Browsing Tag

collage

Escapeland

Ponies and Cotton Candy Tea

10/07/2009
Sweet Sugar Pink

As important to me as any adorable childhood hero.. and as adorable as.. My Little Pony carried me into a land of friendship, rainbows and smiles. I absolutely loved the cartoon because it swept me away into a sweet-filled land of sundae houses and happiness.

For this reason I have many more 80s goodies planned for the future and waiting to be uploaded. What’s your favorite 80s toon? I’m thinking it’s about time for 80s toon style catchers.. (like star catchers only they catch cute 80s creative ways of inserting whimsical nonsensery into your wardrobe)

If you have an 80s toon you feel is not being represented here in Miseducatedland, let us know! In fact, why don’t you write an article about the said toon and submit it?

Now for the sweets!

Ice Cream Tea

3/4 cup black tea
1 scoop milky ice cream (any flavor you love that mixes great with tea!)

Pour the tea into a cup. Add ice cream. The ice cream melts quickly into the hot tea, slowly in cold tea.. depends on how flavorful you’d like your tea and how sunny or blustery it may be. This can be quite a treat on both occasions!

Cotton Candy Tea

2 teaspoons rooibos tea
2 teaspoons mixed-fruit herbal tea
1 teaspoon oolong tea

Heat water to just before boiling and steep the teas and blends for 2-3 minutes. Add rock cane sugar (or use a rockcandy lollipop to stir!) while cooking to sweeten to your liking. Pour over ice. Top with a colorful fluff of cotton candy for extra sweetness.

Business Features DIY

Toiluxe: Make Your Toilet Lux

09/17/2009

It started with a simple dilemma:

What kind of gift do I give the girl who has everything?

I myself was one of those girls, so I knew what it would feel like to be on the receiving end of another kitschy collectible, retro design coffee table book, funky framed Jesus picture… I loved each and every item, but I was at the point where there was nowhere to PUT anything, and I was not organized or patient enough to deal with seasonally switching things up. I couldn’t bring myself to pack away older items to make space for newer ones, because I had a sentimental attachment to each and every one. They all defined me, defined my lifestyle, defined how I felt when I woke up in the morning. In fact, the only room that reflected who I was the LEAST, was my bathroom, which was fine, because how much time do I spend in there anyway?

Wait a second…

The bathroom…

I went to Home Depot. After much wandering around, lost among contractors and home-improvement-ers, I found it – the wall of toilet seats. The aisle seemed to glow as if I had found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. As if I had discovered the meaning of life, or who was buried in Al Capone’s tomb…

It was perfect.

And everything just took off from there.


Making art out of toilet seats is not a quick-fix type of project. It involves sanding, priming, painting, cutting, pasting, gluing, detailing, and SO MUCH WAITING. Every step involves the need for something to dry – whether it be paint, modge-podge, or acrylic resin. I had to learn how to pace myself (my mother always used to say, “You want everything to happen yesterday!”) and it’s true. But I finally discovered my ideal working environment – my living room (at this point I’d like to thank my husband for his unrelenting patience.) I’d work on two seats at a time – switching back and forth while one was in a drying stage – and the television would be tuned to a campy, cheesy horror movie. The only explanation I can come up with for that is that these particular movies are terrible enough where if I was in a working stage (painting, decoupaging, detailing) and my attention was elsewhere, I could easily tear my attention away from the television and not worry that I was missing some crucial element to the story, yet the movies were also amusing enough that they kept me occupied during any drying stages (which could take anywhere from 10 to 25 minutes.)

I have since changed our home office into a small studio (again, thank you, dear husband, for being supportive enough to my craft for agreeing to move your half of the office elsewhere, and for bringing home the 300 pound cabinet you had at work for me to store my seats in a small warehouse environment.) I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to show my work at Boston’s Bazaare Bizarre and Somerville’s ArtBeat in Davis Square. 75% of my business is from custom orders which has allowed me to step out of my comfort zone and create designs I never would have thought of. The Toiluxe Nude Collection started via a request from my landlord, for which I will forever be grateful.
My creation process is constant – I live, breathe and dream toilet seats. If I could eat toilet seats, I would probably consider it. Toiluxe has been the most satisfying creative outlet I have had in a long time. To be able to create and touch a piece of art – a piece of art that also provides total functionality – has an entirely different sense of satisfaction from the computer-based graphic design I have always done in the past.

I love what I create. My goal is to bring joy to bathrooms across America, and even beyond.

Mise en Snap Visual Splendor

Mise en Snap: White Oleander and DIY Inspiration

01/15/2009

I had the luck of watching one of my favorites recently and decided to take photos of more delicious mise-en-scenes to oogle at later and to show you. This movie was originally a novel by Janet Fitch and was later -after being turned into a screen play- directed by Peter Kosminsky. Although movies from books are commonly *sniffle* trash this one was quite good and had more than a few visual gems for me to appreciate. I believe it should not remain unsaid that the lovely Alison Lohman is absolutely perfection on screen here, either, just as much perfection as Michelle Pfeiffer is (in the movie) and still just beginning to sparkle into a star. It is about how toxic a mother and daughter relationship can sometimes be.

boudoir

the kitchen

electric daisy

painting butterflies
*hint* make your own lovely goodies and sell them at a local market stall 😮

market stall

market

suitcase art

Suitcase your Memories

movie inspiration
The character’s suitcase art was really interesting to me as well, they were almost like collages and memory jars as an art form within old suitcases. Why not try to find a cheap, old suitcase at your local thrift store and create a very large sort of locket of a favorite memory or time in your life? Add scraps from it, sketches, drawings, everything you don’t want to lose. Decorate it with colors, patterns, words, letters, paintings, textures.. open it and put these special items on display whenever you’re feeling nostalgic rather than keeping them tucked into a jewelry box and rarely admired.