through another lens

 Mama za-ander left her camera at home when they came to visit. She knew I would (gladly) document it all wily-nilly as I am wont to do so she saved her picture taking for her phone. While I am not gung-ho about our cell phone proclivities, I do like the camera in those things. Check out all the fun she documented from their visit. We had so much fun! Golly but I miss them!

road trip pics

i of course have taken many. oodles and bunches. if yer up for a slideshow, click on whichever link strikes yer fancy. if i had time i would recommend an awesome tune for you too but as it stands i'm in a bookstore in jersey with 25 minutes left to the battery here...enjoy the few i have posted or click here to get to the whole collection.

the grand canyon
the weekend with tara anderson
tucson, az
gilla cliff dwellings
el cosmico
marfa, texas
austin, texas
dallas & frisco
oklahoma
pop's soda shop

me me me me

oh if only i were an opera singer. nope folks, the above title is because this post is all about me. it is after all, my blog but the funny thing is there are nifty bloggers out there in blogland that thought i was nifty so they wrote about me. for reals? i'm so gosh-durned flattered and goofy with lurve. so pull up a cuppa or a pumpkin bar or an egg puff and follow along and indulge me in my me-me-me-me-ness.

amy of sweet sweet life has a home tour of the tiny casa. i had always wanted to do a home tour but took the tiny casa for granted. now that we're actually LEAVING the tiny casa, i thought this was as good a time as any so pop on over to sweet sweet life for a looksie at the tiny casa.

next up is elaine of glow in the dark soul aka a life in cupcakes. she's a pretty nifty artist and all around colorful gal as well. she has a wee interview with me all about what inspires me, who i am and where i come from. if you've ever wondered and missed it all when i babbled on about it here, please do check it out, othersies ingnore my interview but check out her blog and nifty tutorial on a diy camera strap for the mini instax.

next up, i'm just gonna do a little self-promotion but not really for me, more for the magazine i write for. have you heard of blanket? it's pretty awesome. blanket is an online publication that you download in pdf form. each issue is only $2 and full t othe brim with art and design. and if you like, you too can become a contributor through re_action. oh and lest i forget, mr. a-go-go also contributes, he draws comics, have i told you about that beofre? you can check out his pic-shaws blog to see more. that man is uber talented!

and finally, stay tuned, you'll be seeing more of me at craftzine.com, mixtape and finally another wee interview at part of dommie's take five series on exquisite and unique.

taggity tagged tagged tagged....

I have a confession though if you know me well this isn't news to you. I can be quite forgetful and flakey-like. I don't respond in a timely manner to many things. None of it is intentional. I promise you, I always intend to follow-through but then I forget or I have a full follow-through in my head and somehow think technology is so swell it can morph it onto my blog. That said I am attempting to respond to a few things today that may not be late or may be redundant at this point. Love me or hate me, this is how I dance.The pictures posted are just to reel you in to reading it all.Have you poked around Craftzine.com, The Crafty Crow or Crafty Stylish lately? There have been some super wonderful shout outs to me and the blogs. Check it out:

**Nifty Ribbon Storage on Crafty Stylish
*scrumdilly-do gets a shout out on Craftzine.com
**The Crafty Crow likes scrumdilly-do. here and here.

The market bags have been popping up all over the web, Check out these links, some in languages other than English and poke around the sites...

*Craftzine.com
*10marifet.org
*.The Best of DIY
*indiefixx.com
*ri-creazione.libero.it
*lilfairy...
*one pretty thing

The most recent issue of Blanket Magazine is available for download. It is the travel issue and you can check out my article on how to make a traveling envelope book.And now for some tagging...the lovely Lyn of florspace has tagged me for a random meme...here goes:

1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I hope I don't repeat myself...

1. I made my first purse/bag in junior high from a McDonalds cookieland box. I unfolded it flat and covered it with packing tape, refolded it and added ribbon straps.

2. I've never seen The Crying Game, Boys Don't Cry or Brokeback Mountain but I do know all the dialogue and lyrics to Grease 2, The Pirate Movie and Shock Treatment.

3. While I love baked good and lovely sweet things, I don't like a lot of jam on my peanut butter sandwiches. Mister a-go-go still cannot make me a sufficient sandwich in this area. Always too much jam. He knows this and we have an agreement. If I want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I need to make it myself.

4. I was disappointed in junior high when I found out that teenagers no longer dance like they did in the fifties. I never went to a school dance because of this.

5.Also, I was shy but weirdly enough I tried out for dance performance in high school I was voted best senior dancer and best choreographer for four semesters.

6. If it were up to me there would probably be at least four kinds of bread in the casa at any given time. I like specific bread for specific things. Wheat bread for sandwiches, sourdough for toast, soft white bread for cinnamon toast or grilled sandwiches...etc.

7. Two years ago I slipped and fell while hiking with the mister. A year after the fall I began having pain in my tail bone. I now have to get the darn thing x-rayed as it is painful to stand up after sitting. A car ride is the WORST! I shift al ot when I sit now and I suppose I look freakish.

Hmmmm who to tag? I would probably tag all of you who have laready been tagged or who have tagged me in the past.

*justine (because you like me!)
*stacey
*andrea
*KiTTYPiNKSTaRS
*helen
*lynn
*steph

play if you will or want or feel a need to post away. Have a most loverly week my friends!

Photobooth Friday: I know you are but what am I?

I seem to have Pee-Wee on my mind. Many years ago when I joined Nervousness.org I frantically tried acquiring Pee-Wee portraits for my wall. I had quite a few artists and swaps lined up but only one turned out to follow through and she created this wonderful big eyed Pee-Wee with a lobster claw and tail. Creepy and perfect for me. A few years before that I purchased a Pee-Wee portrait painted on an old film tin. And that was it until I started swapping thru flickr. The loverly Lilia created this bit of glittery goodness and the super duper nifty Barbara created cupcake toppers for me. Eeps! I lurve Pee-Wee! And Christine, creator of kitsch, painter of chickens & robots and wearer of squishy spikey caps created the fabulous fauxtobooth strip you see here. Sigh. I'm so feeling the lurve right now. So much so that I am now having the amazingly talented Christel who painted this for Mr.A-go-go's Christmas gift paint me a Pee-Wee. Yeah, you could say I have Pee-Wee on the brain.

I dreamt of super niftiness early this morning. The kind of niftiness that is so normal and yet really crazy and fabulous that when you do finally wake up you can't but help feel disappointed. It may not seem fabulous to you but I found myself in my teenage neighborhood and on my way to my present school when I found an old vintage poster of some sort of fabulous elephanty circus fun and when I went to pick it up I found a pile of oodles and bits and in that pile there were old photobooth strips of my family I never knew existed and an orange sweater vest with a knitted purple lobster all across the back and tchotchkes galore. Sure I was crawling around a filthy pile of junk and mud and who knows what but there were old photobooth strips and vintage clothes that FIT me and green mary janes and vintage children's books with clowns in them. When I was done searching I had to get everything into the car but first I had to take out the toilet paper that my brother picked up and the package was huger than huge like some sort of super duper size and I felt like a magician who pulls the never endng scarf out of his hat only I was tug, tug, tugging away at the largest bulk pack of toilet paper in the world! Then I thought to myself how I could use one of the strips I found for Photobooth Friday and then I realized that is was Friday and I didnt have class on Friday and then I woke up to the Witch-Baby's cold nose on my neck. The reality of reality sunk in and I felt like the seven year old me who dreamt about finding a Hello Kitty rack of goodness in the livingroom only to find a snoring sleeping brother on the floor when she woke up. Man, sometimes I have the best dreams.

Today I get to play at Tinker and I know you are all jealous. I'm also crave, crave, craving some sort of baked goodness but cannot decide if I shall do the baking or if I will attempt to hunt down something in a cake shop or not. Either way, I'll take pictures of course!

Happy Friday folks and Happy day before the BIG DAY to you Ms. Magpie! May it be as exciting as finding a purple and orange sweater vest on the side of the road. I wish you and the sweets a most fabulous of fabulousness. *mwah*

apple lurve

If you ask me what my favorite fruit is I usually will answer BOBB! BOBB, to those not in the know is watermelon. Long story as to how it got the name but not really. I have been calling the melon BOBB since 1993 or so when a friend picked one up for me on the way home from Vegas. She was quite excited to surprise me with the perfect melon. She presented it with such florish in the parking lot of Bookstar, Woodland Hills that I serendipitously christenned it BOBB. Another favorite is seedless BOB, you get the picture. As much as I love BOB and I do, I really do, we at the A-go-go household can consume 2 a week, I will have to admit that my favorite absolute favorite fruit is apples. Apples are always in season and each season brings a different apple. I am quite freakish about my apples. I get in apple moods where I must, no I need a Pink Lady or a McIntosh or a Braeburn. Even a Red Delicious gets its moment with me. I however, do NOT like mealy apples. Mealy apples make me sad. So do Honeycrisps. I'm not a fan.

The everyday apple of choice here in the casa is a Gala though recently I picked up some awesome Fujis. Funny as I'm not a big fan of the Fuji but these were faboo! I read about different apples and want to travel to sample them. There are over 7000 varieties of apple in our world! 7000! Wowza! Pictured above is a baby apple. I think it may be a Baby Gala, I'm not sure. I'm also not sure what to do with it but lookie, isn't it cuter than cute? Maybe I should hop on over to scrumdilly-do and feature it for a wee apple pie. While we don't need wee aplles for miniature pies, how cute would that be?

There you go, my lurve for apples is no longer a secret. I also adore apple related things but not the plaid apple crap* that seems to swamp teacher's desks. Apple fabric, cute apples, kawaii apples, anthropomorphic apples...What I love most about apples is that they are portable. The yare great just as is or cut up and tossed into a fruit salad or my brother's famous salad. You can bake, candy, saute and roast them. Apples are awesome. Apple juice not so awesome . Apple sauce is pretty cool too, especially homemade hot applesauce...yum!

Okee doke. If you are an apple fan, why don't ya head on over to my etsy shop and pick up an apple printed eyeglass cozie, come on they're nifty. They've even been featured in the Adorn Mag Blog. Speaking of Adorn, subscriptions are now $9.99 go for it! If yer looking for something more decorative, check out Superbuzzy for some neato cute apple magnets. If you are in need of an immediate apple fix, chop one up for breakfast...smear it with peanut butter, ooh or you can try the jekissa delight...core yer apple and stuff it with a mixture of stilton, dried cherries, red onion & sweet peppered pecans. Slice it and enjoy. I guarantee you will love it!

*A fellow educator and I went to a fantastic music seminar for kids and all around us were preschool teachers and librarians geared up in all sorts of scary plaid apple clothing and accoutrements. Super scary and not cute at all. It made us wonder if there was some sort of rule to becoming a preschool teacher ...you know like mustaches on cops.