The Good Ship Tollipop

 

    

Not so long ago my oldest requested new art ("drawing pictures") for her room. We pored over paintings and prints on Etsy together. She's quite discriminative and knows what she likes, which shouldn't be so surprising, her being a human being and all. I think sometimes I (we? we, right?) forget that kids really do know best what they like. I have to remind myself, as a person with such strong opinions and style preferences, that my job is to fill my girls with a thirst for inspiration and then sit back to watch and learn from what ends up inspiring them.

      Sometimes our tastes converge. We have these moments of sharing where, unlike other moments of sharing our individual passions with one another, we are gasping and experiencing mutual delight in the same thing.  We found this mutual love in the work of Kirsten, who runs the Etsy shop, Tollipop, a shop I'd long since put in my Etsy "favorites" when I sat down to share the art with Nona.  

She gasped, giggled, and squealed with delight. "Go back, Mommy!" "Oh, that one! that one!,"(she said this about every one.)  It reminded me of my own mother chuckling at me when I was growing up for shouting "Oh! This is it;this is my favorite song!"

 "Kristen, you say that about every song, sweetie. I love that you're so passionate about music!" 

I feel the same way watching Nona's excitement, marveling at her taste as something totally separate from my own, even as we are experiencing delight over the exact same thing. Of course, I would have gotten her the art of her choice for her room, no matter what it may have been--it's her room, after all--but I'm so tickled that she picked a print from Tollipop. I'm tickled for Nona and for myself because it just makes her room that much more of place where we all want to dwell.  Our print:

Kirsten even included an extra print, which we ended up loving just as much as the one we ordered. It now sits over our special reading spot.

Harper (name of the drawing below),who came as small card/print is hosting our living room parties for the summer. She's so polite.

I feel like she's carrying peonies, which are so special to us because the house was full of them when Valo June was born. When I don't have fresh ones, Harper is standing there offering us her lovely bouquet.  The bottom of the card reads ~You are the sweetest thing~.    She was also escorted (quite gentlemanly) to the paint store by my husband to get a perfect match of this perfect shade of green for Nona's bed (my mother was so right on this one).

What's more, I love what she has to say about her drawings on her Etsy profile:

"--Anyway, my drawings are mainly about children who are lost in thought, the kind who daydream and press their noses against the glass. Little spectators with imaginary friends and sometimes the whole world on their minds, but experiencing the magic of childhood nonetheless. I guess if you asked me to describe my art, that is what I would say."

Her art is also a great match for the spirit of Marginamia, judging by what she has to say in the biography section of her blog: 

"--Topping my list of favorite things? Words. If I could, I would bathe in them. Or sew little outfits for them. Or take them on vacation. So what if the world goes speechless for a long weekend? Words--you deserve a suntan like everyone else."

Now to get on with some of the names (or words that could be names) aligning themselves with the images and characters of her drawings:

Tabitha

Mabel 

Pip

Valentine 

Garden 

Tess

Whisper

Pine

Cressida 

Belinda

Celeste

Penny

Vera

Nell

Camilla

Lucinda

Jiu Jiu

Mathilde 

Sabine

Love 

Story 

Joy

Hesperia 

Mercy 

Clementine

Lulu

Poppet 

Margaret Bunny 

Nina

Annika

May 

Astrid

Sylvie

Ida

Cosette (Cozi, Coco, Zettie)

Daisy

Annick

Apricot

Elsa

Neige

Petrova

Bathsheba

Always 

New

Harvest

Field

Traveller 

Remy

Edwin

Maestro 

I love Tollipop! What say you? Any favorites from this list?  Do any of you have her art in your home? 

(all photos courtesy of tollipop)