A stationery special

Quite a nice little collection of stationery items are collecting themselves at Toot House this week:

A swarthy numerical stamp: it clunks around by one number each time you stamp.

A tiny tin of handsome pins. Perfect for a pocket.

A pen clip, for a pocket or a notepad. I happen to know this one was designed by the very same Herbert Terry who designed the Anglepoise lamp.

A matchbox full of pen knibs.

A sturdy hole punch.

A beautiful eraser system with refills.

I love the colour of the rubber and the plastic and print together. It's so pleasing.

An empty autograph book.

Gold edged pages and marbled end papers.

chunky leads in their boxes.

And the best box of rubbers.

What a beautiful thing.

 Very satisfying. They'll make someone's desk very happy. If you like these bits you might also like Present and Correct and Choosing Keeping. Seems stationery is really going places these days - getting all lovelied up.
(unlike stationary: that's just staying still. Honk).

Weegee

Well would you look at these photos then.

Weegee was a photographer working in New York in the 1930s and 40s. The name is said to relate to a ouija board - due to the photographer's uncanny ability to turn up at the scene of the crime minutes after it happened. There's speculation that this might been due to an uncanny ability to tap in to police radios.

There are a lot of grizzly crime scene photos in this very fine collection (and some at the bottom this post!) and also some really nice everyday New York ones.

This is my all time favourite!

I also love this one.

This chump would fit right in at Spitalfields Market on a Thursday. What a find.

Grizzly and really damned sinister!

Just plain grizzly.

Toot good to be true.

Hello you 'orrible worms. I had quite a serious weekends worth of car boot action and here are some things I have to show for it:

A real-feather-pheasant (nice mix of words). I like how mangy it looks.

I love this little glass and mirror pyramid - it makes everything look good. It's the ultimate display solution for an indie jeweller.

As soon as it came in the house Schweiker displayed a used teabag in it . . . it looked really good. Here is a felt mouse display.

Not just any felt mouse but one holding a cat. Very good!

I love this rattle, the colours and construction are so beautiful.

Pastels and dark neon, a fine combination.

Very simple spoons made by Alessi.

I love this brooch - it's just a dirty great gob of mother of pearl. So simple and lovely. It reminds me of that other simple brooch I loved (in this post). If only I still had the other I would wear them together.

It has a handsome chunky back too.

A horse from India.

And a jacket from Norway.

Tiny little crucibles - in shapes worthy of Lucy Rie.

A nicely naive landscape.

And a pair of pigeons that I couldn't resist.

Also another cast of The Girl from the Seine seems much more like an actual cast than the other one.

Some sixties fabric in nice colours.

A hat block. I like it's character: kind of bawdy. It looks like it's having a good belly laugh at something.

A bit of hot blanket action.

And a pair of cymbals that I really like because they make a big noise (see above photo for proof). I'm quite tempted to keep them as a means of emphasising important life moments, they make a pleasing ending . . . dinner is finished! *crash!* . . . Rosalie is out the shower *crash!* and so on and so forth.

Anyhow. I photoed for so long the light started to go and made these beautiful shadows, good eh? Here is some more handsome chunky mother of pearl - a necklace with coral coloured filler beads.

And a cork screw with a happy bakelite face.

That is all. I hope you like the bit.

This blog post is now over.

*CRASH!*

You're seriously going to hate me.

Why? . . . because I own a huge rubber band ball! Whoot whooot whoot! Are you jealous? Good!

It's really frickin heavy!

And bigger than my head!

It spends it's days reclining on a special pewter plinth between my plant friends Licky Tongue and Fingers.

Imagine what sort of pressure there is in the middle of it! Sometimes I'm tempted to take it apart to see what happens at the centre - there is a glut of videos on youtube of people putting rubber bands around watermelons that gives an idea of how much force they can exact.
I love my rubber band ball.
That's all.

Shed fixtures and fittings.

I'm at my folks'. And it's nice to have outside space, even if it is freezing. I've been digging around, shifting boxes from place to place, getting a red nose. Also had to do a good clear out of my car in time for it's service, turns out I had two bottles of emergency ketchup in there: you never do know when chips might happen. 

Anyway, I like busy gardens in winter: they're scraped back to just the basic workings, the handsome weathered wood and canes and tools. All lovely and utilitarian with none of them showy flowers making a mess. Here are some photos of splendid shabby shedness. (you might remember these particular sheds from Five Sheds).

When you go into the veg garden there's a big ball-bearing to hold the gate open - it's made itself two little hollows in the mud: one for holding the gate open, one for letting it close and you plop it between the two with your boot. What a nice simple thing!

Door held shut with a broken fork . . . upcycling.

Nice colours.

After this shed slumped it had to have a new latch fitted.

A handy poking place.

Improvisation with a twig.

Nice poly-tunnel wires, all hung up and waiting.

Plenty of forks. 

The crow scarer pinned to the ceiling with a screw right through it's heart. A revenge killing maybe?

And a splendid welly stand made of two bamboo poles.

There you go. This blog got a nice mention from Oh Comely magazine today! So that's good - hello to anyone that came from there.