A Little News for a Sunday Morning

I wanted to share some goodies from followers who were kind enough to share the information with me.

"Come follow us to find some grooovy stuff!"

After my post last week about Cabinets of Curiosities, G at Doves Today wrote to me and told me about a Cabinet of Curiosities near her in L.A. If you are interested in reading more and seeing more, visit the Museum of Jurassic Technology. It looks fascinating! And be sure to visit G - she always has the best photos - and her tours around L.A. are fun, fun, fun!

The Queen of Venus wore her opera length gloves to get this information!

Then, Karen Harvey Cox of A Scrapbook of Inspiration forwarded on a blog to me that she thought I would enjoy. Indeed I did! (The fabulous coffee cup sign with C'est si Bon! at the top of this post is from the blog.) I think a lot of you would enjoy it too, so I'm sharing it with the rest of you. It's called Lisa Golightly - Vintage Finds Real and Imagined. She has some terrific stuff - check it out! Oh! And if you're not familiar already, you must visit Karen's site to see her paintings and her digital images and her .... it's a wonderful, warm and welcoming blog!

Because everybody needs to know the definitive guidelines!

And, finally, yesterday, after my post about Pink Not Being Just for Girls!, Chrisy of Art Decadence left these very interesting quotes from yesteryear. How times change!

"At one point pink was considered more of a boy's color, (as a watered-down red, which is a fierce color) and blue was more for girls. The associate of pink with bold, dramatic red clearly affected its use for boys. An American newspaper in 1914 advised mothers, "If you like the color note on the little one's garments, use pink for the boy and blue for the girl, if you are a follower of convention." [The Sunday Sentinal, March 29, 1914.]

"There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl." [Ladies Home Journal, June, 1918]

So, now we know! (...and Lustre Creme was dead wrong!) Be sure to visit Art Decadence for lots of interesting and fun photos from fashion to art to (yes, I'm going to say it) a baby doll with a full body suit tattoo!


Tell the truth, now. Don't you just want to stick a pipe in his mouth and plant him in the front yard?
And, finally, one more piece of updating. Everybody who guessed correctly that the Who-Is-She photograph was Audrey Hepburn as a child (which was almost everyone!) was spot on! You all are soooo darned good! I have the cleverest followers ever! It's a good thing I didn't offer a prize - I'd be spending two days just addressing mailing labels! Speaking of prizes, however ...

Let's draw us a winner here!

So many people entered ... and left such wonderful and kind comments - thank you! I went to the Random Generator, and it chose number 2. How unusual is that for such a small number to come up?! I guess it was meant to be that I was

to crown as the winner of the Marie Antoinette Mini Theatre, none other than

Marsha of Sassy Mini Dolls!

Congratulations Marsha, Marsha, Marsha! If you will email me with your address, I'll package this prize up and get it into the mail for you this week.

Everybody else - thanks so much for entering. I wish I could award everybody the prize. But, then, it wouldn't be a prize would it? Please visit Marsha's site if you haven't already - there's always something fun or pretty there!

Hmmmmm. Now just what will we have for breakfast. We already decided last night to play hookey from church...so I can make a big 'ol mess! I'm thinking walnut pancakes with warm CT maple syrup. Sound good to you? Me, too!

Hope you have a lovely Sunday - but don't spend the whole day lounging around ...
Go make something beautiful!

♥´¨)
¸.•´¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*´¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•´♥ Tristan ♥

Pink Saturday, February 27

Just who does Lustre Creme think it is?! Pink is for girls? Harrumph.
Right. I'll go along with that when pink pigs sprout wings and fly!
Now, I agree with Revlon. When it comes to men and pink, you can't have a prissy pink - not a sissy pink....
No, the only way to go is a bright, bold, studly pink.
And I ask you, does anything speak of masculine allure and machismo like a mankini?! And in pink?!?! Too manly for words!

And the same goes for men when they wear pink high heeled platform dress shoes. Make sure that pink is alarmingly pink - a pink that will stop traffic - a pink that will weaken your opponents. Most likely with laughter.Of course, a more subtle pink is certainly acceptable for men's underwear and socks. Utilizing this color in these garments make you understand perfectly why they're called unmentionables. It also will help you if you're single and don't have a chance in heaven of undressing in front of anybody else. Especially somebody else of an opposite gender. It could cool off the moment, I think.

