The Kingston Lounge

I was browsing through the site Gawker and came upon this amazing story about the abandoned and forgotten North Island, which was once a quarantine hospital for smallpox, TB, and which once housed the infamous Typhoid Mary. Apparently a photographer named Richard Nickel Jr. went on the island and took photographs of the ruins--from the old hospital now overrun with vines, to the cage-like solitary rooms used for heroin addicts in their withdrawal, to the lonely collapsed seats of the school auditorium. The images are incredibly sad but beautiful too.

His blog, named The Kingston Lounge, has the entire photo essay complete with the whole, rich story of the island. It is one of the most fascinating things I've read in a while.

I can't wait to explore his other photo essays of his other visits to historical sites; I'm now a big fan of 'guerrilla preservation and urban archeology' (pretty cool term, no?).

Mairuru - Hand sewn

Mairuru is one of my favourite blogs to read on a regular basis. She’s a Japanese blogger who sews everything from little bags, to scarves, to little dolls by HAND. It seems that she sews incredibly fast, because she produces an awful lot (she even makes clothes by hand). Everything is cute, neat, and well-made. Japanese fabrics are so beautiful. Since I’ve put away my sewing machine, I haven’t done any sewing, but reading her blog is very inspiring. I have a hand-sewn project in mind already....

The blog is mostly a chronicle of her hand-sewn projects, but there are picture stories of her travels and pictures of her neighbourhood as well (there is a nice collection of pictures of cats on the streets of Japan). I also really like seeing everyday life from Japan—things seem very different there. I especially like to look at the food pictures. It’s fascinating!

She also has an etsy shop where you can buy some of her creations (photos in this entry are from there).

Miniature Nature

I was browsing through Apartment Therapy and stumbled upon this entry, which more or less opened the door to a fantasy from childhood: dollhouses! I wouldn't consider myself to be a girly-girly as a child, but I did have a particular fondness for Barbies (my favorites were the non-blond ones, heh heh). I fashioned Barbies' house out of stacks of plastic milk crates; I sewed clothing for them and made them furniture from my dad's Gitane cigarette packages. I also for some reason loved going to the cheesy and touristy Miniature World in Victoria, which remains a happy memory for me.

When I saw some of these images I was amazed and awed. These rooms and houses are incredible works of art.

This, of course, is a whole other world....

These are a couple sites I admire....

The above pictures are from the beautiful Mini Modern. Mini Modern's houses and rooms are contemporary, clean and amazingly well put together. I would love to live in a full-sized version of any of these houses!

The Call of the Small has a wonderful retro aesthetic. Call's rooms are colourful and fun. You can imagine having a party there and listening to records while you're lying on the floor.

It's down the rabbit hole from there, folks. Enjoy.