When we were driving home at night recently, I noticed a little library festooned with Christmas tree lights. While I wasn’t able to snap a picture of it, I was reminded that I had a couple of pictures of little libraries in winter that I hadn’t posted yet.
I hadn’t seen this one before, even though it is in my neighborhood.
And I saw this one on Instagram. We haven’t gotten this much snow in our neighborhood this year.
I also found a new Little Art Library in Andersonville.
It says, “Make art, take art, love art” on the side, but unfortunately, it didn’t have any art in it!
When Brittany of the House That Lars Built sponsored a heirloom ornament craft along two years ago, I purchased the ebook so I could learn how to transfer photos to fabric and participate. And then, I purchased the supplies – Bubble Jet Set 2000 and freezer paper (for crafts, I found out any old freezer paper won’t work when I thought I was out of it and ordered the wrong kind).
I started by making ornaments of my cheerleading granddaughters for one of their advent calendar presents.
And then I made some of my Missouri grandniblings to bring when we went to their house for Thanksgiving.
For Christmas that year, my Birmingham sister in law gave us a flash drive with old, mostly unlabeled photos from their mother’s side of the family. I knew they’d be perfect for this project, and since we hosted the family Christmas get-together this year, I decided to make them as favors.
Their embellishments varied from embroidering what was already there, like ties or adding something simple like a flower to some fanciful additions like hats and crowns. If the pictures were labeled, I printed the names on the back. Guests had fun picking the ones they wanted to take. My grandniece took the relative she was named after. My nephew took the one with a crown because my daughter thought it looked like him. I worked on them for months, so it was great to see everyone enjoying them.
When I finished them, I had one more ornament to make since I have a new Missouri grandnephew, and we were headed there for Thanksgiving again this year.
We added the rest of the Scandinavian heart baskets we got at the Swedish American Museum sidewalk sales to the garland, so it was even more crowded than last year! Since the stars are still hanging in the windows, last year’s solution of what to do with all the paper hearts wouldn’t work. I waited for inspiration for a while and finally it came one morning when I noticed how bare the pinecone branches that were still on the yellow chest were looking.
We had some Kit Kat candy bars left over from making tomte gingerbread houses, so I decided to give those as my treats, although there weren’t enough so I had to buy another bag whih turned out to hold smaller bars. I found a vintage cat card to go with them, and I used glue dots to assemble everything (one or two bars depending on the size)
If the recipients actually hang up all the ornaments I’ve given them, this year, they’re going to have to add their own thread or ribbon hangers!
Now that we’ve packed Christmas all up and taken it back to the storage unit, I’m ready to write about some of the presents we got for Christmas and some other recent finds.
The first present to arrive this year was this mermaid from a Northampton friend. She wrote that she hoped I had room for one more mermaid because she couldn’t resist buying her for me. The best thing about having collections is getting unexpected presents just because someone saw something you collect. Of course, I had room for her!
Another Northampton friend knows about my latest collection, and she sent a wooden mushroom – a fly agaric one like the little mushroom gnome I had sent her.
I gave my husband a red painted lizard from Zimbabwe, another find from Amazwi this summer. I knew there was a space just waiting for him below the gourd mask I bought at Brown Elephant recently.
On the shelf below is another Brown Elephant find – a lantern made from cans. Each side is different, so it might get turned often.
My husband gave me a sun plate and mug from Anthropologie that I love! I’m using the mug for my morning tea, but I knew that, especially with its orange and blue rim, that the plate belonged in the china cabinet. I found the perfect place on the middle shelf – I just had to push the three plates that were already there over a bit.
Then, when I went to the Ukranian National Museum with my Birmingham niece, I found two little pots that I thought might also belong in the china cabinet. I hesitated for a moment since they were green, not blue, but I thought they’d still fit in, and they obviously do!
I found a place for them on the side on the middle shelf, next to the little pot from Israel I bought when our next-door neighbors in Northampton had a tag sale many years ago.
One of my favorite Christmas gifts is a wonderful quilt wall hanging that my Brooklyn niece made to go with my Day of the Dead offrendas, so in a way, this post will remain unfinished until the fall!
