Wordplay

Just so pretty.

Caitlin Wylde, Artist

Ballerinas (later used in the Martha Stewart wedding issue this spring)

Arne Jakobsen, Cecilie Manz and Kasper Salto (architects and designers)

Tuscany

Photos by Ditte Isager.

I made two of these–one for mom and one for adopted mom–for mother’s day and I only drew a tiny bit of blood. If you’re looking for a homemade card (and you can’t draw or paint or sew or decoupage), this is the craft for you. All you need is patience. And elf fingers.

Pick a word (the shorter, the better–meaning, don’t get ahead of yourself here) and trace it on the inside front flap of the card. Make sure to do this BACKWARDS, because you’re working from the inside out. Or just pick a palindrome (emordnilap!) and save yourself the trouble–like kayak or radar. Epic is the card that with “radar” on the front in tiny bumps. Epic.

Then find a safety pin (safety first!) and start poking though your card. It’s easier to poke through the paper into a soft surface like a piece of foam board or a perfectly awesome round cork trivet that you remembered you had under a recipe book in your kitchen. See if you have one of those.

My finger started to get sore after the fourth hole, so I wrapped the pin in a piece of elastic I had lying around my well-equipped craft room to soften the blow. Worked great. Just keep poking until you fill in your sketch. Hundreds of tiny little bumps on a card = something thoughtful you can FEEL.

Last step! Admire and run your sore fingers over the bumps about a million jillion times. Then send to your mom, or person of interest, and remind them to check the mail (what mother doesn’t check the mail the day before mother’s day?! GRR!) Also, cool trick: Tell your recipient to hold the front flap of their card up to a lampshade to see something quite pretty. K. Your turn. Happy mother’s day.

NY weather has warmed but there’s still that annoying spring chill that gets you when you decide to dress down. All the better to bring/wear/drag along something to keep it out. Also, though, ropes are just cool. Boatish. Is it too macabre to wear ropes around your neck? Does it speak to your darker nature? Maybe. But it’s a good tongue-in-check type of statement. And with all these (some warm) adornment options, it’s a perfect blend of fash and function. Help me decide?

a and e: necklush, $42-$74 b: Sailor Knot Necklace from The Vamoose, $29 c: DIY rope necklace from Love Maegan d: Tan cloud scarf from rosetung, $65

a: Tidal wave cowl from knittles, $60 b and c: Hunter velvet upcycled scarf necklace from lilian asterfield by nicole deponte, $29 and hunter velvet wrap necklace, $38 d: Fun T-shirt DIY necklace refashion from I Still Love You e: Staring at stars mixed yarn eternity scarf from Urban Outfitters,$28 f: Medusa necklace 1.0 from Accessorius, $54

The dashing Christoph Neimann (who made these fun LEGO creations), drew some maps. Not a real map, you say? Well then what’s a map if it’s not showing you where you’ve been or how you got there?

More marvelous maps here: NYT Op online.

Or just skip to the source: christophniemann.com

Flashback 3rd grade. Windsuit pants, insulated lunch boxes, and CRAYONS.

What’s better than a 64-pack of Crayola sharpener-in-the-back-of-the-box CRAYONS?

I like to call this one “Mystery of the Missing Mariachi”

Above: “The Red Leaves Are Coming! The Red Leaves Are Coming!”

Below: “Tony Wants Tucan for Dinner”

And the last?  ”Self Portrait.”

Yea, so Valentine’s Day is a “sham created by card companies to reinforce and exploit gender stereotypes,” as Liz Lemon would say. But isn’t every holiday a corporate attempt to get consumers to spend money on nonessentials? So why fight the man? Some good notes:

Clockwise from top: 2 from 1000 words, heart from owlyshadowpuppets, mixtape from heatherjeany

Clockwise from top: Motherboard from candyspotting, Eyes from triggersandsparks, Glucose formula from rawartletterpress, golden gate bridge picture from davidselsky

” I’ll by some cookies, but not for Valentine’s Day. Instead, these cookies celebrate the February 14th birthday of Anna Howard Shaw, famed American suffragette…Happy Anna Howard Shaw day to us all!” – Liz Lemon

Is your neck demanding more space in your shirt? Cut yourself some slack. And a V in your threads. Easy V neck redux, done in 5 steps, 20 minutes:

You will need:

Stupid plain round neck shirt

Cool far-from-plain patterned material

Needle/thread/scissors

1) Trace a V from another V neck shirt in your plain shirt. 2) Cut two 2-inch strips of patterned fabric, fold in half lengthwise and pin to the outside of the V, leaving extra at the point. 3) Sew folded strips to the V, raw edges of shirt and strips together. 4) Fold over strips to the inside of the V, iron flat. 5) Fold point and collar tips inside and sew to the shirt—THE END.

What now, plain T?

Can a birthday cupcake say “I am dazzled by your charms?” Not really. Not unless it’s a really big one and you have really exceptional frosting-writing skills and you have some way to trasport this really big cupcake (which would probably need to be long and short, more like a cake, to avoid tipping). Nevertheless, the answer is supposed to be No, it cannot. Enter, the ranunculus.

This description of the flower is from Teleflora. Bascially, what they’re saying (with all their web glitch punctuation) is that the ranunculus is this SH*T. I mean, for something so multi-layered, it’s quite cute. And there are coyotes involved, so what’s not to love? I haven’t tried out it’s medicinal properties yet, but I still have quite a bit left of birthday to go.

Who doesn”t love a good type pun?

For example:

Thanks for that “slap in the typeface,” BustedTees. Buy this thang. And delight the hell out of passing designers.

This girl made some cool flowers from some Trader Joe’s bags. Her name is Jesi Haack and she also styles pretty weddings, so I’m guessing she knows some things about flowers.

I like paper. And flowers. And Trader Joe’s. So this project is cool. And looks great with real-life tulips. Now…a reason for a bouquet. MLK day?

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