Along the way we’ve adopted more friends into our little menagerie. Adorable pals like Pauly Shore: Our new book, titled Crap Taxidermy, is out now! A big shout out to Octopus Books & Ten Speed Press for turning this Tumblr into a book. Thanks for all the support! Tainton will be giving Su a private lesson at her apartment, and Su’s only real concern is that she’ll barf. For the book, she is going to write a tutorial on how to stuff a mouse. And her good friend, Daisy Tainton, happens to be an insect preparatory for the Museum of Natural History, and also a hobbyist taxidermist.

But even for those of us who don’t necessarily enjoy the idea of killing animals for the sake of impressing dinner guests, somehow it’s not all that difficult to be amused by terrible craftsmanship There was a downside to our new relationship, though. Since I work a full-time job, Mitchell found himself lonely just hanging around all day. It was high time he had a friend. My husband had his eye on an alligator head at a local antique store, but sadly it had already been sold. However, the powers of the interwebs are remarkable and I soon found not just a head, but an entire alligator for a bargain price (due to bad stitchery, stuffing leakage, and a missing (but completely unnecessary) hand). Frank Engator entered our life and I found myself getting high off the big score . . .For those of you keeping score – and God knows I am – Crappy Taxidermy boasts itself as “the Internet’s oldest and largest image gallery of crappy and awesome taxidermy since 2009.” a few of these examples aren't in the book itself, but they are on the blog, and they are pretty damn creepy, so worth including. Should I tell you that I am one of the rabid followers of all things relating to The Bloggess and on one fateful day while perusing my local thrift shop my life was changed forever? There’s a section with step by step instructions on performing taxidermy on a mouse. It would have been much better if the author had included a picture of her own project.

i requested this late last night on netgalley, in great delight and "must read this! fever, and then completely forgot about it until i went on there today for a totally different reason. such a great "oh, yeah!" surprise when i got home.

Bad taxidermy on the Web is actually nothing new. For example, about five years ago a woman in New York name Kat Su started a Tumblr blog called Crappy Taxidermy. Crap Taxidermy makes the promise of an entertaining and comedic read concerning distasteful and terribly positioned taxidermist “art”. The author starts off by explaining that taxidermy can come in two speeds: well done, and crap – you can guess which the book focuses on. Regardless of the author’s note that the book does not mean to be disrespectful, but rather shine a humorous light on the strange and unique works. The author includes quite a few photos: all of which are high-definition and full color. The chapter explaining how to taxidermy your own mouse was particularly fascinating, but I don't think I'll be giving it a go myself! The reason for the name change, Su explained, is that her book is actually being published by a British publishing house, and that British people don’t use the word “crappy.” Five years later, I’m so excited to report that I finally said yes to a publisher this February. After months of nonstop hard work, Crappy Taxidermy is finally going to live up to its full potential and become a book, thanks to the efforts and talents of the amazing people at Octopus Publishing Group, Ten Speed Press, Inkwell Management, and the photographers, artists and taxidermists who contributed to the project.