Their First Arrow Bike
"Simple is best" is Arrow's mind. Since 1972.
Vintage child's Barber Shop chair
Made by the Theo. A. Kochs, Co., Chicago
ebay: ended at $355.00. Congrats chiefmike!
Hot Topic
Things I Was Thinking in Hot Topic After My 3-Year-Old Daughter and I Were Greeted by a Very Provocatively Dressed Salesgirl by Wayne Gladstone
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So, is there, like, a backroom where you change for work, or do you walk around like that?
Would it be possible for me to see that room?
I used to have very long hair.
And an earring.
In fact, Trent Reznor and I went to Hebrew school together.
You know who that is, right?
And, oh, my daughter is my niece. No, not my niece. She’s an orphan I adopted to indoctrinate into the ways of the vampire.
Can you tell by the way I’m checking out this skull-and-crossbones key chain that I’m secretly dangerous?
I knew I shouldn’t have worn my Dockers today.
Pee on me.
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from McSweeney’s Lists, via Your Daily Awesome
Awesome rare Enzo Mari children's bed c. 1968
Not really. But it is the new $35 IKEA Tolga twin bed.
Uh-oh. Thud.
So last night when she's supposed to be "sleeping like a champ", Elsa took her socks off and threw them and her penguin on the floor. Thud. It was the first time she even tried to climb out of her crib. And she made it up and over with a crash landing and no tears, just waiting for someone to come in and help her and her penguin out of a jam. We got her settled back in and ten minutes later she was up and over the wall again.
She's been pulling out all the stops at bedtime: "kiss Rody", "more cuddles", "another book". Is there something that happens around 21 months that makes the little ones put up the fight at bedtime?
Multi-functional awesome circa 1998
Speaking of price increases and knock-offery in the modern nursey furniture market, whatever happened to this Trofast cradle/sofa designed by Erika Pekkari for IKEA?
My friend went to L.A. and all I got was...
a photo of Marilyn Neuhart signing a set of her embroidered animal patterns from 1965 (from my collection). Marilyn said she could give Elsa the "right" fabric if she wanted to sew her own.
At The Experimental Playground, Ya know
Most playgrounds suck. They're either too big or too small, too hard or too easy, and almost always grow out of nowhere in the middle of some lot or former corn field with no consideration of the surrounding environment. There are a few exceptions, of course, like the Isamu Noguchi-designed Playscapes in Atlanta's Piedmont Park, and Robert Royston's clever Mitchell Park playspace in Palo Alto. But, unfortunately, most are not designed. They are ordered from catalogs. Not so with the Daubeney School's playground in London.
For one week during March 2000 the grounds at Daubeney School were transformed into The Experimental Playground Project giving all 485 pupils a chance to try out ideas and experiment with the shape and dynamics of their everyday environment. What was learned in one week of observation and play led to the complete design and construction of The Experimental Playground, which includes an abstract zebra/highway/dazzle pattern of playground markings; a mound and look-out post; a steel mirror wall; a forest of poles, rotating platforms and moving islands; an extra long wooden bench and storage; a shelter with windows, steel mirror, lights in the floor, orange boulders.
Designed by artist Hattie Coppard (Snug and Outdoor) with Kinnear Landscape Architects and project architect Jake Ford. London, 2000–03. Part of the Hackney Wick Public Art Programme.
WEEK ONE: EXPERIMENTS AND PROTOTYPES
RESULT: THE COMPLETED PLAYGROUND
All photos from Snug & Outdooor.
What once was lost, now is found.
Items I Didn't Win:
Creative Playthings blocks and plywood arches
Car designed by Kay Bojesen
Items I Did Win:
Creative Playthings blocks and plywood arches
Playforms car designed by Antonio Vitali
Go Potty
This morning my little one (21 months to the day) used her potty for the first time. She handled the drop-off like a pro and was proud of it. 
Attention Parents of Roe, Olive, Leo, Liv, Levi &
Vintage stainless steel sign from an Oliver Tractors dealer. Each letter is 18.25" tall, and the whole thing must be about seven feet wide.
eBay: ended at $306.00 on 7/14/07. Congrats oliver99mf98!
Alma Buscher
Alma Buscher started at the bauhaus in 1922. And like all female students, was pushed out of the way, into the weaving studio. But after a few lousy assignments, she convinced Walter Gropius to allow her into the woodcarving workshop, where she developed toys and other utilitarian objects. She showed them what's what at a 1923 bauhaus exhibition with her design for a children's nursery in George Muche and Adolf Meyer's Haus am Horn. Her design was important for the bauhaus-ian principles it demonstrated, but also because the room and its furniture was specifically designed for children, at a child's scale and for a child's needs (well, except for the sharp corners and rock-hard floor). Her nursery rejected the notion of children as small adults who needed nothing more than miniature versions of adult furniture in their own rooms.
Her building blocks were among the best selling products mass produced at the bauhaus, and over 80 years later, are still being sold today. Alma Buscher married Werner Siedhoff in 1926, had two children and moved her family to Weimar with the bauhaus. She then designed two paper building kits for Otto-Maier Verlag Ravensburger: Segelschiff (sailboat) and Krahn (crane). She died in 1944 during an air raid.
top: abstract furniture for the Haus am Horn nursery (photo by esperantonia and also seen here on Daddytypes, from back when I would fill Greg's inbox with all sorts of everything before I had my own blog). bottom: spread from unknown (because I can't remember) book showing a 1924 design for a changing table and a 1923 set of building (a boat) blocks; and another view of the nursery at Haus am Horn.
Peer Clahsen x Creative Playthings
Peer Clahsen designed this etagen-puppenhaus (l) for Naef around 1970. I'm going to say he also had something to do with this one for Creative Playthings (r), who frequently collaborated with Kurt Naef.
Update: Turns out it wasn't Clahsen or anyone at Creative Playthings. The original open-plan dollhouse was designed in 1968-9 by _____ ________. I'll fill in the blanks once I make the rounds on eBay. ;)
Photo of the Naef house from Musashino Art University Museum and Library.
Creative Playthings house is mine.
Home is Where...
A personal project by Ben Forman, the Detacho Playhouse is designed to acommodate almost any family arrangement.
via
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