rabbit mobile

I made another mobile... this time it's with flying bunny rabbits. However this mobile is not for a friend, it is for our very own soon-to-be-arriving bundle of joy. I will post more pics of the nursery soon (which was quite fun to decorate). As you can see there is a Tri-Bunny and an evil-eye Plush already in the crib.

daily photos

Six days ago I (finally) started to take pictures of what I make every morning, if anyone is interested you can check it out at my Flickr or Twitter accounts for past and future daily pics.

mouse house

My nephew came for a visit last week and did his usual hectic run-around as he always does when he sets foot in our apartment. He ran as the Tasmanian devil to the toys, video games, Squid Wool table, cats, toys again... and then after about 30 minutes he comes to see me and said "did you know you have a mouse house in your apartment?". "Of course I do..." I replied "...but no mice lives there yet". He then grabbed a few felt mice and helped them move to their new home. He's such a cutie.
Today is Canada Day but in Québec it is also known as moving day since everybody moves on this day. It is quite amusing seeing all the trucks and people move around on the same day. Little brown mice family also found their new home in my apt.

new model: starfishies

A new model is in the works: the starfish! starfishes? starfishies? The ones above will travel to the east of Quebec all the way to Percé. They will be available this summer at l'Atelier Galerie Mylène Henry in Percé. More will be made for my etsy shop and I will try to make it a regular in the Squid Wool collection. However they are quite painful to make, my fingers are still sore from all the needle jabs I gave myself making them.



On a unrelated cat story: Our cat Irma loves chives but I think she mostly loves to give us heart attacks jumping on the edge of our 2nd floor balcony to munch on it. arg

Inspiration Friday / Lost and Found

Christopher has been quite busy recently and say he’s sorry he can’t post more often these day. I almost feel like I am high-jacking his blog, but this should be temporary!

I have many years of experience as a housekeeper and head housekeeper (gouvernante). This might sound like a crappy job, and sometimes it is, but personally I always thought this work was more something like as a social study. Getting into private spaces, and getting to know people via their belongings (no joke, I couldn’t recognize regular guests by their face, but by their stuff and mess…) can be quite fascinating. One of the best part was the lost and found, a gold mine of anecdotes. Among many things, and throughout the years, I found a couple of interesting pictures which I set aside for our lost photo collection.

Christopher's eBay job has similarities, since he’s dealing with people’s past material life. Sometimes he can find family pictures left in books or in board games. With excitement we take them out and place them with the others.

So far our use of these images of total strangers has been to place them on the fridge and pretend they are our family (we did this for some time). Eventually I would like to do a scrap book party where we could scrap book their life the way we imagine them. All we would need are good pairs of scissors, glue, and a couple of Sears catalogues from the 70’s and 80’s.

Here are some of the material we could work from:

Finnish Toddler

Two colour shopping sprees

Kitty cats

Family picnic

Wedding thank you note: "Thanks for this nice gift that makes such good coffee"

And finally... Always check books and board games (or maybe tell your mom) for lost pictures before giving them away. Or somebody could put them on the net... And always be polite with your housekeeper, you don't know what she might know about you.

yay... i'm not a liar

as promised... twelve more brooches listed in the Etsy Shop! hooray! More brooches will pop up in the shop next week.

Inspiration Friday / Reversed Inspiration

Last week the last issue of Punisher Max, Six Hours to Kill (no. 66-70) came out.

I wanted to talk about it, because I think it is pretty funny...

We have a few friends working in the comic book industry. About a year ago, our friend Michel Lacombe asked Christopher if he could use him as a model and that is how Christopher ended up being a villain in The Punisher.

Christopher became Jon Cavalier, an "evil" lawyer and to my utter pleasure I even made a quick appearance as Mrs Cavalier. To become a comic book character always makes a good story to tell, especially when those character are so far from our reality!

Punisher Max has explicit content and I can only assume it is addressed to mature readers. Being softies, we literally can get uncomfortable reading what Christopher, as Mr. Cavalier, can be thinking or saying. But, hey, villains are not suppose to make us comfortable, right? Still rather than the final product, I prefer to look at these less offensive pencilled versions, without text and colours.

From Punisher Max, No 67, pencil & ink by Michel Lacombe

Christopher's picture also by Michel Lacombe

From Punisher Max, No 68, pencil & ink by Michel Lacombe
(In Cavalier's office. There is my quick appearance, in the framed photos of the Cavalier Family and of Mrs. Cavalier)

A big thanks to Michel for giving us the pleasure to be in a comic book at least once in our life.

