table area with those big sunny windows overlooking the backyard.

at the moment, we've got a card table and folding chairs, but between the tasty food and the nice view, that doesn't seem so bad!

finally the living room, which can be accessed via the stairs you saw in the dining room, or by going around the corner from the eat-in area of the kitchen.

the only furniture we bought for this room is the entertainment center; everything else came from our apartment, where the sectional was a "space saver". weirdly enough, it somehow also works to anchor this much larger room. which is awesome because it's still in good condition and it's comfortable!

and YES, there's a spiral staircase. i mention it because whereas i find it somewhat disconcerting, everyone else LOVES IT! personally, i keep expecting hugh hefner to swan down it in his pajamas, but it *is* a nice shortcut to the master bedroom. and yes, there's a "regular" staircase too; much to the relief of our movers who somehow missed seeing it the first time they came through the dining room. you should've *SEEN* the look on their faces! :)

and now my camera and i are going to take a little rest, but we'll be back soon with some pics of the art lair and maybe the master bedroom? in the meantime, happy saturday, darlings!!! ♥

*we were expecting to tile our entryway. period. but when we pulled up the carpet and lino... SCORE! we found the same lovely hardwood that connected up with the two adjacent rooms. thus instead of covering it up again, and because the other two rooms had mysteriously been stained completely different colors with NO effort to transition neatly between them, we decided to make the leap and just do THE WHOLE JOB all at once. a vast (and seriously messy!) undertaking, but sooooooo worth the time and money! ♥♥♥

why this tuesday was the best one of the whole entire summer!

i can sum it up in two words: amy tsuruta*!!! ♥ yep, she was in new york, and we got to meet up! she and her awesome kids came to the metropolitan museum of art with me, where we caught the utterly fab PUNK: chaos to couture exhibit. then we headed up to the roof for a few photos:

yes, i know, i have a goony expression. i always have a goony expression in photos! i'm also *literally* a foot taller than miss amy. in this pic, i am half-sitting on the parapet... and i've still managed somehow to loom! ah well. nothing can dull my enthusiam for what i feel must be pretty close to the PERFECT summer day in nyc. even the weather, which can be (and has been!) seriously humid, was lovely!

also on the roof of the met this summer, is imran qureshi's amazing painted floor! a different artist is commissioned each year, and the art is always bold, but this is almost breath-taking, in a number of ways! it's also the back-drop for what i think is my best shadow self-portrait to date:

while on the upper east side, of course i couldn't resist showing off the guggenheim and the (currently being renovated) cooper hewitt museum. to have two such remarkably lovely... and remarkably different... pieces of architecture within a block of each other always blows my mind!

as does the gelato at ciao bella, though admittedly in a completely different way! did i mention it was the ♥PERFECT♥ summer day in new york? well, it bears repeating! thank you amy, and thanks also to the girl and to the boy, for sharing a little piece of your vacation with me, what a pleasure to hang out with you guys! come back SOON!!! ♥♥♥

*in case you're wondering, "is she as lovely and friendly and amazing IRL as she seems online?" the answer is, "nope... she's actually EVEN NICER!" so now you know!!! ♥

if you're on instagram...

...you may have seen these already, but it's been awhile since i did an "all instagram" post, and having got some pretty good shots up on the high line in new york city the other day, i can't resist piling them all together!

based on my instagram feed, you could be forgiven for thinking i either work for IAC or am stalking frank gehry, but i just never get tired of photographing this building. 

on this particular trip i was lucky enough to have lovely husband jeff with me. he is emphatically not a person who loves cities, but being one of the nicest men alive, he will occasionally come to new york with me, as a special treat. 

seriously. i NEVER get tired of it.

for my part, i try to be a good hostess on these occasions, and choose activities that i think he will most enjoy, or at least, that he will not actively hate. i *KNEW* he would really love the high line... and he did!

the empire state is hard to beat for iconic new yorkiness

this being jeff's first trip to that amazing and creative park* you would think that i would've taken lots of photos of him enjoying the day. sadly, you'd be wrong. i am a bad, bad, wife! :)

i don't know the name of this building, but i love the round chimblies!

here's a shocking confession for you: i don't really like taking photographs of people. for one thing, they move around, which i find challenging... i have a hard enough time capturing an image i like of stationary objects, lol!

this huge sculptural installation by el anatsui is hung on the side of a building bordering the high line, and is made of rusted metal and mirrors; it's called "broken bridge ii" and looks completely different now than it did six months ago.

i don't even really like to take traditional landscape pictures either, though, and often hear the complaint that you cannot get any sense of context from my pictures. but i figure if you want to see what the whole high line looks like, you can google it; because let's face it there are guys with cranes and helicopters and elebenty millimeter professional lenses that have already done that job waaaaaaaaaay better than i ever could. 

it seems unlikely that these dinner-plate-sized puffballs are actually martian dandelions, but they sure do look like they could be. the estimable missus trash opines that they may be alliums, and a quick googling seems to support her view!

what i do like is to frame little macro bites of one thing at a time. a couple of flowers, an interesting turret, some tree branches against a pretty patch of sky.

these flowers look like black-eyed susans... except PINK! :)

on this same new york trip the other day we also visited the rubin museum, where one of my favorite current exhibits was a group of pictures of the most beautiful and desolate burial shrines in the desert of northern china, by a photographer called lisa ross. in one of the descriptions of the work, she refers to the photographs, which are, i suppose, technically landscapes, as a series of portraits of these sacred places. and i thought, "she's right! that's EXACTLY what they are... and that's why they are so amazing, too!"

some of the flowers on the high line are as architectural as the surrounding buildings

i love the idea of photographing something that's big and outside and inanimate... but doing so in an intimate way. and if you have an opportunity to visit the rubin before the middle of july, you should definitely check out lisa ross' uyghur photos!

a few birches in the gansevoort woodlands, at the end of the highline. the first time i visited, i could actually peer OVER THE TOPS of some of the "woodlands"! :)

and now i need to go and tidy myself up, because we are expecting a couple of strippers to arrive here at the house in about an hour! :) :) :) no seriously, we really are! ok, yeah, technically they are FLOOR strippers, and coming to talk about refinishing the hardwood in our entryway... but that doesn't sound nearly as exotic, does it, lol?! wish us luck, darlings, we are hoping for a cost estimate that comes in under infinity dollars! i fear we may be slightly optimistic in this, but i'll let you know! ♥

*the high line is a uniquely lovely urban park garden built upon a mile or so of disused elevated freight railway line that runs above tenth avenue through the meatpacking district in manhattan. they have an excellent website, on which you can read more about it, btw. :)