I’m pretty much obsessed with collections, especially weird ones. And just for kicks, here are some fun ones I found online. You really must see these:

Sometimes Flower does things that are so out-of-control cute that can’t stand it and I have to make her stop. Every morning she paws at her eyes, like only the cutest animals do, and it’s so ridiculously adorable that I literally distract her and move her paws away from her face because I can’t handle it. One day I’ll capture it on video. Meanwhile, here’s Flower as a baby seal:

Sometimes I get really lucky, and I was definitely channeling some luck when I scored 4 lbs of these vintage plastic flowers. They are so much fun to go through and sort, I really can’t even describe it. I haven’t had so much fun in a very long time. (I’m easily entertained, I guess.) Even my sister has come over the past few days to join me at the table to sort them in categories and dig around the bulk of them for “rare” flowers (or “species” as she called them) and little unexpected treasures. I get so much joy out of treasure-hunting, so needless to say this 4lb bag of plastic flowers has made me a very very happy girl.

(p.s. I realize I need a life.)

I just had to post about this bird illustration, which I discovered inside the cover of a little vintage birding book that I recently bought. I’m so in love with it. It should be wallpaper.

My friend Mary just emailed me an article about a little screech owl that was recently discovered and rescued from the cockpit of a USS jet, but the best part of the story is the owl is probably the cutest creature ever made. I want to cuddle with it!
Naughty little owl, playing around in cockpits! eeeee!

You can read the actual article here.

Perhaps my weirdest obsession. My sister was like “Yeah, I don’t get it.” But I’m so in love with anything and everything Air Mail, especially all these fun labels that I recently acquired. Almost all of them are different in some way…different colorways, layouts, textures, fonts, sizes, languages, etc. Has anything else been re-designed so many times? Right now I have all of them (about 400 or so) sitting in a box, but I really want to do something with them, but I’m kind of scared to. For the time being, I just like to sit and admire them. Seriously, I sit and look at each one; sometimes I lay them all out and arrange them for the fun of it. Just to see them all together in all their glory. I also do this with my extensive postage stamp collection. I just like to dig through them and pick out different sizes, shapes and colors, grouping them in collections for no reason at all. Is this weird? I have a real love for collections and maybe my “playing” with these things is just a part of that? Anybody else like Air Mail labels??

Once again, Daily Candy did us a huge favor and included our Jars of Whimsies in the 2008 Mother’s Day Guide. Being in Daily Candy always brings in gigantic amounts of traffic and orders, so we’re very very excited! Also included is our favorites Boygirlparty.com and Rare Device, among others. Yippy!

In collecting vintage papers and materials for the Piles of Paper, Julie and I come across some pretty strange things, but this has got to be the weirdest. This antique portrait features a lady wearing a cat as a hat, but if you look closely, it appears the cat is, well, dead. Is she wearing a dead cat’s torso on her head? Is it a stuffed dead cat made into a hat? I googled “cat hat” but didn’t find anything more than this and this.

We especially love the added touch of her “Puss” necklace. Yeep! I wonder if she left her house wearing her cat-hat or if it was just for special occasions. And how did she keep it in place?