A Brief Compendium of Beautiful Bird Cages

I‘m less interested in keeping a bird in a cage than I am in keeping a cage– minus the bird. This is one of those purely indulgent posts where the internet has turned my passive admiration for something into near-obsession. It starts somewhere like Pinterest or eBay and goes something like this: Say, that’s a great…

The Unexpected Elegance of Antique Salt Cellars

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: there is no better entertainment than watching the rich out-rich each other. Especially when all the standard bling has been bought, and folks start getting really creative – like, salt-shaker-bedazzling creative, which was the class act move for ye olde aristocrats in need of a stand…

Curiosity du Jour: The Talking Victorian Bouquet

The Victorians loved their secrets. They hid them in the details but wore them on their sleeve with the help of a few small but elaborate accessories. The nosegay, also known as a posy or a “tussie mussie”, was one of the more discrete lady gadgets of yore that had multiple uses… For one, if…

The Lost Romance of Dance Cards

If you’ve been watching Netflix’s sauciest new period drama, Bridgerton, your curiosity might have been aroused (among other things) by the notable nod to a forgotten footnote of historical dating etiquette – dance cards! In between the sexually-charged scenes of one of Netflix’s most binge-watched shows of late, the bygone ballroom accessory made numerous appearances…

And how would you fare quarantined inside one of these things?

If you know us, you know we love weird architectural history from the height of the utopian design age, but the idea of spending lockdown inside a radical sci-fi social experiment might take some convincing. This odd cluster of spherical houses is known as Bolwoningen, built in 1984 by artist Dries Kreijkamp as part of…

Miniature Paris on your Mantelpiece

You can probably guess from that crazy header at the top of my site that I have a thing for vintage photo collages, and you know I have a thing for miniatures because there’s an entire category dedicated to teeny tiny stuff. So when I stumbled across this little eShop on a French online marketplace, I went…

The Incredible Magic Carpets of Everyday Junk

After seeing this, you may never look at an empty plastic bottle or your bathroom’s Q-tips in quite the same way again. Think of any mundane, everyday object lying around in your home and We Make Carpets has probably used it or plan on using it to make a carpet so magical, it might as damn well just…

Inside the World’s Only Snowflake Laboratory

If Jack Frost exists, he’s probably moonlighting as Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht. The CalTech professor is not only a skilled solar astronomist and ice crystal researcher, but a creator of “designer snowflakes” – yes, you read correctly. While the rest of Southern California laps up the sunshine, Libbrecht is holed up in his Pasadena laboratory creating…

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The Keys to Amsterdam’s Secret Chapel B&B

What’s gold, pink, and Amsterdam’s best kept secret? The 18th century chapel-turned-AirBnB that landed in our inbox this morning, courtesy of a hot tip from our pal Holly Beach of the Choosy Traveller, who recently discovered the hidden gem and found it to be of the most unique places she’s ever seen “in Amsterdam, or…

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Dollhouses of Death that trained America’s Detectives

I always found the game of Cluedo fell a bit flat. I wanted more from the murder mansion’s one-dimensional floor plan, and really, how were we ever supposed to solve crime with a cast of suspects crafted into tiny plastic tokens? But it turns out, around the very same time that the iconic American board game was being developed in…