crooked house

Tissue Paper House

The Crooked House NEEDS this tissue paper house. In fact, we need several of them.

Seahorse Dollar

See more origami dollars here. Isn't the eye perfection?

Upcycled Coffee Cup Notebooks

I really like these upcycled coffee cup notebooks by Christin Ripley for Design Squish. (Watch for them in your nearest fancy eco-friendly boutique at $5 each. Just kidding. But the wheels are turning...)

Best Dad In the World

It's official. David is the best dad in the world. But don't worry, your favourite dad can be the official best dad in the world, too. After seeing a similar design for sale on a British site (at the scary, scary price of $41 plus shipping) I asked Lisa, the graphic designer who did Sylvie's birthday invitations, to make some up for me and she's now offering them to everyone at the bargain price of five bucks!

Brain Hemisphere Hat

Ellen McHenry designed the pattern for this brain hemisphere hat, to be labeled, coloured, and constructed by your child. We need to do this activity -- I know I could use a little review. Via Jessica Van Dyne-Evans on pinterest.

Love and Stationery

Image taken from here.

Happened upon this love poem to stationery yesterday, via Thomas's links list. It's from Sarah Salway's collection You Do Not Need Another Self-Help Book.

Love and Stationery

Tonight, women dream of stationery;
well thumbed catalogues hidden
in bedside tables, falling open
at filing solutions. Some promise
this will be the last time, one final look
at industrial size staplers, hole punches.
Others take it further. Post-it notes
edge their desire as they chase private
rainbows husbands don’t understand.
At lunchtime, propelled out by a need
for highlighters, their fingers brush
sellotape dispensers as they imagine
being held by paperclips,
protected by bubblewrap,
wiped clean with Tippex.
In quiet moments,
they will pull out new journals,
those blank, lined, empty pages waiting
to be filled; who knows what magic
will result from an organized life?
At bad times, when the ink runs dry,
you will find a woman standing in front
of an open stationery cupboard, the flutter
of her heart stilled by the solid weight
of correspondence quality paper.

Polish Paper Town

Here's yet another paper town -- a cardboard one, actually. They come as templates like these:

There are three different sets that cost 20 PLN each -- they are made in Poland and are based on Polish suburban life. That's about $6.33 Canadian. Not bad -- it'd cost a total of $14.26 to purchase one and have it shipped. Via handmade charlotte.

The Crooked House Paper Village

Here's a shot of the paper village we always put up around this time of year. Some of the houses -- the three-dimensional ones with pastel roofs -- I made a year or two ago using a Martha Stewart winter village kit. At some point, I used Country Home's plans to make the plain white buildings, which are flat. And this year's addition is the one in the middle  -- it's made from a photograph of our own crooked house, printed on vellum and taped to a square glass vase. I got the idea from Hutch Studio. They made similar ones of their shop. (Via the lovely new blog A History of Home.)

I've taken photographs of other houses in our neighbourhood, and ones of the houses of some relatives and friends -- you know, the people who don't actually live in our neighbourhood but we wish did. (Gramma, when you read this, please email us a photo of your house and Den's.) And, time permitting, I'm going to add those houses to our paper village, too. So that even if the real world isn't perfect, our paper one will be.

Or maybe not. If you look closely, you can see where the roof of our porch is starting to fall down, right above the steps. And unfortunately, there's another slight problem. I suggested to Luke that we might like to put little cut-out photographs/paper dolls of him and Vivi on the felt, next to that snowman say, and he thought that was a great idea. "We should look sad, though," he said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because the house is on fire," he said. And unfortunately, it does look a little like that. Luke thinks the glossiness of the map behind the roof of the house even looks like smoke.

We could just go with that, I suppose. Add a toy fire truck and all.

 

All you need to make your own is a photograph of your house printed on a sheet of vellum, a battery-operated tea light or two (whatever you do, don't use real ones), and some tape. The glass vase or candle-holder is optional. If you don't want to use one, just fold the photo of your house in a kind of tube around a tea-light and fasten it with the tape.

Free Printable Polaroid Photo Project

Camie Dyess created this as a birth announcement but I think it would work well with all sorts of photos. She is sharing the printables and DIY instructions for free at Fresh Baked. Via l'il magoolie.

A Victorian Kindle

Illustration student Rachel Walsh designed this book filled with tiny books in response to the assignment "Explain something modern/internet based to someone who lived and died before 1900." It's a visual explanation of the Kindle e-reader for Charles Dickens. Love it with a passion. Via Iris Blasi