betty scandretti » pretties

A new calendar for all time

bettyscandretti — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:00:29 +0000

This was a Christmas gift from my mother, who is most excellent.

It has little wheels on the back to change the day, date, month, and weather.

I love it. It sits beside my bed and so far I’ve remembered to turn the wheels almost every day.

Bakery

bettyscandretti — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 02:50:04 +0000

Betty’s younger sisters made this bakery from a cardboard box; the edibles are made from Du-Kit. Each tiny croissant is approximately the size of Betty’s thumbnail; the jam tarts are even smaller. So pretty!

I love Rob Ryan

bettyscandretti — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 04:14:32 +0000

I’ve hankered after his skirt for Clothkits for ages, I’ve oohed and aahed over some balsa boxes with his designs on them, I try not to go to his Etsy shop too often (which is not difficult lately because he’s taking a holiday, but generally it’s a permanent public temptation) — these cutouts are quite breathtaking.

Manicures and spatial awareness

bettyscandretti — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 01:45:55 +0000

Betty, who has the most rockin’ of clients, got a voucher from a client. It promised her a mini-manicure at Lucy and the Powder Room, the new swanky salon at the incredibly swish Department Store. Betty, therefore, tootled up to the Powder Room after her morning at the studio was done. It was a chillin’ time at the salon: the place was mostly populated by two beauty therapists, or, as they may have been, nail artistes: they were pleasingly dressed in chic grey smocks, such as might be worn by, say, the supervising sisters at an alternate-reality 1960 unwed mothers’ home, and they had gold nurses’ watches pinned to their fronts.

Betty chose a polish in a kind of post-apocalyptic Williamsburg blue, or like a slightly iridescent dolphin; the artiste led her to a sweet little table for two and laid her hands, palm-reader-style (but, of course, palms down), on an expanse of white towel. “They’re very short,” said the artiste. She was referring to Betty’s nails, not her hands, which are in fact rather long; Betty will remind readers that a bored haematologist once caught sight of Betty’s hands and impulsively measured her wingspan, investigated her palate and proceeded to X-ray her in search of a Marfan’s index. This diagnosis did not eventuate. The artiste regretfully informed Betty that she would have to go for what she technically termed a “roundy shape”, the (apparently much cooler) “squary shape” being unavailable on such short nails. Betty readily acquiesced (she is a roundy, not a squary, anyway), and the artiste proceeded to file, buff, scrape, press, clip, again buff, clean and finally polish Betty’s nails.

One wonders why it was termed a mini-manicure, because it took about fifty minutes; Betty had a very pleasant time chatting to the artiste. At the end, the artiste advised Betty to be careful of her nails for the rest of the day, and not to wash in hard water.

So. A question. Why, when one’s nails are still soft, does one find that one bumps them into every little thing all the time? With a heightened sense of her nails, Betty still found it near-impossible to avoid denting them on the car key, or smacking them into the steering wheel, never mind the temptation to run them idly through her hair. It is a puzzling and yet intriguing somatic exercise, this polishing of the nails.

Favourite things: The Black Apple

bettyscandretti — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 08:00:26 +0000

Emily Martin from The Black Apple makes the most beautiful things. I like Nurse Effie the best, but her sketchbooks and Alice in Wonderland prints are lovely, too.

Window shopping

bettyscandretti — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 02:37:53 +0000

The joys of city life. One can find anything. I haven’t gotten around to transplanting my eyelashes this season, but when I do…

More things I love about my job

bettyscandretti — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:00:26 +0000

I get to drive past Random House Books, which has a pleasing sign out the front, viz:

The cars have remote locking and flash their lights — simple pleasures, I know
When I am early I can get a tiny burger from Burger Fuel
Or a Thai meal
Though I have never done so
There are actual magazines in the staffroom, with covers and actual words, like North & South and Mindfood and so on, rather than tattered stripped copies of Truth
Other staff encourage me to leave humorous messages on the whiteboards
I get to sing in the car

NidarianPequod

bettyscandretti — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:23:13 +0000

One of my favourite artists, nanopod (Tosca), has just put her latest creation on Etsy. These mythical creatures are to be worn as pendants and they are pretty much the most gorgeous thing Betty has ever seen*.

*(apologies to the boy person friend and the Baggins, and so on: Betty still loves you, too)

Walking to work the other day

bettyscandretti — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:00:19 +0000

More Britomart art

bettyscandretti — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:00:19 +0000

The nice headless artist of a previous blog post, diligent sleuthing reveals, is named Aleksandra Petrovic. I found these paintings near the fountains at Britomart.