Have great weekend everyone - I almost forgot to mention, if you are in Toronto Sunday through Wednesday for the CGTA Show be sure to stop by Booth 3571 to see what's new at Cartolina. And I'll have lots of new designs to show you next week - even some holiday cards - never too early for Christmas in the greetings card business! See you Monday!

Roll and Tumble

I saw these on Poppytalk yesterday - aren't they fun? These are handprinted posters and prints, painstakingly produced from lino and wood blocks. No mass production here! From Roll and Tumble Press. Great job - I really like these.

Parcel for you.

Here's a good reason to Tweet - yesterday I followed a link that the fabulous Delaney Gates had Twittered about and found myself flipping through the virtual tour book of the Parcel Store in Montclair NJ. Now if you like stationery stores then you need to get yourself over to Parcel and flip through that book - oh and their website is ridiculously cute.

Now's your chance to fill up your sad looking bookshelves with fabulous vintage pulp. Authentic French and Belgian books available in wonderful colours, textures and sizes - oh, and titles too ;-)

Illustration

Now I am not a skull and cross bones kind of a gal but my eye was definitely drawn to these bags because of the fabric design. I expect that one of my clever readers can tell me where this fabric comes from. I think it's real well designed and I'd love to know who the illustrator is - so if you happen to know leave me a comment below. These bags are available in lots of different fabrics - not just skulls and bones - at XcessRize on Etsy.

Treasures

Look what I found as I was trolling around Bella Lula's vintage treasures on Etsy. This elephant is fantastic(I had to call my lampshade making friend Linda first before I posted this to make sure she didn't want it!) And the vintage Scotty is wonderful too. This Etsy seller has got a way of making scruffy old found objects look so cool and interesting - and here I am trying to clear my house of so many scruffy old vintage things - I can't help it, I'm just a sucker for rust, pealing paint and a good old worn patina.

Random Objects

I'm not sure when I ran across this fun little suitcase of lavender filled sachets but fortunately I can remember where. Right here.

Inspiration

I find these floral craft supplies very inspiring. The vintage shapes of the flowers are perfect for developing floral illustrations from. The colours in the first bunch are wonderful - makes me want to pick up a pencil and start drawing - but I don't have time for that today - wish I did - do you?

Style and sustainability

I think these are wonderful. From Jilly Jack Designs. Assorted note cards in a fabric folio. Apart from the beautiful designs, I really like the fact that you get an assortment of FSC certified, 100% recycled cards(2 each of each design), packaged in either a felt envelope that is made from recycled plastic bottles or a vinyl envelope made from recycled banners. There are lots of beautiful stationers out there but I really respect the ones who produce stylish products using sustainable methods. Great job Jill!

Back home - and giveaway winners!

Well we are back from our little vacation out to Vancouver Island. Thanks for all the nice emails and comments while we were away! We had a great little vacation - thanks to Martin and Cathy for thoroughly spoiling us for a few days! It's exciting to be back - new product coming in a few days and a very busy few weeks ahead of us filling Cartolina Xmas orders. And thanks to everyone who entered Doug's giveaway. We have a couple of winners - chosen randomly by a blindfolded stranger in a darkened room. So, drum roll please, the winners are: Cameron Blazer and Dahlhaus. Congratulations to both of you - email me and we can pop these posters in the mail! We'll have another giveaway soon because we always have a giveaway when we have new Cartolina product fresh off the press - so maybe in a couple of weeks!

Illustration

Have you seen this beautiful type design? I stumbled across these a couple of days ago and I am so impressed by Jeanie Nelson's work. She has a very cute blog too.

Inspiration

Isn't this an interesting image. Playing cards. It's amazing how you can make a statement, or even art, out of something so normal like the back of everyday playing cards. From here.

Inspiration

Gorgeous images from a gorgeous blog that you may, or no may, not know - Lobster and Swan. I would love to take fabulous photographs like this - wouldn't you.

Inspiration

Vintage Kantha and Ikat poufs and cushions from Mothology.

One of my readers wrote to tell me about her friend's website, The Loaded Trunk.  I had so much fun looking at all the treasures she has collected - and are all for sale. Now these are the real thing - no reproductions here. She has everything from vintage Vietnamese propaganda posters to authentic Suzanis and cool Mexican bedspreads. In a world of fauxs and fakes it's great to see the real thing. Take your time and have a good look. Thank for the link Robin.

Road Trip, day 6.

We are still on vacation for a couple of days - back in the studio on Wednesday. Just wanted to remind you to enter the giveaway which closes on Wednesday - you could win a couple of Doug's fab posters. We are so impressed with all the wonderful quotes people have been writing in their entries - so many of them would be great for a new poster in the 'quotes' series! We'll have a winner or 2 here on wednesday morning!

Random Object.

We went to IKEA last week - it's exciting to see all the new stuff for 2010 in stock. I took loads of pictures of all the more decorative items I found - which I will share with you next week - here are some textiles that I love, especially the middle one - I think you will like it too.

Repost | Inspiration | Vintage Indian Textiles

It's no secret that my work is really influenced by my grandparents' textile export business in India years ago. So I was excited when I found these wonderful images of Indian textiles here. These detail shots give me all sorts of good ideas for patterns and textures - I love the crude random stitching and the once rich colours faded to muted tones. I could look at these images all day. 

We interrupt this post with a photo of my grandma on an elephant in India - we have so many elephant riding pictures in our old family photos it must have been a very popular past time!

NOTE: This post was originally posted last year. 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 textiles as much as I do.