even the ones that are publicly declared as cute.  My hatred stems from many negative experiences with birds.  After a bird-poop-on-head incident three years ago, I cower whenever a pigeon gets within five feet of me.  Every time a pigeon disturbs my space, I contort my face in unsightly ways, and scurry towards the other direction.  My mother also cared for a ridiculous number of birds, which always smelled incredibly foul.  The bird odors did not dissipate until a raccoon mama and two raccoon babies got into the cages, and murdered the trapped birds.  Blood. Bath.

Despite my hatred towards birds, I seem to enjoy bird OBJECTS.
RECENT BIRD-THEMED ACTIVITIES IN THE LIFE OF TRICIA:

• I recently purchased this bird cage necklace from H&M.  It’s perfect, and I’m surprised that I’ve never seen anyone else have it since it is from H&M (Well, semi-falsitude.  Two weeks ago, a waitress on the Upper West Side told me she had the same necklace. poo poo.)  The best part?  The cage door opens!!!

• Furthermore, I’ve been making peacock headbands!  Above is my first more-than-three-feather creation.  It turned out okay; I think I need to figure out how to make the feathers more flat!

Inspired by my recent behavior, up-up-up above are bird objects that I, a bird hater, enjoy.

1. Poetic Home is one of my favorite blogs.  Run by Grace Light, a photo stylist (!), Poetic Home features perfect vintage and vintage-inspired treasures that all have a twinkle of grandeur.  (Grace has impeccable taste!  Look at her antique library card catalog!)  In January, she suggested turning old bird cages into lamps (GO LOOK!) The birdcage curtain is as adorable as baby bunnies.  Frolicking in a meadow. With chicks and tulips.

2. Good Morning! Vintage Bird Hairpins from Hella Good, $6

3. A CAST-IRON bird bottle opener.  What a whimsical way to open a 40.  I keed… Wonder Wings Bottle Opener, $9.99

4. For some reason, this cute bird reminds me of an old man who buys a ridiculous car…like a ferrari (I know nothing about cars), just to feel young again.  Apologies, I have a weird little mind.  barkingbirdart’s Etsy shop is adorable, and full with limited edition (numbered!) prints.  Bird Dressed As A Superhero print from barkingbirdart’s Etsy, $18

5. I want to be best friends with ohhellofriend.  First, my default phrase when I see a friend is…”hello friend.”  Cosmic?  Serendipitous? “FORESHADOWFORESHADOWFORESHADOW!!(?) I can imagine our (me and ohhelofriend) meeting; we would both say “hello, friend,” AT THE SAME TIME.  Second, she runs one of my favorite (no HYPERBOLE here).  Third, her blog is glorious. owl stud earrings from ohhellofriend’s Etsy, $3.50 (I would get these myself, but my ears not pierced.  I am afraid of pain. Womp womp.)

6. Early Bird Sugar dispenser from Anthropologie, $14.  There is also a matching birdie that doles creamer, but no thank you.  I drink my coffee black.  It reflects my soul.

7. Owl Warm and Cozy Mug, $15.99

8. My friend, Angelica, frequently wears a really lovely felt bird pin, and I’ve always wanted one for myself.  These pins come in three colors, which translates to three different ways you can present yourself to the world.  “I’m feeling romantically delusional today, I will wear my red bird pin.”  Little Bird Pins from Threekeys’ Etsy, $3

*For the purposes of this post, “birds” =  “the (prolonged) flyers of the aves class.”  I support penguins.

Okay, Ray Fenwick is not my boyfriend. I really just meant that as a general expression of love and affection for his art. Sorry. For the confusion. Sorry Ray. Sorry Ray’s possible significant other. Sorry everyone else. Sorry co-editor Tricia for soiling Stickers & Donut’s image as a reputable source.

Anyway, so I’ve been scouring Ray’s bright and beautiful web-site ever since my friend bought me some fantastically funny bookplates he made for Tiny Showcase. (He is a master of hand-lettering.) Then I realized I had admired some of his work on Threadless, and elsewhere on Tiny Showcase. Then I realized I was in love, which was also about the time I wrote the title of the post.

I love Ray Fenwick’s web-site, but there are several issues I have with it: (1) I want everything, (2) I cannot have everything, (3) I need help locating the things I could, potentially, have.

SO, to increase the problems presented by 1 & 2, and hopefully solve 3, I’ve collected some places where you employed people can purchase Ray Fenwick’s work so you don’t have to merely look at it lovingly on your computer screen, sighing occasionally.

