Buy the Farm

These guys are little, but there's larger versions available, at a $400 price tag. Now, that's REALLY buying the farm!

My whole family has always had a "thing" for stuffed animals. My sister made them have not just tea parties, but rather extensive tableaus; my mother had an entire community in her bedroom, complete with names and life histories. My attachment, to my Snoopy, was pretty epic. In short: we know stuffed animals.

With that said, I usually gravitate toward the cuddly rather than the stiff. By stiff, I mean Steiff, that legendary German brand that creates realistic stuffed animals that resist any love or squish you try to give them. They are beautiful, but prickly. These mini fur and feathers series, from Japanese artist Kiyoshi Mino, are handcrafted using a needle, thread, and a lump of pure wool. This wild and wooly farmland line up is representational without being wholly realistic; there's a certain homespun charm to them. I can see them now, either gracing a windowsill in an adult home or inhabiting the imaginative block built world of some lucky child. I particularly fancy the donkey.

Anyway, at $50 a pop, these barnyard critters aren't cheap. They are, however, relatively affordable yet cuddly art, and that's a rare commodity. At ODLCO.