Alpha Stamps Takes Me to See "Beauty and the Beast" ...

 I was so happy when I was asked to be a guest designer for Alpha Stamps, and to make a mini theatre with a Beauty and the Beast theme. As the magnificent 1946 Cocteau film "La Belle et la Bête" is one of my all time favorite cinema treasures, I was intrigued to see what I could create with the splendid collage sheets and art/craft/miniature supplies from Alpha Stamps!

Starting with the versatile chipboard 7" Tall Theatre Cabinet...

I realized that I was going to place this in a spot where it would be seen from all sides, so I started with the back.

I used several images from the Walter Crane Beauty and the Beast Collage Sheet to decorate the back of the assembled stage, painted with gold Lumiere paint, and trimmed out the images with Gold Zig Zag Dresden Borders. I reverse printed the facade that I planned on using on the front to adhere to the facade when I got to it.

 

For the front of the theatre I used the grand drape and the header from the Large Theatre Curtains, Columns and Box Seats Set Download, and accented it with Gilded Gold Stickles. The drape has been ornamented with Sweeper Fringe, 20mm Round Picture Frame Setting and Cabachon, Black and Gold Mini Cording, and closed up with the Oval Latch Set.

 I used the fancy Arabian style columns also from Large Theatre Curtains, Columns and Box Seats Set Download on the sides of the theatre box.

When the theatre opens, the doors contain box seats (from Large Theatre Curtains, Columns and Box Seats Set Download), the stage is framed with the Wide Aladdin Facade with Column chipboard set, the back of the stage has columns from the Large Theatre Curtains, Columns and Box Seats Set Download and Tall Ornate Gold Mirrors. The urns are from the Conservatory Garden Decor Set Collage Sheet and the railing in front of the box seats is a chipboard border.

Act I of "Beauty and the Beast" shows Belle and the Beast from the Walter Crane Beauty and the Beast Collage Sheet.

This close up of the scene shows the Silver Tea Service, miniature Dessert, Carved Armchairs with Red Velvet, Chippendale coffee table, and gold wire mesh chaise lounge from my stash of miniature treasures just waiting for a Beauty and a Beast to sit upon it!

Act II of "Beauty and the Beast" takes place in the conservatory. It is created with the Taj Mahl Folding Card covered with a pattern from the Graphic 45 Midnight Masquerade paper pad (which is also where the background wall paper and the paper on the floor of the stage is found).

This close up shows Belle finding the Beast dying when she returns to the palace from another image on the Walter Crane Beauty and the Beast Collage Sheet. The statue is another image from the Conservatory Garden Decor Set Collage Sheet.

This photo shows the columns from the Large Theatre Curtains, Columns and Box Seats Set Download that I used in the corners of the stage, as well as the Midnight Masquerade papers on the background and the floor of the stage.

You can tell I used a lot of images from the Large Theatre Curtains, Columns and Box Seats Set Download. Just so you know, this is an amazing 'deal' that Alpha Stamps has for those who enjoy making miniature theatres and scenes. It includes:
* 5 large curtains (and other pieces), sized for the 7" Tall Theatre Cabinets. Curtains are 8 1/2" wide. 
They can also be used on other large shadowboxes, or downsized as you wish.
* 3 sets of box seats, to use in the 2 narrow shadowboxes that are 'doors' for the cabinet
* 5 sets of columns, sized for the deep edges of the cabinets (the sides are either 1 1/2" or 2 1/2" deep).
* 1 Scalloped facade, sized for the center of the cabinet
A total of 20 files in one download!

I hope you enjoyed our little visit to see "Beauty and the Beast" via Alpha Stamps. If you would like to create a version of your own to enjoy, here is a list of the supplies that I used. Of course, Alpha Stamps has a HUGE collection of fairy tale collage sheets, so perhaps you would rather make a Snow White or Cinderella or Red Riding Hood mini theatre!?

Now, go make something beautiful!

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

 

 

The Queen of Mars ...

Costume design by Adrian for "The Great Ziegfeld," 

directed by Robert Z. Leonard, 1936. 

You know it was a good era for fashion and costume design when the Queen of Mars was the ultimate style inspiration. I’ve been down the rabbit hole again, digging through 1920s and 30s showbiz imagery, and I couldn’t help noticing how everyone looks like they’ve been raiding the Martian Queen’s closet. Her outfits were everywhere– at the Ziegfeld follies, the Russian ballet, early science-fiction films, even making an appearance on Hollywood’s first Cleopatra. The bigger, bolder (and glitzier), the better. I find it all makes for some pretty fabulous holiday outfit inspiration, so here are my top 20 style moments inspired by the Queen of Mars…

Pearl Girls in Ballet of Jews from the movie "The Midnight Sun" (1926)

From an early 20th century Swedish play, "Ein Traumspiel" by August Strindberg.