In her role as a caretaker, my Birmingham niece identifies herself as Logistics and her sister as Acquisitions. But in her role as my niece, she is definitely Acquisitions, and I happily get to be Logistics as I integrate her gifts into my collections. This year, when she came for our January Christmas celebration, she brought me a wooden mushroom with a “live edge,” and of course, I knew right where it belonged.
She also brought me a ceramic piece with a sun image that she bought at the Day of the Dead celebration in Birmingham from an artist named Lee Ann (@laclayworks on Instagram) that my niece originally met because she works at her optometrist’s office. It immediately reminded me of another piece that was still packed away from our move (with its lack of walls, this apartment doesn’t have as much space for hanging things). And I found the perfect place for both pieces.
She also gave me two mermaid prints, and I knew they belonged in our bathroom even though it is so small. I thought I had the perfect frame in the box of pictures that hung in our bathroom in Northampton for the larger print of a mermaid approaching a ship “Mermaid Moon” signed A. Marie (Googling tells me A. Marie is a Michigan artist named Amy Ferguson who signs her pieces A. Marie in tribute to her grandmother). The frame was one of a set, and while one held an original piece, the other just held a copy, so I evicted that one and hung the original, a drawing signed Linsey Kelch, with the new one. The small print of two mermaids in a fan from Vintage’s Salvaged Art Series made with a “very old printing block” fit perfectly as well.
It’s hard to see the pictures in the photograph, but I love them, and I’m so happy to have mermaid pictures hanging in our bathroom again.
I mentioned in the last post that I feel like I missed a lot at the Rabbit hOle. Part of that was because my focus was on looking at and photographing the amazing book re-creations. I did see that there were books at each exhibit, but I missed that you could listen to some of the books being read aloud.
I also missed some things because they weren’t open on the day I was there, which was pretty disappointing. I was looking forward to having a Choco bar at Max’s Kansas City, the on-site restaurant. I was also disappointed that what is referred to as the either the Maker Space or the party and craft room on the website and the Tons of Fun Room on Instagram (I think these are all the same thing) was not open. It looks like maybe it is only open for specific activities on weekends, but I hadn’t realized that before we went. I did get to peek through the windows, though, and I was impressed with how many well organized materials there appeared to be.
I also hadn’t realized until I was looking at the website recently that this room is George and Martha themed.
There is apparently also a print shop and story lab, but I have to admit I’m not even sure where that is. I think it is on the second floor but must not have been opened either when we were there.
There is an onsite bookstore which makes sense since the whole concept of the Rabbit hOle grew out of a bookstore. The Reading Reptile, which often featured literary installations, was owned by the actual founders of the Rabbit hOle Pete Cowdin and Deb Pettid. The bookstore at the Rabbit hOle is named Lucky Rabbit Books and features weekly story hours, which I imagine take place in this space.
While the bookstore has an extensive collection of children’s books, I was surprised that there weren’t books about children’s books and children’s book authors and illustrators in the small adult book section. Since I wanted to purchase a birthday card, I was also disappointed that there weren’t cards with children’s book illustrations. It looked like maybe they will be selling their own line of cards produced in the print shop. I also kind of expected that there might be ornaments for my children’s book and movie characters Christmas tree, but there weren’t. Maybe they’ll have added those next time!
As soon as I heard about the Rabbit hOle, I tried to think about how I could possibly get there. And our Thanksgiving trip to Columbia, Missouri, proved to be the way. Kansas City is two hours past Columbia, but we left a couple of days early and spent a night on the way and a night in Kansas City so that we could check it out. It is an amazing place, and I think I missed as much as I saw and experienced, so I’m already trying to figure out how to go again.
I was excited to see the story re-creations I had seen pictures of, so I breezed right past the story of the “true founder” Rabbit Fox and the entrance to his grotto or burrow and started in the bookstore where I knew the great green room was located. To get to the great green room, you crawl into a tree, which features pictures from another Margaret Wise Brown book illustrated by Clement Hurd.
Then, you emerge into a full-size re-creation of the great green room from Goodnight Moon.
