New Old Friends

Get ready for a bunch of photos of my newest old treasures found amongst the dregs and discarded doodads during the last minutes of an estate sale at Centaur Acres (somehow the name of the subdivision seems worth mentioning).

I'm not sure how many plastic deer are distributed throughout our apartment, but I still couldn't pass up the little guy pictured below. Anyway, he makes the perfect pet for my new swimsuit-clad dolly (whilst making her look like a giantess). I just love this little lady's (non-symmetrical) expression and sculptural hair. Added bonus: She squeaks when you squeeze her.






And how could I resist this instant collection of deer, octopus and kangaroo (with joey).  gah.  I love their personalities.  If these creatures don't inspire drawings, I don't know what will.

dolls in a box

a few weekends ago we went to an amazing estate sale that was mostly old dolls and vintage fabric...  kind of a dream come true!  the people having the sale were eager to get rid of everything so we got some crazy bargains...  (i'm saving photos of the load of fabric i bought for another post).  here's how our new-old dolls rode home with us:  laying in a cardboard box cushioned by beautiful vintage fabrics.  isn't the bikini girl's outfit (and expression) hilarious?  and the crawling (wind-up) babies are so strange!  i'm sure these guys will show up in lots of future photos and drawings...

this family

last weekend, when we spotted a heat wave on the horizon, we decided to dash off to lake michigan to enjoy some summer sun... 

on the way back we stopped at a huge antique mall where i found a few treasures including this funny family.  they were jammed in a baggie at the bottom of a basket just waiting to be bent back into shape (and re-assembled in the case of headless-joe).  they've been welcomed warmly by the rest of my collection.

cat collection

growing up, david collected cats, even though he has always been very allergic to them...  during a recent organization spree we found the entire collection packed carefully into a box at the back of a closet.  i had a lot of fun arranging them on our coffee table and taking photos.  i love that he had named them: each had a number written on the bottom corresponding to a name on a small sheet of paper.  (Snowball, Dolores, Athena...).

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...speaking of organization, i've been wanting an easy way to share lots of drawings and doodles all in one place, so i started an art blog on tumblr.  so far i've been posting past work that you may have already seen, but very soon i'll start adding new stuff.  i'll still be posting a few art related things here, but if you want to see a lot more drawings, feel free to follow me there (mariegardeski.tumblr.com).

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and now for the cats...

creepy cuties

i recently added a few new friends to my old doll collection.  they live here and there around the apartment, but yesterday i decided to gather them all together for a group photo.







and a couple favorites...  i call the little guy with the red bow tie søren: