Luna Parc, Montauge, NJ

I've been wanting to visit this house (Luna Parc) ever since I read about it in an issue of Weird NJ many years ago (still have the issue in our bathroom). Last night very randomly, someone sent me a notice that the owner, Ricky Boscarino, was having his open house this weekend! Cleared all my plans and set out on the 2 hour drive this morning. 

here is a brief description from the website Atlas Obscura: 

"Since 1989, when Ricky Boscarino stumbled upon the cabin in the woods and began transforming it into Luna Parc, it has been a massive work in progress.

Filled with mosaics influenced by Klimt, Gaudí and Hundertwasser, the house looks as if it had been plucked from some colorful dreamscape and deposited in the backwoods of New Jersey. Artist, designer and "King-o-Luna," Ricky Boscarino, has transformed the house both inside and out, with the interior of the house covered in his collections of homemade lamps, bottle caps, Buddhas, taxidermy, miniatures, stringed instruments, stained glass and religious icons. Currently Boscarino is collecting Mrs. Butterworth bottles and blue glass for new outdoor sculptures.

A skilled artist in many mediums, among other projects, Boscarino created a four panel stained-glass mural for his bathroom depicting the journey of life from spermatozoa to skeleton. When not working on his house, Boscarino makes and sells art and jewelry (much of it miniature versions of everyday objects, though you can get a miniature fetus and enema bag in gold and silver) and throws two large parties a year in fall and spring."

my review:

 So much beauty, art and creativity to behold. LOVE LOVE LOVE the bathroom. The clear banister upstairs housing NESTS was exquisite. Wanted to sit in the ballroom with a cool drink, some music and a book. By far, my fav was the chapel- hands down, so cool, peaceful and special. I appreciate the recycling, upcycling and Ricky's dedication to non mainstream traditional home decor. The influence from his travels is apparent and his lovely collections (Asian baby shoes- yum!). I hope to return to take a workshop

let my pictures tell the rest:

Beautiful Rhode Island

Zipped over to Rhode Island to visit my friend, Linda, for a week. She told me her husband was going out of town and did I want to come? Yeah, duh! We had a lot of fun together. We decided first off that we wanted to create Garden angels, which somehow we started calling our Garden Druids. Pretty much we worked on them almost the whole week (a little bit on them every day and then running out to shop, eat, beach it, etc. ) So it was a nice combo of doing a variety of things. We used a lot of organic items on them found at the beach or things we'd been saving "for just the right project". 

Here's mine at home in her new spot on the back porch: 

We hit the beach a few times looking for treasures, driftwood and taking pictures of the wildlife, rock stacking : 

Watched an Osprey momma feeding her crew

We also made our own upcycled dream catchers: 

and did some dyeing:

and lastly, you know i like my critters. they were to be seen everywhere!

we made the most of our time while enjoying art, friendship, cocktails, beautiful weather, nature and wildlife. couldn't have asked for a nicer more spontaneous vacation!