Look, it’s the quiet old lady whispering hush! After exploring the Lucky Rabbit bookstore a bit, we were ready for the main event. Before we went to the museum, I was a bit perplexed by its name. Nowadays, when I hear the phrase “rabbit hole” I think of what happens when you’re on the internet and one search leads to another. I was also a bit annoyed by the way Rabbit hOle was written. In fact, in order to get my phone to accept the unusual capitalization, I had to keep retyping. When we got to the entrance, though, I saw that you literally go into a rabbit hole to get to the rest of the exhibits.
I didn’t stop to read the story of the Fox Rabbit, but here’s a taste of the conceit.
Fox Rabbit’s grotto contains 3000 actual books molded in silicone and the first lines of 141 books. It also apparently contains portals you can peek through to see scenes from the story of Fox Rabbit but as I wrote earlier I feel like I missed more than I saw.
After walking through the grotto for quite a while (I think you go down and then back up again), you emerge to see Madeline frightening Miss Clavel.
And the chair from A Chair For My Mother and Babar and Frances and Strega Nona and and and…
Some rooms were re-created here as well including the classroom from Crow Boy and the kitchen from Blueberries for Sal.
I think every Curious George story was represented in this diorama.
Frog and Toad’s world was there, too.
Their world was a bit overshadowed by My Father’s Dragon.
The stairs include lines from the book, and when you get to the top, you find even more. One of my favorite parts was these dioramas, where you could follow several wordless picture books simultaneously.
With the rights to over 70 titles, the actual founders Pete Cowdin and Deb Pettid certainly aren’t limiting themselves to classic books.
Apparently, David has a squishy booger in his nose, and this character from Captain Underpants appears when you open one of the actual bathroom stall doors.
In addition to all the individual books, there are two areas that include many books. The first one purports to be a “Black Power” bookstore.
The second includes many books in Spanish.
This is just a sampling of the 30 thousand square feet and 40 represented books that have been created already. And this is just the beginning of it all as there are plans to keep creating and expanding in the large former tin factory. I’ll write more about the space and what else has already been created in another post.
I don’t remember when or where, but a long time ago, I went to an exhibit that had a very hungry caterpillar that children could crawl through and a night kitchen that children could play in. I loved these so much I was inspired to create versions of them in my toddler classroom. So I was disappointed when representatives of the soon to be built Eric Carle museum who came to our school to talk about the new museum stressed very strongly that it would not be a children’s museum but a serious museum for children’s book art. I love the Eric Carle museum, and I do notice that after a few years, they have begun to invite (allow?) some aspects of children’s museums into their galleries, but I also love to see children’s books get the total children’s museum treatment. Last year, the Chicago Children’s Museum hosted a Storyland Exhibit that featured seven of my favorite books.
Since the room for the rotating exhibits is not that large, the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie pieces were out in the hall, which is why I was so excited this year to hear about a new museum dedicated entirely to children’s books. And even though it is in Kansas City, I knew I had to find a way to go…
I have always called them nativity scenes, but the Loyola Museum of Art says that a three-dimensional nativity scene is called a crèche. A book about the Neapolitan crèche at the Art Institute of Chicago refers to the whole scene as a crèche and the section with Joseph, Mary, and Jesus as the nativity. And a Google search for crèche vs. nativity leads one to the fact that originally crèche just referred to the manger. Whatever you call them, I have a collection of them. We added two new ones this year. The first one came from Vase and Vessel at the Andersonville Insidewalk Sale last March. It is from Guatemala and was marked down to $5.00, so we couldn’t resist.
The second one was part of an outside Sidewalk Sale this summer, which technically we were a week late for, but inexplicably it was still at the table outside Amazwi when we got to Saugatuck a week later. Inexplicable because it is beautiful but also because it was 80% off (originally $45.00). It is from Mozambique, and I knew as soon as I saw it that it would be our Advent Calendar Nativity this year. I wrapped and tied baby Jesus to the ring for the 24th and snuck Mary and Joseph onto the top of the china cabinet at night on the 23rd.
As with all my collections, the fascination is in seeing how different artists interpret the same subject.
I had lots of opportunities to see other artist interpretations this year starting with the Neapolitan crèche at the Art Institute of Chicago.
