what a crock of .... oh

please don't be shocked that this post isn't about anything related to lighting. i saw this clay tray and set of pots/bowl on etsy and needed to put it up. the whole set is $35, and if no one else buys it pronto i might have to. the potter's shop is at JMNPOTTERY, and also makes other things like this creepy octopus trinket pot.

music lights up my life? yes.

so this is another hand-made piece with no hi-res, but i like the collage effect of the sheet music ... the $79 lamp itself is from daisy lapoma design, made of mixed papers and gershwin sheet music, and while they have a number of other art-ish designs, most are commercial pressed-flower types. this and the rainbow trout lamp were my favorite.

wonky lights

boggles the mind for a second, right? i want these bulbs everywhere. which might be necessary if i want to have them at all, because i think you need to order 100 at a time. right? i mean, the store is called 100per ... ah. its a hundred percent not "100 per order." i'm not stoopid, i swear. my browser is failing to translate most of the site, so please be lenient with your scorn.

strange work of bees ....

so this extraordinary candle comes with a heftier price tag than i'm comfortable with, but that's why its an object d'crave instead of a object d'kmart. there's three sizes, price ranges from £42.09 to £85.70. yes, converts to between $84.18 and $9 katrillion. from made in design.

two steel peas in a pod?

this coffee table from far out art appeals to my need to have storage capacity on everything, especially artistic almost inefficient storage capacity. there's no hi-res image unfortunately, but its available at far out art for $329.

zen out

so this is a little palm-sized soundbox that plays six different soothing ambient loops either through the speaker or the built in headphone jack. the loops range from "buddhist type tones to melodic guitar." it sounds kitsch but also adorable. want. $25 from turntablelab.

another trick of the eye

mirrors have an inherent dramatic edge, if only because their main is reactive rather than static, but this mirror takes the cake for me, at least today. it takes some of the best qualities from wallpaper and puts it to excellent effect, albeit to the tune of €89. hold the phone, i just realized this was a sticker. i've decided to forgive them because of this second mirror-sticker, seen below, for its €57 whimsy. check out where they live in france's domestic.

your eyes aren't broken ....

... these are three-legged chopsticks from MoMA for those hindered by lack of coordination or cultural obtusity. obtuseness? yeah. they might be able to double as fondue-facilitaters too. $28 for two.

through the drinking glass

i'd seen these alice in wonderland dinnerware pieces in different people's homes before, but never where to buy them. this 9" square plate is $16.95, but they have the full range at fishs eddy. another favorite is the mug, below.

from forest to wall

these wall-mounted planters are pretty sweet. i have no idea what they're made of or very much at all except their price ($18.98) and even that might be canadian. yeah its canadian. but besides the single pot above (which i just realised actually comes with the plant), they have other versions like the one below for $36.98 canadian. from flowerbox.

from forest to ceiling

so i found these amazing chandeliers at trimble kelly studios. they're not cheap (the one above is $1850), but i can see them being a really valuable investment for the right room. this juliet model is 40" tall and 48" in diameter, and it would really create a particular mood in the space. there's a bar in cambridge called river gods i bet would snatch it up in a second. or buy these $490 wall sconces:

boston handmade

i had to stop with the playing card themed pieces, i was turning up too many art pieces with uncertain retail prices. instead for your eyes i bring you this necklace from stonehouse studio. an example of the studios mid-range work ($60), they also stock earrings (most for around $20-40) and big bold pendants (like the large art polymer pieces below at $105). the studio is also part of boston handmade.

queen of spades

this 22" x 28" canvas by felicia olin is pretty stunning. in her description she discusses how she wanted to take the source material and inject it with personality while keeping the "cold-looking" tone of th pieces, and i feel like she's done that very well. she has several other canvases of the other face cards as well. she doesn't outright state the going price, but indicates that she's sold some previously, so email her if it strikes your fancy.

jack of diamonds

i have an affection for playing card-themed art, so i'm gonna try and round up a few today. this 8" x 10" print is from pugcasso's etsy shop and goes for $15.50. he has numerous prints, magets and a really richly painted canvas of a pug as well.

