Clever things that have caught my eye that might make for great gifts.

A dunk mug from Not on the High Street.

A tea towel for a British fetishist or tea lover.

Such a cute little notebook, and such a ridiculously low price!  From Gracia & Louise.

And a scarab scarf from Snoozer Loser.

Like a party in a box, Kristi’s package surprised me yesterday when I checked my mail.

I mentioned a million years ago when she moved from the northwest to Switzerland that I envied her her easy access to Milka bars, which I haven’t had the pleasure of enjoying since I came home from Prague 5 or so years ago.

I am going to take at least a month to eat these, savoring each square.

An amazing photographer whose work I’ve always admired, I’m also now lucky enough to have one of her photos as well.  I’ll share it with you once I have it framed.

Thank you, Kristi!

Though the colors of this bowl are no where near what I usually go for, they make me happy.

By Ittala, who have a range of equally cheery cookware.

A good friend of mine is one of the many women I know who absolutely adores Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.  In fact, she did a fabulous impression of Mrs. Bennet, Elizabeth’s horrifying mother, that was rendered twice as hysterical due to her Wisconsin inflected pseudo-British accent.

This mug made me immediately think of her.  If she didn’t move around so often, I might even get it for her.

I haven’t yet started watching Mad Men because I know once I do, I won’t be able to stop and won’t get anything else done.

That didn’t stop me from having fun with the Mad Men Yourself creator on AMC’s site.

I did a Star Trek one, too and that was far creepier for using an actual photo and moving and speaking.  Be warned: you may end up craving Cheez It’s making that one.

Furiously getting the house ready for a housewarming on Saturday.

Please excuse the lack of postage.

It’s been some time since I last provided a round up of the things I’ve come across that stuck with me, or found myself mulling over and wanting to share.  For certain, the house hunt, purchase and move were a huge part of that but I also think I’ve had less mental space since my promotion in February to devote to things beyond cool vintage pictures or dresses that catch my eye.  Feel free to send anything my way you think might fit in this type of post–I know I don’t hesitate to send Wendy B. random peacock dresses!

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First, the potentially controversial bit.  I wasn’t the only one pleasantly surprised by Lucky’s most recent issue devoted to all things affordable.  This included a nice 2-3 page spread of various web sites that sell things someone besides Beyonce can afford.  Etsy was on that list and I felt my face contort as I saw their 1 line description: a great site to buy things wholesale.

To sell handmade items wholesale is pretty much an oxymoron at heart.  To sell wholesale means to provide a deep discount because the product is being sold in bulk.  For some people, this is not unheard of; they determine a threshold (say, 20 items or a $200 limit) and provide a discount once that thresh hold is reached.  When you sell items as one offs, however, providing that discount basically means you sell at a loss.

This topic gets covered pretty regularly in the Etsy forums.  The people trying to make a living, or at least cover the cost of their time and materials, often express their frustration with other sellers they don’t feel price their items appropriately.  Those sellers sometimes pipe up and say they’re just hobbyists.  As a hobbyist myself, I can definitely see both sides of the coin.

DoubleX, however, threw some interesting wood on the fire with their recent article: Etsy.com Peddles a False Feminist Fantasy.

…what Etsy is really peddling isn’t only handicrafts, but also the feminist promise that you can have a family and create hip arts and crafts from home during flexible, reasonable hours while still having a respectable, fulfilling, and remunerative career. The problem is that on Etsy, as in much of life, the promise is a fantasy.

The writer has an amazing point that I don’t think many people would be willing to make…but her supporting arguments don’t strike me as true.  Yes, it’s incredibly difficult to actually make a living selling handmade goods.  A lot of wildly successful sellers are not in the one-off business (prints of original art work, for example) or they have help in the assembly of their goods.  Etsy does little to suggest that this success is incredibly difficult to duplicate–and honestly, it’s in their best interest to refrain from making that clear.

However, to say that it’s a woman’s ghetto that men are savvy enough to avoid strikes me as belittling and truly off target.  While a good portion of the sellers are moms, the majority I know are not.  I don’t think being a mom and wanting to have a career is necessarily a huge driver for women looking to achieve a balance by selling handmade goods–obviously it can’t be since such a large portion of sellers don’t necessarily have children.  If anything, I imagine it’s the fact that the average job isn’t 100% gratifying–and who isn’t striving for something better, a work day that is as satisfying as a weekend, a job that makes you feel good about yourself, and the luxury of setting your own hours?  I know that was the temptation for me a year and a half ago when I was at my previous job.  I honestly thought about going to 30 hours a week–but that was as far as my fantasy took me because I knew making a living was just not doable by selling online alone.

I came across this article via even cleveland and one of the very brief comments in response to the post struck me as very true:

Having a job that you love 100% is always a fantasy.

I truly hope to retire from the job I have now.  But you can bet there are bad days and even bad weeks where my frustration can’t even find release in looking at kittens on Cute Overload.  & I imagine that if I’d somehow become one of those wildly successful Etsy sellers, those same bad days and bad weeks would happen.