This massive crèche is divided into three major scenes, the Nativity, the Announcement to the Shepherds, and the Taverna or inn. There are over 200 crèche figures crafted by different 18th-century artists arranged in a traditional staging resembling the old city center of Naples and placed in a 19th century cabinet topped by an 18th-century carved and gilded cornice, which was originally part of an organ.
LUMA, the Loyola Museum of Art, brought back their full crèche exhibit this year, which featured many we hadn’t seen before. I took pictures of some of them (it was hard not to take pictures of all of them!) but neglected to note the countries of origins and the artist’s names if known. Starting with the most unique one, here are a few of my favorites:
When we went to the Swedish American Museum to see the bonader – large painted textiles produced by folk artists in Sweden in the mid 18th to early 19th century and hung in homes during the Christmas season, we found another crèche in the lobby of the museum made of straw.
One of the bonader pieces was a nativity scene as well.
Both of these pictures are a bit hard to decipher since both are behind glass and reflecting Christmas lights, but I couldn’t help but notice that the crèche looks like it is being displayed in an aquarium and the baby Jesus on the bonader looks a bit like a fish in an aquarium!
My winter decorating begins each year with window decorations. I had seen some stars on Instagram made with coffee filters, and I decided to adapt those. I originally thought I could make one large one for each window, but it turned out I would have needed very large pieces of paper (rather than the 12×12 freezer paper I was using since it wouldn’t work for transferring images and I hadn’t opened it until it was too late to return it) because each section needs to be folded in half. So I pivoted and made three for each window.
I had some gnome shape peg people left over from when I made Gregory from Over the Garden Wall, and I thought of turning them into mushroom people for the kitchen garland. And I thought they could peek out of the Scandinavian heart baskets that had been in a sort of a grab bag package I had bought at the Swedish American Museum indoor sidewalk sale. I had always meant to make these baskets, but I had only ever made the quick version I had learned many years ago at the Swedish American Museum table at Midsummerfest. You would never know I didn’t make these, though, because they look like they are made from the same paper I always use. I bought all the packages of gnome pegs they had at Michael’s, so I ordered some from Amazon. They turned out to be bigger, which was perfect for the garland.
Another grab bag package at the Swedish American Museum sidewalk sales included some little cardboard houses and one that looks like a building in Amsterdam. I thought they’d be perfect for the village with train shelf. The vintage cardboard ones are nestled in the snow and the Amsterdam one is between the yellow house and white church from my husband’s mother’s ceramic store that I painted many years ago.
I did put the ladies from Yugoslavia on either side of the similar candle holder on the sideboard.
On the same Brown Elephant trip where I found the Yugoslavian ladies, I also found a sun ornament. Since I think the solstice is what we are really celebrating at this time of year, I always love to find new sun ornaments for our tree.
We found another one on our Thanksgiving trip to Columbia, Missouri. The label on this beautiful ornament says “Silver Tree, designed by Gisela Graham, London” although on the back it says it was made in China.
At our early Christmas celebration, my Brooklyn niece gave me a beautiful patchwork marigold wall hanging to go with my Day of the Dead offrenda wreath, and when I opened the package it was rolled up with this little sun around it. I promptly added it to the tree.
We went to the Krampus Fest again this year and there were a lot of Krampus ornaments to choose from. I forgot to ask the artist of the one we chose his name, but I did ask him how he made it, and he said it was constructed of layers of 3D printed plastic
He looks a lot like this Krampus who was at the festival. He seems to have put the child he grabbed in his sack already.
I also added some ornaments to my children’s book and movie characters tree. Children’s Museum Liz gave me a felted “grape ape” from The Teddy Garden that reminded me of the gorilla from Goodnight Gorilla, so I gave him a set of keys and hung him on my tree.
I’ve been wanting to make Elephant and Piggie ornaments for years, and this year, I finally did!
I also got an Emmet Otter figurine. Last year, to commemorate our trip to see the Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas play, I thought I was buying the whole jugband, but it turned out I had only bought Charlie Beaver. So this year I bought Emmet Otter.
Collections and Other Stuff I Like 