animal portraits - cool or creepy?

"Young Mr. Fox" via ThisYearsGirl


There seem to be lots of cool animal portraits on Etsy these days that are at the same time really surreal and full-on silly. I'm loving them - though, I'll admit, some creep me out a little bit more than I can handle. For example, Mary, the owl = night terrors while Loppy Sue, the bunny = oh just sooo cute! (However, upon reflection - it looks like every single owl portrait freaks me out so maybe it's just owls dressed up human in old timey pictures I can't handle...)



"Picture Day Series" by BeatUpCreations



"Set of 5 original postcards" via SandraArteagA




illustrations by berkleyillustration



art prints by GrandOleBestiary



"Dolly Kitten" by Hot Digital Dog
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Emmet Otter's Jug-band Christmas

There are so many holiday specials out there. I can definitely take or leave most of them , but my very favorite is actually kind of hard to find in most line-ups. Emmet Otter's Jug-band Christmas is based on a Russell Hoban/Lillian Hoban (of "Frances the Badger" fame) story and has all the sweet natured charm and humor of the classic Muppets.
Jim Henson developed this " 'Gift of the Magi' with a twist" tale of Emmet Otter and his Ma and it should be a staple of the season. With all of the junky holiday television programming out there these days, it is just nice to see a production with some Christmas spirit....the furry Mupppets are a bonus!


Christmas is approaching in Frogtown Hollow, and Emmet Otter and his Ma hope to buy gifts for each other. Unfortunately, Emmet doesn't make enough from the odd jobs he does, and Ma doesn't make enough as a laundress. They decide to compete in the Frog Town Hollow Talent Contest in order to win money, but Ma will have to hock Emmet's tool chest to buy a costume, and Emmet will have to put a hole in Ma's washtub for his band!

Image courtesy of Google
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sequin animals

I saw these fancified woodland animals over on The Soho and just had to share...

Not only are these animals from West Elm both cozy cute and cool metallic -- they are also on sale for $14.99 each (talk about a unique and affordable gift) AND $5 bucks of the purchase goes to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Sounds like an all around great gift to me!

UPDATE:
Now these lovelies are marked down to $9.97. Now you can go and get one for yourself too!



images via West Elm

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The Animal Print Shop

I was reading Little Green Notebook the other day and Jenny mentioned that the deer print in the nursery she had designed came from Sharon Montrose's theanimalprintshop.com.


I went to check it out because there was something so striking about that print. It seems Ms. Montrose has an entire site full of these unique animal shots and I am sure they would be a focal point of any room.
The baby animal series is ideal for a nursery- not over the top darling, but just the right amount of sweet and unusual to make the baby's room something special.



All images courtesy of theanimalprintshop.com
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Follow the horse

I love this photography project over at the blog Toy Horse Travels. Cassia, the photographer, plans to take a picture of her childhood toy every day for a year. She's only been doing it for 16 days, but so far - I'm such a huge fan.



More horse images here: Horse.
And Cassia's Etsy shop is here: Lola's Room.
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Trafalgar's Square

How about kicking off the week with a great "Rainy Day Sale"? Trafalgar's Square on Etsy has their 8 X 10 prints priced at ten dollars (versus the normal seventeen) and you can't beat that. I am a fan of their "book love" collection , but they have so many beautiful, adorable pieces. These prints would be great baby shower or welcome baby gifts.....I think I will pick up a couple for my daughter's room. They are just hard to resist!
 

















All images courtesy of trafalgarssquare on Etsy 

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yes to reading for pleasure

I love the little stack of books I got over the holidays. Makes me hopeful for a year of lots of good reading...


"The Children's Book" by A. S. Byatt



"The Kitten who thought he was a Mouse" by Miriam Norton and illustrated by Garth Williams

"Posy" by Linda Newbery and illustrated by Catherine Rayner



"The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden" by Stanley Kunitz



"The Kingdom of Ordinary Time" by Marie Howe



2010 Day Book




bookmark calendar from Meseo Nacional del Prado
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origins of fur

Does this look like a book you'd like to see taking up room on your shelves? It's the fur-covered edition of Dave Eggers' "The Wild Things," the loose retelling of Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are" and the yet to be released movie of the same name. It's an interesting gimmick though I have to wonder:
1) What wild thing is this cover supposed to resemble?
2) And haven't I seen this before?


I did a little bit of brainstorming to come up with a possible lineage of influence... do you think any of the following was the inspiration for this book's fuzzy cover?

image via AbeBooks


Could it be that Margaret Wise Brown's "Little Fur Family" (1946), illustrated by Garth Williams, was the big influence? It does have the Eggers' cover beat by over 60 years and it is about some mildly wild furry things... (If, in fact, it is an influence - at least Eggers' book is not covered with real rabbit fur as was the first edition of this children's picture book).

Meret Oppenheim's "Objet: dejeuner en fourrue" (Object: Luncheon in Fur), 1936
(info. about via MOMA)

Could this classic of Surrealism - fur covered teacup, saucer, and spoon - have stood the test of time as the originator of surprising things covered in fur? Is the Eggers' cover a shout out?

image via orble.com
Robert Downey Jr. looked soulful and hairy in "Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus," do you see a resemblance between this face and that book?
image via The Blue Harvest

Or is this handsome devil the original furred wild thing?

image via Cottage Way of Life

Could the influence of Little Edie's fashion, and the "Grey Gardens" documentary, have stretched to book design? I wouldn't be surprised....

image via nytimes' series "And the Pursuit of Justice" by Maira Kalman
Perhaps I'm not the only one who really got into the "John Adams" HBO series... Seems that Ben Franklin was one wild man while in Paris and everyone raved about his rustic fur hat.
image via AB IMO PECTORE

Or did it all begin here with a furry little wild thing and the desire to want to hold it in our hands?
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kitten season

image via FFFFOUND!

My boyfriend and I found a kitten outside of his house a few days ago. It is either a stray or a throw away, but either way it is in tough shape - a few singed whiskers, a couple of cuts, a nicked ear, and very skinny. I would prefer to think that these are the marks of being a stray because I don't want to imagine anyone treating an animal so unkindly (even though I know people do). Though initially skittish, turns out that July (as we've named her) is incredibly sweet and affectionate. We've also had her checked out by a vet friend and she's doing okay, we just have to feed her little belly slowly and with lots of rich kitten food.

It also looks like we've found her a home (neither of us can keep her since we both already have felines). Two people have expressed interested in her and will be visiting her this week. Both are also library students (who don't know each other) and both made fun of the librarians + cats stereotype. Which is such a silly thing to apologize for when loving cats is such a wonderful thing (says this cat lady).
image via Books Rule
Anyway, it is kitten season and lots of cats (grown-up and little) are needing homes so if you've been thinking about it... now is the time (if you are in NC - "The Goathouse Refuge" is an amazing no-kill shelter run by a wonderful artist, Siglinda Scarpa). And please don't these sweet and adorable pictures sway you.... that is totally not my agenda. :)



image by Geninne's Art blog



image via FFFFOUND!

image via dainty doll

image via aL-baum
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