Poppet plays Miss Lupescu & other collaborations

The lovely and talented Lisa Snellings makes Poppets. Well, it’s probably more accurate to say that Lisa is astute and intuitive enough to have tapped into the magical world of Poppets, and she shares them with the rest of the world. 😉

I love Poppets. Many people do. There are photos of Poppets all around the world in unexpected places. Here’s one of mine at the door to the fairy tree in our backyard.

If you would like a glimpse into the mind and process of this remarkable artist, Lisa’s blog is here. You can also purchase her poppets here, and that brings me to the point of this quick little entry.

Poppets love books. Lisa has created Poppets playing various fictional characters and reading their favorites. Most recently, Lisa created a Miss Lupescu Poppet (from Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book).

I love her. (How could I not?)

As if you needed another reason to invite this Poppet into your home, Lisa is donating 20% of the sales of the Miss Lupescu Poppet (and only 4 remain) to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (or CBDLF). If Miss Lupescu is not your favorite, there are many other fanciful creatures on her etsy site:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/Strangestudios

Poppet Plays Miss Lupescu - The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman

I love it when artists inspire one another and collaborate to find new ways to introduce wonder into the world.

Speaking of collaboration, the Night Garden has its newest Inspiration Challenge with Christopher Lincoln (author of Billy Bones). Visit the Night Garden site, see his sketch, and participate to support Great Lakes Bengal Rescue.

Mr. Lincoln will give away the original doodle to the person whose donation puts them over the $250 mark by midnight, June 30th. Entries will be accepted May 1, 2011 through June 30, 2011.

My oldest already loved Billy Bones, but Mr. Lincoln became one of the kids’ favorite writers when he met us for a coffee in Minneapolis. They had a lovely chat and he signed her book. She was SO excited!  (Buy a copy of his marvelous books, and share them with kids of all ages!)

One last collaboration tidbit, if you haven’t head of the Nighty Night album by 8 in 8 (a collaboration by Amanda Palmer, Neil Gaiman, Ben Folds, and Damian Kulash of OK Go), read more about their creative process of working together at Mad Oak Studios to create 6 songs in 12 hours at the www.eightineight.com website. You can also listen and buy a digital copy of the album at http://music.amandapalmer.net/album/nighty-night

My kids love several of the songs and have been sing The Problem with Saints (the Joan of Arc song) for the last two weeks. This has also resulted into the acquisition of new interesting vocabulary words for my 3, 5, and 7-year-olds: bisected, vivisect, and bifurcated. (Have I mentioned how much the kids’ teacher love me?)

Inspired by the album and encouraged by Amanda and Neil, their fans created videos of the songs that can also be viewed on the site.

I leave you with one of my favorites: