art goodies- "favorite thing " #2

Calling all chefs, interior designers and foodies.
You're gunna want to read this.


Today's featured Etsian is Lisa Price of Art Goodies. I've been checking in with Lisa ever since I joined Etsy. Her talent for block printing is unmatched in my book.

Artist Lisa Price grew up in the Chicago suburbs and spent her summers gardening, canning, and visiting the farmers market with her grandmother in northern Indiana. That is where she began her fascination with nature and the colors and designs of the fifties. She received a B.F.A. in printmaking in 2001, and now brings you modern block print housewares with vintage flair. Her company artgoodies, founded in 2006, offers tea towels, aprons, and stuffie mini pillows each hand printed with one of her original linocut block prints. Lisa resides in Grand Rapids, Michigan where she works out of her home studio.

If any of my readers are pondering what to get me for Christmas, I'd like this apron.

Art Goodies are available here and here. Check out both sites and pick up a stocking stuffer. Lisa is giving away this great little set of tea towel and stuffie. Just leave a comment and you will be in the drawing. The winner will be posted on Dec. 15th.

Tomorrow I will introduce you to another great artisan! Stay tuned.

the domestication of rosie

Rosie and my brother broke up six months ago. Rosie and I never broke up. We are still good friends. And we try not to talk to much about my brother, but it is hard. Ryan is larger than life.


Rosie is almost done with her college degree in human performance. She is one of the irritating skinny girls who never eat sugar and only drink water. She fully disapproves of my Redbull habit.


So Rosie is busy and unmarried and totally non-domestic. She claims she really is a good cook, she just doesn't- cook that is. Something about a delicious lasagna came up, but I'm yet to see her chef anything more than a turkey sandwich.


She claims she dislikes children, and yet she has been my live in nanny while she has been here. She and Thom caught 55 potato bugs and 11 snails. I think the whole "disliking children" is a rouse.


It was time to share my appreciation for domestic arts with my friend. And so we made an apron. She isn't quite sure when she will be able to wear it. She decided she would put it on when she gets someone in her family a glass of water.


On the agenda for tomorrow- how to barbecue lobster (lobster season started yesterday) and prepare artichokes with garlic butter dip.


I'll make a domestic goddess of her yet.

You have until tomorrow morning to put your name in for the drawings. Come one, come all!

design sunday

I wear aprons. I know this may seem a little passe', maybe even a little um, "Pleasantvillish", but I love them. They are practical and why women quit wearing them is beyond me. When my grandmother died a few years ago, I requested and got one of her aprons and her Better Homes and Gardens red check cookbook with hand written notes jotted in the margins. I felt like I inherited pure gold.

Maybe I feel that an apron is my mom uniform. I think people need uniforms. They give you a sense of capability and authority. Take security guards for example. Those guys think they are really in charge just because they have on a dark suit with a fabric shield patch. They get this Barney Fife attitude, telling me I can't park here or I can't walk there, that makes me want to reach out and thwack them between the eyes. But I digress. My point is just that people tend to become the uniform.

Back in March, the crafty chicks made crazy aprons. Here's the one I made.

I recently found this wonderful little book with simple patterns for making various aprons. I tend to like vintage patterns, especially bib aprons that cross in the back, but it is full of fun projects both modern and vintage inspired. One of my favorite projects is an apron with a tea towel sewn into the waist band to wipe your hands on. Talk about useful.

There are also some really great books on collecting vintage aprons and the culture behind aprons. Yes, aprons have their own culture. Check out Amazon for these fab books.

There are also a ton of super talented women making and selling their own aprons. I bought this one through Sundarose and I wear it all the time.

Check out the following links if you want to join my apron revolution. My motto is this: Aprons have nothing to do with repression. They are really about sensibility, fashion and self expression.

Apron Memories

Rick Rack Attack

Angry Chicken

Angry Chicken has more links for new vintage style handmade aprons.

design sunday

"In the childhood memories of every good cook, there's a large kitchen, a warm stove, a simmering pot, and a mom."
— Barbara Costikyan

Ahhhhhh- Sunday again. Church came a little too early today, considering daylight savings time. I personally wish the rest of the country would follow Arizona's lead and just stay on the entire year. I can't take this switching back and forth.

I like to cook. I really like to bake the most, but I have warmed up to cooking considerably over the last few years. Today's designs will perk up your kitchen and your mood. You know what they say- presentation is everything.

Whitney Smith is a potter working out of Oakland, California. Her work reminds me a little of pieces from the arts and crafts/mission era that I love so much. You can check out her work here.

One of my earliest Etsy purchases, my Sunda Rose apron, was made custom for me and came in a darling box with a bow. I thoroughly enjoy wearing it. It makes me feel pretty, even with bad hair and flour on my face. You can get your own here.

Some day I will have these napkins. I have been looking at them on and off for a while now. The problem is, I will need a whole new set of dishes (set #10) to go with them and I am really running out of space in my cabinets. I don't know how much longer I can hold out though. If you love them as much as I do, you can buy them here.

I hope these things inspire you to cook in style. Be fabulous.

Make sure to click on the cupcakes at the top of the post. The cupcakes were blogged about on Cupcake Bakeshop , one of my all-time favorite blogs. They are herbal essence cupcakes by a really fun bakery called Whiskie Bits. Check them out.