1. Etsy (Pantry Press). This is where you can purchase some fabulously letterpressed Ray Fenwick designs, including 8 Letterpress Cards for $36 (shown in image above).
2. Threadless. He has several T-shirt designs, one of which (“Magical Powers” $35) was chosen to be a Threadless Print design (as you may know, I love the prints because you can’t wear T-shirts all the time, but you can always keep a print on your wall!).
3. Flickr. THERE IS SO MUCH HERE. You can buy prints, or flip through books before you purchase. Highlights include:
   • Images from his beautiful book, Hall of Best Knowledge (availible for $20 on Fantagraphics books)
   • Coffee Money Zine. Funniest. Idea. Ever. Basically, you buy a mini-book of some daily sketches and drawings, and he uses that money to buy coffee. ($73.85, for a breakdown of how that money is used on coffee visit the link!) You can also look through several of these zines.
   • Drama Club. (They were once daily comics, but actually they are not for sale as far as I can tell.
4. Blue Q RF Merchandise. My favorite is the Being Rich is Awesome Coin Purse, but there are others including: Don’t Freak Out Shopper Tote Bag and Feed the Coinbeast Coin Purse.
5. Tiny Showcase. Yes, you can get a really huge Life of Mystery poster ($12, I own one and have talked about it at least 2 other times on here…), Book Plates, and more.

By the way, the Ray Fenwick logo at the top of the image is from his webpage which you should visit. Because it has more stuff than I can possibly post here.

H-A-P-P-Y F-R-I-D-A-Y!

It has been a busy week here at Stickers & Donuts. We interviewed Ian Dingman. And we LOVED IT. Go take a look if you haven’t yet. (The interview seems long, but when you get right down to it, you’ll wish it were longer!)

We’ve had the pleasure of interviewing many cool people here at S&D, which brings me back to this Yellow Zilla Monster Print by Tad Carpenter who we interviewed for Tricia’s “Poster Party.” (more…)

So, Tricia just completed her AMAZING series on poster artists (see all the poster party posts here! scroll!). I’m not just saying they’re amazing because they’re on Stickers & Donuts. They actually ARE amazing. From the posters, to the interviews, to Tricia’s hysterical pop-references (if you only looked at the pictures seriously go back and read the posts!) — I loved every bit of it! In fact, I was jealous of the superiority of Tricia’s interviews to some of my recent posts. (A pink laptop bag? Come on Maria, you can do better than that in the midst of poster interviews! Although, it is a pretty sweet bag…)

That being said, I love all of these artists and am going to squish on into the fun with my two cents (slash 142 dollars).

There was one small problem with Tricia’s posts. She made me want to purchase A MILLION PRINTS! After a little research, I soon learned that I COULD own a poster from each artist for less than $145 (plus shipping & framing, see the receipt I invented below). As you can see from the image above (posters not to scale, frames from my favorite free stock photography site), this is a really good deal. If you have a new apartment, you might want to consider decking-out your place in these guys.

Below are the EIGHT poster-party prints I choose simply to prove that you can own art, and it can be lovely, and it can not cost you hundreds of dollars! Go, look! (more…)

Some of my favorites from last week! (Links in the list below; right click to open in new window.)

• A book of a guy comparing his silhouettes to famous silhouettes (via SwissMiss).
• A hysterical inscription on The Book Inscriptions Project blog from a book entitled “Doktor Bey’s Suicide Guidebook.”
• I really just want to put my feet into these rugs from the Dolder Grand Hotel in Zurich (via Cool Hunter).
• I love, love, love Chris Benz’s colorful clothing lines, and his web-site is pretty cool, too! (via Oh Joy!)
• A pretty awesome chair, good for seat crunchers, via Smashing Magazine. (I’m not sure that you can buy this; it has made its way around the blogs, but I think it was originally part of a show.)
• An awesome flea market guide from Design*Sponge, listing all of the flea markets in a variety of my very favorite states (Connecticut, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Maine, and Massachussetts)!
• Cool photographs of naked Olympians! (via Crap We Like)
• Another cool Smashing Magazine find — a retro phone that you talk into instead of your cell phone.
• I love this ASL (American Sign Language) pattern (and the tank top, which isn’t availible for sale, unfortunately!) in a book which includes designs from Julia Rothman (from Julia’s book design blog, Book By Its Cover).

Threadless T-Shirts – Spoilt Print by Oliver Moss

I have always loved this T-shirt print from threadless, which spoils the ending of about every movie and book with a surprise finish.

I’m super-excited because today Threadless made the T-shirt availible as a large poster/print! This is a pretty amazing graphic, and a great example of typographic success. The artist uses each film’s special font, yet all of the different fonts come together to form a cohesive whole.

Out of all of the things I post and covet, I might actually purcahse this one!

If you are in the US, I hope you are outside somewhere looking up at the sky this fourth of July!

This print, called Grande Finale, is basically sold out over at 20×200, a web-site that brings art to little people like you & me (the smallest size is printed in a set of 200 and costs only $20, hence the web-site’s name). Also, they usually have new prints every week.

Happy fireworks!

This week on the Storque’s News from the Craft + Style Blogosphere, A Print-a-Day’s terrariums were mentioned (Stickers & Donuts was mentioned last week concerning our Renegade Craft Fair Prints post!).

Anyway, back to terrariums. Aren’t these cute? I also love A Print-a-Day’s downloads section. I’m definitely going to be coming back for more!

[tags] web site, prints, drawing, blog [/tags]