Lulu Bliss

Happy Holidays!

The holidays are shaping up to be very mellow and nice this year.  Which is just perfect in my book.  Folks that know me, know that Christmas is my least favorite time of year, for many reasons (which I will not go into now).  But ever since I have been with Matthew I have had a reason to celebrate at Christmas time... You see he is a Christmas eve baby, and everyone knows how much I love to celebrate birthdays.

We are very grateful this year to have each other, our family, our friends and of course our sweet pups!

- A nice gift of red cashmere from my sweetie!  He wanted to find a replacement for the turquoise one that Domino ate.

Another year end thing I love to do is getting a new daily planner and putting in all of my important dates.

- This year I couldn't pass up the large red moleskine daily planner.  It's the prettiest shade of bright red (I want a lipstick in this shade).  

Wishing a happy and healthy New Year to all of you!

There is a lot in the works here at Lulubliss and look forward to all sorts of fun stuff to come in the New Year.

Mid Century Supper Club

After being invited to many of Karens' Mid Century Supper Club parties, we were finally able to make it to the wonderfully crazy Holiday party!

What the heck is the Mid Century Supper Club?  It started off as a Flickr group, which Karen is a part of.  Karen decided to share the fun with all of her friends and start hosting MCSC parties.  Here is the blurb from Flickr about the club:

"Have you ever been curious about aspic? Perhaps you’ve itched to try out a Spam casserole? This is a group for those of us who collect vintage cookbooks, or for those of us that merely wish to pay homage to the dietary delights of our parents' generation. Let’s put those mid-century cookbooks and magazine spreads into action! You are invited to prepare dishes and photograph them with the source page -- or if that's not practical, please provide a link to the scan of the page in your stream, or put the finished product photo and the original scan together into one image.

If you've ever looked through vintage cook books and booklets, you know that in the mid-century era, creative and stylish presentation was almost as important as the taste of the food ... judging by some of the ingredients, maybe more so! That's why we're not worried in the least about any substitutions you may want to make ... meat substitutes for the vegetarians, relplacements due to allergies, heck, even shortcuts like cake mix are fine! The point is to make the dish look more-or-less like the original image, or in the mid-century spirit!

From the chef at the swankest supper club, to Mom and her Sunday supper, mid-century cooks aimed to reflect the grace, charm, and inventive spirit of the times in the dishes they served. Whether whimsical or elegant, every plate set before a valued patron or a dearly-loved one demonstrated an attention to detail seldom seen today. Let's revive some of that artistry and creativity!"

So Sunday afternoon was the MCSC Holiday Extravaganza.  We made two appetizers from a 1955 Planter's Peanut recipe booklet, Matthew did the pineapple appetizer server with cheese balls and I made the bologna stack ups.  Yum! (Okay, not really).  

-Here are our appetizers in action.  

-Image of the appetizer spread from our Planter's cookbook.

This party was so much fun and it had it all!  

-fancy aprons, check

-crinolines, check

-mice, check

-creepy lute playing elf, check

-aluminum christmas tree, check

-viking boat, check

-chocolate covered bacon, check

-lots of champagne, check

Here are some more images from the party:

To get the full effect you can check out Karens' Flickr set, there are even two videos (one where I am saying Happy Halloween?!).  I will leave you this last picture of my sassy husband pouring some sparkly for the ladies:

A big thank you to both Jon and Karen for hosting such a fab party and for the use of all the images in this post!  I love you.

Pom Pom Fringe, Wooden Spools and Knitting Needles...

Just a little hint of the many crazy things that are on my mind and don't make a whole lot of sense all together.  Well, I guess they do all have the crafting thing in common.  Oh yeah crafting, what is that?  So sorry it has been a bit uninspiring around these parts lately.  I am in a crafting slump and don't know what to do with myself to get out of it.  I have quite a few projects that I do want to finish, but when it comes time to pick them up and work on them, I just don't get that far.  Ugh, it is driving me crazy!  I know that my new Etsy shop has been taking up a lot of my time, but not all of it. 

-How my brain feels!  I recently found a big ol' bag of pom pom fringe at a thrift store for only $2.  This is only half of it.

I also need to figure out the direction I want to take this here blog.  I don't want it just to be all about my new store (which it has been lately), but I do want to share things that are exciting to me (my store included).  To let you in on the big picture... This is all stemming from my sort of indecision on what direction I want to focus my creative energy on, which was the original focus of this blog.  I tend to dabble in all sorts of crafty stuff, but never for too long, 'cause I get bored.  But I feel like if I want to get serious about where this creative energy will take me and hopefully be able to make a living on it, I need to get serious with something.  I am just blathering on now and sorry if it is boring.  I am sure there will be a bit more of this "sortin' my stuff out", in the coming weeks or months, but I will try and keep it to a minimum.

A few images of me playing around with my camera in my studio (read between the lines here... PROCRASTINATING!):

-Some of the many wooden thread spools I have collected over the years.  What to do with them all?  Any ideas?

- I love my vintage Bauer Pot that holds my mixed collection of old and new knitting needles.  My dad gave me this pot, he called me one day saying he thought I would like this pot he found...  Yes, I said that "he found".  Someone had thrown this beauty in the trash.   

- Oh pretty pom pom rainbow!  Fooling around with my bag o' pom pom fringe.  

Here is a new site/blog I just discovered Colette Patterns.  I have been reading her other blog for a while now and found out through there, that she is starting her own pattern company.  I can't wait to see what she will have to offer.  She has great personal style, so I am sure her patterns will reflect that.

New Artwork!

Friday night we went to my best friend Olivias' art opening at Issues in Oakland.  She painted these amazing pictures of vintage signs from all around Oakland.  

This is the first wall.

And here is the second wall of her petite paintings.  

There were so many that I wanted, but could only afford to buy one.  My first choice was Geo Kaye's on the first wall, my last and favorite apartment in Oakland was one building away from this bar, so that sign had some meaning to me.  I arrived 20 minutes after the opening began and my top five choices had all been bought, by one man!  Good for her.  My next choice was Rhea's Salon of Beauty, but I knew that Karen and Lynn both wanted that one, I couldn't buy it out from under them.  So I choose the fabulous Ideal Cleaners painting (the one above Rhea's).  I love it, and wish I could have had them all.

Here we are... Me next to the Artist.

Boy, the show was a big success and all but one of the paintings were sold...  Congrats Olivia!  

Where does the time go?

I have been happily working away at getting inventory up on my Etsy store, while also trying to get everything organized here.  I just had no clue as to how much stuff I have accumulated for my new store and what it takes to get it ready to post.  I want to offer high quality inventory, so that means checking all items over to make sure that I catch any flaws or wear that would need to be mentioned in my post.  I also try to make sure all fabric items are cleaned and repaired so they are in good condition when purchased.  

I have made a few sales and really enjoy knowing that those treasures are going to good homes.  

A little peak at a fantastic scarf that was just posted yesterday.  Oh so mod!

Tomorrow I will be posting a bunch of housewares.  So if you are interested in vintage Pyrex and vintage table linens, check out my shop tomorrow evening!