I know I have told you how much I love the things that Ayumi Mills makes…you know…from Pink Penguin? But I just have to share this toaster. I think it is the single cutest sewn item I have ever seen. Since I saw it last week over at her blog I can’t get it out of my brain!

And then I just saw this absolutely adorable play set of FELT muffins by American Felt & Craft. OMG. So, so cute. The lemon poppyseed muffin is wonderful. Go buy the tutorial here.

From an art perspective, one of my all-time favorite things is to use one material to express or convey another material (as with both of the projects above.) The best example I can think of are the handrails at the Maison Horta in Brussels, Belgium. When I was still an art-school girl, I made my friends schlep all the way to Belgium (en route to the south of France and with our way-too-big backpacks in tow) just to get off the train for a few hours to go see the Maison Horta. It is an amazing example of Art Nouveau architecture. The handrails are stunning. Sinuous. Curvy. Seductive. Almost dripping. And all made out of hand-carved wood. Every material in this place has been completely transformed: wood, metal, tile, glass–all molten and curving as if the whole house is a giant piece of slumping, sagging, super-cooling fluid.