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.
A few years ago, my husband’s boss was horrified that his daughter had gotten something from the dump. Apparently, he kept repeating over and over again. “She got it from the dump! Do you believe that? She got it from the dump.” I guess he imagined her climbing over piles of garbage, not just picking something up from a table where people put discards that are too nice to throw away. My husband was pretty amused by his boss’s disbelief as he was used to me occasionally bringing things home from the table at our regional recycling center. Here in Chicago, there is a table like that next to our dumpsters, and the other day, when I walked in the door, my husband suggested I go down and take a look at it.
And when I did, I saw why because there was a little house that clearly went with the ones on one of our Christmas house shelves. It’s the red one in the back. It was originally from World Market, and it still lights up!
I also took the white Santa on the left to add to the Santa display on one of our speakers. I’m not sure why that little mouse Santa I bought to peek out of my husband’s stocking last year looks so huge in this picture.
I don’t think I ever wrote about our best “dump” score. I couldn’t believe it when I saw this drum sitting on the table a few years ago. I left it there for a while, so someone who would actually play it would have a chance to see it. But when it was still there a few hours later, I knew it belonged in our collection!
I don’t check the table constantly because I think that would lead to disappointment or perhaps to acquiring too much stuff. I think it’s more fun to just happen on the perfect thing occasionally!
The first few times I returned to the new Brown Elephant, I didn’t find anything. Well, except for the perfect fabric cover to cover my “leather” iPad cover, which was leaving little black flakes everywhere.
After several visits, I was really excited when I spied a Molinillo Whisk. I’ve wanted one ever since I saw my first one at a farmer’s market stall. The chocolate vendor wasn’t selling them, just using it as a decoration, but he demonstrated how you rub it back and forth in your hands to make Mexican hot chocolate. When I got mine home, I had to figure out how to display it, and I thought of combining it with a decorative rolling pin I bought a few years ago. I realized a white pot that came with a flower arrangement from my Brooklyn niece would be perfect. I added a few wooden utensils we rarely used as well as some from my bin of wooden things for children to use with sand or salt. Then it took a few more trips to the Brown Elephant and to Marshall’s to get everything standing up.
On another trip, I found a gourd mask that was perfect for our gallery wall. Of course, now we need to find something to hang below it!
My last trip yielded some items for holiday decorating. The Fall fairies I made many years ago look perfect in these tree chairs.
I also found two painted figures that Google search leads me to believe are Hungarian. They’re hanging out with the Matroyskas right now, but I think they’ll move over to the sideboard when it gets decorated for Christmas.
I’ll have to take a picture of them there (and of the sun ornament I also found) when we get our Christmas tree.
I was with my daughter last week when I spied these adult size and child size Chicago little libraries. I made her pull over so I could take a picture of them and was so glad I did when I spied yet another little library for tiny creatures.
I found more little libraries on Instagram too. Kelsey and Ryan of Newbuild Newlyweds, spokespeople for Ryobi tools, built a very fancy little library.
I’ve never seen a little library with wallpaper before!
Talk about carrying it to the next level – they have already made two trips to Goodwill to stock their library.
And in the department of little libraries that are actually little something elses, this library I also found on Instagram was temporarily transformed for “Spooky Season”.
Recently my youngest granddaughter asked if we could do that owl thing again by which I guess she meant go back to Coxsackie, NY, over a 12 hour drive away, to look at the artist painted owls and check them off on the brochure. Luckily, when I was on the bus going to a weaving workshop at the Hull House, I spied some painted owls out the window as we rode through Greek town.
I wasn’t sure that there would be a brochure and I knew the checking off part was important so I found some images on some websites and Instagram and made up a checklist we could use when she and her sister came to our house last Tuesday during what my daughter refers to as a “no school November”. After some peg people crafting and slime making, we headed to Greek town with the checklist on a clipboard.
We did see a poster of all the owls in a restaurant window, but we were unable to find a copy. It didn’t matter, though, as they happily checked off the ones with pictures and made tally marks on the bottom for the ones that weren’t pictured. We found all 28!
Today is the second day of Dia de los Muertos so I’ll start my Fall post with a picture of my mini offrenda ornaments that commemorate the lives of my parents, my youngest sister, and my oldest daughter. I love embracing this tradition and hanging my wreath each year.
Since we put curtains up in the living room windows this year, I didn’t see how it was going to work to hang the Fall branches in them. We decided to switch things around – Fall branches in the dining room windows and Halloween trees in the living room. It turned out it was actually better to have the Halloween trees in the living room – they are more visible and less likely to get knocked over now that no one has to wedge themselves into a chair in front of them.
And it’s fun to have the branches in the dining room. A maple leaf was the perfect souvenir from our girl’s trip to the Canadian Falls this year.
It was actually a key chain, but it definitely belongs on the Fall branches. On our last visit to World Market, I was hoping to find a fox ornament since we have a lot of owls (my oldest granddaughter’s theme) but not many foxes for my youngest granddaughter. Since they had already started switching to Christmas and none of the Christmas foxes were right, I had almost given up hope when I found a basket containing a few Fall animals, including the perfect Fall fox!
Look at that acorn! And the plaid pants and sweater!
Everything else pretty much landed where it has been in other years, so I didn’t take a picture of the top of the china cabinet or the sideboard.
I made a new arrangement by combining two previous year’s seed pods for the end of the hall.
And I put out both the Greek myth Stitchtober pillow and the pillow I made from a quilt square my sister had pieced given to me by her daughter, my Brooklyn niece.
I put last year’s Stitchtober tarot tablecloth out as well.
Adam didn’t post a list of Stitchtober prompts this year, which was probably just as well because I was working on a secret Christmas project. (There is a hint of it somewhere in this post.)
My youngest granddaughter always buys her fortune when she sees a Zoltar machine, and I thought it might be fun to feature Zoltar on my treats this year. I did a little cutting and pasting from various sources to come up with the design, and then I tried to remember what the machine says when someone is in the vicinity. Chocolate eyes seemed like the right choice for treats.
The day after I got the Zoltar card ornaments printed and figured out a way to attach them to the eyes so they flipped up (because of the way they got printed – don’t ask!), I laughed aloud when I came across Zoltar while reading the comics. Zoltar was the theme of Sherman’s Lagoon for several days.
Too bad I doubt the recipients of my treats read the comics every morning!
Collections and Other Stuff I Like 