Shopping List Saturday: Eames ♥

you know about ray and charles eames, right? the hipster gods of mid-century modern. if not, get thee to a wikipedia entry or two. also. rent this. and watch it. you'll be so much cooler at your next design/architecture/art-nerd party.

row one: black cat print set by kerrybeary; i like to rock by jaimers; original veneer no. 3 by mimidoodles

row two: eames rar by pleasebestill; modern hang around chair by byrdandbelle; eames plywood chair necklace by chocolateandsteel

row three: graphic eames rocker by NanLawson; eames style print by ImJustRick; midcentury birds by FourcrowsArt

as always, find more sls at fancy picnic.

draw me: where did you go last weekend?

the answer: to vashon island, to get a look at the migrating grebes.

the mister and I are both suffering health-wise. that's fun stuff. it means lots of things, but one of them is this: neither of us can walk very far. this is a super big bummer. we are walkers. we walk every where. we're those people who park at the back of the lot so we can have a longer walk to the store. we have a hairy yellow dog. he needs walking. daily. (he's used to a three mile loop minimum.)

so. in the interest of not losing our minds, we've been taking road trips to new destinations that don't involve taking too many steps, but still feel like we're out in the world. two weekends ago we drove up to snoqualmie falls.

last weekend we went to vashon island to look at the grebes. they are migrating right now, and like to stop at the island for a few months to eat herring and mate.

except for this year. this year at the annual count, the locals spotted 17. a few years ago, they counted over 1,000. boo.

we did, however, bring the bird book. we saw maybe 50 grebes flying overhead as we sat at Jensen Point in the sun (gasp! the sun!), and a few more at Shawnee Beach (which, by the way, would be easier to find if any of the landmarks we were told to look for in our guide book had been there. okay, to the book's credit, the Important Bird Area sign was there, but a minivan was parked in front of it...). We also visited the vashon lighthouse, where we ate a fabulous picnic lunch in the sand and shells.

we also had the good fortune to hang out with a large number of scoters and of course, gulls and crows. they're all good too.

NB. Barnacle bill can be spotted quite often in these parts. Barnacles have been my new fascination for awhile. ever since i learned that they have feathery appendages that they thrust forth from their hard beaks to catch prey in the water. how great is that?

Also. tiny tiny shell guys. What kind of shell guys? Maybe sayra will chime in and let us know. she's a marine biologist, you know. she knows these things (it was she who taught me about Barnacle Bill). These two are having a conversation. Or tea. I'm pretty sure that if they're having tea, the tea is too small to see. so we can't know for sure.

you'll note, too, that i documented the pentapus that lives on the dashboard of our red jetta, Claus. what's with his name? well, dear reader, I'm glad you asked. he (strangely) only has 5 legs. he was found at ikea for the awesome purchasing price of sixty seven cents...so either A) they didn't have enough money to make all eight legs, or B) that's just how they are in sweeden. you be the judge. [this documentation took place while waiting for the return ferry. the trouble with ferrys, as you may know, is that they fill up fast, and sometimes you have to wait another hour for the next one. boo.]

why i ♥ seattle (this week)

in three parts.

Part I.: Gorilla outdoor art. Always. Like these shoes, nailed to telephone poles, telling stories in Ballard. Discovered while attending the year-round farmer's market to buy oysters. Always oysters. Yum.

Part II: The Art-O-Mat--an old cigarette vending machine transformed into an art store. Tiny art works from a number of artists. One token = $5 = wonder, awe, and delight. At a store that is also an artist collective/studio space--which is not listed on the art-o-mat website becuase it's that new and exclusive.

Part III: Sanctioned outdoor art. Like cement monopoly houses. And murals outside of restaurants. And paintings inside coffee houses.

draw me: what's on your desk

lots of good stuff. including, but not limted to: a wooden desk calendar from night owl paper goods, postcard stamps, my purple page up, mini moo cards, a sweet wind-up chicken from this store, off-white thread, extra buttons and thread from a new shirt, and a light up guy from ikea.

Shopping List Saturday: SCREAM

it's been a rough month. i take that back. it's been a rough year. (thankfully, the year has only just begun...there's still time for it to get better.) on that note, without boring you with the details, i give you nine (powerful, funny, if a bit haunting) screams.

row one: try screaming by wearmycolors; screamers by jrodriguez; scream two art print by sandrabilokonsky

row two: the crazy ungulate in bovine pink by PterodactylPants; screaming man by alphagirl; screaming bird by badbird

row three: screaming girl by HancockFamilyArt; whisper no. 2 by thelostegg; scream by retromance

as always, find more shopping lists at fancypicnic.

tf shout out!

