(Inside A Black Apple)

A Cup & A Bowl

I've been waiting a while to share this little bowl + cup set.
I worked on them last Spring, and they're finally out and I finally have the go-ahead to share them!

They are part of the new Aladdin Artist Series, which is practical and lovely, but also, in their words, "puts art in your hands"! This first batch features the artwork of six artists/illustrators with a nice variety of sensibilities...among my illustrious cohorts, the wonderful Amy and Matte! Check out their designs, because they are seriously wonderful.

They can be found at loads of places online, and out-and-about, too.
Try Delight, Velocity, and, of course, Aladdin!

My Favorite Mirror Collaboration

I just got word that all of the great stuff over at The Black Apple area of My Favorite Mirror is up and ready for order! Hooray!

Buttons are my favorite

I really love buttons...when I was a really tiny person, I "collected" them, meaning that my mom would let me choose 10 loose buttons from this big bin at the store. Digging my fingers into the huge sea of little candy-ish plastic and glass discs, Amelie-style, was one of the most satisfying and wonderful sensations.

I found this sweet Japanese book via the wonderful Molly Chicken blog, and it is available for order here. What a beautiful little volume it is...and it  makes me want to just hoard all of my special vintage buttons in glass cases and shadow-boxes!

Don't those little animal shapes just kill you? Who am I kidding, they ALL kill me.

The cherry pie from yesterday was really tasty. Thanks for all the cute comments about that apron! My best friend Sarah gave it to me before she moved away to Brooklyn a few years ago. It is the perfect apron for protecting from flour and the like, while still being adorable. I love baking so much these days...though today I think I'm going to make a big pot of chicken soup with rice, ala Maurice Sendak. It is one of my favorite winter-foods.

A few links:

• This hilarious and wonderful series of short animations, Making Fiends, which was found via BoingBoing. It is really clever and adorable. I read on the site that it is being picked up by Nickelodeon soon! It reminded me of what it felt like to discover Teen Girl Squad way back when.
• Revamp Vintage, which is vintage reproduction clothing. So cute! I'm thinking of having them make a few simple 1940's style day dresses for me. Between them and Remix, I feel very happy. Very happy indeed.

A Stitchy Book + I am depressed about Movies

Hey cuties.
I bought this book a few days ago with a nice little gift card to the book store, and I really need to show off some of it, because you will love it. I know for certain that this book has been blogged before (by Ms. Furious Poultry, maybe?) but I had to do it. It's the See and Sew book, which is allegedly for children, but I think we all know that the majority of the copies will reside on grown-up girl's bookshelves. All of the vintage sewing images are what sold me...see, even the endpapers are beautiful!

 
 

Well, truthfully it was the beautiful images AND the oversized, idiot-proof embroidery stitch instructions. I'd be lying if I said otherwise. I didn't know how to do a simple chain stitch until 3 days ago. Very sad, I am no "Renaissance crafter". Anyway, this book is just wonderful, and you will love it. I would imagine a little girl or boy would, too, but who knows. All I know is it made me so excited about sewing things for the new year (including a big present that is in the works for a birthday coming up very soon). I've just ordered loads of new fabric + felt supplies to make lovely dollies, and many canvases as well. I just have to un-wreck my studio from the blitz of holiday shipping that kind of killed it temporarily...

And, the other half of my post-title. I am just so mad about movies at this second. Yesterday, both Children of Men and the-movie-I've-been-obsessively-looking-forward-to, Pan's Labyrinth were supposed to arrive in theaters. Now, I didn't expect Athens to get Pan's Labyrinth (at least not immediately) but I figured Atlanta would. Nope. Not yet, anyway. And Children of Men? Starring my HUSBAND who is very famous? Not that one either? All that is playing is the likes of We are Marshall and Night at the Museum and movies you really couldn't pay me to watch. I am so sad. Yesterday was the first day that I really, really missed New York. I forlornly punched my old zip code in..."11211" for showtimes...and sure enough. Both of those films are playing, of course. I really almost cried, which I know is ridiculous. When I said I would mainly miss the movies and H&M (aside from friends, of course) I meant it.

To console ourselves my friend Jenny and I watched some choice selections from a "50 Horror Movie" Box set that she got for Christmas from her boyfriend. Most were hilarious, and we kinda skipped through alot. One, however, which has a hilarious title (Naked Massacre aka Born for Hell) was directly based on the Richard Speck murders and was really terrifying/shocking and actually very good.  But maybe it just seemed good after the film we watched before that one, entitled Metamorphosis, in which a man pretty much turned into an honest-to-god Dinosaur with very little explanation. This is what it has come to. Good movies, please come soon. 