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I gave away my dorkiness on Twitter not too long ago.  The Sims is the only game I’ve ever enjoyed (I played a friend’s 1st version back in 2001 when only 12 outfits were available.)  I’ve yet to pick up the latest version but this blog following two Sims the creator has made homeless was surprisingly fascinating.  The fact that the characters actually develop characteristics (instead of acquiring skills) makes the arc that much more tragic–and uncannily similar to real life.

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Dawn at Plush-a-holic is an insanely talented person who has an eye for finding creations that truly blur the line between art and craft (and who said such a line should exist anyways?)  Leah Evan’s textiles definitely fall into that realm.

Having a passing familiarity with quilting, I have a deep admiration for those who have not only the time that it requires, but the creativity to do something new and interesting with the craft.  My love of Susan’s geisha, cowboy and trompe l’oeil quilts is all the greater given the knowledge I couldn’t think of anything so neat.  Leah’s quilts are an entire other matter.  Like topography or road maps, the gorgeous, subtle colors don’t leap out right away.  Their beauty is no less though and the detail is simply amazing.

If you couldn’t already tell from the few images I’ve shared of my living space, I’m a tad organized.  My friend Christine recently teased me for the fact that my craft room looked just like it does in the pictures I recently posted and wasn’t just cleaned up for the blog.  So you can imagine that when I saw this little mini-sweeper on MoMA’s site, I thought it was too perfect.

I’ve touted the fun things MoMA carries before but it’s worth going back often just to see what they’ve thought up next.

Now that we’ll potentially be in a neighborhood that is not walking distance from downtown, my desire for a bike has only increased.

These heavenly bikes only make it that much harder to settle for something off of craigslist.

Brought to you by the Dutch of course.  Via notcot.

As someone who’s only recently discovered the myriad of domestic things you can find in antique malls and vintage shops, I was thrilled to see Robin at Fashion by Bowie starting a series ‘What is This Thing.’

Even when vintage things are immediately identifiable, like an apron, I’ve often wondered why you’d have one in chiffon with ruffles–only to find out that back in the day women had aprons to cook in, and aprons to host in.  I hope Robin keeps it up.

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I can’t remember how I came across Inhabitat but I’m glad I did.  It lacks the holier-than-thou tone that sometimes gets associated with the green movement with articles on everything from Alexander McQueen to tables made from recycled car parts.

Being from a city that was recycling long before the rest of the country, I’m always excited to see innovative and appealing uses of old things.

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In catching up on my reader, I noticed so many blogs celebrating anniversaries!  When I think back to how thrilled I’d be whenever I came across a site carrying content that I wanted to read, it blows my mind to think how I can’t even keep up with all of the amazing sites out there now.

So I laughed when I came across this post about the 10 types of internet comments.  Blogging feels like a way of life these days and this list definitely reinforces that.

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Finally, while you already may have seen this pint sized version of the Sartorialist on other sites, I had to share little Arlo Weiner here, too.  If only I’d been so stylish as a kid!

Web comic Kate Beaton has launched a new site featuring her incredible work.  As it relates to style, this might be my favorite:

But as a history & literature dork, Lord Byron, Benedict Arnold, Queen Elizabeth, or James Cook  are pretty awesome as well.

Happy Friday.

As a maker of things that hold things, I love seeing a clever take on the whole idea.

You might recognize the wallet–it’s the same brand carried by MoMA, where my boyfriend got his own.  I can’t help coveting the camera case and am totally charmed by the needlepoint phone cozy.

Speaking of movies, the preview for Everlasting Moments stayed with me–even after watching the fantastic Slumdog Millionaire.

The premise was heartbreaking enough: a woman drawn to photography, a still-new art form gaining popularity, discovering her own talent while suffering the type of abuse and mistreatment that was taken for granted 100 years ago–only to find that her love for the medium threatens her sense of self as a mother and wife.  Learning that the film was based on the life of the director’s grandmother only makes it that much more wrenching.

If you’re lucky enough to have the Independent Film Channel, it’ll be premiering there March 6th.  Otherwise, feel free to run the lovely, sepia-toned preview on a continuous loop.

I had to bite my tongue–or whatever the blog equivalent that might be–when I saw the vintage cameras that had been converted into clocks on Uncommon Goods.  I wanted to write about the site given their awesome selection but had to resist mentioning the clocks because I knew I had to get one for the boyfriend.

Because I’m lame and only about 50% successful when it comes to thinking ahead, the gift that was meant for our anniversary arrived just in time for Valentine’s Day.

Luckily, given that we don’t have much investment in the holiday, he doesn’t mind.  Even better, he loves the clock.

It joins the Brownie Holiday on a lamp I picked up from Target a couple of months ago–two of many in the boyfriend’s camera collection.

Bethany aptly designated January as the Monday of the year and while I never thought I’d have any philosophical common ground with Garfield, I have to agree.  Though the weather wasn’t terrible and life didn’t thrown any wild curveballs my way, cobbling together a coherent thought about the various links that collect for these posts has felt impossible.  Now that it’s February, however, I can kind of see the light at the end of the tunnel that is winter.

