I’m out of my mind busy, but I have to stop and invite you all out to see my first big crafty show in three years!!!! San Mateo, yo! Stop by, say hi, and get some crafty goodies! *You get extra special treatment if you mention that you read my blog *=*
And if you do come visit, don’t forget to bring armfuls of old clothes for Swap O Rama Rama! My booth will be in the center aisle, right next to the Swap!!!!
HECK YES!!!!!!!! See you there!
Easter is the best time to shop for any kind of cake platter, tiered dish, ceramic basket, scalloped bowl. I think when I bought this I was maybe down to my last thirty bucks, but it was on sale. When you’re a tiny-luxuries fetishist, these things are important. I used to really get off on that, but I’m mostly better now. I can remember rainy San Francisco days when I had only a few dollars in my pocket, but I’d use them to buy truffles at See’s Candies. I’d walk home with my little white paper bag, feeling like an undercover princess. I’d go home, make a cup of tea, and sit, staring at my pink walls eating truffles ever so slowly.
Anyway, back from my reverie, I spent $15 on this lovely tiered wire basket, and I LOVE it. It has turned out to be one of my handiest pieces to date. However, my upcoming BAZAAR BIZARRE show has me rearranging and re-thinking my booth setup. I decided to take the shabby chic out of the tiered basket, and get bright! So here is the bold transformation.
Before:
And after:
True, there was nothing really wrong with it before. It was really pretty cute. But I think maybe it was too cute. Too literal. I wanted some POP. I think I got it. If you’re going to Bazaar Bizarre this weekend, expect this big, blue, bad boy to be chock full of delicious crafty goodies!
A couple of days ago I was sorting through purses and whatnot, and I found this lovely bit of Polly Danger history:
It’s a very early example of my foray into leather and embroidery. The font is sort of a mash between cute fonts and a little hint of Eric’s incredible signature. naturally, for security purposes I’m not sharing any photos of his signature, but if you’ve seen it, you’d know about that crazy loop on the D. I can’t remember exactly where the G came from. But it’s cute, no? This was embroidered on the inside of a leather checkbook holder that I made for myself. Sigh. How I miss my leather store in San Francisco. Maybe if I’m really super lucky I’ll get to swing by next Friday before Baz Biz.
Heres the very first bit of leather work I’ve ever done (please excuse the photo, it’s really old).
I made it when I was living in Tokyo and Eric was in San Francisco. He wrote me this sweet letter of encouragement ( I was pretty lonely sometimes) and drew a dancing Lil Redheaded Bot and Polly Bot at the bottom. I decided to immortalize it in a leather wallet. Which he still uses to this day. It’s still hot. Sadly I don’t have any photos of the inside of it, but I’ll just tell you that it’s freakin’ adorable. I guess I could take new pictures, but you know, he uses it. So it’s probably not that clean inside. I should probably get to making him a new one!
Okay, off to bed for reals this time!
Last night Eric and I went to see The Decemberists play at the Palladium. Holy sweet Mother. Who is this Shara Worden person? HOW do sounds to incredibly big come from that little person?! I think I am in love. If ever there was a magical connection between people, I swear this is it. Maybe she’ll join the band? It was a pretty damn rocking show. I was kind of nervous about this show, but it was completely mind-blowingly fantastic. I think a lot of the mind-blowing-ness came from Shara’s singing. Gave me goosebumps. Here’s a little taste, though in the Colbert Report show they seem to be holding back about 80% of the ROCK-ASS-ness. Still an awesome clip.
In case you don’t know who The Decemberists are, let me entice you with a photograph.
I picked this photo because I have the fan on the right. Squee!
What a lovely thing to do when you feel overwhelmed and exhausted, to go out and actually do something fun! You know how I knew it had been ages since I’d been anywhere? I felt completely awkward and socially inept around all those people! I seriously, seriously need to leave the house more often. We had a really fantastic time. I was nervous at first, because the very first time Eric and I saw The Decemberists was at the Hollywood Bowl, where they played with the L.A. Philharmonic. How can you beat that? Andrew Bird also played that night. So I was nervous about the show last night. But it was pretty damn cool. Pretty damn cool.
In crafty news, I finally put up some new goodies in the shop! Pin cushion rings for your pin protection pleasure! They’re lovely, and oval shaped, and tufted, and sweet. I’ll be putting up more stuff in the near-ish future, but I’m trying to stockpile some stuff for BAZAAR BIZARRE, which is in less than two weeks!
Aren’t they cute?
