Gifts & Decorative Accessories

Are you all aware of Gifts & Decorative Accessories magazine?? Because, until my chance encounter at the library yesterday, I wasn't.

My gosh, I have never seen junkier junk. There are more things I want in car part catalogs than in the Oct. issue. This junk makes the 98 cent store look like Tiffany.

The website seems to mostly require registration, which is too bad, because you'd never believe how awful the junk is.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Here's a nice little picture of some turducken for you all. This one actually looks appetizing. (You should see some of the other catastrophic bird carcass photos of turducken on the web).

Happy Thanksgiving

Have a pumpkin shaped pie

Go Nuts for Donuts

• Design your own donut order at the Baby Donut Company.

• Supposedly famous donuts, and I've never been! We must visit this place: Stan's Doughnuts

• Australian donut restaurant serving donut burgers, savory donuts, and a whole range of gourmet flavors: Doughnut Delirium

• Some time in the future, we MUST attend Doughnut Shoppe Night at Grace! Check it out:

Every Wednesday evening, Pastry Chef Elizabeth Belkind switches out her usual delicious dessert selections for an exclusive dessert menu of gourmet doughnuts. Belkind creates sophisticated and irresistible treats and pairs them with house-made ice creams, farmers' market fruit and other delicious sidekicks. For instance, Chocolate Hazelnut Beignets come with Bananas Foster; Brown Sugar Doughnuts are accompanied by Blackberry Preserves, Beurre Noisette and Fresh Berry Salad; and the Original Jelly Doughnut with Strawberry Rhubarb Jam with Buttermilk Strawberry Ice Cream.

Each menu selection features three doughnuts and is $9, except for the "Doughnut Shoppe" dessert, which is $11 and includes a sampling of the four most popular doughnuts, ice cream, and berries.

They also have Sunday evening Burger Nights!

Boy Toy: Erotic Dishes

Sexy, or disgusting? I tend towards the latter, but I feel certain that for the right guy, these dishes from Zinoo Park would be pretty fun.

Boy Toy: T-shirt Quilt

If you do a Google search for the phrase “t-shirt quilt,” you’re going to get everything from step by step video instructions on how to make your own, to personal websites of little grandmothers in Virginia who will make a custom quilt for you for the nominal fee of around $300. Of course, why pay someone else when you can do it yourself, I always say.

A few years back I saw a photo and very basic instructions for a t-shirt quilt in Budget Living, and I kept the page even though I know nothing about quilting. It’s filed in my “projects” binder, and I’ll get to it eventually. I think that this qualifies as a good gift for a guy because t-shirts are primarily a guy thing. While a girl will build a cute outfit around a t-shirt once or twice a week, a guy can basically be stylish, comfortable, and make a statement with just the tee alone. Every day. Every week. All year long. In California, boys can wear just t-shirts and shorts every day even in the middle of winter and get away with it. Not that I approve of such behavior. But it happens.

As for making one for myself, there is no way you can make a decent quilt out of a bunch of tiny baby tees.

But the biggest problem in making a quilt is collecting enough non-white t-shirts to actually form a whole quilt (unless you WANT a white quilt). So of the 50000 search results for "t-shirt quilts," stich’T was by far the best one I could find. They are also featured on Elsewares, which is how I found them in all the mess. They make quilts, throws, duvet covers and crib blankets from vintage tees built around themes or color schemes. They will also fill in any color or theme gaps for your custom order if you don’t have enough shirts to create a whole quilt or throw. This service alone makes the cost suddenly worthwhile.

Check out their quilt gallery to see some of their great designs and colors. I especially like the space invaders quilt on page 7 of the first gallery. So cute!

Doesn't anyone know what the true meaning of Christmas is?

Have you ever seen a cuter, more pathetic Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

This is on my after Christmas wish list. Not quite worth the current $25, especially with the current space problem in my house.

Boy Toy: The Beer That Keeps on Giving

I actually think these recycled beer bottle glasses from Green Glass are a cute product that everyone can love. But beer is often sterotyped as a guy thing, so it somewhat qualifies as a Boy Toy. Apparently Green Glass produces a whole line of recycled glassware which is popular in Europe:

Revered throughout Europe and other parts of the world as collectable art glass, Green Glass goblets have even been chosen for the table of King Carlos of Spain, movie sets and celebrity dinners.

Ok. Suure. Personally I think the gobets and candleholders are kind of whatever, but the beer glasses are adorable.

I had to post this and I know I will get a lot of heat for it but they are cute. However, I think Dalton would look better in all these outfits.

Personal request

My tweezers seem to be broken, they've pretty much stopped being able to pull the hair out of my face. I like to think this is because of the tweezers, and not my face. Can anyone recommend a good pair/ brand?

Also, I'm looking for a not ugly brown sequin shrug thing. and possibly a beige sequined neckline tank to wear under it. There are so many ugly ones, surely there's a few nice ones.

As a reward, here's a picture of a dog in a harem suit.

Boy Toy, or Just Toy

I thought this LL Bean Ice Cream Ball was kind of a cute gift, but only for a nerdy guy who likes sweets. It's available through LL Bean, REI and Red Envelope and comes in 5 colors. It seems like a lot of work for just a pint of ice cream, but it seems like it would appeal to a certain kind of person.

Just as I predicted, the Red Envelope holiday catalog was full of boring crap like monogrammed golf club covers and key rings and leather dresser valets, bleah. But they do have this kind of cool portable bar thing... a bit pricey, but so swanky...

Boy Toys

I can’t really stand the pressure of selecting my own boy toys, so I went straight to the internet for other people’s boy toy ideas.

Here is a good site: Boys Stuff

Although there aren’t too many things on this site that any man in my life (lover, brother, father) would enjoy, some of the items are damn funny.

My top 5 favorite boy toys on this site:

Shower Boobs (yeah, that’s right)

The Pulp Fiction “Bad Motherfucker” wallet (I take it back – maybe Joel would get a kick outta this one)

Pornogami (probably as stimulating as Cyndi’s food porn)

Naughty Duvet Cover (for when it’s too cold to sleep naked and exposed for real)

And last but not least, the Inflatable Sumo Ballerina suit (because what man doesn’t want to dress up like that?)

6th place runner up is pictured above - singing stag head. Apparently this is hours of fun for all men...

I love candy

I love this fake candy necklace from KanDi Designs, available for purchase at Virgin Threads. I have always thought that making a non-perishable version of the ever popular childhood candy necklace would be a great idea, and tada, here it is. I just wish they hadn’t put diamonds on it so that it would be more affordable…

Other cute things of note on this site:

L&R Mittens

Dictionary Pendant

Now, I have to apologize for this long post, but I had to mention a few things about this site, Virgin Threads. I can’t remember if someone posted it already; it seems almost impossible that we wouldn't have come across this website before.

Not only does it feature a handful of accessories that I believe the lot of us would enjoy (vintage-y pillows that Beth would love, a modern take on a 1950’s look that Cyndi might enjoy, and kitchy knit hats that Lydia would probably be inspired by…), it’s also like a mini re-cap of the jewelry we’ve posted thus far: Bonbon Oiseau, Smallthings, Kimberly Baker, and Happy Owl Glassworks, from Beth’s blog. I’m sure if they had a home goods section, this website would pretty much be our blog. It’s a little scary.

But just as I was beginning to think that this site had our tastes all figured out, I came across their “toy and doll” section. I’ve never been a fan of dolls to begin with, but this really freaked the crap outta me: Toys and Dolls

WHO is their buyer? Are they trying to say that people who like this type of cute fashion and accessories would also love these heinous (yes, *heinous*) dolls? And can you really dare to call these things toys?

Someone explain!

Mary Green

I was at TJ Maxx today and they had this thing that you wouldn’t believe.

It was a maribou skirt, they were selling it in the lingerie section. It was from SF designer Mary Green.

See her in magazines

Not all of the web pages work. And a quick once over doesn’t reveal the amazingness of the barely ass covering silk and marabou skirt. I would have bought it if it was my size, and if it was less than the current $20 I would have bought it anyway. I never realized how much I wanted my ass to be fluffy.

UPDATE: I went back today, so you could see the magicalness of my fluffy ass. almost like a muppet. Pretty much the modern girls answer to the ugly flannel nightgown. But instead of turning your boy off, he laughs so hard he forgets about it.

November Prompt

Ok, so this month's postin' prompt is very selfishly motivated, but it's also sort of challenging:

Every winter all the magazines and stores come out with little inserts or whatnot for "Men's Gift Guides" and they are always very lame! Ties and shoe horns and duffel bags and stopwatches, boo! While I realize that men really do care about ties and shoe horns and stop watches, I find them to be boring things to buy or look at. So for this entire month I challenge you to post interesting, creative, whimsical, fun and of course cute things to buy a father/brother/son and most importantly, boyfriend.

Any men who read this blog (We know you're there!) should feel free to weigh in on any items posted under this prompt.

Extra points if you can manage to find a cool or interesting take on that oh-so-boring men's gift staple, the Dresser Valet.

Post under the title "Boy Toy(s)."

Happy posting!