In another periodic exploration of the urban vinyl and designer toy scene, let’s take a casual glance over at what’s currently at the top of the list. Casually! Don’t let them know we’re looking. They’re surly.

The first item in my trifecta of palm-sized awesomeness is Akamushi’s Cardboy series of toys, by UK artist Mark James. While most of these mini-figures usually come in series that offer a large variety of characters in ‘mystery boxes’, never letting you know what you’re going to get in any given box, Cardboy figures ARE the boxes that they come in.

In a beautifully innovative move, the Cardboy figure emerges when you turn the box itself inside-out and re-fasten the tabs. Contained within the box are pegs and a few body parts, as well as the pattern that represents the Cardboy’s character. Once you pop a few pegs in and invert the sturdy box, your Cardboy is ready to go! Maybe it’s my fetish for toys that require some assembly, but these are probably the greatest thing to happen to the lowbrow-art toy market. There’s a variety of eight different Cardboys, some more rare than others, all of them truly awesome. Be careful when you’re opening them and assembling them - cardboard isn’t the most durable material ever, but part of the appeal of these figures is the makeshift, slightly-worn-and-bent look of them. I like to think that’s part of my appeal also. Like Sloth from The Goonies, but with a beard.

Second on today’s list are the Mongers, distributed by Kidrobot and created by renowned artist Frank Kozik. One of Kozik’s more popular ventures into the urban vinyl scene was his ‘Smorkin’ Labbit’, which happens to be a simplified bunny smoking a cigarette, with a removable upper-shell which revealed a skeleton underneath. Kozik isn’t the first artist to stick cigarettes into things to increase their inherent hipness, and there’s more than a passing reference to the artist known as Kaz and his notorious comic in which a cat proclaims that ‘smoking isn’t cool’, but that death IS. The Mongers amplify that theme to a point of ridiculousness, sticking cigarettes into salt and pepper shakers, cupcakes, bananas and even into larger cigarettes. It’s an art culture that embraces a certain amount of vice, all the while acknowledging how wasteful it is. In this series, you can get any one of seventeen different smoking things, all of them angry and bizarre.

Last come the Blow Up Dolls, produced by Jamungo. Before you start thinking too hard about that, they have bombs for heads, thus the ‘blow up’ in their name. The designer toy market has only explored inflatable toys marginally at this point, but expect to see more in the future. Blow Up Dolls are another example of anthropomorphication making things cute. Stick eyes and a mouth on something and it’s immediately something that you can relate to. There are ten to collect in this first series, and each comes with a plastic match accessory - presumably to light themselves off with. While all having the same body type, their paint schemes are designed by different Pop Surrealist artists, including the aforementioned Kozik.

There’s such an incredible variety of these ‘designer toys’ that nothing looks out of place in any display that you choose to set them in, because nothing ever really looks IN place. And while smoking and bombs aren’t your usual fare for kids’ toys, these are clearly aimed at an adult market appreciative of art and fun.

René Lalique talented French designer whose career spanned the last years of the 19^th century and early years of the 20^th. Not only was he a jeweler of great talent and creativity, but his glasswork is legendary among collectors.

René Lalique was born in 1860 in the town of Ay, France. In his teens he was apprenticed to a Parisian jeweler and later moved to England to study at London’s Sydenham Art College. Upon returning to France Lalique designed jewelry for several different jewelers until opening his own shop in 1885.

René Lalique’s jewelry is said to define the style of the Art Nouveau era, which was popular from around 1895 to 1910. Art Nouveau jewelry tended to use lower-cost gems, and enamel was a common material used in the designs. Decorative elements were taken from nature – leaves, butterflies, flowers and such – and there’s an Asian flavor to many of the pieces. The female form was also a popular subject in the Art Nouveau style. Lalique was noted for his unique work with materials like enamel, pearl, ivory and horn. He won great acclaim with his designs, creating jewelry for the actress Sarah Bernhardt and causing a splash at jewelry exhibitions all over the world.

