826LA Collaboration

Flora and Fauna had the honor of teaming up with designer Amy Martin to Create 826LA's Holiday Cards. They can be purchase via their website, or stop by the Echo Park Travel Mart if you are in the L.A. area. All proceeds go toward funding 826LA.  

Invites, Birds, Cake

I had the pleasure of designing invitations for my friends' wedding in Austin, TX. Andrea, the bride, is a lover of all animals especially birds, so I drew her a couple of little sparrows and incorporated them into the invites. (I'm also proud of my hand-drawn map, complete with drawings of the church, the country club, UT, and the TX capitol.)

The happy couple then gave my bird designs to the cake maker extraordinaire at Coco Paloma Desserts. She translated my bird designs into fondant beauty! Furthermore, the cake was amazing, with a chocolate layer AND a vanilla layer. I will confess I had a slice of each. 

Flora and Fauna Press 2009 Calendars

Finally...after many months of design and printing, our 2009 letterpress calendars are here. 

These quarterly calendars consist of 4 designs, each inspired by a season and printed in three colors (a true test of our registration skills). The best part is, we've provided dotted trim lines, so you can have 4 little prints to frame when the year is over. 

(click thumbnail for larger image)

Treat Yourself...

It's October... the time of year we are all tempted by little Halloween size candies and chocolates sitting around in dishes everywhere. My suggestion is to forgo all the store-bought, partially hydrogenated candies and go for a quality treat. Purchase one at your local bakery, or make one yourself. 

MUMMY & GHOST CUPCAKES- cookie jar bakery

HALLOWEEN CAKE- bleeding heart bakery

VAMPIRE CUPCAKE & FRANKENSTEIN CAKE- both from horrorgourmet

Miniature Posts Series: Tiny House Blog

There's something attractive about the idea of cutting down your possessions and moving the essentials into a 15" x 15" space. That being said, there is also something terrifying about it. While most of us will never do this - outside of an apartment building, that is - we can still read about those who do on Tiny House Blog. We thought it would be a good idea to buy three of these tiny houses to constitute one normal-sized house, with a garden between the three. That would never be inconvenient!

Hello, Wedding Toppers!

What is the most important part of a wedding? The dress? The flowers? The stationary (well...)? The bride and/or groom? Or is it the one thing that the wedding couldn't be considered a proper wedding without... the cake toppers? Those little representations of you and your beloved are, in some worlds, the most vital of all wedding components (This is probably not true, but let's pretend for the sake of this epic blog post). While it is all fine and good to go the traditional route and stick two plastic people on top of your cake, we at Flora and Fauna would like to encourage a more enlightened approach. An approach which includes animals, zombies, complete strangers and robots. 

A custom topper might be the most exciting, but you shouldn't limit yourself to the traditional looks-like-us toppers. Instead, why not get a custom looks-like-us-craving-brains Zombie topper from Bear Eats Bunny, or a looks-like-us-if-we-were-an-endearingly-molded-godzilla-and-cat topper from Zebra 1684 Creations? (Seriously, is this the best thing ever? If not, it certainly sits high in the ranks.)

If you prefer something cleaner and more collected, why not employ the services of CornflakeGirl and get a custom bird couple? And even if you have perfect eyesight, why not have bird-you wear those awesome glasses?

If nerd-chic appeals to you, perhaps these Elegant Robot toppers from Builders Studio are right for you. There's something very Art Deco and recollective of Metropolis about them.

If nothing here strikes your fancy, perhaps you would find excitement in my favorite option: wedding toppers that are not you. If you don't have the budget to go custom, this option is the easiest, and if you do have the ability to send away for your dream toppers, this option could be the most creative. The idea is, in a nutshell, to attempt to find or make a couple that is so distant from your own physical appearance that it becomes something entirely memorable. For example, you could order this custom wedding topper from Sophia's Workshop, which depicts two happy strangers dressed as Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Are you a nice, dark-haired Armenian couple that would never, in a million years, flounce around in Disney garb? Then this topper is perfect for you. It will not go forgotten.

We're going to be at Felt Club!

This November (the 16th, to be exact) we'll be at the Felt Club event at the Shrine Auditorium Center here in Los Angeles! This is the mecca of Southern Californian craft fairs, and anyone would be a fool to miss it. More updates will come as the event nears, but mark your calendars! 

Consumerist update!

Recently two things have been moved to the top of my ever-changing wishlist: a book and a dress. The book is the beloved Lena Corwin's first, Printing by Hand. In the recent slough of hand-printing how-to books, Lena's seems to be the most highly anticipated. It's in stores this week, so you will be able to get your print on in no time (did I just say that?).

The dress is too good a deal to not be mentioned, even on a design-centric blog like ours. The Trixie dress comes from Trashy Diva, one of the best reproduction clothing sellers out there. Recently, other retailers have been blatantly ripping off the Trixie dress, and so Trashy Diva has issued a designer's special, selling the dress for only $34. That's almost $200 cheaper than normal.

The Miniature Post Series: Yeondoo Jung

In an attempt to carry over the Miniature Post theme and actually confirm its existence as a series, I bring to you the work of Yeondoo Jung. Her Dance Hall project involves, in so many words, hundreds of photographs of ballroom dancers cut out and plastered to the gallery wall, set to the music piping through the webpage. The blog world has recently been abuzz with Yeondoo's work, most notably the "Wonderland" project - photographic recreations of children's drawings. This is a personal favorite:

The Miniature Post Series: Miniature Felted Animals

I never could have imagined the world I would uncover by typing "Needlefelted Animal" into Etsy's search bar. There is a world of people out there, sitting at home, creating strange fantasy creatures, bubble-bathing squirrels,  and cartoon-like animals (hot pink dinosaur? It's true) out of felted roving yarns. But rather than create a post centered around the peculiar and not entirely aesthetically pleasing felted creatures of the world's retired craftswomen, I've decided to bring to you what good has come of the felting movement (that's right, I'm deeming it a movement). 

The movement's most popular product might be the custom-created felt version of man's best friend. About four out of ten results for felted animals fall under this category, and they sell particularly well for a two-inch-tall object that costs between 95 and 200 dollars. And to tell you the truth, I would probably purchase one if I could logically work it into my budget. It's the less creepy way to eternalize your favorite pet, if you understand what I mean.

{above: Custom Pet Sculpture by KayK9s.}

{above: Bunny by LittleElfsToyshop; Fox by WoolComesAlive.}