Can anybody say that pimps lead a prissy, sissy life? Yet, a three piece pin-striped suit with pink tie and matching hat band will certainly keep this mec's girls on the ball and not lazing about. Call this bad boy a prissy sissy, and you may have to run to get away from his big bad Leroy Brown act!
Now, I'm personally a huge fan of going to any store when there is a sale, and buying every single item of your outfit from the same line. Does anything really have the effect of a tie and pocket square and hat that match? And, make sure that vest does not coordinate, but, rather, matches each other. That's how to make the biggest pink impact on the club patrons when you arrive.Okay. I have to admit. I actually like this shirt from Armani Jeans.
Maybe there is something to Lustre Creme's statement. Even that Armani shirt can't compete with this Jose Castro couture gown. This pink is definitely for the girls!
And, even though I think it looks just fab, I really can't see myself living with this all-pink decorating scheme. But I'm sure my sister would go crazy for it. Maybe it is about gender after all!
Nah. If pale pink is good enough for Brad, it's good enough for me! To hell with Lustre Creme!

Okay, I have to fly...Why don't you grab a (pink) cup of tea and head over to Beverly's Pink Saturday and check out all the other participants in this weekly event.
Then, go make something beautiful! Maybe something pink!

♥´¨)
¸.•´¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*´¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•´♥ Tristan ♥

Oh! Don't forget! Today is the last day to enter the GiveAway. Click image to read details and enter...winner announced tomorrow!

Are You Looking Forward to Spring?

We all know that everybody is ready for roses and grass and budding trees flowering hedges. It's been such a long, drawn out, and endless winter so far. Do you have any rituals that help speed the time to the Spring?

Obviously, this shop clerk's outlook on winter is improved with fashion. Does anything sing "Spring" like a bird feeding its young on your head? That, and the cheeriest of smiles, will get you through the last days of a grey winter!
Here's another working girl, who seems to believe that wearing the briefest of hotpants will make everything heat up. I find her use of a nice warm cozy turtleneck to be practical as well as fashion forward.

Maybe all it takes for you is to throw on an old rag of a dress - pull your hair back out of your face carelessly, and have a casual, no-fuss, no frills, chatty bit of gossip over a beer.

Whatever you do, don't forget to have a chat with your daughter before you leave the house! You don't want to be to blame for her social fiasco. (Click on image to get a larger, more legible one.)Let's have a fun no-prize contest. I am giving up on prizes for awhile. You all are too smart for me! I'm running out of prizes!
Who is this little charmer? Hint: every single one of you know her name!

Usually, I'm not a huge fan of cowboy/western style design. But the designs of Paris artist and designer Michel Haillard have opened my eyes to the possibilities. I find this work imaginative, humorous - and downright beautiful!





If you'd like to see more of his designs, and his sculpture, click here.


Who was the Queen of the Mist? And why is she posing with that barrel?

The Queen of the Mist was Annie Edson Taylor - the first person to go over Niagra Falls in a barrel - and a forgotten American heroine. A 63 year-old teacher facing unemployment and povery in 1901, Taylor decided to take up the P.T.Barnum challenge and send herself over the Falls as her one hope to reverse her fortunes. Had Taylor been a man or a young beauty, she might have found the fame and fortune she hope for. Instead, she was ignored and derided, robbed and abandoned by her managers, impersonated by an actress, and eclipsed by Bobby Leach - who was the first man to go over Niagara Falls (ten years after her feat). She died in poverty at the age of 83.


She spent her final years posing for photographs with tourists at her souvenir stand, attempting to earn money from the New York Stock Exchange, briefly talking about taking a second plunge
over the falls in 1906, attempting to write a novel, re-constructing her 1901 plunge on film (which was never seen), working as a clairvoyant, and providing magnetic therapeutic treatments to local residents.

Annie told the press, after her journey over the Falls, "If it was with my dying breath, I would caution anyone against attempting the feat... I would sooner walk up to the mouth of a cannon, knowing it was going to blow me to pieces than make another trip over the Fall."

Seriously, now. Could Dolly Parton rock a hair do in high school or what?! A true example of "the higher the hair, the closer to heaven."

And, just because they're fabulous ...

I don't know about you ...
but I'm completely convinced these 18th century French litho prints ...are the original steampunk art! I love the way the artist has created his figures from a myriad of items and shapes and vegetation. Marvelous!

Were you lying away nights, worrying about what the perfect birthday gift for me would be? Please, let me put your mind at rest. I hate the idea of you suffering that way. Just pick up one of these for me, and it will be most warming received.
So, what is it, you ask? It's a 19th century French breeding cage. This handsome cage of carved wood and zinc roof, in the form of a grand public building is 4' high 2' deep and 4' wide. I would so promise to get a pair of Lovebirds if I had this!

