Happy Holidays!

Oh, the holidays! Weather. We have had SNOW. Real snow. There is nothing like snow to take you back to childhood. All of a sudden, celebrating and decorating and present giving is fun again. The cold brisk air puts a spring in your step. And then there are the old holiday shows on TV. Oh, childhood comes rushing back and I am now 8 years old again. The Grinch! All of those old stop animation shows with the Heat Miser! Burger Meister Meister Burger! The Abominable Snowman! Rudolph! Oh....and my favorite cartoon of all time A Charlie Brown Christmas. The music is in my permanent collection of Christmas music, well it's actually the only one. All of the Peanuts dancing to Vince Guaraldi's music is just the most fun ever. And then, Christmas Time is Here is my all time favorite X-Mas song ever. Here's the video, just for you dear readers. A little gift of simpler childish days, enjoy.

And don't forget there are still 6 days to shop at Flutter!

XO,
Susan

Urchin Manifesto

FLUTTER SOIREE AND URCHIN DEBUT
THURSDAY DECEMBER 11th @ 5pm
Sonia of Urchin has sent me some photos and a manifesto to share with the blog readers. She makes amazing dresses, headbands, necklaces, bracelets and art pieces of varying size and description. Her dresses are exquisitely tailored and can be altered to suit your exact size and shape. Her use of found objects and reconstructed vintage multimedia bits are testament to her endless creativity!
Here is her manifesto:
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Urchin is a combination of old and new.
Vintage garments, accessories and ephemera undone, re-done, and as found.
It’s a mixture of the beautiful, delicate and intricate, with the crusty, rusty, and hopefully not too musty. It marries my passions: Vintage, apparel design, and scavenging/re-using.

The re-done garments are all hand draped and dress form fitted, the jewelry and feather pieces are designed on a dress form as well, so their proportions and esthetics are form tailored.
I hope you find some things you really enjoy.
Sonia

Good Times on Rainy Days

It's been so much fun at Flutter lately. It's a small neighborhood, so I see a lot of the same characters every weekend, but I enjoy meeting new people and getting to hear a different point of view. A lot of out-of-town parents come through the store, dragged by their enthusiastic offspring exclaiming "they have real birds, come look!" or "check out their chandeliers, will you buy me one?". I really get a kick out of showing people around the store, but my absolute favorite is when someone usurps my tour with their own witty and fascinating stories. A gentleman came in today and wanted a closer look at some delicately carved wood candle holders we have in the window. "See the antlers, how they touch the little branches of the tree? You know why they made it that way?" No, i humored him, why? I got a lengthy explanation of structural integrity in carved wood objects, he had me practically planning my own piece with his involved architectural gesturing and suggestions. This segued into a wonderful speech about bees, I'll call it "how to fall in love with honeybees". He told me to go to an amateur beekeeper meeting, find someone with a little hive, and ask if I could watch them when they switch trays. On a nice day, he said, not a rainy one, that would only irritate them (I guess I'll have to wait til July). He told me to just watch them, to see how they groom each other and tend their young. He told me to watch for huddled groups of male bees ousted from the hive. He told me about these hives you can put in a wall, too small for honey production but big enough to house a little swarm. It sounds so cool to have a little bee colony as pets, to see them turning their eggs and building wax combs, to see the queen strutting her stuff. The best part was his plan for finding out whose bees come to his yard every day. "I'll catch a few of them by their wings and put them in a little cigar box. Then, I'll watch the remaining bees for as long as I can. They fly straight home once they eat. If I lose sight of them, I'll open the cigar box and let one loose. It will circle a few times to get its bearings, then I can follow it to its hive." I guess he wants to buy the honey the bees make from the flowers in his yard, or maybe he just wants to chat with another amateur beekeeper. What an awesome guy. What awesome bees. I decided to find some local honey, and to check out the book he referenced from the library, it's called "ABC's of beekeeping" or something. Above are some pictures of gorgeous things in the store: a silky kimono, a detail from an Urchin slipdress, and the wall of Mary's crosses.