brown sugar cinnamon

so every saturday, rare bird finds posts loads of etsy finds, and after following the link on some baby booties i found a vendor, mojo trashion, who makes these change purses out of recycled pop tart packages. i'm into them. they even have one made out of razzles!

the sun'll come out ...

this is another post from uncommon goods. i think we bought this umbrella for a friend of mine's birthday years ago (or we planned to and he bought it himself, i forget), but it stands out in my memory even when i see imitators that do the same thing or a variation. its just a black umbella with a solid wooden handle with a really pleasing white-fluff-clouds on-a-blue-sky-day photo hidden inside of it. i've held the thing in my hands on several occasions and its a very good feeling to look up to. well worth the $48.

snow day

so this red flap beanie hat is the only one they have in stock at suburban blend, so don't get excited about the green. but its retailing for $23.95 which is i think 20% off. i hope other folks are getting sent home too. (its all kinds of blizzardy in the northeast at the mo).

i'll be going away for the weekend and won't be on the interwebs, so apologies if you were just getting into things checking on me and i'm letting you down.

matt cipov

....its a postcard by matt cipov, from a set of 4. on sale from $6 to $4.50 at cut & paste. he makes buttons too, eerily (ooooooooooooOOOOooo) on sale fom $6 to $4.50 as well. although i just looked closely at the sloth button and there's a creepy guy head on it, also eerie.

... eff the book though

how great is this clock? it adds a much needed modern element to a beloved art icon. the clock is um 10" x 8" screened aluminum and goes for $25, which i think is mad cheap. from uncommon goods. sorry about the weird frame, i can't seem to make it go away.

p.s. if anyone knows how to fix the problem with the way my text looks in RSS feeds (at least in google reader), please let me know. my line breaks just seem to make huge gaps instead of carefully putting the text below the image.

remember rotary phones?

so these $6 coasters are courtesy of robot candy, and they have about 30 different designs to choose from, both cute to kitsch. most of their other products are also ceramic, but they have a line of hand-printed greeting cards as well.

off the wall

so i think this is both beautiful and kind of terrifying, but from an art perspective its a marriage of forms i never really thought i'd see. this particular piece is called the nemo squidulator ($275), and its from a series of pieces named raku ray guns. so yeah, made by muddy mountain pottery, they're glazed pottery pieces that look like sci-fi ray guns, and are "inspired by alien technology unearthed at a secret UFO crash site, known only to a tribe of Wyoming Hill People." and they're removable from their mounted moon rock plate things.

a yen (cough) for correspondance

so these envelopes are absolutely stunning. i've bought them myself, and the paper is high quality and the inks are rich and its really really hard to put the address label on because you don't want to cover anything up. they have domestic currency as well, but i don't get the same kick out of them. from papersource ... they come 6 to a pack (2x3 designs) for $12, with a long narrow noteflat for each.

getting my covet on

so i almost bought this for my guy when i realised that this was clearly one of those situations where i'd be buying someone something that i loved but they would be underwhelmed by or uninterested in. but i keep going back to it. maybe someone can let him know? red envelope has these keychain pocketwatches in gunmetal or brushed zinc, and get this, the back of each is engraved with some hamlet: "love is begun by time and time qualifies the spark and fire of it." i've never been a huge fan of the bard but that is a sentiment that i wouldn't mind written on my stuff. i think they're $50. oh and yeah, forgot to say, they engrave the front with initials as well. but red envelope is one of those places that will engrave anything, like a sexier things remembered.

you make my heart sing ...

i have learned several things today. the first is that there is a live-action version of where the wild things are in post-production to come out in 2009. the second is that there are these really cool stuffed doll things with all the monsters from the book at the library of congress (they're actually on amazon and whatnot as well if you want to do price comparisons). this one of bernard is $14 and he's 7" tall. that's actually just a couple things, really, but hey.

fake food

these are definitely more for the novelty value with just 256 MB storage, but man i wish i had these sushi USB memory sticks. alas, i have no room in my budget for $95 gadgets at the moment. goods from japan has these and assorted other imported goods, including a $3000 scale model of the kinkakuji golden pavilion.