And next week I will tell the tale of how one of our cats made it in the Magazine Animal...

new items in shop

I seariously neglected my etsy shop these past months... that ends today! I listed the twelve brooches above and will list another twelve brooches tomorrow.

I missed the Puces Pop craft fair this passed weekend (I was on a much needed vacation in New York City)... I can't wait to do another craft fair.

Inspiration Friday / Marc Boutavant

Marc Boutavant is a French illustrator whose work we get to see more and more. Since its publication in October 2007, his book Le Tour du Monde de Mouk, à vélo et en gomettes ! has already been talked about quite a lot and there are good chances that you already heard about it.

It is a book we highly recommend to people like us who love kid's book and animals - yes, that's a huge category! There are so much detail in this book that we haven't finished looking at it yet. Which makes me think it is a good investment...

But to bring something new about this illustrator, I thought maybe I could share something old...

My love for Boutavant's illustrations goes back to the fall of 2000, when you could find his work on flyers for la Guingette Pirate, a Parisian venue. You are less likely to know about these... enjoy. I wish I had the October flyer to know who else falls from the tree.

Does your cat...

... steal your bags?

... read your stuff?


... wear your shoes?

a mess... and I love it

before


after:



ok... so I just noticed the photo I took February 11th (the photo at the top) and it does not represent my work environment at all! After 3 months in our new apartment this is how it actually looks like.
I'm not ashamed of my mess... I'm one of those people that works best in an "organized mess". I guess I'm addicted to clutter... or as I like to call it "aesthetic-chaos".

Inspiration Friday / Fruits, Veggies and a Toast surprise

You probably already know, but we do have very ecclectic taste and interest. Among all, ceramic is a medium we really enjoy.

Here are some 18th century ceramic plates and other kitchen ware of marginal use from Paris' les Arts décoratifs . Althought there is definitively something kitshy about them, they were one of the highlight of my visit.

I highly recommend the visit, if you happen to be in Paris and have some interest in the decorative arts....





On a humbler scale, this is what happens when Christopher mixes ceramic and food...

Fried Eggs @ Good Egg

I mentioned this before but I just noticed that Good Egg now has their website up and running. It's worth the look-see!
It looks like a swell food-boutique, I'm definitely dropping by next time I'm in Toronto. They have a nice selection of Squid Wool brooches.

a little less soft... Play Doh

As Gen mentioned a couple of weeks ago, my previous obsession to keep my hands busy was making little Play-Doh figures. This was all the fault of my pal Serge who made the first one (he made the Pirate-Bear, Mario Bros, Madman, Batman, Captain America, Hulk and Zombie bear).
I bought a Play-Doh kit a couple of years ago and it came with a bear mold, we would mold the bear and customize it from there, at one point I stopped making them bear shapped and just made miniature figures (with the same shape). I planned to make only Jim Henson Muppets at first but couldn't resist making more (I stopped when my shelves were full). If you want to see more check out my Flickr page.

Play Doh is rarely liked as a medium since it dries up and crackles up easily, but I find that this makes it's charm. The figures would shrink about 1cm and become rock hard and become very fragile (I repaired a few with crazy glue).


On another note, I just opened a Twitter account here . So far it is just a list of what I make everyday... I'm a Twitter newbie.

Inspiration Friday / Cereal Boxes and a Meteorite Surprise

Earlier this week we had the visit of a friend who commented on the impressive quantity of cereal boxes we have lined on our kitchen table. Worst, it was not even that bad on that particular day...

I guess he is right, we do hold an abnormal quantity of breakfast cereal at home, probably because Christopher tends to buy three boxes every time we finish one. But his interest in breakfast cereal is not limited to a heavy consumption (to which I contribute generously).

When we cross borders, Christopher likes to take pictures of breakfast cereal alleys. Maybe the attraction comes from the very loud marketing and the bright colours. And the weirder it gets, the happier we are.

You can also find all kind of surprises in cereal box. A couple of years ago, one surprise came in the shape of a sugar and flake rock falling into my bowl. We lovingly named it the "Meteorite". For some reasons, we never threw it away.

The other day Christopher couldn't close one of the drawer of his desk. The desk is quite old, so we didn't wonder too much why. Until... lo and behold, Christopher found the Meteorite stuck behind the drawer. Cereals are fun, they even play tricks on you.


Anyway, since Squid Wool speciality is probably felted food, it would be a great idea to felt some cereal one day. Fruit Loops could be a good starting point.