D is for Denise Sharp

{give this woman a trophy!}

Denise Sharp is an artist I have admired for many years ~ I think I first became aware of her work when I bought one of her paper trophies at one of my favorite stores, Curious Sofa. They carried some of her fanciful architectural candy boxes as well. Visit her shop at etsy where more of her paper luxuries and letterpress cards can be had. In addition to her artwork, her dsharp journal is one of my very favorite blogs ~ great inspiration, wonderful eye candy, an interesting variety of posts, AND a fabulous sense of humor! Make sure to check out her Abecedary of Inspiration ~ such a clever and original idea!

{for sale at dsharp's etsy store}

As I have been lurking around on her blog for quite a few months now, I have also discovered that we have a lot in common: we like the same sort of objects, we both like making things, we were both born in July, and I think we probably both have a huge collection of stuff that we don't want to part with! I am basing this on this statement she made here:

"Frankly, I can admire modernist, striking interiors where the inhabitants have no more than a half a dozen museum-worthy objects, I just couldn’t do it. As in, it would not be possible - because I am almost like a junk magnet....To me, collecting, decorating and living with found and favorite objects, most rather humble, is a necessary inspiration binge - whittling it down to a handful would be famine."

Most eloquently put ~ I feel just the same ~ when I read this I thought, finally, there is another person on this earth who isn't downsizing ~ and isn't apologizing for it either!

If you like dsharp's work as much as I do, make sure to enter her Eiffel Tower Giveaway for a chance to win one of her lovely containers!

{on second thought, give this woman three trophies!}
All images via dsharp

2-legged cats

Fabulous Find #7 ~ Visiting Cards

Lately I have been trying to organize my life and all of the stuff I have managed to collect over the years. While it is fun to go through and find things that I forgot I had, sometimes it is rather scary as I will come upon something I have absolutely no idea where it came from ~ other things I can tell you where I got it, how much I paid etc.... Not only do I have a treasure trove of actual things, I have tons of images I have collected from the internet for inspiration. The handcolored visiting cards shown above are one of those images ~ unfortunately the scans aren't very good ~ these are from an ebay listing ~ one I think was out of my price range from the start. These are so beautiful ~ ink linework with watercolor.

Another group with a different look ~ the die cuts are amazing! The lower left one is my favorite ~ the edge treatment is so pretty. You can bid on them here!

New Family Member ~ Angus

Today we found out that we have been approved to adopt Angus ~ a 12 week old wheaten scottish terrier puppy! We found this guy on petfinder, an online adoption site. One of my best friends and a scottie lover too, also applied for Angus ~ neither of us knew the other had applied until I got a phone message from my friend asking me to be her reference! Luckily for us, Angus has a sister ~ actually he has two sisters ~ a wheaten (Victoria) and a black scottie(Kathleen), so we are both getting a new puppy! I can't wait ~ we pick them up this Saturday!

{Angus}

{Angus (L) & Victoria (R)}

{Speck}

Speck does not know he is getting a brother yet ~ or maybe he does ~ I think there may be a knowing look in his eyes..... Stay tuned, I will post some more photos later!

I'm open for name suggestions ~ while I do like Angus as a name, I had a scottie named Angus when I was a kid, so I feel like we need a fresh name! Let me know what you think?! So far we have all sorts.... Sprocket, Sputnik, Zero, White Tornado, Honky (not very PC - but funny!), Haggis, Argyle....

Fabulous Find #7 ~ Sample Book

Back in June I did a post about the Multiple Choice ~ From Sample to Product exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. I mentioned that I had some sample books of my own that I would share ~ below is one of them. I got this one on ebay within the last year. The cover is tattered and seems very unassuming compared with the inside display. While the cover is just printed in black on a rather thin inexpensive colored stock, the inside is printed in a metallic gold on a rather richly printed black stock. Each sample is carefully attached in the appropriate area. Since the individual bolting cloth samples are rather plain, I suppose the book designer decided to make sure that the presentation looked exciting.

{cover}

{sample pages}

{elegant title page}

Japanese Craft Book ~ Crochet

{ ISBN#978-4-277-43113-2}

{lovely projects and photo styling}

{crochet trims}

{cute little crocheted sewing kit project}

Above are a few photos from one of my new Japanese craft books on crochet. I bought this a couple months ago in NYC at the Kinokuniya Bookstore - I posted about the bookstore here. Crochet and knitting are crafts I have discovered in the last five years ~ I love doing both ~ I am kind of surprised that I haven't moved on to something else ~ I just keep coming up with new projects to try and new techniques to learn. Plus, I have enough yarn to open a yarn store, so I am always working on ways to use it up so that I can use my guest room for guests again!

Uncomfortable couch