The wilting force of summer is up

on us in full force – 104F today, kittens! When I’m not doing the kangaroo cool-down, I’m splashing in Barking Springs with Natalie Ribbons, put-putting at Peter Pan mini-golf, and watching that insano moon-rise yesterday over the pond in the park near my house. This week, Angeliska and I attended a fund raiser for Petite Ecole Internationale at Justine’s, where I dressed as Josephine Baker, complete with banana skirt. There, an older gentleman told me over a glass of absinthe stories of galavanting around Paris in 1958 with countesses and pimps.

There is a block of time from about 12pm-6pm where it is impossible/dangerous for me to ride my bike around town in this heat, so I’ve been holing up in the homestead crafting and pinning things onto my Pinterest (my new favorite time suck).
One image that I keep coming back to is this Morning Glory Phonograph Horn as light fixture from the May 09 issue of Home & Garden. I’ve been vigilantly combing ebay for older/rusty cygnet orphaned horns and have turned up a few gems. Some of the horns are selling for $600 or more, so I’ve been keeping a keen eye on the ones that my pauper’s bank account can manage.
My project yesterday was a trip to the hardware store for a lighting system to insert into the horns to suspend from the ceiling. It’s neat to play electrician – it’s quite simple really, and it reminds me of when I was a kid and my mother let me take apart our rotary phones to play with the guts. My next step is ordering reproduction Edison bulbs from Bulbrite to complete the transformation. I promise pictures when it’s lit!
I fear that I won’t make it to NYC to see the McQueen exhibit at The Met before it closes on August 7th, due to outrageous summer airfare prices. I’ve been making a lot of deer antler headpieces for my etsy store to as my own little contribution to couture. I’m pretty sure that the McQueen antlers are fiber glass or something other than animal bone, as large antlers like the ones pictured above would be way too heavy for a model to

balance for an extended amount of time.
I just rewatched one of my favorite nature documentaries, Microcosmos, an intimate look at the insect world, which is available for streaming on Netflix. Some of the moths and caterpillars in the film look like a McQueen design – if there is an awards ceremony for entomologists, I hope they accept their awards dressed in McQueen!

I love this day and age, where McQueen Armadillo shoe construction tutorials are just a click away!
1 – Armadillo shoe tutorial featuring converse duct taped to wooden platforms
2 – Armadillo shoe tutorial featuring a lower heel & lots of cardboard

Here are some flickr favorites as of late:

1. Vintage Apron- close~up, 2. Cracks, 3. Spring Ball,
4. Sadie Thompson (1928), 5. Phonograph, 6. Boy with phonograph,
7. Rose, 8. Sparkling rose lemonade, 9. Rose