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Loving vintage can mean a variety of things.  It can mean that, like me, you occasionally hit up thrift and consignment shops and consider yourself pretty savvy for scoring a pair of designer jeans or a perfect 1960s shift.  It can mean that, like Missa, you only shop thrift and have the incredible style that goes with the habit.  Then again, if you’re like Rhiannon, your thrift habit could actually be a profession.  & some people take the profession to incredible new territory, scrounging in mine shafts and abandoned cabins for the holy grail of vintage.

I don’t know if I’ve ever read Outside magazine but I was completely riveted by the article on Brit Eaton, a vintage hunter who allows a reporter to accompany him over the course of several days in the backwoods of Utah, Colorado and other places he insists on keeping confidential to prevent his competition from learning his routes.  As in, there are other people who dig in old doghouses and get threatened at gun point in the pursuit of ancient Levis.

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Quite honestly, I have never expected to see myself in popular culture.  Even growing up with the Cosby show, I to this day am caught off guard when I see television programming, mainstream advertising or anything besides music or sports based around people of color.  ‘Based’ being the key word–it’s not like we’re not all familiar with the token face in the crowd at this point.  But even that, for the most part, is amusing to me–the nominal effort of agencies and producers to acknowledge/sell to/recruit other demographics.

So it caught me off guard when I looked at this photo, taken by Tim Walker for Valentine’s Day and thought, ‘A bunch of straight white people.’  Don’t get me wrong, tokenism isn’t a great alternative but it was interesting to feel an absolute lack of identification with the shot and realize how even tokenism has become so standard that deviating from that is noticeable.  Via the always charming Fifi Lapin.

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I believe I came across Even Cleveland via City Sage and I think I’m going to owe Anne a debt for that always.  Her stream of posts makes me feel like this is what blogs were meant for.  Narwhals give way to Ernest Hemingway in a fisherman sweater which leads to a post on Aran hand knit sweaters–and on to Inuit goggles made of cedar.  The clips she posted of the northern lights made me revisit my 100 things to do list and wish that our next trip was to the Arctic and not southeast Asia.

Even better, all of those nautical posts led me to this site, Blue House Buttons, a treasure trove for anyone who’s coveted buttons as if they were jewels.

I bookmarked Snowhome after seeing Queen Marie feature their flighty clocks on Kingdom of Style.  Bookmarked and forgotten unfortunately.  A few spare moments to browse, however, had me grinning as I landed on these two clever scales.

We do not have a scale in our house and I don’t know that I would ever own one.  I gauge my weight by how well my clothes fit and how often I make it to the gym.  These scales, however, are too funny not to want–and I think weight gain might be more bearable if I thought of myself in terms of Oliver Twist (after more) or, more likely, Hulk Hogan.

We’re off to Portland for the weekend.  Barring wifi issues at the Ace, I’ll be posting–though my posts might be on bacon doughnuts rather than clothes or jewelry!

Happy Friday!

My hunt for anything metal to polish led the boyfriend to joke that he might need to hide the cats to keep me from taking my new Dremel to them.

Now it’s time to drill.

I’ve always had a soft spot for vintage advertising and these from the Stanford School of Medicine are no different.

Especially the ones featuring Santa.  Has to make you wonder what ads are going to seem out of line in the future.

Via Found in Mom’s Basement.

Snow in Seattle is a rarity.  If we get it, it’s usually melted and gone by noon.  Every five to ten years however, we get a proper snowfall and the whole city pretty much shuts down.

Partly this is because there simply isn’t the infrastructure to handle a heavy snowfall–the city isn’t going to keep a fleet of plows on hand when this only happens once or twice a decade.  It’s also partly inexperience–people don’t think (or don’t want) to shovel the sidewalks in front of common buildings, there’s no salt on hand, and even bus drivers who you might think would know what to do on an icy hill end up suspended over the freeway.

Which means I’ve been mostly inside sewing and browsing online for my remaining Christmas gifts–and shopping for others always seems to mean a smidge of shopping for myself on the side.  Or shopping for the apartment, in any case.

I wish I had someone to give this monkey sushi set to–stumbling up on it while searching for trays had me just grinning.

Stay warm and have a great weekend.

We’ll be heading to Walla Walla for the long holiday weekend.  I’m really looking forward to it with all of the high drama of the past few months–between the election and varying sea changes at work in response to the economic climate, I’m more than due for a quiet couple of days antique shopping with the madre.

Given this absence, any item purchased from the shop starting Thursday will not ship until Monday.  Posting will be certain to continue since Walla Walla is so rich in subject matter & I’m sure we’ll have down time at the hotel.

Also, a heads up that with the traffic from my old domain on the decline, I finally deleted the old blog.  Someone has already snapped up the domain so if you have not updated your links, I cannot vouch for what content will now live at the old link.  If it’s latex and shoe fetish shots (wardrobe_remix has given me more insight into both than I ever thought possible), you can’t say I didn’t warn you.  The new link should be:

http://into-thefray.com/blog

Finally, given that our coat closet is overflowing, I decided to put up the unlined Zara coat that had been a sort-of fix to my cape craving on ebay.  The auction is here.

Posts about shoes, crafting, and my boyfriend’s fixation with old cameras will resume tomorrow.

Take care.