Road Trip, day 2.

We are still in Kelowna and heading off to Vancouver Island tomorrow morning. There are so many farmers markets, fruit stands and orchards here - an abundance of fresh produce. At any time you can find yourself driving behind a vintage farm truck loaded to the gills with apricots or a slow moving tractor hauling a trailer full of corn. My mum and I picked a bounty of Lapin cherries today at the U-Pick cherry orchard - what a nice change of pace after a busy month in the studio. I am looking forward to getting on the ferry tomorrow to the island - I'll take lots of pictures - and I think I have finally figured out how to get my Iphone images onto Twitter.

I took this picture today at my parent's house. My parents have a huge collection of paintings and this is my dad's favourite. Doug painted this enormous painting for him about 15 years ago and it hangs in their dining room. He painted this in his granny's root cellar on her farm and I think it's wonderful - I hope you like it too.

Photography

I want to tell you about an IPhone app that I downloaded yesterday. I think you might like it! If you search in the photography category of the Apple App Store you will find the LOMO filter app(just called LOMO) This app applies a fake lomography filter to new images that you take with the app - or, and this is the good thing, you can apply the filter to images you already have on your phone. It applies 3 different filters each with the slightly scruffy, fisheye effect - there is a coloured version, a B+W version and a 'red' version.I think they are really fun - and Doug is obsessed with it :-)

Here is an image that I applied the LOMO app to. The top image is the original and the bottom image has the LOMO filter. Isn't it fun? Makes my photo look way more interesting! Almost looks like a polaroid picture. Have fun!

Inspiration | vintage photography

We have piles of vintage magazines in the studio and I troll through them all the time for inspiration when I am designing. I'm getting ready to design a new collection to go to print in May so I have my inspiration radar turned on all the time at the moment. Even just 15 minutes spent flipping through vintage fashion mags can really get my revved up with great colour combinations and composition ideas. These images are from here - I hope you like them as much as I do. The first 2 have the most dreamy colour palette and I love the way the bottom 3 are cropped.

NOTE: This post was originally posted in February. I am repeating some of our most popular posts this week while I am on vacation - hopefully I will come up with a few new ones this week too. Hope you enjoy these illustrations as much as I do.

Inspiration

Can't believe I missed these 2 beauties the other day when I featured the pillow perfection that is Enhabiten. I love having a job where I can play with vintage imagery all day - but I'd love to spend more time playing with vintage fabrics!

Road Trip Day 1.

We are in Kelowna for a couple of days to visit my parents(it's great having family in the Okanagan because we love to visit the vineyards, as you know!) Yesterday we stopped in the cute little village of Greenwood for lunch and I took this picture - they have such wonderful vintage signage here - in fact I blogged about their great signage last year - if you like old type you will like this post. We will have the day here in Kelowna and then off to Vancouver tomorrow and the ferry out to Vancouver Island. I'll take some pictures on the ferry - the scenery is breathtaking! See you tomorrow.

Etsy | Cookoorikoo

Look what I found on Etsy. Repurposed vintage jewelry fromCookoorikoo!. I love all these pretty things! They are so retro-pretty and granny-chic. What a nice little present for me! I think I like the 2nd one the best. And at $16 I can afford two  :-)

Illustration | Stephen Mackey

Some of you may be familiar with Stephen Mackey's work. He has a line of greeting cards that I really like. I also really enjoy his painting portfolio and I seem to have seen a lot of his work recently. I think you might like it too. There is a hint of William Bouguereau in his paintings which makes them very ethereal and pretty . . . . .

NOTE: This post was originally posted in February. I am repeating a few posts this week while I am on vacation - hopefully I will come up with a few new ones this week too. Hope you enjoy these illustrations as much as I do.

Inspiration

Wonderful colour inspiration for your home from various magazines including Living Etc. which, if you haven't already invested in a few issues, I recommend you do so - wonderful interiors from the UK.

See you next week

Doug and I have decided to take a vacation, starting tomorrow, for a week. It's a good time for us to get away - all the new product is at the printers getting printed and it's our slowest time of the year. This is basically the calm before the storm that is the Christmas rush that starts in about 2 weeks. We are heading out to Vancouver Island for the week. I'm sure I can conjour up a few interesting posts along the way and I'm also going to repost some of our most popular posts from last year. You can also follow the adventure on Twitter. I'll be back here next Wednesday morning - thanks for visiting -  see you then!

This is long beach on the west coast of Vancouver Island BC

Ephemera

These are details of some beautiful coloured engravings from 1751 that I bought on Saturday for $12 each. They are quite large, a little tattered but on the whole they are in pretty good shape considering they are 258 years old! I get so excited the moment the scanned image appears on my computer screen - I love looking at these up close. I feel certain that I can use some of these details in some Cartolina product in the near future.

Random Objects

Some new pillows from Thomas Paul that I am admiring on Print and Pattern

Inspiration

Here's one for the pattern junkies - this is the Blossom Tree range from Urban Outfitters. I like this - it has a combination of Chinese and Japanese elements. I would put this in my home - maybe not curtains and bedspread but one or the other!

Time For A GIveaway!

You may remember I featured Doug's super popular posters in the past - here are a couple of his best sellers based on Shakespearean quotes( that seem so relevant for the times we live in). Well Doug's been working on a sketch for another poster(see below) inspired by the all the hardworking gals that we feature here and the phenomenon of the "craft revolution". I think it's going to be a winner. Lucky for us Doug has agreed to partake in a giveaway here at the Cafe and the lucky winner will receive both of these posters - printed on lovely soft watercolour paper. Doug's posters are all based on famous quotes. So to win a couple of posters all you need to do is leave a comment below - if you like you can tell us your favourite quote but it's not neccessary. My friend Lori has a saying at the end of her emails that says "don't expect to be what you haven't worked to become," I love that quote - maybe it will end up on a poster some day! 

We'll leave this giveaway open until next Wednesday. Good luck - and thanks Doug!

Dougs posters are now also available at his Etsy Shop!!

Inspiration

There is a really impressive collection of vintage and retro graphic design right here on Flickr. I think if you are an illustrator or designer that finds inspiration from the last 50 years of pop culture you will appreciate this huge collection of excellent imagery. 

Random Object

 I found myself at this Etsy store the other day. This artist has lots of different designs to chose from but it was this one that caught my attention - I like the vintage style of illustration - looks a bit like a paper doll image that had been duo-toned - very nice and it fits the format of the locket really well.