We’re in the process of switching our ‘official’ shopping cart over to Big Cartel right now, but we’ll still have a presence over on Etsy, naturally. We just wanted to be able to customize our shop’s look and feel to better match our crafty show shopping experience.
So for now, if you are reading this, click here to see our Etsy shop.
Oh, gee! It is our most favorite time of the year - Renegade Craft Fair time!
Chicago pals: Come and see us in BOOTH 279 - Division St between Hermitage and Paulina. We have lots of fun new items just for you.
xoxoxo
Remember back in the day when Blockbuster (et al) was for reals a huge part of your plans for the weekend, back when you actually PAID GOOD MONEY to *rent* video tapes? And how you had to pay insane late fees if you forgot to return it by a certain time on the date it was due? How weird the olden days were!
My Mom & Dad were threatening to donate their massive VHS collection to the thrift store last time we were down. I thought that it would be fun and or funny to try to make journals from some of the better movies. So we took a ton of great covers AND the movies hit the thrift store commando.
They turned out pretty cool.
We have eleven great journals up today: Sixteen Candles, Rosemary’s Baby, Trainspotting, Stripes, Sid & Nancy, The Exorcist, The Big Lebowski, and 4 more! Any movies you’d like to see made into journals? We might have it. Let us know!
So as I was listing the Follow That Bird journal the other day, I couldn’t exactly remember if it was a real movie or if it was just in my wild imagination. I don’t think it was quite the hit that Muppets Take Manhattan was, but I had to know for sure, so I popped on over to IMDB to find out.
Sure enough, it was a legit movie, made in 1985. It was directed by Ken Kwapis. Ken Kwapis. Now I watch a lot of TV and for some reason, that name really stood out to me. I know I had seen it somewhere before. A few clicks later and it all made sense! Ken Kwapis is a director and producer of The Office! He even directed the pilot episode. That explains why I felt it was familiar.
Turns out that Follow That Bird was Ken’s first feature film AND also the first time any Sesame Street Muppets ever appeared on the big screen, too! This is why I love the Internet. How else would I ever learn these things?
Anyway, Ken Kwapis has a pretty impressive resume in both TV and film. Here are some of the projects he’s been involved in, in no particular order:
Who knew? Again, this is why the Internet rules.
If you want to grab this journal for yourself, pick it up right here!
In the past 6 months or so, I’ve been able to snag 2 copies of this insane looking vintage book called “Printer’s Devil to Publisher.”
It always makes me laugh - because:
1) WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
2) And also, I scored both copies of this book at the same local churchy thrift store. I always think it is wacky when churchy thrift stores have things that might be considered taboo. I guess I expect them to burn (instantly) anything that even bears the word DEVIL on its cover.
3) It’s kind of a lousy name for a book. If it makes no sense and makes people scratch their heads, rename it!
But the cover is basically awesome and I absolutely love covers like this; slightly embossed with a couple of screened in colors. And the color combo is great, too.
Still, I wanted to understand what the title means, so I googled it. It’s actually pretty interesting.
A printer’s devil was an apprentice in a printing establishment who performed a number of tasks, such as mixing tubs of ink and fetching type. A number of famous men served as printer’s devils in their youth; dudes like Benjiman Franklin, Walt Whitman, Thomas Jefferson and the guy the book is about: Adolph Ochs, who went on to start the New York Times.
But where did the term originate? Well, there are a number of theories, according to Wikipedia.
The first is that these printer’s devils hands were constantly covered in black ink AND on top of that, early printing was allegedly (somehow) associated with ‘black arts’ aka black magic, thus they were willingly doing this work so they must be devilish in some way.
Second (directly from wiki) - English tradition links the origin of printer’s devil to the assistant of the first English printer and book publisher, William Caxton, whose assistant was named “Deville” which evolved to “devil” over time, as that name was used to describe other printers’ apprentices.
Another theory, probably the cutest: “Another origin is linked to the fanciful belief among printers that a special devil haunted every print shop, performing mischief such as inverting type, misspelling words or removing entire lines of completed type. The apprentice became a substitute source of blame and came to be called a printer’s devil by association.”
Like this journal? It can be yours - just click here!
Happy 2010, you guys! We are rampin’ it up to be the best year EVER, how about you?
We had many great adventures this past holiday season and met many a cool shopper. Of course, we have been so busy that we didn’t stop to take many pictures of all of the goings-ons but there are a few which I shall post later.
We are cooking up some AMAZING new products for 2010 and we’ll start revealing them in just a few days!
All of our products are made from RECYCLED (or UPcycled if you prefer) BOOKS! And almost all of the NEW components in our products are made of recycled content, too. For instance, the paper we bind inside our journals is a 65 lb green seal certified bond of a creamy colored paper which is the perfect weight for journaling OR sketching. Then, the binding wire for our vintage book journals is made of a recycled carbon steel.