                From La Revue des Folies Bergere, 1924.

Costumes designed by Erte.

 

Film still from "Bright Lights," Robert Z. Leonard, 1925.

Portrait of Pixie Herbert in a bat costume, ca. 1923

Another costume by Erte, the Russian costume designer often referred to as the father of Art Deco, who had a huge influence on fashion, Hollywood, dance and art and made costumes for everything from Radio City Music Hall to the Paris Opera.

Russian avant garde theatre actress, Ioulia Solntseva in “Aelita: Queen of Mars” (1924) 

 Costume designer : Aleksandra Ekster.

Marion Martin (a.k.a Hollywood’s blonde menace), 1928, costume by Erte.

 Costume design by Adrian for "The Great Ziegfeld," 

directed by Robert Z. Leonard, 1936

‘Water’ played by L. M. Koreneva, from Stanislavski’s production of 

Maeterlinck’s ‘The Bluebird’ , Moscow Art Theatre , 1908

Alla Nazimova in Oscar Wilde’s Salomé (1923),

 costumes designed by Natacha Rambova 

Theda Bara as Cleopatra. The film is now considered lost, with only 

fragments surviving. Theda was cinema’s first sex symbol 

as well as America's First Goth. 

Brigitte Helm gets direction from director Fritz Lang on the set 

of Metropolis (1927).

Silent film actress, Barbara La Marr, left and Betty Blythe, right, 

an American actress best known for her dramatic roles in exotic silent films 

such as The Queen of Sheba (1921).

 Awesome English actress, Jessie Matthews and 

an even more awesome headdress ca. 1930s

Costume design by Adrian for "The Great Ziegfeld" 

directed by Robert Z. Leonard, 1936

Ziegfeld Follies dancer circa 1920's.

 "The Avengers," 1924, Lady Victory defeats the robot menace from Mars.

“Martha Pierre as Candlelight” better known 

as “The Candelabra Girl ” in the 1920 Ziegfeld Follies. 

Photo by Alfred Cheney 

Be sure to visit all the other participants of Beverly's Pink Saturday Blog Hop ... just click!

 Now,  you go make something beautiful!

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

 

Unfortunately, by the time Zsa Zsa Gabor played the Queen of

Outer Space in 1958, the vogue of art deco outer space costumes

had passed. It seems in 1958, the glamor girls of other planets

wore Fredericks of Hollywood.

 

London's Female Shoplifting Mafia of Yesteryear...

The voluminous fashion of the 1880's

 We think of the corsets and voluminous petticoats of the 1800’s as painfully limiting to the women who wore them. But a group of female gang members in 20th century London would be inclined to disagree. Enter the “Forty Elephants”, also the “Forty Thieves”, an all-female gang that terrorized London and the surrounding area over two centuries and were responsible for the largest shoplifting operation ever seen in Britain between the 1870s and 1950s.

 1872 Illustration: "A Female Shoplifter"

While many of the male gangs of the era were violent “smash & grab” thieves and crooks, the Forty Elephants was a group of tightly organized and efficient crime cells operating across London and the surrounding area.

They wore specially tailored clothing that would allow for easy stashing of expensive items in high end retail stores. Women were traditionally afforded a fair amount of privacy while shopping, which the elephants took full advantage of, making their exit with thousands of pounds worth of stolen merchandise.

Florrie Homes, 40 Elephants member, was a gangster's girlfriend

before turning to crime herself. 

They travelled in small groups and as security personnel were distracted by inexperienced thieves, the elephants gang would have  come and gone without the shop owner even knowing they had been hit. While posing as maids or housekeepers, the ladies robbed countless houses and often blackmailed wealthy men who had fallen prey to their seduction.

Named after the district in which they operated, Elephant and Castle, the ladies gang was also said to be known for their distinct “elephant-like waddle” when leaving the scene of the crime. The gang was in existence from at least 1873 to the 1950s and over seventy direct members of the gang operating in the 1920s and 1930s have been identified.

Alice Diamond, ca 1912

In the early 20th century, the gang was lead by Alice Diamond, aka “Diamond Annie” or “the Queen of the Forty Thieves”. She was known for her punch, made memorable by her fist full of diamond rings.

Lilian Rose Kendall, better known as The Bobbed Hair Bandit

Notable for the gang’s longevity and skill in avoiding police detection, the Forty Elephants would use their earnings to throw lavish jazz age parties and enjoy luxurious lifestyles normally unattainable to women of modest birth.

Gangster Ada Johnston

The Forty Elephants became so infamous in the West London area that their mere presence near shops would bring alarm. Too famous for their own good, the women were eventually forced to target smaller towns nearby, bringing empty suitcases with them on their journeys that would come back filled with goods.

Elephant & Castle, London, in the early 20th Century

Once a member was initiated into the 40 elephants, she was involved for most of her life, many of them starting as young as 14 and continuing into old age. Even if they were captured, they were never sentenced to more than 3 years in prison.

