Smiles and Diamonds

OH MAN. I am BAD at keeping secrets. It just kills me. Seriously, if you hate me, tell me something and force me to keep it to myself. I can almost never do it and I always almost die from the stress of trying. But I DID keep this one thing secret and now the official announcement is made so I can FINALLY holler from the hilltops: Beau and Anna are coming back to Alberta! YEEEEAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!! God. I don't know how we made it this long without them. Everything is going to be so much nicer now.

Here is a print that Justin Lafontaine made when Beau and Anna left. Hearts and tears. That's what it was like:

Now it will be the opposite! Smiles and diamonds! I can't wait for that homecoming party.
(Check out more of Justin's brilliance here: http://www.jlafonta.com/ )

Speaking of parties, I am getting a christmas tree this year, I have decided. (That is not really about parties, but I did a quick party/Christmas party season/Christmas decorating Christmas tree mental jump. Annnyway:) Actually, the Mr.'s mom talked me into it. Mr.'s a total grinch, and I can't really blame him because so many things about Christmas are just AWFUL, but I like decorating things and Christmas decorating is like a burlesque costume for your house, and also I am a crow and go mental for anything sparkly so basically christmas decorations are like MDMA to me. So I am doing it. It is going to be awesome. Check out the tree that Mr's mom picked out for me:

Amazing. It is 2 meters tall, just to put that in perspective. Those will be tall enough to stand under and do a festive hula. I am going to invent millions of festive cocktails featuring Malibu Rum, Creme de Banane maraschino cherries and pineapple juice. It's going to be GREAT.
 
 So the Refinery party was the greatest thing ever. Say what you want about Dirt Town, people in this city know how to dress up for a party. Lumberjacky! Never ones to miss an opportunity for a dirty joke, Capital City Burlesque went as nature's lumberjacks... beavers. (Pause for applause).

This seems kind of related to the Refinery party's Northern Explorer's and the Monsters Who Killed Them theme:

Monster skin rug!! This cute attack is made by Stitches and Glue. So cute. I totally want one. I don't think it would go over too well at my place... I kind of can't stop laughing thinking about Hector trying to figure out what the fuck it is....

"Hrrrrrnnn, I am confuuused..."

Oh! Holy crap. This is 100% awesome. Check out this photo project by Irina Werning:

 

The project is called back to the future. She finds these old photographs of people and restages them in the original location with the original people. So awesome.

There are so many that are really great, I recommend checking out the whole collection. It has the names of the people and the dates of the original photos too, which makes it extra awesome.

http://irinawerning.com/back-to-the-fut/back-to-the-future/

It is almost go home from work o'clock so I'm bailing on this a little early, but before I go, please check out this nail polish by STRANGEBEAUTIFUL. They are sold in "libraries" rather than individually and each library is inspired by a set of images, scents, objects. Some are lovely. Some are gross. All are awesome. This smart idea comes from Jane Schub, an illustrator turned cosmetics designer. The crossover between the two mediums is pretty obvious  in these products. Beautiful.

The following descriptions of color collections provided by STRANGEBEAUTIFUL.

Volume 1

Above: Josef Albers Color Theory, A Mid Century Modern Knoll Fabric, Oscar Wilde, the exuberant paint colors used to decorate the walls of the Federalist period, a color of an Andy Warhol painting at the Dia Museum, the color Puce which I remember mixing when oil painting as a child, a green - winged teal, the dark inky blue of a never ending deep lake at night and the fear of swimming in it, and of course the red Valentine typewriter.

Volume 2

Above: An interesting color palette of camo called Tan and Water Camo used by an elite German anti- terrorist unit. The slate blue color of a uniform in an 1846 N.Currier print “The Death of the Gallant Major Ringgold).Violette (Pansy Violet) ink from the venerable French ink company J. Herbin founded in 1670, the dull red color of a lobster shell immediately after it has been removed from boiling water.

Volume 3

Above: The veins of green mold running through Roquefort, the artist Sean Scully, the rich black olive green color of Loden cloth, aged Armagnac, the dull brown red of Red Rope files, the saturated rusty iron color of an Irish bog caused by the reaction between tannin, wood and iron, Raymond Loewy, the belly of a pigeon, and the dreadfully wonderful dirty almond color used on kitchen appliances.

Volume 4

Above: The gradation of color on the fur of a taxidermy caribou head; Oeil De Perdrix (partridge – eye); Pink color of Rose champagne; The poem Lapis Lazuli by William Butler Yeats; A very wrong color choice of a cheap foundation; Verdigris; An orange turban in a 15th Century Florentine portrait titled Matteo Olivieri; Aged Chartreuse; Borscht.

Volume 5

Above: The vampiric gradations of a healing bruise; the moody rusts of menstrual blood; sooty, phantasmal India ink; the profile of a gray blue Heron scooping fish against a background of gooey river runoff and the apocalyptic color palette of Medieval Flemish paintings.

Unlike traditional nail polishes, the Volume 5 shades coat the nail in a gossamer bath of color. Not quite transparent, the effect is fluid and semi opaque, as if the nail itself had taken on a mysterious life of its own.

Library of Camo Nail Polishes

Above: The neutralized sand- pink background of the French desert camouflage “Daguet”, a washed out color palette of Snow Shadow camouflage used to match snowy terrain for winter hunting, Tropical variant camouflage of the Russian Federation, the simple elegant palette of the 3-way desert battle dress camouflage used by the Israeli army, Belgian desert jigsaw camouflage, the beautiful watery blots of color almost “Fragonard” in feeling of the Czechoslovakian 5 color desert camouflage.

The Dickension Volume

Above: For this collection, creator Jane Schub drew inspiration from photographer Joel - Peter Witkin, Edward Gorey‘s The Loathsome Couple, the Brothers Grimm, a lump of coal, a piece of broken shale and Dickens.

Ok! That is all. I am out of here.
Before I go, let's listen to this old and good thing together and shake our Thursday cans:

xo!