Happy Friday!

Have a great weekend everyone. It's been a very hot week here in BC with temps hovering in the mid 30 degrees celsius all week. I think we will spend some time on the water this weekend - hopefully having as much fun as these gals are. See you Monday!

Artist Dolan Geiman

I have admired Dolan Geiman's work for a couple of years now - I like his friendly, southern inspired images. I was reminded of his work again recently at Poppytalk. Produced from salvaged wood, found objects, and other recycled materials, Geiman's eco-friendly artwork emerges from a folk art tradition infused with a contemporary, urban style. Originally from Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, Geiman currently lives and works in Chicago. His web site is chock a block full of artwork and you can buy his work on his Etsy site right here.

Vintage Canadian graphics

I love this type! I have dozens of vintage felt penants from Canadian resorts - I'll show you some cool ones some time soon - maybe on Canada day! And the railway logo is just classic!

Mystery image

I don't know anything about this image - I saw it on ffffound.com and the only thing I don't like about that site is that often it's hard to find any background info on the imagery. So if you know anything about this feel free to fill me in! Its cleverly designed - perhaps it has japanese or nordic influences - I'd love to know. I presume it was for an event in 1972?

Wedding Style Guide digital issue.

Great news for brides and their friends - my friend Jane at Wedding Style Guide is offering free digital access to their beautiful online magazine for the next 10 days. I checked it out and it is so beautiful and easy to use - I am sure you will love it. And what's even better is Wedding Style Guide is an Australian publication so you can be sure you'll get some fresh ideas with a unique down-under perspective. Jane, who has very good taste, says, "Our super-simple easy-view digital magazine lets you flip through the pages as if you were reading a printed version, check the list of contents to find the exact page you’re looking for or zoom in to read all our tips and tricks. Best of all you can select any one of our gorgeous images – or even entire pages – and email them to friends (your working day just got a whole lot more interesting!).Print out as many pages as you need – cut them up for your scrapbook – no need to chop up your printed versions ever again. Look out for links to our free online downloads – a simple click of your mouse takes you straight there." Click here to find out more! Thanks Jane!

Inspiration

Stunningly beautiful imagery by photographer Kim Kyung Soo for Vogue Korea. Stopped me in my tracks.

Via Set Design Thinking.

 There are some amazing close ups of this shoot right here.

The calm and the eclectic

This house is so full of collections - so much stuff and still so much style. It even has a restful feeling despite it's eclectic wackiness! Wonderful home in Cape Town, S Africa, photographed by Alexander van Berge.

Inspiration | Kaleidoscopes

So this is cool - all these images are made using a kaleidoscopic method. There are some really interesting ones to look at right here - sort of reminds me of quilting fabric designs - at least the bottom 3 do anyway. The top image just has a cool retro look. I can see how this could be a great repeat pattern tool for all of us pattern junkies out there.

For your viewing pleasure . . 

Beautiful photography and inspiring colours from photographer Chris Everard.

Illustration

Very pretty little set of prints by Swan Papel at art.com

Job Openings at Cartolina.

Last week I posted a job opening at Cartolina here on this blog. It was an experiment of sorts - I hadn't posted a job on here before. I was pleasantly surprised at how many responses we got. So I am going to put a permanent link to job openings over on the upper right side of Cafe Cartolina. I will post mostly sales positions available but sometimes there are studio positions available too - so watch that space. And thanks to all that contacted us about last week's sales position in Ontario. Click here to see our current job openings all of which are sales positions. Thanks!

And I forgot to mention  - you have to dress like this if you are going to work for us  ;-)  

More creative ways to waste time!

This is a fun little gadget that came to me via my INBOX last night - a clever little tool that lets you search for  images on Flickr by selecting a colour palette - anywhere from 1 to 10 colours. It's good fun  - try it!

Both of these are 2 colour palettes.

Shameless self promotion

Thank you very much to executive editor of Canada's Style At Home magazine, Laurie Grassi, for picking our Cartolina Recycled Notebooks as her fave find in the We Love It section of July's issue. It was a wonderful surprise to see them right there on page 56. We are very lucky to have such fabulous home and lifestyle magazines in Canada and Style at Home is definitely one of my favourites.

Style at Home

The cover image of Style at Home Magazine really caught my eye, especially the wallpaper. So here's another shot of that room with the birdy wallpaper - isn't it lovely? The next 3 images are details of Canadian designer, Sarah Richardson's summer cottage in Georgian Bay Ontario - looks like my kind of vacation!

Eye candy - patterns

Wonderfully playful, patterned textiles available here - pure eye candy.

Good idea

This is a fun way to upcycle one of those tacky spoon racks that you see at thrift stores all the time - paint it and turn it into a jewelry stand. From Funkiefinds.

We Have A Winner

Good morning - Happy June! We have a randomly picked winner and a couple of runners-up in our latest giveaway - thanks to all who entered. We have collected a wonderful selection of favourite beaches from the entries(check them out in the comments box) and some great stories to go with them.

So, drum roll please, the first place winner is Michelle from Made Sweet - congratulations, and the 2 runners up are AnnaVallance and  Hi-Octane Jewelry. Email me and we can get these pretty prizes out the door and on their way to you.

Image from the wonderful blog - Poetic Home

MIlliner - Leigh Magar

I spotted the work of Leigh Magar in Country Living Magazine and was totally drawn to the imagery of her hats, her studio and her vast collection of vintage, wood hat molds. Her store looks so authentically old - which we love here at the cafe. Leigh's hats are available at Barneys NY. Her work is featured in the "Love Your Work" section of the magazine, along with 2 other artists. It's an interesting section of the magazine with lots of tips for crafty entrepreneurs from sucessful artists/business people. - Do you have a crafty hobby that you'd like to launch into a more profitable venture - I'd love to hear about it - and perhaps we could feature you here at the cafe sometime?

The Little Fur Family

I don't usually post kids stuff but when I saw this book posted on one of my reader's blogs - Misako Mimoko, I couldn't resist it. This is The Little Fur Family published in 1946 and illustrated by Garth Williams who ilustrated many of the Golden Books. This is so fun. I can't really tell what kind of animals the fur family are but they sure like fur - fur hats, coats and boots. And the twiggy type face is the original version of a face we see reproduced fairly often these days. What a great find.