Cats and Jammers Studio: Even tho it's make believe

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Hot Junk to Get

VINTAGE EYEWEAR
Well, you can go get glasses at the local Lenscrafters, OR you can hunt down some spectacular vintage hand cut frames at your local antique shop and have them fitted with your prescription lenses. Or maybe---do both. I have some very normal, "don'-t-cause trouble" frames, and some "in-your-face" frames I like to wear when I am feeling "con cohones" and have had a drink or two. Better to buy "new old stock", if you are going to invest much in the lenses. It is not good to throw money into old frames in bad shape that will fall off your head or lose an arm and need that proverbial piece of masking tape to keep them together. Unless that is the look you crave--the look of half the boys in my nerdy seventh grade class circa 1965. If so, I have an old briefcase and a pocket pen holder I would like to sell you. I'll throw in the slide rule.
Lawn art and ashtrays
Back when guys stayed home more, listened to the radio and do other things at the same time, they probably labored over homemade lawn art, standing ashtray holders, and door stops. Usually they were made out of plywood, then painted. Look for slightly crackled paint. Many of the best of these were old comic strip characters like Jiggs and Maggie, or the ocasional Disney character. Black cats are plentiful. Also Butlers. You do not have to smoke to appreciate them.
old silhouettes
Many of these come from the 20's and 30's. You can often guess the age of the piece by the dress of the person whose portrait it is. Hung together on a wall, they have a wonderful impact.
Old cookbooks by local groups: i.e. Grange cookbooks, church cookbooks, college cookbooks, etc.
Tacky Souvenirs from old site seeing locales

Even though I love to draw and paint, decorate houses, cakes and studios, and pride myself on my ridiculous fashion sense (or lack there of), I have no talent when it comes to landscaping. Oh, I know good gardening and landscape architecture when I see it. I just don't have the "vision" when it comes to doing it. I am overwhlemed by the scope of a quarter acre or several acres. Just not my medium, those things that grow.....

But fortunately I have a very good friend who is an artist when it comes to planting trees, bushes, flowers and flower pots. So he gets carte blanche to work his magic for us. And magic is certainly the word for what he does.

I thought I would show you the wonderful space he created by building a pond, stream, and waterfall in what would have been a small, very ordinary patio in a very ordinary suburb.

Looking to make me a "water feature" he outdid himself. And here is the best part: his pond is so realistic looking that we have become the hang out place for 8 (at last count) frogs, with visits by chipmunks, and the many birds, who use the waterfall as a birdbath. We added the fish.

When I was home in MA this summer, my favorite morning ritual was to go outside and play "find the frogs." They are very clever at hiding, but I am even better at spotting them.

Here are some shots of the pond and the creatures. Click on them for a larger image.