In 1908 Lalique chose to abandon jewelry making and focus his artistic talents on glasswork. He began creating unique perfume bottles, first for the French firm Coty. He soon was designing bottles for numerous top perfume companies, including Guerlain and Worth. All told, Lalique designed over 250 perfume bottles.

Lalique was also known for his graceful vases and embraced the Art Deco style in his glasswork. In the 1920s René Lalique began designing elegant hood ornaments for automobiles. The glass ornaments were designed to be lit by a bulb and were featured on Bentleys, Bugattis and more.

Although he died in 1945, the company that René Lalique founded is still in operation today. Today his designs are highly sought and while some of his work fetches prices of tens of thousands of dollars, other pieces are available to collectors of more modest means.

It wasn’t until I went to the Fargo Downtown Street Fair this weekend, and saw the booths with puppets for children, that I realized I had a puppet collection.

It began over 30 years ago with “Maria”, a marionette purchased on a family vacation to Mexico. While she was a simple tourist souvenir of simple creation, neither so fine or fancy as to be out of my parents price-range or to be admired for artistic value, Maria has survived. My sister also received a marionette that day, but she did not last long enough to be packed into one of those boxes our parents put away for us and then begged us to take with us the day we moved-out ‘for real.’ Unlike Maria, that marionette met a childhood death of neglect. I, however, cared for Maria, moving her from place to place, even if I never mastered how to make her come alive on her strings.

In fact, Maria may have survived because I didn’t know how to create a wonderful performance; she spent many years carefully packed away in a box.

When my family visited the street fair, and I saw the booth with the stringed puppets that even the tiniest of children could maneuver with delight, I had to stop and admire both the charming moves of the puppet creatures as well as the look on the faces of those that tried them.

Our children tried them as well, and easily made them walk, bound and sit. It was then that I remembered Maria and where she lay sleeping…

Maria is currently the only puppet I own with strings. All my other puppets are of the ‘hand’ variety, and most of these are not often used either. Oh sure, I read the the kids with my wolf puppet (he’s particularly delightful reading “The True Story of the Three Little Pigs“), but mainly, I just lovingly stacked them in giant baskets, protecting them from the status of ‘kids stuffed animals’, and let them be. But then I met and married one of the best puppeteers I know: my husband.

Hubby is not only willing to be silly and put on a show for me, but is gifted with the ability to move a puppet so that it looks real. And, he has ‘a voice’ — the ability to do voice acting work — so puppets really do come alive!

And now that my puppets do come alive and provide entertainment for the family, we’ve indulged in buying other puppets at rummage sales and flea markets, like these two retro primates. Both have the arms which wrap around you, hands secured with velcro tabs, to give you a hug — and the one on the right squeaks when you move his mouth, which drives the dog crazy.

Because we don’t hunt for puppets, or think of their values in any terms but our own sense of fun, I’ve never thought of my puppets as a collection before. But once we came home from the street fair, and I looked for Maria, and began counting the number of puppets I do have… Well, it was time to face facts: I am a puppet collector.

For information on puppets, and images of puppets, check out these websites:

COPA: The Conservatory of Puppetry Arts (COPA) is dedicated to promote, to preserve and to advance the international art of puppetry.

The Ontario Puppetry Association, a strong advocate for the art of puppetry, is a non-profit corporation. It supports the work of puppeteers of different styles and at all levels of expertise.

is in Italian, but has wonderful photos and a nice article in English on museum collections of puppets

EthnicArts.com has stunning Balinese shadow puppets (Wayang).

Pelham Puppets Online, a UK based site dedicated to Pelham Puppet collectors made by the Pelham Puppet Company, Marlborough, England from 1947 to 1992.

The Official Homepage of Larry Smith Puppets will ring a nostalgic bell for sure!

Gasoline Alley Antiques carries many highly sought after vintage puppets, including advertising puppets, string puppets, character puppets, plush and more.

(I should point out that the Raven and Dragon puppets shown here are still made by Folkmanis.)

Continued from last Wednesday’s interview, please enjoy the conclusion of this interview with Courtney Lynne.

CD : Is there some kind of sacred, rare Vicks item that you find yourself looking for?