Here we have the stylish and radiant couple from the 1960 Kalisher-Simpson wedding. Don't they look happy beyond words?! They are both totally styling in those hats!

Well, now I'm off to watch Duel in the Sun on Turner Classic Movies. Nothing like a little lust in the dust on a gloomy, grey, rainy, sleety, wintery afternoon! (Is 'sleety' a word?)
You should go make something beautiful!

♥´¨)
¸.•´¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*´¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•´♥ Tristan ♥

Curiouser and Curiouser ...

Gotcha! You thought it was going to be a post about one of my favorite subjects, didn't you? Well this is not about Alice in Wonderland...though the subject is almost as magical! I discovered some art that intrigued and amused me - more about that later. But it got me interested in doing some research ("research" to me translates as "finding fab pictures of cool stuff") on Curiosity Cabinets (also known as Kunstkammer, Wunderkammer, Cabinets of Wonder, or Wonder Room).

The term cabinet originally described a room rather than a piece of furniture. The classic style of cabinet of curiosities emerged in the sixteenth century, although more rudimentary collections had existed earlier. These cabinets were encyclopedic collections of types of objects whose categorical boundaries were - in Renaissance Europe - yet to be defined. Modern terminology would categorize the objects included as belonging to natural history (sometimes faked), geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious and historical relics, works of art, and antiquities.

The earliest pictorial record of a natural history cabinet is the engraving below in Ferrante Imperato's Dell'Historia Naturale (Naples 1599). Click on the image to get a good large picture to examine - the details are just wonderful.
Such a room served to authenticate its author's credibility as a source of natural history information, in showing his open bookcases at the right, in which many volumes are stored lying down and stacked in the medieval fashion - or with their spines upward to protect the pages from dust. Every surface of the vaulted ceiling is occupied with preserved fishes, stuffed mammals and curious shells, with a stuffed crocodile suspended in the center. Examples of corals stand on the bookcases. At the left, the room is outfitted like a studiolo, with a range of built in bookcases whose fronts can be unlocked and let down to reveal intricately fitted nests of pigeonholes forming architectural units, filled with small mineral specimens. Above them, stuffed birds stand against panels inlaid with sqwuare polished stone samples, doubtless marbles and jaspers or fitted with compartments for specimens. Below them, range of cupboards contain specimen boxes and covered jars.

Don't you just want to spend hours going through everything?!

The engraving below depicts one of the most famously described Cabinet of Curiosities, Ol Worm, known as Olaus Wormius (1588-1654). Again, be sure to click the image to get a larger photo, which shows his collection of
presevered animals, horns, tusks, skeletons, minerals, as well as other types of equally fascinating man made objects: sculptures wondrously old, wondrously fine, or wondrously small; clockwork automata, ethnographic specimens from exotic locations. The collection includes items both fact and fiction, including apparently mythical creatures. Ol Worm, however, was also responsible for identifying the narwahl's tusk as coming from a whale, and not a unicorn as most owners of these tusks believed.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, wealthy merchants and scholars often collected rare and curious objects. These collections would be housed in cabinets specially made for the collector. A collection would generally contain fossiles, old coins, precious stones, preserved organisms, ostrich eggs and man made objects.

This superb ebony cabinet was designed to store a collection of art and rare objects and was made about 1630 in Augsburg for Duke August of Brunswick-Luneburg.
Still, today, many are fascinated by the unusual and marvelous things that nature and man have created, and cabinets of curiosities are still enjoyed throughout the world.
If I have whetted your appetite for more, visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art's website to read about "Collecting for the Kunstkammer." You will find many beautiful and unusual pieces of art collected for the Cabinet of Curiosity.

So, are you still having fun?!
Welcome to my little mini-exhibit of Paris artist Maïssa Toulet's cabinets of curiosities. I found them strangely hypnotic - beautiful, clever, fascinating, and amusing. I hope you enjoy taking a peek at this artist's version of the Cabinet of Curiosities.







To see many more, visit her website at and discover many new treasures!

Oh! I almost forgot. Have I introduced you to my mother?
Well, I did get a little work done yesterday. I made ham salad ... and we all know what that means! Empty ham can for altering! Here is my first Day of the Dead Ham shrine for 2010! I really need a new supply of skulls!
What are YOU looking at?Oh, I get it. You're tired of reading this post and want me to get on with the day. Gotcha.

Thanks for spending some time with me today. I'll be here in New Haven, awaiting Spring and flowers and butterflies
while you go make something beautiful!

♥´¨)
¸.•´¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*´¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•´♥ Tristan ♥