My sister recently moved into a new house, and I got to see it for the first time a week and a half ago. It’s a lovely house, but I was most pleased by the leaf impressions that I noticed in her freshly poured driveway.

Apparently, it was fall when they did the driveway, and falling leaves from nearby trees got in the way of a smooth concrete slab.

I loved how the grain of the driveway and the tire marks looked against the ghost leaves in the afternoon light.

I imagine that after long use of the driveway, the leaf prints will eventually be worn away.

Are you in the New York area? If so, I SO hope you’ll come to the opening of a fantabulous plush show, Luv-able and Hug-able at gallery hanahou!

This is the gallery that I work at (we opened in November of 2006), and Luv-able and Hug-able will be our most exciting show ever! We have an impressive list of well-known plush artists contributing, as well plushes by nine Japanese artists, who are enormously popular in Japan, but rarely seen outside of their home country.

Amazing new work by:
Angel Oloshove, Anna Chambers, Anna Hrachovec (me!), Betz White, Christina Gordon (jamfancy), Corinne Dean (Not Too Pink), Eloole, Heide Murray (All Good Wishes), Heidi Kenney (My Paper Crane), Hello Brute, I Heart Guts, Kup Kup Land, Lexi Franks (Orangefishy Plush), littleoddforest, Lisa Grue, Lizette Greco + Grecolaborativo, Marcus Oakley, Matt Campbell, Rosa Pomar, Sewn by Blythe, CHiCHiTOHTOH, Chino Akiyoshi, Katsutoshi Otsuka (ToyField), Keiko Miyata, Michiru, Miyoko Ito, Risa Tanikawa, Saki Yamashita, and Yuriko Sera

We’ve been receiving the most incredible plushes by these artists, and I will be sharing some of them here as the opening date approaches.

Toys by me will be lemmings, Rainbow Busters, a desert island, Tubby, and more!

The opening party is November 8th, 6-9 pm, and the show will continue through December 21st. Mark your iCals!

gallery hanahou
611 Broadway, Suite 730, NYC
(NW corner of Broadway and Houston, 7th floor of the Cable Building)
Mon-Fri 12-7 pm
Sat 1-6 pm (closed Thanksgiving Weekend)

I was happy to take a much-needed break from New York and spend the past weekend in Oklahoma visiting family. October is a great month for Oklahoma, bringing below-90s temperatures and adorable hay bales everywhere.

The glorious view from my parents’ backyard in Owasso

When we weren’t staring at hay bales, my family and I did a lot of eating last weekend. Tulsa, Oklahoma, has a more cosmopolitan restaurant scene than you might expect. A new addition is Sushi Train, a cute variation on the conveyor belt “kaiten” sushi restaurants in Japan.

Instead of scooting around on a strip of rubber, the sushi at Sushi Train rolls around the bar on a toy train. Mysteriously, the train’s speed seemed to switch back and forth between moderate and superfast every couple of minutes, which added to the adventure of grabbing your sushi as it chugged by.

Speaking of meals on wheels, I also experienced my first-ever drive-thru liquor store in Stillwater, OK. What a thrill.

You roll up, trying not to block traffic if the line extends into the two-lane street…

… check out the inventory from your car window…

… and score your booze without leaving the vehicle! Who needs Burger King when you can have Bud Light, right?

I thought I was in love with the $10,000 bug lamp that I spotted at Moss a few months ago, but I have just found a new black and white impractical piece of furniture to covet.

I require a panda chair.

This limited edition seat was made exclusively for Moss by the Brazilian designers Fernando and Humberto Campana, and it’s so expensive that the price is only available on request. Notice in the photo above that it was placed next to my beloved bug lamp in the store window. It must be a sign.

If pandas aren’t your thing, the Campana brothers have made chairs out of several other cuddly animals.

There’s the teddy bear chair:

The alligator chair:

And the miscellaneous stuffed animal chair:

I’m still partial to sitting on pandas myself. But only if I can have my bug lamp to coordinate.