Modern Cottage

they look great with red noses at xmas

So two anniversaries ago, we started collecting non-dead animals. Just after drooling over the carved deer by Roost and their lamentably high prices, all sorts of other artists boarded the trophy-head bandwagon creating beautiful and interesting variations from lucite, glass, metal, and more. Sadly most of these were — how do you say –hella expensive. Thus we picked up a challenge and laid down its parameters: Find Thrifty Antlers.

Beth opened the starting gate with the little one on the top left as my anniversary gift for 2006. As of last summer we collected the final of the five (We’d predetermined five as the optimal number for a trophy wall.) with the cast-resin ibex on the right. The big one, BPOE (Yes, I know he’s not an elk but he looks like he should be the mascot of some club like that so that’s his name.), came the most dear (ha!) at $150. But he also inspired my Guitar Hero band name of Grapevine Stag, so he was totally worth it.

We love this wall and while we wonder aloud when we’ll tire of it and also what one does to retire faux deer heads, we may end up keeping them up forever just to watch the reactions of first-time house-guests. My favorite thus far: “Is that tiny one a chihuahua?”

yessir, yessir, 3 bags full

While the vegetable garden is my primary area of yard-interest, the bulk of the remaining yard is un-veggied space that requires attention and a certain amount of pampering. Fortunately, along with laundry, this is a chore that Beth does not consider a chore. In fact, she loves yard work. She’d love it more if she didn’t have to hike the equivalent of four flights of stairs up and down our hillside lot, but you play the cards you’re dealt, people.

Beth’s green thumb-related interests give me lots of opportunities to give practical gifts. (Contrary to years of talk-show and advice column recommendations, we do enjoy the appliance, tool, or chore-helper as gift. A washing machine is bigger jackpot than a car here in the SFBay and don’t you think otherwise. But never rule out diamonds.) So anyway, I saw this collapsible bucket thing and though I didn’t really see much value to the collapsing concept, the fabric and frame construction intrigued me because I thought it would be a lighter way to lug loads up and down the yard and it’s big enough to carry about 3 trips worth of stuff at once. I mean, does anyone want the bucket to account for half the weight of whatever she needs to carry?

So this turned out to be a huge jackpot. Beth uses it for everything from debris to plants to mulch to trash. It’s lightweight and sturdy. It multi-tasks. I’m considering filling it with ice and beers for our next bbq.

Birds calling Orson. Come in Orson.

We have neighborhood cats. They’re bad-ass. They climb and slink and have 2-foot verticals that allow them to snatch things out of the air one-fisted. Their exquisite cat-skills make it impossible for us to put out birdhouses and feeders without feeling like we’re opening a macabre fur and feather buffet. If we could though, we’d hang one of these beaudorable feeders by J Schatz . Forget about the fact that it’s awesome looking. You can’t. You can’t forget about it. You can’t put “awesome looking” on the back burner. It’s that awesome. In addition to pretty, though, it’s also easy to fill, comes in a bunch of impossible-to-choose-between colors, and is squirrel-proof. And plus, it’s egg-shaped! Just like birds! (Oh, I have this thing about how birds are shaped like eggs their whole lives. They just grow a head off the top and feet off the bottom. Egg-shaped.)

While we couldn’t add one of these to our yard without further encouraging the hummingbird jai-alai that already goes on, we can hope that someone out there has a place for this. I mean, I think I could be entertained just by looking at the feeder…birds or no birds. Oh and there’s a matching birdhouse. Yes there is.

Graphic design: part of this nutritious breakfast

How sad is this? When my sister and I were kids, we used to “call” the green Tupperware cereal bowl. Yep. It was like calling “shotgun” only it was “GREEN BOWL!” I’m sure I randomly assigned awesome-status to the green bowl as a way to somehow “win” breakfast. Wow I was cool.

Now if that shout-out had gotten me THIS bowl, that would have been a hell of a payoff. I mean, it’s green, it has awesome retro illustrations, and it features Tony. Oh where did this bowl come from? Well it, and three others with equally awesome vintage graphic design (featuring a variety of cereal brands, of course) were Beth’s birthday present from my sister. The sister who could never remember to call the green bowl.

So if you need your own set of these, well hunt around. You can buy them directly from Kellogg’s but they don’t give you the mix and match option and without that you can’t really pick your favorite character and call it. I don’t think Beth and I will compete though. Different tastes, you know. Plus I’m pretty sure she could yell out “Tony!” way faster than I could yell “Toucan Sam!” So, you know, lucky for me.

My elbows are smokin’!

Remember when I said that NFF had turned into Crazy-Working-and-Crafting February? Well now that NFF is over, I find that I’m still all wound up in the crafting part! I can’t say this enough times but DAMN YOU stupid food and shelter needs that require me to work for pay rather than craft! There are just way too many things I need to make and way many more techniques and materials I need to explore. Where’s a gal to find the time?

M’kay. So I “made” this sweater for my sister’s birthday and I have to say I’m quite pleased with the results. The inspiration for it came in several pieces. One: I found a brand-new, tags-still-on Sierra Designs wool sweater at the thrift store. It was a horrible pull-over, funnel neck guaranteed to give anyone the head-same-width-as-neck look so popular with meathead gym rats and linebackers. I saw the sweater and thought, hmm, I wonder if I could cut that up the middle and put a zipper in it. Yes. Yes I could. And you can, too!

Two: I wanted to put patches on the sleeves in some bright awesome color. Thank you, Blueprint for that idea. But plain ole patches seemed so blah so rather than use suede, I used felt which I could then embroider with flames. (I mastered flame-drawing when I was 13 and obsessed with 1950s hot rod art. It’s my go-to doodle. All my meeting notes are ON STYLIZED FIRE!) I embroidered with yarn rather than embroidery floss to give it a heartier look.

Once embroidered, I blanket stitched the patches to the elbows (new stitch added to my repertoire of “Em’s famous whip-stitch” which I use for just everything). Then, Bob’s your uncle I’d finished up a great little custom sweater that was officially a big hit!