A Few of My Favorite Things

The amazing work of veteran artist Gloria Becker.

Recently I was honored with 2 blog awards! I graciously accept them :) One Lovely Blog Award comes from Granny's Postcards (BTW, her daughter is the talented Vivianne). I'm now supposed to pass the award to 15 other blogs that I've newly discovered, however 15 is a bit much for me! So I will pass it to one special lady/ newbie blogger Gloria Becker. She is incredibly prolific, like 15 artists rolled into one! Gloria may be relatively new to the Internet scene, but she's been making exquisite collectibles since I was in diapers. Her oeuvre includes incredible Santas, life size taxidermy dressed animals, and outlandishly dressed sock monkeys! Needless to say, we had more than a few things in common :) Pamela Huntington just posted photos of her amazing visit to Gloria's house here.

Visit Gloria blog "Miss Irene Tripper" named after her pooch.
Gloria's new Etsy shop and her web site (designed by little ol' me).

Kreativ Blogger award came from LaTouchables Bags and Things. Dawn of LaTouchables makes unique handbags in Rhine Valley, Germany.

I really love this one, and this one, to name a few! Accepting this award I'm supposed to declare seven things I love (on top of my family, friends and supporters). So here it goes:

1. the animal kingdom
2. nature
3. star gazing/ astronomy
4. wabi sabi
5. working with my hands (obvious, but true)
6. exercise
7. my juicer machine

Fairly simple things I guess! But it's the simple things that make me happy :)
Hope you enjoyed my Friday favorites, I'd love to hear yours! xoxo

Modern Art to Mulch, the week in review

Boy oh boy the week just flew by! Sorry I've neglected to post anything for nearly a week.
Let me catch up a bit, beginning with last Wednesday. I picked up Rob from work and we went to the The Art Institute. To celebrate the opening of the new Modern Wing, they offered free admission for a week (well, museum parking is $19 now, but still). That shadowy figure is me, holding tiny Digger bear, showing him a good ol' fashion downtown touristy day. The kind of day I prefer to avoid, but I did it for the darn bear (ok, and for me & Rob too). After all, it was Digger's last fling, since he'll be leaving me this week + heading for Wisconsin. Here's some highlights from our Art Institute visit:

Digger liked this one!
Picasso's Nude under a Pine Tree, 1959.

A wild contemporary plush sculpture: Mike Kelley's, Eviscerated Corpse, 1989.

Love Love Love Takaezu's sculptures! This one is Dancing Brush, glazed stoneware, 1990. A HUGE sculpture.
Rob is up to his eyes in Greek literature and arts. So a lingering visit in the Greek art collection was mandatory. Incredible pieces.

And for the rest of the week? Cardio classes, teddy bear making while listening to French Ecole podcasts, cooking, planting/ yard work/ recovering (read: multiple trips to Home Depot + Lowe's... and CVS for bottles of wine, ya know medicinal purposes), and small paintings. If you follow my Tweets, maybe you knew some of that already :O) So, that brings us up to speed!

Hope your Memorial Day weekend is a good one! For us it's more landscaping and slices of homemade apple pie :o) Do you have any projects or escapades planned? I'd love to hear about it!

xoxo

Over the Weekend

Good day! Hope you had a lovely weekend. Here's some Tickseed cuttings from my first perennial plantings I did yesterday evening. It was a lot of wheel barreling + sneezes digging up the turf, but now we have the bona fide beginnings of a wild flower bed.

More Etsy Treasury love! LaTouchables has curated another cute one called "Boy Meets Girl", featuring my Mini Mushroom Dwelling. The Treasury already expired yesterday (sorry for the late notice!) but my little 'shroom is currently available in the shop.

If I were half inch tall, this is where I'd live :)

Have a marvelous Monday!

Making, Sending...and Making

The new hangtags for the Mini Magical Village Dwellings. They are hand stamped, so each one unique :)

Mini Dwellings carefully packed in lovely hand stamped gift boxes, ready to ship!

Can you guess what these works-in-progress are for?

New teddy bears with paper clay sculpted muzzles coming soon!
Stay tuned :O)

Sunshine Smiles

Antiqued Sock Monkeys "the Clementines", and a silly vintage clown friend.

Enjoying this beautiful spring day!

Little Green Men

Just 'cos :)

This morning I had my strength-cardio workout by hauling weed and worm covered bricks from the (dark) side of the garage to another where-do-we-put-this heap (ie: next to the soil heap). The goal is to spread the soil heap to level out the area where the bricks were, so we can plant stuff. But that still leaves us with a pile of bricks. I think every yard has this dilemma at some point. Wish there were little green gnomes with a wheel barrel to help us out. Slowly but surely, progress is happening. One brick at at time. :)

Have a lovely Monday!

