A thousand years ago, I had an idea for a book devoted to photographs of beloved stuffed animals. Since I'm not a photographer, my idea went nowhere. (I tend to have a lot of good ideas for things I could do if I were a totally different person.)
Today I discovered that not one but two such books were published in 2013, and they both look beautiful: Much Loved
Take a gander:
More Much Loved photos.
And:
Inspired by the four-year-old and her mom who make fancy dresses from paper, I promised Sylvie a couple of weeks ago that we would try it. She called me on it today so off we went to Walmart to buy some supplies. Although we bought some bristol board and a lot of tissue paper, this dress is actually made from just two plastic tablecloths that cost a buck each. (That and a whole lot of stick-on jewels that took a loooong time to put on. Unfortunately, in the photos you can barely see them.) I just tied the tablecloths on her. We might have been better able to mimic Elsa's neckline but I tied the knot in the white tablecloth too tight to then pull it down over her shoulders. Next time I'll do better.
The braid is made from three sheets of white tissue paper and attached to her own hair with an elastic. I wanted to use at least one yellow sheet to go for a more white-blonde look but Sylvie insisted Elsa's hair is WHITE. Although she's taken the dress off now, she's still got the tissue paper braid in.
I like the Elsa attitude here -- we got a lot of dramatic hand gestures, too, while we were taking the photos but most of those are slightly blurry.
We also picked up a copy of the newly released Frozen dvd, which we didn't even realize was out yet. I won't tell you how much we paid for it. Let's just say the dress was a lot cheaper, fancy jewels and all.
Check out these photos of artist Ann Hamilton's gigantic swing installation at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. If I lived in New York I would so be there right now. That looks like one weird and wonderful way to relieve stress. There are a whole bunch of big swings hanging from the roof in this place, as well as that giant billowing curtain you see there. As the swings move, they make the curtain move. Apparently there are also radios wrapped up in paper bags strewn around. When you pick them up and listen, you can hear people reading.
I want a job making things like this.
-inspired bedroom belongs to two-year-old Annamarie Mack. It is perfect. You can see other bedroom homages to children's literature on Apartment Therapy, via The 49th Shelf, on facebook.
This is the Dunkley Pramotor -- a motorized pram sold in 1923. "We should get that. That's what I'm thinking," says Sylvie as she looks over my shoulder.
Whenever I had to lug around one of those incrediblyawkward and heavy removable car seats with one of my babies in it -- say into the grocery store -- I liked to imagine that in the future, a podlike car seat would hover in the air beside the mother, trailing her wherever she went. Recently I tossed around the idea of a kind of remote control stroller that would follow a parent, so he or she could be hands free for shopping or holding the hands of bigger toddlers or whatever. Are these ideas as crazy as this stroller looks? Via I Cannot Go to Bed -- There is Epic Shit Happening on the Internet, which I found through Lizzie Skurnick.