4:30 AM. Sunday, May 17. Been up since 3:30. Delirious. Time to write.
E and I went downtown today/yesterday for some delicious Clifton’s breakfast and a bit of fabric shopping. It’s only because I’m sleepy as heck that that last sentence isn’t full of enthusiastic adjectives. Because Holy Sweet Lordy do I love me some Clifton’s. And Holy Sweet Lordy do I love me some fabric. Our intention was to get out of the house early and get breakfasted and be finished by 11 am. But today/yesterday was our lucky day because we got invited to look around the forbidden third floor at Clifton’s! If you’ve never been to Clifton’s, let me share a bit with you.
Oh, look at that, a sweet, old fashioned bakery slash restaurant. BUT NO. This is but a facade of the glory that lies within. BEHOLD:
A forest wonderland.
Happy bears. When I miss Disneyland I come here. So now it will make a little more sense to you when I talk about my cravings for Clifton’s. It’s not just the food. Although, come on, cafeteria style rocks. Any place you can add confetti jello to a tray full of turkey, mashed potatoes, and french toast at 8 am is five stars in my books. Today I played it safe. I had pancakes, sausage, and bread pudding. I got a little crazy and tried the quiche. Not bad.
Anyway, now maybe it will make a little more sense to you when I say we’ve been dying to get a look at the third floor, which you can see a sneaky sliver of from the bottom of the stairs, making all the more enticing and forbidden-looking. So here’s where we’ll be having our fiftieth anniversary party, in forty-seven years.
Yep, it’s the same restaurant. And yes, that wallpaper is flocked.
They’ve got tons of memorabilia from some of the other Clifton’s- all themed differently! They also have some incredible portraits of the Cliftons.
Impressive, huh?
Try finding that building on 7th and Broadway.
Oh yeah, and afterwards I bought some more awesome fabrics. I will leave you in suspense about what they look like, but I will say that I spent a good four hours hunting down a decent bargain on cotton twill tape only to decide that I’d rather buy it online anyway. A hundred dollars for fifty yards of tape that man wanted to charge me! HA! I laughed at him and left.
Mrph. I’m mind-blowingly tired today. I’ve been sewing and ironing like crazy, and I hope it pays off in the form of hundreds of lovely aprons and goodies! Poor Eric got even less sleep last night- he stayed up late working and got locked out of the big house and I was so fast asleep that I didn’t hear him knocking on the window. I woke up in the middle of the night and he wasn’t there, so I went back to the studio and found him curled up in a little Eric-ball on our too-tiny sofa. You’ve seen the sofa- the one with the really high arm-rests. His feet were up on the arm rest and his head was all smooshed against the other arm rest.
But what I really wanted to share was this lovely photo of my Cicada Studio fabric that came in the mail a few days ago.
I’m ridiculously in love with it. YUM! I only bought a bit of each fabric in the collection, but if all goes well I’ll be buying lots more! Did I mention that one of my goals for Polly Danger is to use mostly fabrics designed by crafty-folks? I see it in the near future. I’m still playing around with which fabrics to pair this with, but it’s really exciting stuff.
Also, we’ve had a new houseguest. Meet Foxy.
She weighs about a quarter of a pound, and she gives fantastic kisses- don’t tell Petina! Foxy belongs to Grandma’s helper, Teresa, who has been telling us about Foxy for probably over a year. Finally last Friday we got to meet the mysterious Foxy, and she’s been coming over almost every day since. She is really one of the sweetest dogs I’ve ever snuggled. I love that furrowed brow! Petina isn’t too keen on Foxy coming in and wagging her big, poufy tail, but at least she’s not hiding under the sofa anymore. I know it’s crazy to want more dogs in our house, but even though it’s tons of work, it’s also incredibly fun to have so many dogs around. Foxy is only here for a few hours a day, which is perfect.
One last thing before I go eat a really late dinner. Here’s my working counter, with a fair amount of stuff on it. Plus some gorgeous red tulips that I gave myself for Mother’s Day- being a dog-mom counts, right?
I LOVE tulips.
Could anyone watch Pride and Prejudice this many times without it effecting their work? I think not. And so today I offer you two PD firsts. One- Polly Danger has posted her very first full length kitchen apron! And two- Regency style goodies sneak their way into the Polly Danger look. So here’s the apron! Tell me what you think- should I make more? What kind of details would you like to see in a Polly Danger kitchen apron?
YUM!
PD Clutch Kits Sold Exclusively Here!