A special day for 3 reasons

(my mom Lili, in late-1960's~ i believe pregnant with me under that op-art dress!)

Wishing mom's everywhere a very special, warm and happy day! And that includes mom's to furry babies, animals of all kinds, and plants :) The world needs mom's of all sorts.

Mother's Day also marks the *2 year anniversary of my blog*! Here's a peek of my first post in 2007. How time flies.

And what a surprise! My mini magical mushroom dwelling landed on Etsy's Front Page today! Big hugs to Chyrls for putting together another wonderful Treasury.
It's been a special day already, and I hope yours is too :O)

xoxo, peng peng

Anyone have a beard trimmer?

Oh that LaTouchables is so LaThoughtful! Dawn of LaTouchables has put together another fabulous Etsy Treasury "Strangely Wunderschon". It features a certain bearded fellow Mr. Marbles. Dawn tells me ol' man Marbles is drawing loving attention. Being the last remaining from my February Buddha Bears to find a home (how sad!), Mr. Marbles certainly is basking in the favorite "hearts" he's racked up~ but really only wishes for a nice forever home to rest his beard (it's getting a little longer every day, poor guy).

If you're handy with a beard trimmer and have just a wee bit of space, perhaps Mr. Marbles can enjoy the rest of spring with you? Hanging out on the deck, sipping margaritas, helping in the garden, that sort of thing.

"Strangely Wunderschon" Treasury expires May 8th (that's tomorrow!) so stop by and enjoy the strange loveliness of the items featured.

Update: this just in! Mr. Marble's is featured in his 2nd Treasury! Has he got mojo or what? This was curated by Mooshoopork (thanks sweetie!), highlighting "Local" sellers~ that would be us midwesterners :)....and Mr. Marbles wanted to express his thanks for all the Etsy hearts, and waves his beard in farewells. He's found a home!

Have a terrific Thursday,
xoxo

Magical Mushrooms and Candy Castles

The Magical Village is looking for residents! It's a cozy little town located in Imaginationland on the coast of Dream Sea~ a place that will fulfill all your magical living needs. It has a bakery (everything is fat-free), a cobbler, a temple, a weavers, holistic veterinarian, ___add your own wish here. Magical Village dwellings will be available beginning today in the shop!

*sorry I couldn't get the village posted yesterday as planned, we had an unexpected guest which meant house-cleaning frenzy!
**thanks Pam for the phrase "Candy Castles" :o)

Have a marvelous Monday!

A New Tiny Owlette for May

Please meet a new and lovely owlette, ADELPHA (meaning "sisterly" in Greek). She's oh so petite with premium albino glass eyes, painted in array of spring colors. ADELPHA is available for immediate adoption in my shop.

*stay tuned, the Magical Mini Village will be making it's debut tomorrow!

Have a fun Saturday!
xoxo

An Evening of Art Chicago Overload!

Yesterday I blew off my morning aerobics class, because 1.) I had lots of work to do in the studio and 2.) We had scored passes for the Opening Preview of Art Chicago!
Art Chicago is a massive "International Fair of Contemporary and Modern Art" held on the entire 12th floor of The Merchandise Mart.

I knew we'd be doing some (by 'some' I mean A LOT of) walking but nothing quite prepared me for what the evening had in store. First I made the trek to the gallery district to pick up Rob from work, had a lovely low-key dinner at Karyn's, fed the parking meter about 16 quarters (I can't believe it's up to .50 cents for 15 minutes!), then walked over to the Mart. Thankfully the weather permitted us to leave our umbrellas in the car.

I brought Digger (remember my previous post?) along to show him some of the downtown sights, but unfortunately the heavy fog obscured the Sears Tower... I'll have to try again on a sunnier day. Digger remained safe inside my felted wool handbag for the rest of the evening. So technically, Digger attended Art Chicago and now he can put that on his resume :O)

Not only was it Digger's first time attending Art Chicago but also mine. I was quite impressed with the Korean galleries. I would've loved to take pics of some stand out pieces I admired, but was unsure of the gallery etiquette (seemed I was the only one with a camera). But when I saw these fantastic sculptures at Gana Art I had to ask permission to take these pics to show you (it's beyond explaining):

Korean artist Yong Ho Ji animal sculptures made of recycled tires. The horns were very long and extended quite a ways, I couldn't fit them in. But just look at this face! Tires!

For goofiness sake, an enormous balloon sculpture...that was rotating, of course.

To summarize, the Opening Preview night was inspirational, intense, exhausting, and a mob scene. Though I typically try to avoid crowded affairs, it's a good thing that so many people support the arts! There was way too much art to squeeze into just a few (parking metered) hours, but we managed to see pretty much all of it, and say hello to some friends that we ran into.

It sure was nice to leave the bustle behind, come home to our quiet house, make carrot juice, and pop in a film noir. Going out makes me appreciate staying in :O)