Gang member Maggie Hughes

The Forty Elephants did not specialize in violent crime, but they protected their turf fervently and would demand a cut from anyone who was deemed to have overstepped into their territory. Gang member Maggie Hughes, infamous for running from a store with a tray full of 34 diamond rings, was arrested after stabbing a police man in the eye with a hat pin.

An unverified photo of a girl gang, speculated to be the 40 Elephants

As security became much tighter in the 1950’s and shoplifting became a much riskier endeavor, The Forty Elephants eventually faded away, but not without leaving a legacy of terror in the hearts of many a London shopkeeper. 

Now, forget this life of dishonesty and infamy ... and go make something beautiful!

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

And to make this a legitimate Pink Saturday

blog hop post ... here's something surprising and pink!

Pink Oreos! Made in Japan. I do hope they are cherry flavored! 

Be sure to check out all the other participants in Beverly's Pink Saturday

Blog Hop by clicking Here.

Manhattan's Legendary Maxwell's Plum ...

Advertisement for the sumptuous Sunday buffet at Maxwell's Plum

The most 1980s restaurant ever, a riotously overdecorated Art Nouveau/Deco/Etc. pleasure palace that “reminded some of Maxim’s in Paris”.  New York’s Plum did not survive the 80s

Maxwell's Plum, the flamboyant restaurant and singles bar that, more than any place of its kind, symbolized two social revolutions of the 1960's - sex and food.

Warner LeRoy, the owner of the 22-year-old establishment on First Avenue at 64th Street, likened its demise to that of an affair that had gone on too long, in the end losing its spontaneity and adventure. 

Maxwell's Plum opened in April 1966, at a time when largely residential First Avenue was undergoing a commercial boom of restaurants and nightclubs. The restaurant's outlandish Art Nouveau decor - kaleidoscopic stained-glass ceilings and walls, Tiffany lamps galore, a menagerie of ceramic animals, etched glass and cascades of crystal - was an immediate hit, and before long it was serving more than 1,200 customers a day. Habitues included such celebrities as Richard Rodgers, Cary Grant, Bill Blass, Barbra Streisand and Warren Beatty. The sprawling bar became a favorite watering hole for the ''swinging singles'' set. 

Mr. LeRoy, the son of famed Hollywood film producer Mervyn LeRoy, was no less theatrical than his restaurant. He paraded around the dining room, his 230-pound frame enveloped in screaming paisley-patterned suits. In fact, it was at Maxwell's Plum in the late 1960's that Mr. LeRoy met an airline stewardess named Kay O'Reilly, whom he eventually married.

 Warner LeRoy, owner of Maxwell's Plum, NYC

In the early 1970's, Maxwell's Plum received four stars, the Times's highest rating, from Craig Claiborne, the newspaper's food critic. The wide-ranging menu featured everything from hamburgers and chili con carne to Iranian caviar and stuffed squab. In its last 10 years, its Times rating slipped to one star, then went back to two. Since 1985, the 175-seat Restaurant had suffered an identity crisis as chefs came and went and the menu lurched from traditional American to flashy California cuisine, then to continental, Pacific Northwestern and French.

In 1985,  the revolving door of chefs began at the Plum. Mr. LeRoy recruited two leading California chefs, the husband-and-wife team of Mark Peel and Nancy Silverton, both from Spago, the influential California-style restaurant in Los Angeles. They lasted less than a year. In 1987, a young star from Seattle, Kathy Casey, was brought East to transplant her eccentric interpretation of Pacific Northwestern cooking. She lasted only three weeks, shortly after she tried serving triangular hamburgers to tradition-bound Maxwell regulars. The last casualty was Geoffrey Zakarian, an alumnus of Le Cirque and the ''21'' Club.

 One of the Plum's stunning Tiffany windows, 

purchased for $28k by Donald Trump

Maxwell's Plum did not survive the 80s. Due to changing tastes and weak reviews that a succession of chefs could not remedy, LeRoy closed it in 1988, announcing that he wasn’t having fun anymore.

"A restaurant is a fantasy—a kind of living fantasy in which diners are the most important members of the cast." -” Warner Leroy

He sold the First Avenue building for a nifty sum, while Donald Trump plunked down $28,000 for one of its Tiffany glass windows. At the same auction, the Tribeca Grill acquired the Plum’s large island bar.

Hope you've been inspired - please visit the other participants of Beverly's Pink Saturday blog hop.

...and then go make something beautiful!

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

Maxwell's Plum is not to be confused with that other famous Manhattan "Max" hot spot - 

Max's Kansas City - THE nightclub for the hip and jet set crowd of the 70's and 80's.

An average dinner table at Max's Kansas City - Paul Morrissey (far left)

dining with Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin and Tim Buckley. 1968.