CL : There was an old Vicks display case I found on Ebay once. It was a mannequin head with a tray in the front filled with teeny dishes of Vicks samples. I think I bid up to 200 dollars for it but was outbid by someone at the last minute.

CD : That’s awesome! (Not the outbidding part.)

CL : I have a few of the small sample tins from the 50s, but not the display case.

CD : What’s the most, if you don’t mind me asking, that you’ve paid for something for your collection? And / or has it ever driven you to a strange point of personal sacrifice? You know how collectors can be - there can be a certain level of wackiness.

CL : Well, that display case was the most I’ve bid. I’ve paid up to 50 bucks for an unused Vicks Va-tra-nol with dropper. Since collecting Vicks is a pretty easy/cheap thing to collect… no it hasn’t. I’ve spent quite a bit of money (altogether) on Ebay for vintage items, but it’s never got out of hand. I have e-mailed random people, asking if they could send me Vicks from their country (offering to pay them). I have yet to get my hands on a Vicks with an Arabic label.

CD : How do you store or display these?

CL : I have a large chest I picked up an an antique store. I keep everything in there, under a little table in my living room.

CD : Are there other things that you find yourself collecting?

CL : Oh yes. Hahaha!

CD : I know. I’m a junk magnet. Don’t be shy.

CL : I have a rock and mineral collection that started when I was a kid and has since evolved into a crazy mess. I collect antique medical equipment and perfume oils from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. I have a large collection of skulls, swords, and knives as well. Oh, and Magic : the Gathering cards. I think that’s it.

CD : I think that my FINAL question is if you’ve learned anything along this path of collecting ephemera.

CL : I don’t know if I’ve really learned anything from it… but it’s brought me together with my father. Collecting weird stuff runs in the family. My father and I are both really into collecting. It’s kind of a bonding experience when I go over his house and he shows me a new part of his Celtics memorabilia collection, because i’m actually interested, I get it, whereas my mother and my sisters think of it as junk.

CD : You either have that desire or you don’t, and there’s no in-between.

CL : Exactly.

CD : Unless there’s anything you’d like to add, you’ve been tremendously interesting. I have to shut myself up because I get way too excited about bizarre little collections.

CL : Nope! I think that’s it. There’s only so much i can say about Vicks VapoRub before I start sounding like a freak.

I always enjoy gardens that have a little surprise in them – something unexpected and unique that draws the eye. While the terra cotta pot always looks classically pretty in a garden, an old boot brimming with colorful flowers is going to catch attention.

I once saw an old wooden wagon, the kind that used to be pulled through the streets by horses, filled with flowerpots with fuchsia blooms cascading down the sides – what a visual impact! There are oodles of fun and whimsical garden containers and ornaments waiting to be discovered at garage sales, antique shops, thrift stores, flea markets or even your attic. Basically if you can put dirt in it, it can be a planter. When making a planter fill the object with soil and poke a hole in it for drainage if needed. If necessary, in a loosely woven wicker basket, for example, line the object first with plastic with holes poked in it. Of course it goes without saying that the planter will take a beating from being left out in the elements so don’t use anything you value. Try planting flowers in an old wooden toolbox. Paint an old metal sap bucket in a bright color, use a hammer and nail to tap a hole in the bottom for drainage, and fill it with pansies. Find a new use for a metal watering can by using it as a flower container.

Other ideas:

• Use a lidless teapot or a teacup.
• Old copper pots and pans
• Roller skates or stilletto heels
• Pretty handbags

Garden ornaments, such as the traditional statues and sundials, are purely decorative. An old fashioned red bicycle makes a great garden ornament, and you can attach a bicycle basket to the front and fill it with flowers. A wooden farmhouse kitchen chair with paint peeling from it looks charming and a pot of flowers can be displayed on the seat. If you find a chair with a broken cane seat, place a pot of flowers through the hole in the cane and set it out in the garden.

More ideas for ornaments:

• Lean a wagon wheel against a tree
• Plant a wheelbarrow with flowers
• Use a weathered sled

With a lot of imagination and a few bucks, you too can have a one-of-a-kind, whimsical garden that’s sure to attract attention!