Bead-dazzled

This lady had been around for a long time, but I love her stuff so much. Liza Lou makes shit out of beads. Like, entire ROOMS. Check it:

Customize Your Cups

At Baked By Melissa, you can customize your own cupcakes. And order them. 
And then eat them.

Wot's All Dis Den?

Are you looking for something original and cute from the UK? You have found it (or I have found it for you). It's Tatty Devine, art jewelry from England that offers such things as a Crisp Necklace (left). We call them "potato chips" - oh, diversity!

Other cool stuff I like from Tatty:

Cartoon Eyes Rings

Price Ticket Pin

Volume Brooch

Cheerio! Hey, they should make a Cheerio necklace. Get on that.

Pop Art

I work at a balloon company, and I've seen a bunch of things made from balloons (a good number of them kind of shitty) but this guy is a NYC artist that does really amazing stuff. Jason Hackenwerth

Karim of the Crop

Here's an industrial designer I really like, Karim Rashid.

Hotel, Motel, Holiday Inn

This is the Maison Moschino located in Milan, Italy. It has themed rooms such as Alice's Room, The Forest, Sweet Room and Little Red Riding Hood. I've stayed at a theme motel before, but I imagine The Fort Motel in Shartlesville, PA was much more reasonably priced; featuring a Jungle Room, Circus Room and Dog Room. (I stayed in the Dog Room! No pictures available!)

A theme hotel I would like to visit someday is The Madonna Inn, a famous tacky hotel with many many themes in San Luis Obispo, California. Here is the Room Features Grid showing you what exactly is available (the pic above is the Sugar & Spice room). It reminds me of The Gobbler in Wisconsin, a hotel shaped to resemble a turkey for some reason, that no longer exists but can be viewed postmortem at the link. I recall staying in a Caboose Motel when I was in PA as a kid in the 70's, and the only clear memory I have is of the TV in the potbelly stove turning on when the light switch was on and there was no way to turn it off independently.

On a trip in 2006 I went to South of the Border in Dillon, South Carolina. I did not stay in the motel there, and I was curious about the Honeymoon Suite with the Sombrero Bed. It no longer exists, as they are updating and renovating. I hope they don't ruin too much of SOB because it's SUPER! If you love this kind of stuff it's worth a trip.

Wanna Shop for Pop?

There is a store in Lee, Massachusetts in the Berkshire Mountains that does not have a web site or an eBay store. I happened upon it by chance while driving aimlessly around and immediately did a u-turn to check it out. It's The Retro Pop Shop and it's run by an affable, Jim-Gaffigan/John C. Reillyesque fellow named Pierre who is in it just for fun, which is why he doesn't concern himself with Internet sites and online auctions. Requests are written in an old notebook. Things are cataloged by hand. If you make a reasonable offer, Pierre will probably take it. It's located at 395 Laurel Street, and you cannot miss it wih the bright colors and cool signs. I think my favorite piece in the whole place is the giant McDonald's M that was found in a warehouse somewhere.

Pictures used are from hotrodonline.com because those pics are better than the ones I took.

Ye Olde Tymey Stuffe!

Do you like retro food packaging and adverts? You DO?!?! Me too! Dude. Check out these Flickr sets from Dan Goodsell, of whom I have been a fan for many years, and Jason Liebig, who has some really cool shit also. Cookies and candy and soap and toys and really fantastic graphic design, and sometimes really awful design.