Thanks to poppy seed tree for the tiny footprint shoutout on her blog. Check it out here. And, while you're at it, visit her sweet little etsy store where you can pick up stuff like this:

Shopping List Saturday: gavron style

Happy Heart Day! And now back to our regularly scheduled program.

For those of you playing along at home, you know that the graphic design business the mister and I run is called gavron designs, and that gavron is the phoenetic spelling of gawron, a family surname from the mister's polish heratage.

The best part? Gawron means crow. Thus, our logo (a crow) and our sweet fascination with these hilariously smart, fiesty, and loud birds.

In our home we have one crow painting (an original sumi-e painting on silk) and two adorable wooden crow sculptures (a male with a top hat and a female with a scarf on her head), but we're always on the lookout for more crow. Not too much crow. We don't want to eat crow. (har har). Nor do we want to be those crazy "collector" people who fill their house with hundreds of similar knick-knacky objects. However, I would be more than happy to add any of the pieces below to our crow collection.

Row One: A murder of silhouette crows brooch by sana; Crow over rooftop by Ketzelphotography; Raven cawing by crftyscrapper

Row two: Crows on a wire by Teha; Crow with hat by poordogfarm; King of his castle by CafeBaudelaire

Row three: Crow line hoodie by RedBootsDesign; Thoughtful crow by FawnandLark; Crow by auras

As always, for more shopping lists, visit Fancy Picnic.

An ode to the cracker

Here's to making things that come, perfectly formed, by the dozens in a plastic bag or sleeved into a long skinny box. Here's to figuring out how things are made, what's in them, and then making your own.

And here's to crackers. The lowly, crunchy base to glorious toppings of chevre and grape tomatoes, of chutney and cheese, of hummus and chives.

Instead of thinking of them as the afterthought, the table to my evening meal, the binding to my book, I made these crackers to shine all on their own. And, thanks to my forgetfulness (I neglected to put the corn chips in my basket this week at the market), we've been eating these little guys like chips all week. They're robust, wheaty, and full of onion and cilantro flavor.




The folks at work wondered allowed how (and why) one would make her own crackers. And I don't have a great answer, except that I saw a recipe for them and thought, "hmm, making one's own crackers. novel idea."

Plus, dear reader. When ever you make your own ANYthing, you get to make it exactly as you WANT it. Which is why I shredded onions and chopped cilantro, then replaced half of the flour with stone-ground whole wheat flour and then dumped a ton of flax seed in for good measure. So I not only feel industrious while I'm eating them (hey! I made these!) but healthy, too.

cross off numba six

You saw it here. Or maybe here.

Big thanks to Whip Up for featuring my tutorial on their site!

Shopping List Saturday: Cupcakes

It was really only a matter of time, wasn't it? I've been in love with cupcakes for awhile now. They're just...so...yummy. Plus, they're like little vacations wrapped in paper and slathered with frosting. Little clouds of joy and freedom. Monuments to sugar-scented kitchens across our round, sweet world.

Row One: The original cupcake necklace by sorryi'mlate; Keep calm and have a cupcake by jennysbakeshop; Cottage Soap Cupcakes by juliag1969

Row Two: Cupcakes by nottoopink; Yummy cupcake card by thecuteinstitute; Jumbo love cupcake by poppyseedtree

Row Three: Cupcake with cherry friend by cagedtomato; Monster cupcake-Barry by dkoss2; Purple cupcake and zombie by rockythezombie

new in the shop!

A super-sweet pillow complete with a secret pocket...and...wait for it...a pocket monster!!!


I had so much fun making this...it's a great stash buster as I can cobble together all my little scraps left over from past projects, plus add embroidery and other findings (this one even has a bell...yes...it jingles!).

close-up of of embroidery

pocket monster hiding in his pocket.

Find it here.

Cottage Loaf

From this book again.

Super yummy, light, and sweet, Cottage Loaf apparently always comes in this shape--a bit like a tureen (except the lid doesn't come off), or maybe more like a loaf that's wearing a hat. Either way, I approve. Wikipedia says that it's supposed to resemble a cottage. I've not really BEEN to a cottage, per se, but I'm willing to suspend my disbelief.

NB: This bread stands up to Adam's crunchy peanut butter beautifully.

(Since this is an English bread, I figured I could get away with the NB.)