nature walk

almost too beautiful to give away, a set of four different cards from lisa congdon's nature walk series of gouache paintings. they would look really sweet framed as a set. $9.50

books, chairs and bears

she paints and draws people, bears, chairs and books (all of my favorite things). jane mount sells these sweet ink/watercolor/gouache pieces on her etsy shop and will even do larger pieces and commission. (via my love for you is a stampede of horses).

the art of the display: yumi yumi

Artist: Aline Yamada
Poppytalk Handmade: Table 93
Shop Name: Yumi Yumi
Website: yumiyumi.etsy.com
Blog: yumiyumiart.blogspot.com
Location: Columbus, OH

The first image (above)
These prints are all displayed above my son's dresser in his room. From left to right, they include "Tastee treats" by Little Friends of Printmaking, "The Garbage Tree" print by Daria Tessler. and my own I can count to Eight. I use little bulldog clips for the Tastee Treats print and an Ikea Ribba frame for the I can count to Eight print. The Garbage Tree print I still haven't gotten a frame for since I just got this past week. Also the plush monster is from cottonmonster.com and the bunny from lookwhaticando.



The second image-
These pieces are in our living room on a shelf my husband built from an old waterbed frame. The little wax head is from an Anne Hamilton piece we got from a good friend who worked for her. The little painting is from Bloodle, the framed print is by Yellena



The third image -
This is a silkscreen/collage piece done by Brandy Grogin and hung with bulldog clips in our upstairs hallway.



The fourth image-
This is a multi plate intaglio print titled "Disinter" by my husband, Jason Chambers, framed by two pieces of plexiglass and hardware that hangs by our front door.

madeline adams

i was really taken with the colors and shapes of this oil on canvas piece (above), named "two in one", by philadelphia artist, madeline adams. primarily a painter, experimenting with various forms of printmaking and other media, adams brings her traveling experiences and memories into her studio, where her work becomes the dialogue within visual and human relationships and the idiosyncrasies of individual details. her work is represented through balahu.com.

book lamp

such a cute idea for a lamp coming out of the june/july issue of bust magazine. it's their 15th anniversary coming up and i just got a sneak peek of this. i'm looking forward to finding it on the newstand, so i can see how they drill holes in these books. i found this online tutorial from canadian living which doesn't make it look too hard.

mister postman sampler

{ letter to my love necklace by eclectic eccentricity }

i have been writing and rewriting a letter -- a real, honest-to-god, ink on paper letter. sometimes the best and only way to express yourself is by writing everything down, putting a stamp on it and hoping for the best.






{each photo links to its shop}

blackboard fabric

now how cool would a footstool or chair re-upholstered in this stuff be? or even easier, a tablecloth to write fun messages to your dinner guests on, i'm thinking up all kinds of things for this blackboard oil cloth fabric from bell'occhio out of san francisco. imagine the possibilities! (via designer's block).

reform school student of the month

All the way from Fiji, Reform School's Student of the Month are a limited edition of hand-painted, silk-screened Fijian Baby Zaishus stools produced through the TribeWanted Project. It's a portable, simplified seat/table/box that slots together without nails, screws or glue. The Zaishu project is an international collaborative event, recording patterns, designs and cultural texture from around the world on sheets of plantation grown veneer.



The TribeWanted project is a community-based tourism program that works closely with the Mali tribe where the TribeWanted members spend time on the island learning about the traditions of Fiji, and sharing their knowledge on what it means to be green. Each month, the TribeWanted membership elects a “chief” who is given a small budget with which to take on a legacy project. Kaz Brecher, an LA-based visual artist, approached Zaishu and Reform School a year ago about collaborating on this project. As the elected April Chief, she set out to work with the tribes to produce a limited edition of 50 Baby Zaishu chairs. These one-of-a-kind functional art objects, printed with water-based inks, are exclusively for sale through Reform School, with all proceeds benefiting the Mali District School, supporting arts and sustainability education.

the art of the display: pistachio press

we're launching our "the art of the display" series today from our poppytalk handmade participants who are sharing pictures of the art in their homes and how it's displayed. to start things off, rachael hetzel of pistachio press is sharing some unique pieces.