"there is nothing more fantasy than ... peacock ... (wait for it!) ... taaaaail."

oh cavalli. you crazy. to quote my friend nicole: "I LOVED CAVALLI. If a box of cigarettes could talk and be embodied by a person, it would be him. He is like a muppet cigarette box. a talking cigarette. If only he and Donatella did cig ads."

i personally miss the days of season two before "make it work" was so soundbyte-y, but for those less neurotic, please help yourselves to this hand-printed t-shirt ($20) by wire & twine.

there's a sea mammal on your shoe

cut & paste is like a curated etsy as far as i can tell, and there's plenty there to get excited about. i'm a hussy for quirky stationary, and this line by smitten is genius .... $4 cards with all cutesy almost 50s imagery with weird sketched animals for heads or in incongruous places like under the table.

angels of mercy

so 16 hands has almost as much brian andreas work as brian himself ... above is a $30 print, but if you preferred the wisdom in signature wood sculpture form, they have that to the tune of $225.

office obsessions

so these are my favorite paper clips. they take a half second to get used to because unlike regular paper clips they are not in fact the same on both sides, but they look way classy and add a step of personalisation to your um packets? ... without resorting to curly-Q paperclips made of magenta or whatnot. but yeah $1.07 for 100 at discount office items.

ahoy

so although these are marketed to kids, my aunt got me this stamp and stationary set ($25) from lilliput for my birthday a year or two ago and i was quite captivated by it. the style of both the stamps and the iconography of the packaging is adorable enough that i haven't been able to throw the box away even though i've used up all the paper and envelopes.

big slash?

the word on the slopes is that post-12:00 [2 one 5] is having a 50% off sale, which would be a good opportunity to snag this demand peace t-shirt you've had your eye on ($35 to $17.50 according to my stellar mathematical ability). doesn't appear to be listed yet but give it a minute.

danglies

so today's post at all that & a ... had me looking over the collection at elle a belle designs ... and they're pretty amazing. the product photos are all very lush as well, lending a real decadent feel to all of the pieces. the lapis lazuli earrings above are in her special buy section, which i think explains the low price of $30.

caw caw

these, if you're squinting due to the low quality (i almost said thread count) of the image, are a pair of pewter birds feet that you can have chillin on your desk, from fine purveyor of kitsch patina. i just spent forever and a day there after finding they were a vendor for fred & friends, where i discovered this amazing bag purely by accident:
























but i can't find it in stores anywhere. if anyone else has better luck, let me know and i'll post the link.

perhaps unpractical but ...

so i was reading the food & wine magazine that my fella just started getting and i was struck by these amazing bowl sets by mustardseed and moonshine. their homepage doesn't have vendor capability but there have a number of online vendors including casanova gallery where sell the stacking bowl sets, five in total for $95. it looks like their signature style is in echoing floral/leaf-based patterns, and they do it beautifully.

fotografique

i've had a crush on the lomo camera lines for awhile now, especially this action sampler, and every time i flip through the fred flare catalogue or go through the homeware section of urban outfitters i wish i owned one. i mean, the digital camera that i have can do the same thing as this baby, but not with quite the same verve.

i heart the sampler

so thirteenth story is another small crafter who makes amazing prints (8.5" x 11" paper with a 5" x 5" image; $30) like the one above that i heard about through the sampler. now the sampler is a genius project that just moved to the boston area from the west coast and puts out a monthly assortment of artisan goods from independent/individual artists/crafters to the tune of $30. they also some non-monthly offerings of different sizes and prices ($10-$80). if you haven't tried them, right now they're offering a 20% discount with use of the code valentine at checkout. highly recommended.

carte postale

miz fraske, a friend of mine, has herself a burgeoning papergoods and design biz. this is probably one of my favorite images from her start-up collection, an iconic view of the turnstiles at government center in boston, available as both a print and a blank note card for $3 and $15 respectively.

odi et amo

now, this is a product from solutions that i both loathe and adore. i say loathe because i feel like the sort of behaviour that it encourages is ultimately detrimental to all the cool cells in my body, but i say adore because there's a scrap booking soccer mom inside me just dying to get out. get this ... you can buy this tool, and it turns fruits and vegetables into fleetingly kitsch tealight holders: