I’m having a little obsession with himmeli lately. Yeah, I didn’t know what they were either. I only found out what they were after I made one. Well sort of made one. Remember my geometric straw ornament? A himmeli is made out of those basic shapes, but some are big, some are small and it is strung together as a mobile.  I fell in love with them after I saw this picture:

The photo comes from the home of Momo Suzuki a Japanese designer who has more style in her little finger…

These are various himmeli from around flickr (click on the photo for sources). The red one is made from coffee stirrers! Elizabeth Abernathy has a tutorial for making them out of handmade paper straws.  There is an amazing thrifted traditional straw one on puhti. Himmeli are so perfectly airy and light–just right for the new year, though mine might not get done until the next new year.

If you’d like to know more about things I like (and hate) you can head over to Smile and Wave. Rachel so kindly asked me to do an interview for her Handmade for Kids month. And who says no to an interview? Be warned though, I am verbose.

Having been gone for a week or so, I’m feeling a little overwhelmed by the internet. I am actually afraid of looking at my rss reader it’s so large. So I thought I’d go through my bookmarks instead. And hey there are some cool things on these internets that I forgot about. Check it out.

I think my new year’s resolution this year will be to see more art. I mean really get off my butt and go see the art not click the art. I wish I could have seen this amazing piece that combins a piano piece by Satie and origami which lasted an entire night. You can read about it on the upon a fold blog–a fantastic blog and shop too.  The resolution begins tomorrow by going to the exhibition called Handmade Meaning: The Value of Craft in Victorian and Contemporary Culture. It runs Dec. 17 through Feb. 6th at the James Watrous Gallery here in Madison and a friend of mine has some crocheted hair pieces in it that I am eager to see.  For those of you not local you can see more photos of the exhibition here.

I’m sure I wont be able to see the work of Victor Dubrovsky in person anytime soon, but you can almost feel it just by looking at the pictures.  I am quite taken with this wolf, but all of his work is pretty amazing. He even has some needle felting tips (this is for you, Helen!)–via well-crafted

It may not neccessarily be art, but it’s still awesome and afforable: Abbey from Aethetic Outburst has an etsy shop called The Eight Dollar Holler, where she sells all the good vintage bits she can find for 8bucks. Nice, right?

I would pay a lot more than eight bucks for someone to bring me buttermilk chicken in a waffle right now or even smoked salmon in a waffle or really anything in a waffle. Oh my god this sandwich looks good.

but that’s not going to happen, so might just make this. or maybe waffles.

I’m feeling a little less than creative these days, more scattered and listless–maybe it’s the change of seasons. Also, I can’t find the damn camera cord to upload my pictures, so you are stuck with this link link linky post. But it’s good.

I recently discovered the newish blog lightbluegray and I went a little crazy for this cowl she made for her daughter, especially the bright yellow Xs. All of the blog is fantastic, check out her nightstands and embroidered sheets!

This display via Blosoem is some sort of paper mache/paper bag awesome.

I have always had a thing for laundromats–used to live above one even–and this one takes the cake. It’s like living in a roll of washi tape. via hi + low

how fantastic! turn your plush into lamps (via whip up).

And do you know about pillow week over at erin’s house? I plan on making the pillow version of this bedspread. If you want to know what other things I like you can look at my tumblr: things on the internet that are pretty.

image by Eric Fisher via (sc)

Jenny over at wisktenmade said a while back that she collected images from the internet that inspired her or just struck her fancy and stuck them in a folder, then over time she could see themes come out: a certain color, or shade of a color, specific details, things that you so obviously like, but somehow tend to forget. I do tear pages out of magazines, but then get lazy when it comes time to put them somewhere (and then of course they are everywhere). It’s easier to collect images and links on the internet of course, but I wasn’t putting them in a place where I could step back and see them as a whole.  Then I found tumblr, a site that hosts mini blogs, and it was made for this kind of thing.  You can find me here on tumblr; let’s hang out.

So tumblr works really well to collect all the images you find inspiring, but then there is this sort of ridiculous site called rumblr, where you pit two tumblr sites against one another. It looks pointless in that “hot or not” kind of way, but it actually makes some beautiful diptychs that are inspiring in their own right. The one above and the one below are from mociun’s and the brick house’s tumblrs.

And these next two are a mash up of molly irwin‘s tumbler and and one of nat‘s awesome tumblr collections:

aren’t they wonderful?

And speaking of great photography, the lovely ladies at habit are featuring submissions from their readers all month. The only guidelines are to take an unstaged picture that represents your day in some way and post it the day it was taken.  I think that habit is a fantastic photography project that lets you stop fussing with what you are taking a picture of and just enjoy taking the picture.  It’s wonderful that they are letting their readers play along. I’ll be there and you can too.

1. gate with blue orange mint, 2. Dreaming with our hands and dreaming with our minds, 3. storm at sea recycled top Sold!, 4. DSCF4266, 5. color wheel_400 (flat files), 6. Untitled, 7. 61., 8. la primavera en el living, 9. obviously a bit over the top.

it’s friday (duh) so I thought I’d pop in here and show you a few of my favorite photos. I am particularly taken with that last one. I know Melinda was just trying to pick a color to paint her house, but those colors together are so random and awesome. I kind of wish she would do the whole house like this!