Pretty Children + Pretty Storage

Hello lovelies.
I started off my day with a messenger from an undisclosed Conde Nast publication coming all the way down to South 3rd street to pick up some of my work! Tres exciting! I then breakfasted on the amazing pie (which we now know is "Jeffrey's victory pie") and the rest of the afternoon, I packed and shipped another big round o' stuff, and then traipsed off to the P.O. When I got home I had a lovely package waiting for me...and what was it? What could it be?
Oh, it was just the oversized, AMAZING copy of Milk Magazine that the lovely, lovely Jenny toted home for me all the way from France! It is didn't disappoint, oh no. I've only flipped through it (I'm doing that thing where I want to kinda save it so I'm not really "looking" at the pictures yet. Just glancing.)
The cover (along with a darling babyish mini-magazine that came with it):

Here are some highlights, even though...seriously? Now I feel like I would pay the overseas subscription price. I know I balked before at the $140ish price tag (EDIT: I'm a moron. I think it actually works out to about half of that amount...silly me!) but now that I've seen how INCREDIBLE this magazine is? The photos! The interiors! I feel like it's so wonderful it's going to kill me:



so, yay yay yay!
I hope these make you guys as happy as they make me :)

More on the beautiful children front is the new (ish) monograph from artist Loretta Lux :

The book is very inexpensive, and incredibly clean and beautiful. I like to think of her work as a sort of "paintings" rather than photographs, because I've always been annoyed by the notion of her as a photographer. I like to think of her as a portrait artist. If you haven't seen her work, you gotta take a look at it!

Lastly, the pretty storage:

It's the good ol' Jackie Shapiro for French Bull and you can buy it loads of places (here, if there are no cute kitcheny places in your neck of the woods). What a difference pretty tupperware makes brightening your fridge and housing your leftovers.

Whew! I need to nerd out about this happy, adorable stuff because I discovered today that my credit card was stolen (last weekend our apartment was burglarized for the second time in the last few months). We thought they had just taken Sarah's laptop and blackberry, but they apparently also riffled through my desk enough to find my credit card that I never use. Creeps!

Mix Tape

This is more of an amazing thing to try on the Internet...it is completely free, and ridiculously adorable to me:
I present you with...  The Cassette Generator!

This one I whipped up, just for you guys.

Amazing, no? So now you can email faux tapes of faith & devotion to all of your beloveds!

Happy Friday, sweet peas

Remix Shoes

I have found the most wonderful shoes!

I know that I had previously brought you an amazing  Sock Source, but now I need to share Remix Vintage shoes with you. They are vintage repro shoes, and for me (a gal who wears a steady size 10 shoe) this is so great! My life of looking for 30's and 40's and 50's heels at vintage shops is one of grave disappointment...in fact, I don't believe that a size 10 even existed then. Seriously. Maybe in goon-ish, orthopedic shoes, but not in pretty Rita Hayworth heels, that's for sure.

So, anyway, pretty excited about these shoes. I think I've said before that "I don't even understand how people can be shoe people" because I find it so hard to find cute shoes. But I'm beginning to understand. Ohhhh yes. Starting with my Fluevog Discovery, I'm starting to see that it's actually possible to bankrupt oneself with shoe purchases.

The browny shoes above are called the "Deco" (so adorable! they are first on my list to acquire!) and these to the left are called "Babydoll Pumps", I believe. I'm going back and forth with myself about whether or not I can hack these (that lil' 3 1/4" heel might be a wee bit much for me!).

Alright, now go stare at beautiful shoes. Or socks, if you missed that post. Go forth and develop your foot fetishes, my dears!

The Magic Sock (s)

Socks. I love them. Like obsessively, almost painfully love them. It's one of my most acute inanimate object-loves. In light of this, why didn't I find Sock Dreams earlier?  I remember always seeing their ads in Bust and thinking "wow, what a cheesy font/design that ad has", which made me immediately forget about the fact that it might be the answer to all of my years of travelling around department stores, Target, and kitschy specialty stores I.S.O. quirky, amazing socks. Lo and behold, people...it was. I mean is. Overlook the cheesy font/design... and Holy Moley, I felt like I fell down the rabbit hole to my perfect, perfect place.

I made a small testing-the-waters-with-one-little-toe order (just in case they were ultra tight, or un-comfy, or whatever) and got 4 pairs, and one for Sarah. I have always had kinda big calves, so sock fitting is a specialty process. I bought several pairs of striped over-the-knees , and (as I suspected) they hit me at about the middle of my knee. But oh they are comfy... a nice thickness, they stay up well. So, so happy. 

They also have free shipping! These socks were ordered on Saturday, and dropped on my doorstep Wednesday. Wonderful! The Sock Dreams folks are highly recommended. If you are a sock fetishist, you will spend an unbelievable amount of time just perusing the huge inventory, drooling. Clint referred to it as "sock porn", because of some of the sexier leg shots.  I call it sock porn because...well... it makes me so darn happy.