Name: Rachael Hetzel
Shop Name: Pistachio Press and How Now Design
Poppytalk Handmade: Table 106
Website: Pistachio Press
City: Rochester, NY

These images were taken in my living room. I have art hanging throughout my house, but I especially love that these pieces greet me when I come home every day. The first image (above) was taken just inside my front entryway. The quilt was made by Abbey Hendrickson and the small painting on the right wall was painted by Jim DeLucia. On top of the card catalog (which houses keys, gloves, and loose change) is a bookwork by Heather Wetzel, an obsessive drawing framed in white by Katie Sehr, and a wet-plate collodion portrait of me and my husband taken by Heather Wetzel. The second image (below) is a grouping of work on top of my built-in book shelves. The mixed-media piece on the wall is by Candace Nicol, the small horse painting was painted by Meredith Schwab, the ceramic gourds and porcelain figurines were made by Eun Young Leem, and the semi-hidden wallpaper piece was made by Kris Merola. I prefer to display work in small groupings so that the viewing experience is a bit more intimate.

glowbowls by diana fayt

diana fayt created her first strand of glowbowls in 1999. in the early days they were all made by hand, pinched into shape and then strung on to wire. things have changed a little since then and now her glowbowls are slip cast with a white clay from molds that are made from original hand pinched shapes. they come in strands of five, seven and nine.

p is for petit collage

cute new animal alphabet collage from petit collage today. three color screen print on uncoated paper. also, some cute little mini-screenprints (5" x 7") gocco print on 8 x 10 mat. limited edition and signed by the artist, lorena siminovich.

mummy sam + the three chairs

i may just have to open up a baby shop if cute things like this don't stop coming my way. samantha, a full-time painter in her pre-children days, who is now diving into the world of sewing and embroidery as she continues to raise two little boys, makes these adorable stuffed toys from her home in upstate new york. they are made with 100% wool felt and stuffed with lambswool and are embellished with embroidered free motion stitching on amy butler and michael miller fabrics.

mummysam.etsy.com
www.sammisofties.blogspot.com

make a headboard and more from a photo

i just got back from visiting shine today and am all stoked for a cool d.i.y. project idea that was in a post about design ideas. the idea is inspired by these rooms from a beautiful hotel on the island of folegandoes in greece, the anemi. the rooms (by designer stavros papayiannis) in this hotel are really rather serene and modern in design, using white walls with grey trim in most of them. this allows for the large photo canvases (project idea) to really pop out when used as either bed headboards or large backdrops. writer, callie jenschke suggested using blowuplab.com to create this look from a blown up photograph and looking back in my library of old blueprint magazines (sniffle sniffle) i came across a few other resources as well. duggal and shutterfly to blow up your favorite photograph. (continued below).



here's a little how to (with some help from blueprint's may '06 issue):

1. once you have chosen your image (preferabley a digital one). if not, you'll have to take your original picture and scan it to make it into digital format. if you don't have a scanner, you can take it to a local office center such as kinko's where they can do this for you. they can put the image on a cd so you can take it to whichever printer you decide to take it to.

2. depending on the size of your original image and what type of camera the image was taken from, will depend on how large you will be able to blow up your image to. it's best to have this looked at where you will be having the image blown up at for them to assess. the one's in these images are at least 5' x 7', so your original image would need to be of pretty high quality in the pixel department.

3. for a matte canvas, ask to look at samples before you go ahead. according to my trusty old blueprint magazine, ask for heavyweight artist's canvas, pigment-based dyes, and an ultra-violet-protective coating.


(all photo's from the anemi)

hand designed & screenprinted fabric

if you're looking to make something really unique and one-of-a-kind, i just found out about these limited-edition hand screenprinted fabric coming out of melbourne, australia today. anna laura has just started selling these which are a little different from the screen printed fabrics available as she hand cuts the stencils from paper which are both hand drawn designs versus computer aided. each are limited editions of 10 meters available at her online shops:

Etsy: etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=56987§ion_id=5456425
Madeit: annalaura.madeit.com.au
Dawanda: en.dawanda.com/shop/annalaura/18548-Hand-Screenprinted-Fabric

take your books to a new level

add height to your book arranging and your room with this library-scale bookshelf designed by jocelyn deris and available from la corbeille out of france. 485.00 € (also available in red).

toybreaker (tielab) redux, plus interview

{ poppy bronze and cream hand-silkscreened woven silk scarf }

since toybreaker is the current featured seller interview, now seems a good time to revisit since my first post and mention she's branched out into gorgeous, fair-trade, hand-screened silk scarves (my favorite is, of course, the red one). do check out the interview -- detroit-based (and cranbrook-educated!) bethany shorb does what she loves, makes beautiful things, takes enormous care with the environment and with sustainable sourcing, and does awesome custom work. giant etsy crush. check out her store: there's a discount for large orders/wedding parties.






more at toybreaker.etsy.com