A little break.

I'm taking a little break! After a marathon design session, and some very big orders going out the door this week, I think I deserve a little rest. Just until Sunday - I'll be back on Monday morning shiny and refreshed! Until then, here are a few pretty pictures from our last trip to Paris that I thought you might enjoy. Thank you for visiting this week, I really appreciate it, see you next week - au revoir!

Window Shopping | Shore Haus

Don't get me wrong, there are many wonderful things about living in the back of beyond but sometimes I would like to visit a store like this - a store like Shore Haus in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. The images on their blog make me squeal - if you live in Delaware you must  go there - and report back to me immediately.

Inspiration | The Rug Company

Here's a post for all you pattern junkies - these are so inspiring - rugs from the Rug Company. They are all beautiful - the brown and white leather patterned one is very cool too.

Tres Bien | Les Things

Wow wow wow - these are right up my alley. So glad I ran into them yesterday as I was playing hooky from work! You can get yours too right here at Les Things - but you'd better hurry!

Inspiration | DIY

I'm always looking for fun storage ideas - especially for the studio. I know that many of our readers are designers so when I ran across this first pretty little storage idea at one of my favourite Australian blogs, Designer's Emporium. I followed the link to this DIY blog and found all sorts of wonderful home office and studio ideas that I think you will approve of!

Great use for a plate rack, and if I'm not mistaken I think you can get this one at Target.

Two really simple and pretty home office ideas - love the dividing book case!

All my stationery designer friends will appreciate this last image - this this a great way to store or display cards - to keep them handy. I love this idea - I think I will use this idea myself - I think it's a simple cake cooling rack from the hardware store isn't it?

Random Objects | Industrial studio furniture

Here are some great pieces for a more industrial studio - all available from www.obsoleteinc.com

Studio storage

While we are on the subject of studio storage checkout this wonderful flat file from Colorfly Studio. Isn't this a perfect studio storage system? Lucky girl!

Random objects | handmade shoes

I know I am not the first blogger to post about these pretty little shoes and if you've seen them before i think you will enjoy seeing them again.  Anyway, I saw these on Etsy yesterday and they really spoke to me - the details, the fabrics and the simple sophistication of the finished product. Brought to you by Elephant and Chickpea.

Illustration | Kristine Lombardi

Kristine Lombardi has such a cute web site you have to check it out. Kristine is an illustrator with a great talent for hand lettering. Her style is so  friendly and appealing I can see why she is a favourite with editors and art directors. Hand lettering has become so popular over the last couple of years - I love it's naive spontenaiety especially when it is combined with some classic type - like a Roman face, to balance the randomness - which is exactly what Kristine has done on her site. Really nicely done!

Design | Packaging

As I have mentioned a few times in the last couple of weeks, I am finalizing our holiday collection this week - in fact the files all went off to the printer last night - did you hear my loud sigh of relief? Part of the design process has been to figure out some new packaging - so I have been enjoying the research. Here are some wonderful examples of packaging, old and new, that have caught my eye in the last couple of weeks.

My Neck of The Woods

We took a little drive up to Kaslo on Saturday morning and on the way we stopped at the Balfour Hall for a rummage sale. The West Kootenay is made up of a few little towns surrounded by mountains and lakes with Nelson(where we live) being the largest of the towns. The sale at the hall was fun and we picked up a few nice vintage things. I grabbed a vintage volume of Audubon's birds(lots of wonderful prints) and my friend Linda, who came along for the ride, scored a set of gorgeous bark cloth drapes in mint condition and some other little treasures pictured below. Which reminds me, we really need to have a yard sale this spring(to get rid of all the things I'm always picking up at rummage sales) - that'll be fun - I'll take lots of pictures.

I'm going to start posting more local stuff now that the summer is finally on it's way. I'll get out and about with my camera and introduce you to some of our local talent again. Last year's "My Neck of the Woods" posts were very popular. Let me know if there's anything in particular you would like to see. 

Random Objects | soap packaging

How pretty are these? Soaps from Confianca. The packaging is wonderful and I'm sure the soap is too! I have been studying packaging a lot recently - trying to design some nice packaging for our holiday collection this year. I'll be showing you some more gorgeous packaging this week - so stay tuned.