Snuggled Up

Me and the Rileybean snuggled on the couch. I've donated some Monster Fashion items to the auctions raising money for Tigger the cat. You can find out more about Tigger here and you can see all of the auctions here. Tigger's owner, Rani, actually moved into my spot in my old apartment in Chicago when I left to move back to Iowa. So I have met Tigger and must say he is quite a sweet kitty. If you've got some spare dollars, go bid and help out a kitty while getting some awesome art/craft items in return!

Adventures in Dog Sitting

It's been all about the dogs around here this week. We have been dog sitting since Friday for our friend's Chihuahua mix. It's been rather gloomy for our boxer girl, Riley, as this new little dog has taken to running around all over the furniture and doing all the things that Riley is not allowed to do. When she's not glaring at the new dog in the house wondering why he's here and when he's leaving, she's been looking especially sad. I feel bad for her so she's going to snuggle up on the couch with me tonight for a special treat.

Riley

Enid Collins + Jonathan Adler

I recently discovered Enid Collins and quickly became obsessed with her purses. The funny thing is, I had seen her purses before, but I never really thought to figure out who she was. Due to the extensive designs available on her purses, I decided to limit myself to one box purse and one tote purse. It took a lot of Ebay searching as there are a large number of her bags available at any given time, and they also vary a lot in price depending on the condition and design. This is the box purse I finally settled on:

There's a little wear and a couple of the jewels are missing, but I love it anyway. Last week while looking through the sale items on Jonathan Adler's website (sale is until Feb. 24!) I noticed he had a couple pillows that were a homage to Enid Collins. One had a couple birds on it that were definitely reminiscent of Enid's work and the other one (that is still available) has fish. I love the way he added his signature in the way that Enid would write the names of her designs:

Dreaming in letterpress

This weekend we went to a going out of business sale for a print shop in downtown Des Moines. The ad had said they had lots of binding equipment and letterpress equipment. We got there about an hour after the sale had started and found that they had already sold most of the binding equipment, but discovered most of it was too large for what we would be interested in using it for anyway. Then we saw it, the most gorgeous (and rather large) letterpress that I have ever seen, a wonderful old Heidelberg that looked to be in perfect condition. Next to it were drawers and drawers full of lead type along with other equipment including another older model letterpress. In my dreams we would have been able to afford the whole setup, but there would also be the problem of storing it and moving it. Now I am obsessed with finding a smaller more affordable letterpress that we could use for another hobby. I'm sure I will always look but never buy, kind of like I do with Heywood Wakefield furniture.